Flodesk vs. Mailchimp vs. Kit: Which Email Marketing Platform is Best for Creative Small Businesses?

Since almost all of my clients are creatives, we talk frequently about email marketing platforms for their small businesses and the pros and cons of the different email marketing platforms. Each platform has different strengths, but my recommendation after years of experience working with different email marketing tools for creative small businesses, is that Flodesk is the way to go. 

Disclosure: When you buy through links on my site, I may earn an affiliate commission.

Below, I’ve outlined the different features of three very popular email marketing tools for creative small businesses, along with pricing, and my thoughts on why Flodesk is my fave:

1. Flodesk: My Top Pick!

Features: 

Flodesk’s core features are Email Marketing, Link in Bio, and E-commerce with Flodesk Checkout. My clients and I have focused more on the email marketing side of things, so I’ll share more about that! For email marketing, Flodesk offers an intuitive email builder that’s easy to use, with tons and tons of gorgeous templates that are designed to convert. There’s no coding required, and you can add all of your brand fonts and colors so easily! 

Depending on how your business works, you can use one of their many different types of forms so people can become subscribers. For example, you can:

• Create an inline form for your website
• Create a landing page with a form on it
• Build a (NEW!) Link in Bio form (which adds a form directly into a Link in Bio)
• Build a (NEW!) Video form, or 
• Build a (NEW!) Spinner form (with a spinning prize wheel so users can win a discount!) 

There are so many amazing form creation options for creatives, and that’s just one of the many reasons why I love Flodesk. 

Flodesk also offers the ability to integrate with Zapier, Interact, and a lot of other business tools. This is super useful because event Zapier by itself is such a powerful tool for streamlining work! For example, if you create a fun quiz on your website through Interact, you can automatically segment your audience based on their answers. So cool!  

Beyond that, Flodesk also offers Analytics and a segmentation tool called Link Actions, if you’re interested in learning about those features. 

Pricing:

Something that is so awesome about Flodesk is that it’s affordable for small business owners (yes!!) and has flat-rate pricing so that you don’t have to change your subscription plan when your subscriber list grows. View Flodesk’s pricing here. 

Flodesk Discount Code:

If you’d like to try out Flodesk for yourself, I can extend a discount code your way! When you use this discount code, you’ll receive 50% off of your first year of Flodesk! 

My Thoughts:

The creative freedom (and the number of gorgeous email marketing templates you get to choose from!) in Flodesk is unmatched. This is also why I design in Showit as my web design platform of choice, and why I believe Flodesk is the best choice for creatives who highly value a cohesive, aesthetically pleasing look and feel for their emails. 

2. Mailchimp

Features: 

Mailchimp also offers a drag-and-drop builder in their email marketing platform, as well as customization options and audience segmentation. However, the user experience is not quite as clean and streamlined as Flodesk’s, and the design options for email templates do not feel as modern and aesthetically pleasing as Flodesk’s. Also, some customization options for the emails themselves could require custom coding.

Mailchimp includes a robust list of third party integrations, as well as advanced automations for your email list, based on different triggers, which is so useful when you need to get super granular about the types of automations that you need.

Mailchimp also now offers the ability to utilize AI-powered design and writing tools, so you can get to a first draft pretty quickly, and then tweak things as you see fit, which is a handy tool for small business owners who may be pressed for time. 

Pricing:

Mailchimp scales up their pricing depending on your number of subscribers, so your pricing will depend on the number of subscribers on your list. Their pricing is located here. 

My Thoughts: 

Mailchimp is a great option for email marketing, and many successful small businesses use it. However, I tend to recommend Flodesk to creatives instead, because the user experience is so easy, the design options are absolutely stunning (which creatives care a lot about!), and the flat rate pricing is so affordable for small businesses. I do think it’s pretty cool that Mailchimp has so many features, but for creatives specifically, my vote is Flodesk.

3. Kit (Formerly ConvertKit)

Features:

Kit (Formerly ConvertKit) has been around for longer than Flodesk, and offers some pretty advanced integrations with many different business tools and automations. Just from the pricing page alone (see below), you can see how many advanced features Kit has. 

The automations at your disposal when you’re a Kit customer are pretty amazing. The automations are extremely robust, when it comes to triggers, events, and actions that you can take. You can also create some pretty complex sequences based on the behavior of your subscribers, which is pretty cool! These automations are called Visual Automation in Kit, and Workflows in Flodesk. So basically, it depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your automations, especially as segmentation and integration with different business tools is concerned. 

When it comes to sending beautiful emails to your audience the way that Flodesk does, Kit is not as aesthetically pleasing as Flodesk and the available email templates are simpler by comparison. There’s also a bit of a learning curve when it comes to creation of the emails themselves. 

Pricing:

Kit offers pricing that changes depending on the features you need, and number of subscribers on your list. View their pricing here. 

My Thoughts:

Kit’s extensive options for integrations and complex automations are definitely very impressive; however, some creative small business owners may not need that amount of technical customization and may find it overwhelming. For creative small businesses who really value the creative side of their email marketing platform and really just want to pare things down and focus on sending gorgeous emails to their subscribers, with automations and integrations that are almost as advanced, then to me, Flodesk is the best choice for creatives. 

Which Email Marketing Platform is Best for Creative Small Businesses? The Conclusion

In short, my opinion is that Flodesk is the best email marketing platform for creative small businesses who highly value stunning email designs and prefer a flat-rate pricing structure. 

So, how do we go about integrating Flodesk into a website? 

Just follow these steps below!

How to Integrate Flodesk Into a Showit Website in 5 Easy Steps

Flodesk offers step-by-step instructions for integrating Flodesk inline forms onto different website platforms, but since Showit is my platform of choice, I’m going to share how to integrate inline forms into Showit.

Step 1: Create your inline form in Flodesk (and customize the colors, fonts, spacing, etc.)

Step 2: When you’re done, click the Embed button in the top right. You’ll see two embed codes that pop up, and you’ll need both of them! Copy both of them.

Step 3: Go to Showit, and find the canvas that you want to embed this form into. 

Step 4: Navigate to the Showit option to Embed Code (bottom center of the editor), and paste all of the code (both sets of code, the header followed by the inline code) into this box. Click Save.

Step 5: Resize, adjust, and preview until you’re happy with how it’s looking (on desktop AND mobile!)

And now here are some examples of how that looks!

Examples of Showit Websites That Incorporate Flodesk

I designed each of the websites below in Showit, and incorporated Flodesk as the email marketing platform of choice for my clients, who are creative small business owners. The inline forms themselves even look pretty, and they integrate so seamlessly into the look of the website that there’s no clunky visual transition for the viewer. Chef’s kiss! 

Barefoot Royalty Photography

This Showit website features a customized, branded inline form, which you can see when you scroll down the home page.

Rachel Vaught Art

This Showit website features both an online shop (from Shopify) and an inline Flodesk form, and you can see it when you scroll down the home page. 

Devin Tormey Art 

This Showit website also features a customized inline form from Flodesk, and you can see it when you scroll down the home page.

FAQs

What is the pricing for Flodesk?

Something that is so awesome about Flodesk is that it’s affordable for small business owners (yes!!) and has flat-rate pricing so that you don’t have to change your subscription plan when your subscriber list grows. View Flodesk’s pricing here. Also! If you’d like to try out Flodesk for yourself, I can extend a discount code your way! When you use this discount code, you’ll receive 50% off of your first year of Flodesk! 

Can Flodesk be added to website platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, Showit, and/or Shopify?

Flodesk’s inline forms can be integrated into ALL of those website platforms above, and more! Flodesk even includes step-by-step instructions on how to integrate inline forms into many different websites, depending on your platform. 

Is there a Flodesk discount code I can use?

Flodesk generously allows new users to use their platform at a discounted rate of 50% off of your first year (if you use a discount code), and my discount code will help you get that amazing perk! 

Let’s Chat!

If you’re on your own small business branding/web design journey and want to chat about incorporating Flodesk into a brand new Showit website design for your business, go ahead and take a look at my services, and then drop me an inquiry, because I’d love to chat! 

P.S. And don’t forget! Use this code to receive 50% off of your first year of Flodesk!

Disclosure: When you buy through links on my site, I may earn an affiliate commission.