Migrating from Mailchimp to Kit or Beehiiv
How to move your email list and automations from Mailchimp to Kit (formerly ConvertKit) or Beehiiv — export steps, what transfers, and what to set up fresh.
Mailchimp is where many businesses start with email marketing. It's well known and has a generous free tier. But as your list and needs grow, you may find its automation builder clunky, its pricing steep, or its deliverability falling short. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) and Beehiiv are two popular alternatives that handle growing creator and business audiences well.
The good news: your subscriber list is portable. You own it and you can take it with you.
Quick summary
Migrating email marketing from Mailchimp to Kit or Beehiiv involves exporting your subscribers as a CSV, importing them to the new platform, and rebuilding your automations and templates. Most migrations take a few hours to a day of setup. The key caution: unsubscribes and bounce records must transfer too, or you risk emailing people who opted out.
What you'll need
Half a day to one day Beginner-friendlyWhat transfers and what doesn't
What you can migrate
- Subscriber email addresses
- Subscriber first and last names
- Custom fields and tags (with mapping)
- Unsubscribe and bounce records (must be honored)
- Your domain sender identity (set up fresh)
What must be rebuilt
- Email templates and designs
- Automation sequences (welcome series, drip campaigns)
- Audience segments and groups
- Landing pages
- Sign-up forms
- Integrations with your website
You must honor unsubscribes — this is a legal requirement
When you move platforms, you must bring your unsubscribe list with you. Emailing someone who has already unsubscribed from your list — on any platform — violates anti-spam laws (CAN-SPAM in the US, CASL in Canada, GDPR in Europe). Always export your unsubscribes and suppress them in the new platform before sending any email.
Step 1 — Export your Mailchimp list
Log in to Mailchimp. Go to your Audience section.
Export your subscribers. From the Audience dashboard, select All Contacts, then Export Audience. Choose CSV format. This downloads a file with all your subscriber records.
Export your unsubscribes separately. Filter your audience by "Unsubscribed" contacts and export that list too. You'll need this to suppress them in the new platform.
Export your automations documentation. Take screenshots or notes on every automation sequence — the trigger, the delay, the email content. You'll rebuild these in the new platform.
Step 2 — Choosing between Kit and Beehiiv
Kit is designed for creators, coaches, and businesses that rely on email automation. It has a strong automation builder, powerful segmentation using tags, and integrations with hundreds of tools.
Best for: Businesses with complex automations, product launches, or course/coaching funnels.
Pricing: Free plan available up to a certain subscriber count. Paid plans scale by list size.
Beehiiv is built around newsletter publishing. It offers a clean writing experience, referral programs, paid newsletter subscriptions, and growth analytics. Its template and automation features are simpler than Kit's.
Best for: Businesses that send a regular newsletter and want growth tools built in.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans scale by subscriber count and feature access.
Step 3 — Import your subscribers to the new platform
Create your Kit account at kit.com if you haven't already.
Go to Subscribers, then Import. Upload the CSV file from your Mailchimp export.
Map the columns. Kit will ask you to match CSV columns (email, first name, etc.) to Kit fields. Match them carefully.
Add tags. Tags in Kit are how you segment audiences. Apply a tag like migrated-from-mailchimp so you can identify these subscribers later.
Upload and suppress your unsubscribes. In Kit's subscriber settings, you can bulk-unsubscribe a list. Upload your Mailchimp unsubscribes CSV here.
Create your Beehiiv account at beehiiv.com.
Go to Audience, then Import Subscribers. Upload your Mailchimp CSV.
Map fields. Match email, name, and any custom fields to Beehiiv's subscriber fields.
Set subscriber status. Make sure imported subscribers are marked as active.
Suppress unsubscribes. Upload your Mailchimp unsubscribe CSV separately and mark those records as unsubscribed.
Step 4 — Set up your sender identity
Both Kit and Beehiiv require you to verify your sending domain. This means adding DNS records to your domain to prove that you own it and are authorized to send email from it.
Follow the platform's domain authentication steps. Both Kit and Beehiiv provide step-by-step instructions in their settings panels under domain or sender authentication.
Add the required DNS records. These include SPF, DKIM, and sometimes DMARC records. See email DNS records for an explanation of what these are.
Verify the records. After adding the DNS records, click "Verify" in the platform. DNS changes can take up to 24–48 hours to propagate.
Step 5 — Rebuild automations and templates
Your email templates and automation sequences need to be rebuilt from scratch. They don't export from Mailchimp in a format that any other platform can read.
Use your exported screenshots and notes from Step 1 as the reference. Recreate your:
- Welcome email sequence
- Any drip campaigns or nurture sequences
- Re-engagement automations
- Product or service announcement templates
Step 6 — Update your sign-up forms
Your website forms that were connected to Mailchimp need to be updated or replaced with new forms pointing to Kit or Beehiiv.
- If you used embedded Mailchimp forms, replace them with the new platform's embedded form code
- If you used a WordPress plugin (like WPForms with a Mailchimp integration), update the plugin's settings to connect to the new platform instead
- If you used landing pages hosted on Mailchimp, recreate them in the new platform or on your website
When to send your first email on the new platform
Don't send a mass email on your first day in the new platform. Start with a small segment to check deliverability and confirm everything is configured correctly. A new sending domain takes time to build reputation — sending slowly at first (a few hundred emails, then increasing) is better than sending to your entire list on day one.
Common questions
Related guides
- Pre-migration checklist
- Email DNS records (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
- Why your emails land in spam
- Transactional vs marketing email
- Give us access to your Mailchimp account
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