Kit (formerly ConvertKit)

Email marketing and creator commerce platform for online creators, founded as ConvertKit.

Email marketingCreator economyBootstrappedSaaSOpen startup

Active^{Source [4]}^{Source [12]}Last verified Oct 2, 2026

About Kit (formerly ConvertKit)

Kit sells email marketing software to creators: newsletters, landing pages and forms, visual automations, digital product sales, paid newsletters and paid recommendations. It calls itself the operating system for creators who mean business.^{Source [4]}^{Source [1]}

The company was founded as ConvertKit in 2013, when the focus was helping creators convert traffic into email subscribers. It announced in June 2024 that it would rebrand to Kit in public, with livestreamed design sessions, and completed the rename in October 2024 alongside the launch of the Kit App Store.^{Source [2]}^{Source [10]}

Kit has never raised primary venture funding. Its founder reports $45M+ ARR and $5M+ in annual profit (self-reported, as of October 2026), while Sacra estimates $52M ARR in 2025 excluding ad network revenue. In 2021 a secondary sale to 48 individual investors valued it at $200 million.^{Source [1]}^{Source [3]}^{Source [7]}^{Source [9]}

It was an early open startup, listed in Baremetrics' Open Startups program of public revenue dashboards; the former convertkit.baremetrics.com address now redirects to Baremetrics' home page. The team of 115 works remotely across 86 cities, and the company runs Kit Studios creator spaces in Boise, Chicago and New York City.^{Source [11]}^{Source [4]}^{Source [12]}

What happened

Nathan Barry started ConvertKit as a side project in 2013 and went full time on it in October 2014 at $1,000 a month in revenue. The bootstrapped company grew into a platform used by creators such as Tim Ferriss and James Clear, bought FanBridge (2021) and SparkLoop (2023), and renamed itself Kit in 2024. It is privately held and operating.^{Source [1]}^{Source [7]}^{Source [5]}^{Source [2]}^{Source [10]}

Timeline

2026-06Opened Kit Studios NYC, its third creator studio after Boise and Chicago.^{Source [12]}
2026-05Launched the Kit MCP for AI assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini.^{Source [13]}
2024-10Completed the rename from ConvertKit to Kit and launched the Kit App Store.^{Source [10]}
2024-06Announced a public rebrand to Kit and a free Newsletter plan for up to 10,000 subscribers, at $41 million ARR.^{Source [2]}^{Source [14]}
2023-06Acquired SparkLoop and launched the Creator Network.^{Source [5]}^{Source [15]}
2021Declined Spotify's acquisition interest and completed a secondary sale at a $200 million valuation.^{Source [7]}^{Source [16]}^{Source [9]}
2021Acquired FanBridge, an email platform for musicians.^{Source [7]}^{Source [3]}
2020-02Reported $20M ARR with 48 people and over $1.8M in cumulative profit sharing.^{Source [17]}
2014-10Founder went full time on the product at $1,000 a month in revenue.^{Source [1]}
2013Started by Nathan Barry as a side project.^{Source [1]}^{Source [2]}

Products and brands

Email marketing: Newsletters and broadcasts with an email designer and deliverability tools.^{Source [4]}
Landing pages and forms: Subscriber capture pages and forms.^{Source [4]}
Visual Automations: Welcome sequences, launches and nurture workflows.^{Source [4]}^{Source [2]}
Commerce and paid newsletters: Digital product sales and paid subscriptions.^{Source [4]}
Recommendations and Creator Network: Free cross-recommendations between creators, launched in 2023.^{Source [15]}^{Source [4]}
SparkLoop and Paid Recommendations: Newsletter referral and paid growth network acquired in 2023.^{Source [5]}
Kit App Store: Third-party apps that extend Kit, launched in 2024.^{Source [2]}^{Source [10]}
Kit MCP: Model Context Protocol server giving AI assistants read and write access to a Kit account.^{Source [13]}

How it makes money: Subscription fees that rise with the number of subscribers on a creator's list, plus a free Newsletter plan up to 10,000 subscribers and transactional revenue from its ad and paid recommendations network.^{Source [3]}^{Source [2]}^{Source [10]}

Leadership

Nathan Barry	Founder and CEO^{Source [4]}^{Source [1]}	Since 2013
Brian Bevel	Chief Operating Officer^{Source [4]}
Katie Swett Miller	Chief Product Officer^{Source [4]}
Dave Altarescu	Chief Revenue Officer^{Source [4]}
Mojtaba Hosseini	VP of Engineering^{Source [4]}

Funding and financials

ARR (self-reported by founder): $45M+ (nathanbarry.com, as of October 2026)^{Source [1]}
Annual profit (self-reported by founder): $5M+ (as of October 2026)^{Source [1]}
ARR (third-party estimate): About $52 million in 2025, Sacra estimate excluding ad network revenue^{Source [3]}
ARR (company press release): $41 million (June 2024)^{Source [2]}
ARR (self-reported by founder): $29 million (2021), up from $25 million (2020)^{Source [7]}
Valuation (secondary sale, self-reported): $200 million (2021)^{Source [7]}^{Source [9]}
Company-stated scale: Described as a "$300M bootstrapped business" (Kit press release, June 2026)^{Source [12]}
Profit shared with team (self-reported): $10M+ (as of October 2026)^{Source [1]}

Date	Round	Amount	Investors
2021	Secondary sale of team shares^{Source [7]}^{Source [8]}^{Source [9]}	About 3.2% of the company at a $200 million valuation	48 individual investors via an AngelList vehicle

Notable acquisitions

SparkLoop^{Source [5]}	2023	Not disclosed
FanBridge^{Source [7]}^{Source [3]}	2021	Not disclosed

People on Founded, and where they went next

1 person on record, connected to 1 other company.

Person	Here	Also built
Nathan Barry	Founder, Founder and CEO2013 to now	OneVoice2011Status unknown

Sources

About Nathan Barry, Nathan Barry (personal site). Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
ConvertKit Launches Industry-First: Publicly Rebranding from ConvertKit to Kit, Kit Newsroom, 2024-06-06. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
ConvertKit revenue, valuation & funding, Sacra. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Meet the People Behind Kit, Kit. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Kit Acquires SparkLoop to Double Down on Goal to Pay out $1 Billion to Creators, Kit Newsroom, 2023-06-09. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Nathan Barry, Nathan Barry (personal site). Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
2021 Review, Nathan Barry (personal site). Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Post on the AngelList roll-up vehicle secondary, X (@nathanbarry), 2022-05-22. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Post on the ConvertKit secondary round, X (@nathanbarry), 2023-10-11. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
ConvertKit at $43M ARR, Sacra. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Open Startups, Baremetrics. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Kit is Building Physical Spaces for Creators, Opening its Third Kit Studios in New York City, Kit Newsroom, 2026-06-11. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Kit Launches Most Complete Email MCP for Creators, Kit Newsroom, 2026-05-19. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Post announcing ConvertKit is becoming Kit, X (@nathanbarry), 2024-06-06. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Kit Launches The Creator Network to Help Fuel Newsletter Growth with Free Recommendations, Kit Newsroom, 2023-06-09. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Post on declining Spotify's 2021 approach, X (@nathanbarry), 2022-09-10. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
ConvertKit: Shared Our Profit Sharing Model, Indie Hackers, 2020-02-24. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.

Suggest a correction / Editorial policy