Drip
Two-month digests that keep circling the same theme: get your data out of Drip and into your own stack.
Comparison · Mkt Auto
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Customer.io
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Kit (formerly ConvertKit) and Customer.io — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Customer.io: at a glance
What is Kit (formerly ConvertKit)?
Kit rebuilt its landing page editor, then handed the controls to an AI agent.
Kit's recent releases converge on one thing: giving creators a full publishing surface inside Kit rather than sending them to a third-party page builder. The landing page editor was rebuilt in June with 20+ templates and full control over layout, fonts and sections; custom favicons and the Creator profile to Newsletter site rename finished the job of making those pages feel owned rather than hosted. The newest release lets the Kit MCP build and edit those pages directly. Alongside runs an audience-intelligence thread - Subscriber Signals in early access - and network features letting creators request connections with each other.
What is Customer.io?
Customer.io is adding new trigger surfaces — physical location is the one that changes the map.
Customer.io's summer wave broadens what can start and carry a message rather than deepening the message editor. Geofences trigger workflows on physical entry and exit; date triggers now read attributes on custom objects; live notifications push continuously updating content to iOS Live Activities and Android 16 Live Updates. Alongside that, the delivery layer is being filled in — Sinch, Infobip, and Vonage as SMS providers, multiple mobile apps per platform in one workspace, and rate control over how fast automations send.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Customer.io: editorial side-by-side
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
6.3MKT AUTO
Kit rebuilt its landing page editor, then handed the controls to an AI agent.
◆ Current state
Kit's recent releases converge on one thing: giving creators a full publishing surface inside Kit rather than sending them to a third-party page builder. The landing page editor was rebuilt in June with 20+ templates and full control over layout, fonts and sections; custom favicons and the Creator profile to Newsletter site rename finished the job of making those pages feel owned rather than hosted. The newest release lets the Kit MCP build and edit those pages directly. Alongside runs an audience-intelligence thread - Subscriber Signals in early access - and network features letting creators request connections with each other.
◆ Where it's heading
The Kit MCP is the axis. It arrived in May as a read-and-analyze tool - ask questions about your list, create tags or broadcasts from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor - and has now crossed into building the actual published artifact. That sequencing is deliberate: rebuild the editor as a structured, template-driven system first, then expose it to an agent, because an agent can only assemble a page that is composed of describable parts. The rename and favicon work point the same way, toward Kit as the place a creator's web presence lives rather than just where email is sent.
◆ Prediction
Expect the MCP surface to extend from landing pages into sequences and the newsletter site itself, and Subscriber Signals to move out of early access as the data layer the agent reasons over.
Customer.io
7.5MKT AUTO
Customer.io is adding new trigger surfaces — physical location is the one that changes the map.
◆ Current state
Customer.io's summer wave broadens what can start and carry a message rather than deepening the message editor. Geofences trigger workflows on physical entry and exit; date triggers now read attributes on custom objects; live notifications push continuously updating content to iOS Live Activities and Android 16 Live Updates. Alongside that, the delivery layer is being filled in — Sinch, Infobip, and Vonage as SMS providers, multiple mobile apps per platform in one workspace, and rate control over how fast automations send.
◆ Where it's heading
The product is moving from 'send messages based on what a person did in your app' toward 'send messages based on where and when a person is', with the notification itself becoming a live surface rather than a one-shot push. The provider and multi-app work is the unglamorous prerequisite: you cannot sell location- and time-aware messaging to larger accounts without carrier choice and workspace consolidation. LLM actions are present but still positioned as a step inside a workflow, not as the workflow author.
◆ Prediction
Expect the trigger set to keep expanding along the same axis — likely dwell time or region-shape refinements on geofences — and rate control to grow into per-channel or per-audience throttles rather than a single automation-level setting.
Alternatives to Kit (formerly ConvertKit) and Customer.io
Other Mkt Auto products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Kit (formerly ConvertKit) or Customer.io.
Formidable Forms
The forms plugin just opened its data to AI agents through an MCP adapter.
Pimcore
A security-hardening train: nine advisories across six patch releases, no feature work in sight.
n8n
Three release lines running in parallel, all of them shipping nothing but fixes this week
OpnForm
OpnForm is turning its V2 platform into an automation surface, one integration at a time.
Zoho Social
Zoho Social opens its management surface to AI assistants via MCP.
See all Kit (formerly ConvertKit) alternatives → · See all Customer.io alternatives →
Recent activity from Kit (formerly ConvertKit) and Customer.io
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 6d agoCustomer.ioControl how fast your automations send messages
- 12d agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Build and edit landing pages with the Kit MCP ⚡
- 13d agoCustomer.ioGeofences: message people when they enter or exit a location ⚡
- 13d agoCustomer.ioSet up SMS with Sinch, Infobip, or Vonage
- 13d agoCustomer.ioAdd reusable knowledge sources to LLM actions
- 13d agoCustomer.ioCustomer.io’s Summer Release: Meet your customers where they are
- 14d agoCustomer.ioSend push notifications to multiple mobile apps in one workspace
- 22d agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Request to connect with other creators in the Creator Network
- 29d agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Your favicon, your brand
- 1mo agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Try the new Kit navigation
- 1mo agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)'Creator profile' is now called 'Newsletter site'
- 1mo agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Get early access for Subscriber Signals
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Kit (formerly ConvertKit) and Customer.io?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Customer.io is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 6.3), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 1. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Kit (formerly ConvertKit) better than Customer.io?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Customer.io is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 6.3), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 1. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Mkt Auto products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Kit (formerly ConvertKit)?
Top Kit (formerly ConvertKit) alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Kit (formerly ConvertKit) alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/convertkit for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Customer.io?
Top Customer.io alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Customer.io alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/customerio for the full list with editorial commentary on each.