ConvertKit is $25/mo (Creator, 1K subs). Soapbox is a self-hosted alternative at $0.99/mo. Here's when each makes sense.
| Soapbox | ConvertKit | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Self-hosted, your infra | Managed SaaS (cloud only) |
| Data location | Your server, your disk | ConvertKit's cloud |
| Free tier | 500 subscribers | Paid only |
| Pro pricing | $0.99/mo | $25/mo (Creator, 1K subs) |
| Dependencies | None (single binary + SQLite) | N/A (managed) |
| Setup time | ~30 seconds | Account signup |
| Dashboard | Built-in at /ui | Cloud dashboard |
| License | BSL 1.1 | Proprietary SaaS |
Soapbox is a single Go binary with embedded SQLite. Install it with one command, and you are running in under a minute. Your data stays on your server.
curl -fsSL https://stockyard.dev/soapbox/install.sh | sh
Teams evaluating ConvertKit alongside Soapbox tend to split on two axes: feature depth and data residency. ConvertKit wins on feature depth — it is a mature product with integrations, mobile apps, and a dedicated support team. Soapbox wins on residency — your newsletter platform data lives on your server in a SQLite file you can inspect, back up, and migrate without asking anyone for permission.
Architecturally, Soapbox and ConvertKit could not be more different. ConvertKit runs on distributed cloud infrastructure with load balancers, managed databases, CDNs, and redundancy across availability zones. Soapbox is a single process writing to a single file on a single disk. That sounds fragile until you realize that SQLite handles more concurrent readers than most web applications will ever need, and WAL mode means reads never block writes.
Switching from ConvertKit to Soapbox is straightforward for most teams. Export your data from ConvertKit (most services offer CSV or JSON export), then POST each record to Soapbox's API. A migration script that reads the export and writes to /api/ endpoints typically takes less than 50 lines of code. The reverse migration is equally simple — Soapbox's SQLite database is a standard file you can query with any SQLite client.
Single binary. Free to start. $0.99/mo for Pro.