Import your list from another platform

Moving from MailerLite, Kit, or Mailchimp? Skip the CSV

If your list lives in MailerLite (either platform), Kit (ConvertKit), or Mailchimp, you don't need an export file at all. On Subscribers → Import, paste an API key from your old account and we pull everything directly: subscribers with their statuses, group or tag memberships, custom fields, and whatever consent evidence the platform holds—MailerLite keeps opt-in timestamps and IPs; Kit keeps signup dates and signup-source records; Mailchimp keeps the most of the three, including the opt-in IP and timestamp and any GDPR permission answers. All of it is stored word for word, never invented. Unsubscribes and bounces come over too, recorded so those readers are never mailed here. Re-running is always safe. Don’t worry, we won’t import duplicates.

Two Kit notes: Kit's API can lag a few minutes behind its dashboard, so finish Kit-side changes before importing (a re-run picks up stragglers). And Kit reports some readers as "inactive," which can mean awaiting confirmation or cold—Kit doesn't say which, so those rows are skipped and listed rather than guessed at; export them as a CSV if you want to decide yourself.

Your Kit sequences come over too—emails, content, and waits—under Automations → Import from Kit (see the sequences article).

Four Mailchimp notes

• Your whole key, including the bit after the dash. A Mailchimp key ends in a dash and a server name, like -us6. That suffix tells us which Mailchimp server your account is on, so a key copied without it can't work.
• Several audiences? You choose. Mailchimp lets you keep more than one audience, and we won't merge them behind your back. If your account has several, the card lists them and you tick the ones to bring; each becomes a group here, so readers stay sorted the way you had them.
• Your Mailchimp groups come across as groups—but look before you decide you have none. Mailchimp keeps them under subscriber preferences, which isn't where the word "group" would send you, so it's easy to glance at your audience and think there's nothing there. Whatever you have arrives under the same names, and a reader who's in three of them is still in three.
• Archived contacts stay in Mailchimp. Archiving someone there removes them from the audience without recording what their subscription status had been, so importing them would be a guess in the one direction that emails a stranger. The import counts them and tells you how many—unarchive anyone who belongs on your list and run it again. The same goes for contacts you permanently deleted in Mailchimp: those are gone from Mailchimp's own records, so nobody can recover them.

Mailchimp automations don't come over. Its API can't read the inside of a Customer Journey—not for us, not for anyone—so those get rebuilt here. Saved segment names are listed at the end of the import as a to-do; the rules behind them don't travel either.

Importing from anywhere else: CSV

Export your list from your current platform as a CSV, then use Subscribers → Import in the audience you're moving them into. The import wizard walks you through matching your file's columns to fields here.

What the wizard does carefully

• Statuses are never guessed. You explicitly map your old platform's statuses (active, unsubscribed, bounced…) to ours. If a row's status doesn't match your mapping, the wizard asks rather than assuming.
• Consent is never invented. If your export includes consent dates or sources, map them and they're preserved. If it doesn't, the import records what it actually knows—not a made-up opt-in.
• Unsubscribed readers are imported too—as unsubscribed. This matters: their unsubscribe is a promise you made. Importing them keeps that promise enforced here, so a future import or signup can't accidentally start emailing someone who opted out years ago.
• Duplicates are handled by email address—importing the same file twice won't create doubles.
• Tag or group the file as it comes in, your choice of scope. The wizard can put a tag on the file's contacts and/or place them in a group. By default that covers everyone in the file—right for migrations, where each export file is a group. For a promo or giveaway list that overlaps readers you already have, tick "only contacts new to this list" and people already in your audience keep their existing tags and groups untouched.

Import everything

Bring your whole export, including unsubscribes and bounces—not just the active readers. Suppressed contacts don't count against your plan's subscriber cap (only mailable readers do), and having the full history is what protects your sender reputation.