Kit Visual Automations Explained: Entry Points, Actions, Events, and Conditions

Kit’s Visual Automations are the flowcharts behind most Kit funnels: someone joins a form, gets tagged, receives a welcome sequence, and is routed down a different path depending on what they click or buy. They’re also the main reason people move from Kit’s Free plan to a paid one.

This guide explains how the builder works using Kit’s own help center: which plan you need, the four kinds of entry points, the six actions, five events, and four conditions, what Active, Inactive, and Paused mean, when Kit says to use an Automation Rule instead, and the behaviors that leave subscribers “stuck.”

Our sources: Kit’s help articles on Visual Automations (overview, first automation, actions, events, conditions, statuses, editing, templates, troubleshooting, manual adds), its Automation Rules article, its Free plan article, and Kit’s pricing page. We checked all of them on November 1, 2026.

How we researched this: Everything below comes from Kit’s official help center and pricing page. We haven’t built these automations in a Kit account ourselves, so there are no screenshots, results, or performance claims of our own here. Where Kit’s docs are unclear or disagree with each other, we say so.

About our links: Kit links go through /go/kit, which forwards to Kit’s homepage; we don’t earn anything from Kit. beehiiv links (/go/beehiiv) are affiliate links, the only program we earn from. Our recommendations would be the same either way.

The short version

	Detail
Plans	Creator and Pro (unlimited on both). Not on Free
Price to unlock	Creator from $39/mo monthly or $33/mo billed yearly at 1,000 subscribers
Entry points	Joins a form/landing page, tag added, custom field changes, purchase. Up to 5 per automation
Building blocks	Actions (green, do something), Events (orange, wait for something), Conditions (blue, branch)
Statuses	Active, Inactive (every new automation starts here), Paused
Retroactive?	No. Only people who trigger an entry point after the automation is active go in
Sequences vs automations	A sequence is a set of timed emails; an automation decides who gets which sequence and when

Our take in one line: if you’re on Kit and want anything beyond one-off broadcasts, a welcome automation is the first thing worth building on Creator. Just learn the difference between an Action and an Event first, because mixing them up is the most common mistake Kit’s own docs warn about.

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Which Kit plan includes Visual Automations?

Kit’s pricing page lists the Visual automation builder and the Visual automation template library as unlimited on Creator and Pro, and not included on Free. Automated email sequences and RSS campaigns are also Creator and up. Kit’s Free plan article says the same: visual automations, the template library, email sequences, and Rules “live on the Creator and Creator Pro plans.” Free users can open the Visual Automations page and look around, but see upgrade options when they try to create one.

What it cost on November 1, 2026 (USD, from Kit’s pricing page):

Subscribers	Creator, monthly	Creator, billed yearly	Pro, monthly
1,000	$39/mo	$33/mo ($390/yr)	$79/mo
3,000	$59/mo	$50/mo ($590/yr)	$99/mo
5,000	$89/mo	$75/mo ($890/yr)	$139/mo
10,000	$139/mo	$116/mo ($1,390/yr)	$189/mo
25,000	$199/mo	$166/mo ($1,990/yr)	$279/mo

Pro’s standard yearly rate at 1,000 subscribers is $66/mo. Kit’s page was also showing a limited-time first-year Pro discount ($50/mo, $593 billed for the first year at 1,000 subscribers) on November 1; check the offer terms on Kit’s page before counting on it. Both paid plans have a 14-day free trial with no credit card. Full tier tables and fees: Kit pricing explained.

Two plan details worth knowing:

Pro doesn’t add more automation power. Both plans have unlimited Visual Automations. Pro adds analytics, deliverability reporting, engagement scoring, a referral system through SparkLoop, and more users. One exception: some templates in the library are tagged Creator Pro because they use Pro features (Kit’s example is “Grow your audience with SparkLoop”).
Downgrading pauses everything. Kit’s Free plan article says that if you move to Free, anything you built stays in your account, but visual automations and sequences stop running until you upgrade again.

Naming note: Kit’s pricing page calls the top plan Pro, while several help articles still say Creator Pro. They’re the same plan.

Sequences, Visual Automations, and Rules: what’s the difference?

These three get confused constantly. Here’s how Kit’s help center separates them:

Email sequence: a series of one or more automated emails with delays between them (a five-email welcome series, for example). Kit says sequences won’t send on their own; something has to add subscribers to them.
Visual Automation: the bigger flow. It can add people to sequences, tag them, wait for events, and route them down different paths based on conditions. Kit’s first-automation guide puts it simply: Visual Automations “automate the process of adding subscribers to Sequences.”
Automation Rule: a simple “if this happens, then do that” rule, with one or more triggers and one or more actions. Kit says Visual Automations are generally easier to manage and more powerful, and recommends them whenever either would work.

Kit names two cases where you still need a Rule:

Link triggers, meaning an action that fires when a subscriber clicks a specific link in an email (usually “add a tag”).
Unsubscribing someone from a form, which Visual Automations can’t do.

A common pattern combines them: a Rule tags subscribers who click a link, and a Visual Automation uses that tag as an entry point or event.

One behavior difference matters. When a Visual Automation adds someone to a sequence, Kit marks the sequence complete once they’ve received all its published emails, removes them from that sequence (not from your list), and moves them to the next step. When a Rule adds someone to a sequence, they stay subscribed to it, so any email you add to that sequence later will reach them too.

Step 1: Create the automation and pick an entry point

Go to Automate → Visual Automations and click + New automation. Choose a template or Start from scratch, then click Start building to add your first entry point.

The four entry point types:

Entry point	Fires when
Joins a form	Someone subscribes through a specific form or landing page, or any form or landing page
Tag is added	A specific tag is applied to the subscriber
Custom field	A subscriber’s custom field value changes
Purchase	The subscriber buys a product (from Kit or an ecommerce store you’ve connected)

Each automation can have up to five entry points, added with the (+) to the right of the existing ones. That lets several forms feed the same flow. If you need more than five, Kit suggests duplicating the automation, or having your forms apply one shared tag and using that tag as a single entry point.

Kit autosaves as you build.

Step 2: Add steps (Actions, Events, and Conditions)

Click the (+) below any step to add the next one. Every step is one of three types, color-coded in the builder.

Actions (green): do something

Actions run once the previous step is finished. Kit lists six:

Action	What it does
Email sequence	Adds the subscriber to a sequence. They move on only after receiving its last email
Delay	Holds them for a set time (minutes, hours, days, or weeks), or until a date stored in a custom field
Move subscriber	Start another automation (while staying in this one), exit this automation, or remove them from another automation
Add or remove tag	Tags or untags the subscriber
Set custom field	Writes a value to a custom field (you can create new fields from inside the builder)
Unsubscribe	Unsubscribes them from your whole list

Details from Kit’s actions article:

Delay until a custom date needs the date stored as yyyy-mm-dd or yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM, uses your account’s time zone, and won’t work if the date is in the past.
Exit this automation and Unsubscribe can only go at the end of an event or condition branch, so they’re grayed out elsewhere.
Kit pitches the Unsubscribe action for automated cold-subscriber pruning.
Editing an action doesn’t reset its stats. Counts include subscribers who went through the earlier version.

Events (orange): wait for something to happen

Events hold subscribers in place until something happens, then pull them forward. Kit lists five:

A tag is added (pairs well with link triggers)
A tag is removed
A date occurs (live webinars, launch days, dated challenges)
A product is purchased (from Kit or another platform)
A custom field changes, either to a specific value or at all

Events only move people forward (down the funnel), never back or sideways.

The mistake Kit warns about most: using a “Tag added” Event when you meant to apply a tag. If you want the automation to tag someone, use the green Add or remove tag action. Use the orange event only when you want to wait until something else tags them.

Conditions (blue): branch the path

Conditions split subscribers into paths. Kit offers four types:

Condition	Checks	Modes
Tags	Whether the subscriber has a tag	Yes/No, or Split Path across several tags
Custom fields	A field’s value: has a value, is blank, matches, contains, greater/less than	Yes/No, or Split Path across several values
Advanced filter	Combined criteria, like segment filters	Yes/No
Email opens	Whether they’ve opened any of your emails, optionally within the last X days (confirmation emails count)	Yes/No

Things to know:

In a Split Path, subscribers go down the first matching path, reading left to right, so order your tags or values by priority. Anyone who matches nothing goes down the last “Everyone else” path.
Advanced filters use segment-style criteria, but products, segments, and engagement score can’t be used inside conditions.
Deleting a condition deletes every step in its branches until they merge back into the main flow. To change a condition’s type (say, Tag to Custom field), add the new condition first, then delete the old one.

Step 3: Turn it on

Every new Visual Automation starts Inactive. Click the Active toggle at the top right of the builder and confirm. Kit’s first-automation guide says plainly: “Don’t skip this step, or else your Visual Automation will not work.”

Status	New subscribers can enter?	Subscribers inside can move forward?	Use it when
Active	Yes	Yes	The automation is ready
Inactive	No	No (they wait before their next step)	You’re building, or need to stop everything
Paused	Yes (they wait after the entry point)	No	You’re editing later steps but want people to keep entering, or you’re holding a group to release together

Only active automations can be paused. Use Resume to release everyone waiting.

A starter example: welcome flow with an interest branch

Here’s a simple layout built only from the pieces Kit documents. It’s an illustration, not something we’ve run.

Entry point: Joins a form (your main signup form).
Action: Email sequence: “Welcome” (three emails over a week).
Condition: Tag → Split Path on tags such as “Interest: Beginner” and “Interest: Advanced” (applied by a link-trigger Rule when readers click a link in welcome email 1).
Actions on each path: Email sequence: the matching “Beginner tips” or “Advanced tips” sequence. “Everyone else” gets a general sequence.
Condition: Email opens in the last 30 days → No path: Unsubscribe (or tag them “cold” and review by hand first).

If you’d rather not start from scratch, Kit’s Templates tab covers welcome, launch, paid newsletter, and audience growth flows. Clicking Use this template creates blank forms, landing pages, tags, and sequences in your account, so if you already have those, Kit suggests copying the template’s structure by hand instead.

Behaviors that trip people up

These come straight from Kit’s help articles, and most “my automation is broken” problems trace back to one of them.

Automations aren’t retroactive. Only people who hit an entry point after the automation is activated go in. Adding a tag entry point won’t pull in people who already have that tag. To add existing subscribers, Kit’s workaround is to add a brand-new tag as an entry point, bulk-apply that tag to the people you want, then delete the tag and entry point once they’re in. (Deleting an entry point also deletes its stats.)
Past dates skip ahead. If a date event’s date has already passed, anyone entering moves straight to it, skipping sequences, tags, and other steps before it.
Two date events after one condition. If both branches of a condition lead to date events, everyone waiting at the condition gets pulled to whichever date fires first. Kit’s fix is to put another step, such as a 5-minute delay, on each branch before the date events.
“Subscribers on hold” after a sequence. If a sequence’s setting “Should subscribers added via Visual Automations stay in the sequence?” is Yes (an evergreen sequence), they’ll stay in it indefinitely and never reach the next step. Set it to No if you want them to continue.
Waiting before an event is normal. Subscribers always wait before an event until it happens (the date arrives, the tag gets added).
Stats can be stale. Kit caches automation pages, so “subscribers waiting here” counts can lag by several minutes, occasionally up to an hour. Clicking the box shows the live count.
Duplicates share sequences. A duplicated automation uses the same email sequences as the original, so editing an email in the copy changes the original too. Create new sequences for the copy before you edit content.

Editing a live automation safely

Kit’s editing guide recommends a short routine:

Pause first (or set it to Inactive to stop new entries as well).
Click each step you’ll change to see whether anyone is waiting there. Deleting a step, especially a Delay, while people are waiting on it can strand them; they’d need to be removed and re-added with a temporary tag entry point.
Remember changes only affect people who reach that point later. Anyone already past it won’t go back.
Check the sequence “stay in the sequence?” setting described above.
Make your changes, then click Resume.

You can’t delete an automation’s last entry point, so add the replacement first. Entry points created by another automation’s “Start another automation” action can’t be deleted in the editor; Kit says to contact support for those.

How this compares with beehiiv automations

If you’re weighing Kit against beehiiv, the plan structure differs:

Kit: no automations on Free (which covers up to 10,000 subscribers); unlimited Visual Automations on Creator and Pro.
beehiiv: no live custom automations on Free (up to 2,500 subscribers); 10 live automations on Lite and unlimited on Pro, per beehiiv’s pricing page on November 1, 2026. Click-triggered automations are listed for Pro and Enterprise only. Lite was $59/mo monthly or $49/mo billed yearly at 1,000 subscribers; Pro was $109/mo or $95/mo billed yearly.

At 1,000 subscribers, Kit Creator ($39/mo monthly) is cheaper than beehiiv Lite ($59/mo) and has no cap on automations. beehiiv’s case is everything else it bundles for newsletter publishers: a website builder on every plan, plus paid subscriptions and its ad network on Lite and up. For a full walkthrough of beehiiv’s builder, see how to create automation workflows on beehiiv. For a side-by-side of Kit’s sequences and beehiiv’s automations (welcome series, triggers, editing, limits), see Kit sequences vs beehiiv automations. For the overall decision, see Kit vs beehiiv for solo newsletter writers.

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Where Kit’s docs leave gaps

“Unlock unlimited” wording. The overview and first-automation articles say “Unlock unlimited Visual Automations by upgrading,” which could suggest a limited number on Free. Kit’s pricing page and Free plan article both say Free has none. We go with those.
Event count. Kit’s overview lists event triggers in four bullets (tags added/removed, purchases, dates, custom fields); the events article splits tags into two and counts five. They describe the same options.
Purchase entry point wording varies: one article says purchases from “an ecommerce store you’ve integrated with Kit,” while the events article says “whether you’re using Kit or another platform.”
None of the articles we checked list a limit on the number of steps per automation or the number of subscribers per step.

Checklist

Setting up a new newsletter from scratch? Our free Newsletter Launch Checklist covers the setup steps to check before your first send.

Our take

Kit’s Visual Automations are the strongest reason to pay for Creator: unlimited flows, a clear three-part model (do, wait, branch), and templates for common funnels. The traps are predictable once you know them. Turn the automation on, don’t expect it to pick up people who signed up earlier, use Actions rather than Events to apply tags, and check the evergreen-sequence setting when people seem stuck. If you only need a single welcome series, either Kit or beehiiv will do it; if you want many branching funnels without counting live automations, Kit’s unlimited flows on its cheapest paid plan are hard to beat.

Visit Kit · Kit pricing explained · beehiiv automation workflows · Kit vs beehiiv

Sources

All sources below were checked November 1, 2026.

Kit: How to use Kit Visual Automations: Automate → Visual Automations, Active/Inactive/Paused filter, templates tab, four entry point types, up to five entry points, action/event/condition overview, sequence vs automation, sequence completion vs Rules, pause before editing
Kit: How to create your first Kit Visual Automation: + New automation, Start from scratch, Start building, autosave, Active toggle, not retroactive
Kit: Visual Automations: Actions (Creator and Creator Pro): six action types, delay-until-date formats and time zone, Exit/Unsubscribe only at branch ends, stats not reset on edit
Kit: Visual Automations: Events (Creator and Creator Pro): five event types, forward-only movement, past-date and two-date-event behaviors
Kit: Visual Automations: Conditions (Creator and Creator Pro): four condition types, Split Path first-match rule, advanced filter exclusions, email opens incl. confirmation emails, deleting conditions
Kit: Visual Automation statuses: Active, Inactive, and Paused: status table, new automations start inactive, pause/resume
Kit: How to edit a Visual Automation: pre-edit checklist, deleting delays, Action vs Event mistake, entry point deletion rules, duplicated automations share sequences
Kit: Troubleshooting: Subscribers waiting in a Visual Automation: waiting before events, evergreen sequence hold, caching up to an hour
Kit: How to manually add subscribers to an automation: temporary tag entry point workaround, deleting entry points removes stats
Kit: How to use Visual Automation templates: template categories, Creator Pro-tagged templates, Use this template creates blank assets
Kit: How to combine Visual Automation entry points into a Tag
Kit: What are Automation Rules in Kit?: Rules vs Visual Automations, link triggers and form unsubscribes need Rules
Kit: The Kit Free plan: automations, templates, sequences, and Rules need Creator or Creator Pro; automations stop running on Free after a downgrade
Kit: Pricing: Creator and Pro prices at 1,000–25,000 subscribers (monthly and yearly), limited-time Pro offer, Visual automation builder and template library unlimited on Creator and Pro (not Free), sequences and RSS on Creator+, 14-day trial with no card
beehiiv: Pricing: Lite and Pro prices at 1,000 subscribers; Live custom automations (Free —, Lite 10, Pro and Enterprise unlimited); Click-triggered automations (Pro and Enterprise); Website builder (all plans); Paid subscriptions and Ad network (Lite and up)
AudienceBench: Kit pricing explained, beehiiv automation workflows, Kit vs beehiiv for solo newsletter writers