Unclaimed: Are you working at ActiveCampaign for Marketing?
ActiveCampaign for Marketing Reviews: 4.5/5 — Highly Rated
ActiveCampaign is an integrated marketing tool that easily automates email marketing strategies and creates targeted campaigns. While automated marketing is a core component of the system, ActiveCampaign is a powerful tool that can do so much more. The software is known for being able to deliver a personalized experience across all customer touchpoints, track buyer behavior and preferences, customize send-outs, and gather data from every stage of the customer lifecycle, just to name a few.
| Capabilities |
AI
API
|
|---|---|
| Segment |
Small Business
Mid Market
Enterprise
|
| Deployment | Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based, Mobile Android, Mobile iPad, Mobile iPhone |
| Support | 24/7 (Live rep), Chat, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support |
| Training | Documentation |
| Languages | English |
ActiveCampaign for Marketing Pros and Cons
- Powerful email builder
- Machine learning enabled helps boost marketing results
- Seamlessly integrates with automations
- On-site chat is an additional, paid add on
- Advanced feature are complicated to use and navigate.
ActiveCampaign’s $15 Starter plan limits each automation to five actions. On a platform bought specifically for automation, that is the number that decides your plan — a welcome sequence, a lead-scoring flow, or an abandoned-cart journey all run past five steps quickly. And the discount you get for accepting that limit shrinks as your list grows: at 25,000 contacts, Starter is displayed at $391 a month while Plus, which has no action cap at all, is $389.
- What it is: A marketing automation platform combining email, automation, CRM, and now WhatsApp, built around a visual automation builder.
- Best for: Businesses whose value comes from behavioural automation rather than from sending newsletters.
- Pricing: Starter $15, Plus $49, Pro $79, Enterprise $145 per month at 1,000 contacts, billed annually. Verified July 2026.
- The honest catch: Starter and Plus are single-user plans; three users arrive at Pro.
What Is ActiveCampaign?
ActiveCampaign’s reputation rests on its automation builder, which is genuinely one of the best in the category: branching conditions, goals, split tests, wait steps, and CRM actions arranged visually. Where most email tools bolt automation onto a newsletter product, ActiveCampaign is an automation product that also sends email.
The 2026 lineup adds two structural things. Channels are now chosen before plans — Email, WhatsApp, or Email + WhatsApp are separate price families — and “Active Intelligence”, the AI layer, appears on every tier but carries unstated limits on Starter and Plus. The page also offers a results guarantee: 30 days or your money back.
Prices are set by contact count through a selector, so every published figure describes a list size rather than a plan.
How ActiveCampaign Works
- Priced by email contacts, chosen from a dropdown that runs from 1,000 to 150,000.
- Automation actions are the Starter cap — five per automation, unlimited from Plus.
- Users ladder late. One on Starter and Plus, three on Pro, five on Enterprise.
- Landing pages start at Plus, not Starter.
- Attribution and conversion tracking start at Pro.
- WhatsApp is a separate plan family, priced independently of email.
ActiveCampaign Pricing
Captured from ActiveCampaign’s pricing page in July 2026 in US dollars, Email plans, billed annually, reading the contact selector at each size.
| Contacts | Starter | Plus | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $15 | $49 | $79 | $145 |
| 5,000 | $79 | $145 | $205 | $375 |
| 10,000 | $149 | $189 | $375 | $589 |
| 25,000 | $391 | $389 | $629 | $879 |
| 50,000 | $391 | $609 | $969 | $1,169 |
What actually decides your plan:
- Five actions per automation is a hard ceiling, not a soft one. A welcome series that sends three emails with waits between them has already spent its budget. If automation is why you are here — and it usually is — Starter is an email tool with a decorative automation feature, and Plus is the first plan that does the job.
- The Starter discount evaporates with list size. At 1,000 contacts Plus costs 3.3 times more; at 10,000 it costs 27% more; at 25,000 the pricing table shows Starter at $391 against Plus at $389. Whatever the reason for that crossover, nobody with a 25,000-contact list should be choosing Starter over Plus on price.
- Starter’s displayed price stops rising at $391. It reads $391 at 25,000, 50,000, and 75,000 contacts while every other tier keeps climbing. That may be a deliberate ceiling or a quirk of the selector; either way, confirm it with ActiveCampaign before building a budget on it.
- Landing pages require Plus. Starter sends and automates but does not host pages, which matters if you were planning to run campaigns end to end.
- One user until Pro. Both Starter and Plus are single-seat, so a second marketer means $79 at 1,000 contacts — a fivefold step from the headline.
- Attribution is a Pro feature. Knowing which campaign produced revenue starts at $79, which is worth weighing if proving ROI is part of the job.
Who Should Use ActiveCampaign
- Businesses running genuine behavioural automation. The clearest case, and where the builder outclasses most competitors.
- Ecommerce operators. Deep store integrations plus abandoned-cart and post-purchase flows are a core strength.
- Teams wanting email and CRM together. The built-in CRM removes an integration for smaller sales teams.
- Companies adding WhatsApp to the mix, now a first-class channel rather than an integration.
It fits poorly for simple newsletters, where MailerLite or Kit cost far less; for large lists mailed infrequently, where Brevo’s send-based pricing is structurally cheaper; and for teams needing multiple seats early, since three users requires Pro.
Honest Pros and Cons
Strengths
- The best automation builder in its price range. Conditions, goals, and split tests done properly.
- A real CRM included, not a contact list relabelled.
- Deep ecommerce integrations for cart recovery and post-purchase flows.
- WhatsApp as a native channel rather than a bolt-on.
- A 30-day results guarantee, unusual in the category.
- Transparent contact-based pricing, published across the full list-size range.
Limitations
- Five actions per automation on Starter, which undercuts the reason to buy it.
- Starter’s value collapses as lists grow, and inverts against Plus at 25,000 contacts.
- Single user on Starter and Plus.
- No landing pages below Plus.
- Attribution requires Pro at $79.
- AI limits on Starter and Plus are unstated — “limits apply” without a number.
ActiveCampaign Alternatives and How It Compares
- Mailchimp is better known and easier to start with, but weaker on automation logic at comparable prices.
- Brevo charges by emails sent rather than contacts stored, which is structurally cheaper for large, rarely-mailed lists.
- Klaviyo is the ecommerce specialist, stronger on store data and more expensive as profiles accumulate.
- GetResponse and Omnisend occupy similar ground, the latter ecommerce-focused.
- MailerLite and Kit are the cheaper options for creators and simple sending.
- HubSpot Marketing Hub is the heavier all-in-one, with costs that escalate quickly.
For a broader survey, browse our marketing automation directory.
The Verdict
ActiveCampaign earns its reputation. The automation builder handles branching logic, goals, and conditional content with a fluency that most competitors at this price cannot match, the CRM is genuinely useful rather than nominal, and the ecommerce integrations make cart-recovery and post-purchase flows straightforward. If your marketing depends on what individual contacts do rather than on what you send everyone, it belongs on the shortlist.
Ignore the $15. Starter caps every automation at five actions, and five actions is not an automation — it is a short sequence. Three emails with a wait between each has consumed the allowance before you have added a condition or a goal. Since automation is the entire reason to prefer ActiveCampaign over a cheaper email tool, buying Starter means paying for the product’s reputation while being locked out of the thing that earned it. Plus at $49 is the honest entry price.
Then set the contact selector to your actual list size, because the plan gap behaves strangely as lists grow. At 1,000 contacts Plus costs 3.3 times Starter; at 10,000 it is only 27% more; and at 25,000 the table shows Starter at $391 against Plus at $389 — the entry plan costing more than the tier above it. Starter’s displayed price then holds at $391 while everything else climbs, which is odd enough that it is worth confirming directly with ActiveCampaign rather than planning around. The practical conclusion is unchanged either way: the cheapest plan is only meaningfully cheap on a small list, and on a small list its automation limit is exactly what you cannot afford.
FAQ
How much does ActiveCampaign cost?
Captured in July 2026 in US dollars for Email plans billed annually at 1,000 contacts: Starter $15, Plus $49, Pro $79, and Enterprise $145 per month. Prices rise with contact count — at 10,000 contacts they are $149, $189, $375, and $589. WhatsApp and Email + WhatsApp are separate plan families with their own pricing. A 30-day results guarantee applies.
What is the 5-action limit on ActiveCampaign Starter?
Starter permits five actions per automation, where an action is any step — sending an email, waiting, applying a tag, updating a field, or branching. A three-email welcome sequence with waits between the emails reaches the limit immediately. Every plan from Plus upward includes unlimited automation actions, which is why Plus is the realistic entry point for anyone buying ActiveCampaign for automation rather than for sending.
Why does Starter cost more than Plus at 25,000 contacts?
That is what ActiveCampaign’s own contact selector displays: $391 for Starter against $389 for Plus at 25,000 contacts. Starter’s shown price then remains $391 at 50,000 and 75,000 while the other tiers keep rising. It may be a deliberate ceiling on the entry plan or a quirk in the pricing table, so confirm it before budgeting — but at that list size there is no price argument for Starter over Plus in any case.
How many users does ActiveCampaign include?
Starter and Plus are both single-user plans. Pro includes three users and Enterprise five. That makes Pro the practical entry point for any marketing team rather than a solo operator, and at 1,000 contacts that is $79 per month against the $15 headline — worth establishing before you compare it against competitors that include several seats lower down.
Is ActiveCampaign better than Mailchimp?
For automation, clearly yes — the builder handles branching conditions, goals, and split tests with more depth than Mailchimp offers at comparable prices, and the built-in CRM is a real one. Mailchimp is easier to start with, better known, and has a free tier. Choose ActiveCampaign when behavioural automation drives revenue, and something simpler when you mostly need to send good-looking campaigns to a list.
Compare ActiveCampaign for Marketing with other popular tools in the same category.
it's easy to use and gets the job done for what we need
it's lack of easy tag viewing without opening the flow
for our web design business to help bring back customers
I love the visual layout of the automations which make it easy to know what I'm sending and when and to be able to see the branches. Really functional and easy to use.
It is all great. Thank you so much for asking.
Being able to segment my database effectively, being able to create simple to follow autoresponder messages. CRM and management of potential leads and contacts.
I love that it checks for spam and notifies me of anything that might get my emails flagged.
The setup can take a little bit more time than other email software I have used, but once it is set up everything runs smoothly and I don't have to worry about errors.
I am able to do all my email writing for the week or even a month in advance and schedule it to go out at a later date. This is great for times I know I am going to be busy or when I am in a creative writing mood and can get all my emails written in one afternoon. I have also realized that I don't have errors with ActiveCampaign as I have with other software in the past.
I love how it works to automate emails for my business. I also love how there is always some way to integrate with other apps I use in my business weather it’s directly with the hosting site or through zapier. Also there customer service is pretty good and you typically always reach someone that will help you through your issues
I would say a dislike would be that I wish that there was more options for opt in boxes without having to upgrade. It’s not the biggest problem ever but would be nice to be able to use it without active campaign logo and have more choices
I am able to help streamline upsells so much better through automation and it really helps when I am funneling different marketing strategies I find that even when I don't work on my business the tool works for me
I am very old school when it comes to sales and marketing. I do most by phone and on paper until my marketing friend guru told me about AC. I was blown away by how easy it is to upload a customer list, create a great and powerful and attractive email, and bam, send it out to everyone at the same time. I love it.
Nothing. Really, you all are the pros and I am very happy with the program and the help.
I am solving an ever age old problem of staying in contact with my customers. This program helps me send a precise marketing email to all my customers at the same time- giving me an instant view of who saw it, read it, and then like magic, my phone rings and customer places an order.
I like the automation part. plan and run. thats the key.
segmentation part somethimes its not easy to filter
it solves the problem, that comes of the most systems. they are most of them complicated. but AC its simple and is easy to use.
Easy to use, so many useful tools, easy integration, excellent user support and education.
No downsides that I've seen. I love the product
Active campaign makes it easy for people who are novice to create sophisticated email campaigns and automated nurture campaigns to do the heavy lifting while I'm client facing.
Automations are a real time-saver and allow more things to happen that would be ignored if done manually
No dislikes. Very easy to use and intuitive
We run an online retail shop with a B2B component. Active Campaign allows us to easily target different customer groups with messaging content that is relevant to the user
I love the pages functionality. And I love that AC is continually making improvements.
There's some functionality on Pages that I wish we had that isn't there yet. Also, I send most of our campaigns via automations, and so the system doesn't know which list to unsubscribe people from when they hit unsubscribe. This can get things a bit tangled. I wish there was a more accurate way of knowing who is and isn't opening emails, but I realise that's an "everybody" problem.
Landing Pages has been a game changer for us. It's so easy to chuck together something to promote a one-off product or event. We even use it to customise content for specific clients.
I love how simple and easy-to-use AC is. I have tried out other software and ALWAYS end up back at AC. Oh, another thing I really like is that you get UNLIMITED email sends for your monthly fee. And if you have a lot of subs AND send out a lot of emails, then this becomes a no-brainer.
I'm not the biggest fan of the cost, especially as your list scales. However, if I was making money from my list, that wouldn't be a problem.
Communicating my list regularly.
Everything with the software is clean, in the right place, and makes sense. I don't have to struggle to learn anything or navigate around. This may seem mostly preferential, but really it has a direct impact on my time and saves me loads of hours week to week.
Occasionally my automations will load somewhat slowly, but this makes sense given the amount of content on the pages. But there are no major grievances at all.
Primarily organization and time savings. It seems so obvious that software would work well, but as someone who used to fumble around on email software that was not intuitively designed, I now have a much greater appreciation for the ease of use provided by ActiveCampaign.
The best part of ActiveCampaign is that it grows with me. It was easy to get started when I was brand new with no contacts, and seasy to continue growing with as I start to use more features like automations.
I don't use some of the features. It's great to have so many available, but sometimes I wish things were very simple and there was a plan that only had what i needed.
I have a contact list that I own and that I can use for marketing and building relationships to drive sales. I use automations for client fulfillment.
How easy it is to follow and create campaigns. I also love how helpful customer service is. I'm thrilled about the landing page creation feature! I've been using Ac for 5 months now and received an incentive for writing this honest review.
As easy as it is to use, I'm still getting adjusted to creating email campaigns. I have a virtual assistant who helps me and she has no issues using the platform.
I wanted to start connecting with my email list and promote my Pinterest course and services funnel. We can email frequently and sort things out easily.
I love the data and analytics that come with AC plus their customer support is great
It is a complex platform and can do a lot but once you learn the basics you can build on it
It allows me to automate so I can use my time in other places
ActiveCampaign is easy to use. Customer service is always fast to respond and help. The backend of the program is easy to naviagate and you get access to several features like email campagin and automation stats without apple privacy opens, an easy campaign builder, site tracking on your website, just to name a few.
The native countdown timer function inside of emails doesn't work properly.
Our previous email marketing platform was giving us unreliable data and our emails weren't getting sent. ActiveCampaign worked 1:1 with us to ensure we were set up properly, our emails were sending, and that we could accurately and reliably read the data we were getting back.
The complete reports of our performance, allied with easy-to-use tools and quick support.
The sheer number of tools can be overwhelming for starters, but with time one can better understand where to find what.
Through ActiveCampaign we can reach clients who otherwise would not notice us. The reliability of the platform stands as one of the most important tools to be seen as a serious company with well-intended marketing.
It has various tools to make gaining Leads easier
Sometimes when I need help I get connected to some offshore support team who does not know what i really need
it is a different channel to Social Media Ads
The flow chart, the automation, the simplicity of the landing pages for someone who has no experience, how we can house multiple departments of our organization in one place.
So far we have not found much that is an issue. The only this is that you cannot upload files under an account or person. This makes it hard because you have to connect a drive folder.
Automation is a huge problem solved with Active Campaign. We now have a landing page and can monitor and reply to those interested in a good time frame. Great help to us.
The way the tags integrate to the automation is really helpful.
I really hate that I have to use Zapier to get your system to do what I need. It seems to me that your new AI platform will eventually be able to solve this problem.
For me it really comes down to the sophistication of website tracking, tagging and email marketing. I wish the pipeline part was more flexible.
It’s a great tool that was introduced to me to set up my email marketing and have to say it’s very easy to use the tutorials have also been a great help that they provide you with and I like that there's always helpful tips on how to use the platform and new feature updates.
It can seem overwhelming at first and a bit of an alien fiend for new beginners to the platform. But once you watch the tutorials I'm getting better at navigating my way around
It's solving the neee to do my email marketing as I had not delved into this before and makes it look very professional. I'm able to provide news and offers directly to my clients inboxes now.
For me, the most helpful is the ability to create a newsletter and one-off campaigns without spending hours of my time trying to figure out that everything is working smoothly. I find editing to be easy once I have started and at the last minute I need to change something.
I am still trying to figure out how to have my downloadable opt in gift be part of the workflow.
Keeping in touch with the people who signed up to hear from me through email marketing. To keep my company top of mind.
Easy to use - very intuitive. Mailchimp is a dinosaur - not user friendly at all. AC's support has been very responsive the few times I've needed them.
Not really anything; it did take some getting used to the 'deals' and 'pipelines' terminology and use.
Easy to tag and segment incoming leads so we can better target the different segments.
ActiveCampaign has significantly improved the efficiency of our business processes as well as those of our clients. By streamlining operations and automating tasks, we have been able to save valuable time and resources, ultimately leading to greater cost savings. With ActiveCampaign, we have experienced a noticeable increase in productivity and effectiveness, allowing us to focus on delivering exceptional value to our customers.
ActiveCampaign can be a little slow to load sometimes, mainly the automation screens can take a little time to respond.
ActiveCampaign takes manual outreach tasks and makes it quick and easy by enabling us to automate the process in a way that feels natural to the recipient. We can easily run A/B tests and optimise our campaigns.
The ease of use is the best. Taking the time to set your messaging up is quick and simple.
There is nothing to dislike about the system.
ActiveCampaign solves my time limit problem. Only so many hours in a day, and I'm able to respond and communicate with all of my contacts effortlessly.
Active Campaign's email marketing system allows me to use one email to target multiple different target markets but using conditions uniquely. This saves me sooo much time, as I use Active Campaign multiple times a week. Although, since it has been updated I'm having trouble adding multiple sets of conditions in one email.
I wish your videos could play directly within the email rather than outsourcing to a different link.
saves me time, and allows me to hit multiple target markets in one email by using the conditions feature
It's intuitive. I had to migrate our list from Mailchimp to AC and it was a simple process. Customer support is quick and I have an opportunity to zoom with a specialist should I need it. I use AC on a daily baisis for all email marketing. The email builder is robust for what we need. We do use Salesforce for our CRM and it does integrate pretty well from what our Tech team tells me. I am also grateful for the suggestion/ideas option that we can share with the AC engineers.
I wish the reporting was more robust for example I do need spam complaints becasue helps me determine deliverablity and email repuation. But I have to go to each email and find the spam count; it doesn't populate on the Campaign Performance report. I also understand that not everyone needs this metric. I also wish the forms were more robust. Our email preferences form had to either be built by a devloper or we had to use gravity forms becasue forms don't come with toggle buttons or radio buttons. The overall look of the form doesn't provide much in the way of design.
The main reason we moved from MailChimp to AC is for the automation technology. Automations help create trust, build brand, and I belive in the long run will increase the longevity of a donor.
The dashboard for users is very intuitive, and the pre-made templates for both email marketing and automations are incredibly helpful. On top of this, the customer support is fabulous. I have used the chat feature in the site multiple times and have not been disappointed. The fact that I can create landing pages and forms for my website and have them integrate seamlessly with ActiveCampaign is huge, as it eliminates the need to hire extra people to take care of our email marketing needs.
There is a small learning curve when it comes to using ActiveCampaign, but the onboarding tutorials are fantastic.
The main problem solving feature is streamlining the process so that a funnel is created to target the right clients without extra cost or effort.
How easy it is to do what you need to and the dashboards are very easy to navigate.
The automations are slightly confusing and it would be great to get more tips on how to better set these up so they work.
To send out mass emails to our clients
I like the fact that we can connect active campaigns to our CRM, and it allows us to send emails depending on our client's journey.
Sometimes, creating segments can be a bit tedious.
It is allowing to send emails to clients in realtime when they need our service
ActiveCampaign is so powerful, and if used well it can save you lots of time, admin and headaches. It integrates really well with a lot of other systems.
The cost of ActiveCampaign is the #1 reason some of my clients do not use it.
It is helping us be more organised in the onboarding of new and potential clients. This makes us look more professional, warms up our leads and gives us peace of mind that all the key information is being given to the clients everytime.
