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.
Easy to handle, easy to master. The plattform is great for beginners and also advanced E-Mail-Marketeers.
Sometimes the performance could be better, specially within the automations.
To comunicate easy with your customers and shar.e informations with them
I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign a little more than 6 months ago, and as a small business owner I find AC so much more intuitive to use. They've got more features than I could possibly have time to try out, and their customer service is amazing!
This isn't Active Campaign's fault, but because the "vocabulary" of what things are called doesn't come easy to me, I sometimes have a hard time finding what I'm looking for in their side menu. There are lots of options under lots of different headings, and I often just find things by trial and error.
ActiveCampaign is letting me store and categorize all of my contacts into different segments, and then letting me communicate with particular segments with as much automation as I want. I'm also using AC to build landing pages and forms that go onto my website.
I love how easy it is to create emails on this campaign! Everything is so streamlined. And every time that I've needed assistance, the support has been SO great. Love this company!
I can't really think of anything to change about this company. I do wish that the services were less expensive, but the investment is worth it because the product is great.
ActiveCampaign makes it easier to send emails, especially if you have a small team. I love that my emails don't land in spam. And the interface is easy to use! Woo.
Active campaign allows us to easily track our sales enquiries and contact them efficiently.
Nothing. We love it and look forward to continuing to use it.
Streamlining our sales process. Active campaign has been really helpful in automating this for us.
Automationen sind leichte und schnell zu erstellen. Die grafische Übersicht hilft sehr dabei, den Überblick zu behalten und den Ablauf klar nachzuvollziehen. Die Verwaltung der Kontakte und deren Aktivitäten ist ebenfalls super nachvollziehbar.
Zu Beginn was die Einarbeitung in Active Campaign ein wenig herausfordernd. Zuverstehen, was Kampaignen sind und wie man diese richtig Anlegt und auch Nachverfolgt könnte noch leichter und verständlicher gemacht werden.
Ich behalte den Überblick über all meine E-Mail-Kontakte und kann diese einfahc und auch über Automationen gezielt ansprechen und die Reakltionen auf die Mails nachvollziehen.
The ease of use. Intuitiveness. And if you can't logically figure it out, there are TONS of articles, resources, references, etc. with fantastic screenshots and resources to help you easily navigate the system.
Because there are so many features, you don't know what you don't know. There are probably 10 different ways to get to the same endpoint and while I appreciate the flexibility, I want to know the fastest, easiest, most simplified way to build out my email list without having tons of automations, sublists, tags, etc. It just feels . . . messy sometimes.
Emailing my list information from deatils on my podcasts, to webinar alerts, to sales emails, to lead magnets, etc. I love the ease of integration and if there isn't an integration Zapier will figure it out and integrate that way. I like that I can create an automation and forget about it, I know it's working, I know it's moving forward, and I don't have to stress about it. It's like my own assistant.
My coaching business is able to track leads
I would like for there to be a mobile app
Tracking leads, sending messages and text messages are amazing.
I like the segmentation and the reporting. It has really helped us shape our marketing and is contributing to keeping in touch and making new sales.
Nothing is disliked and now I'm trying to say nothing in more words.
Giving the right info to the right people.
The CRM feature is the most useful for me, paired with email it provides a way to fully automate the customer experience & drive our Sales team.
The interface is a little bit outdated and sometimes can be slow.
Activecampaign has allowed me to fully automate the Sales & onboarding process, and turn leads into customers.
Live chat has been KEY to answering any questions I may have. The design tool is very intuitive. Their customer service is fantastic. Automations are so easy to create and I love the forms and site tools.
Really, I'm totally satisfied. Yeh, there may be a few minor annoyances like we find with any software platform ... but nothing even comes to mind upon saying that.
Lead generation - seeing an increase just by implementing integrated forms. Reducing the number of unsubscribes from the entire system, instead, I can control the kind of content my patrons wish to see without totally losing them. Thanks to their help in list design. Message design is faster than my previous solution.
Easy automation, cheap rates, slack integration
Multiple clicks to get into email part of the campaign could be done easier.
Client Nurturing
It's extremely easy to manage my campaigns and ensure I'm minimizing spam points.
It's not a downside at all but it's so robust that it can be challenging to master as a beginner.
It automates my sending by making it easy to reach my customers in a variety of ways. This benefits me by enabling me to compare performance across campaigns and campaign objectives.
ActiveCampaign has been a great tool not only for my business but for many of my clients as well. You can also make some decent commissions from referring new subscribers!
I find sometimes the program glitches when I change the colour of a link. It will save as pink for example, but when it sends it appears white to my subscribers.
They are helping me with the link issue above.
My favorite feature of ActiveCampaign is the mapping that you are given when creating an outreach email chain or overall sequence. This makes the process so much more simple and understandable!
Currently, the user interface/ terms used for each feature with ActiveCampaign are difficult for new users. I wish everything could be set up to be viewable on one page rather than spilt between three.
ActiveCampaign assists me with solving my cold outreach program. It continuously helps me with creating new chains, importing old contacts, and identifying who each audience is.
ActiveCampaign has not only an amazing team of customer service reps but their system is built extremely easy to use and flexible for a huge amount of data. Their advanced automations are right on point!
Would love to have deeper folders on media objects.
They are helping us solve using a home grown email system built with limited flexibility. It allows better operating and cost efficiencies, increased productivity and slowness of advanced templates.
The consulting services crew have been a godsend! They are flexible and are eager to provide best practice tips for all types of use cases like ours.
Not sure that we have found any problems or negative features of the service.
AC is providing us with core auto-responder capabilities.
The depth of options to create automations. The ability to really create automations to do what you want. Also like having a built in CRM so I don't have to use another platform for my CRM. Good value.
It does take time to figure out how to use it all and although your training is good, it took me a long time to find your training. I would also like the forms to be a bit more robust with more options. I find them too limited for anything other than I simple sign up form. I also don't know why it takes the reports SO LONG to load. It is like being on an old dial up modem.
Having enough detailed automations to run my business and being able to look at lead and client info in detail to make decisions on how to improve my business.
Even if a bit more expensive than their competitors I belive that Active campaign is why better, specially on the automation standpoint. It also ha a lot of different "pre-made" automation that you could use
Active campaing is a bit pricier than their competitors, but it makes it up with all the costumer care they have. I probably just use 20% of its full potential, but that is more on me than on them...
It is helping me a lot to sell more on my e-commerce, compared to other similar servicies it is way easier to connect with my woocommerce (I also use other 2 different services) and this one is better also on a deliverability stand point
ActiveCampaign allows me to keep an organized master list of my customers, and email them on a regular basis when I need to book additional customers or run special promotions.
While the email blasts are super beneficial and profitable, I don't understand how to setup fully automated campaigns and what to say in a fully automated email sequence to move customers forward.
Solving the problem of retaining customers and remarketing to them, which allows me to generate additional revenue on the fly when it's needed in my business by sending mass emails.
It's great to be able to automatize the customer journey with one single software. ActiveCampaign fits all our needs and i like customer support as well as onboarding team.
It's very expensive .. by the way it's worth it. The customer support is not available in my country so i always need to write in English, which is kinda hard for me
We are automatizing our customer experience journey
Being able to set up automatic emails! I went through and had to do the manual work 1 time and now it's all automatic.
I'm not a very creative person, so maybe having someone from the company reach out to help with designs and things like that would be nice.
It saves me so much time not having to send the same emails over and over again to prospective clients.
Although, ActiveCampaign has many excellent features, the one I like and have my clients utilize the most is their LeadScoring System. It's the best way to track potential buyers.
It was running a bit slow, but it picked up speed as soon as I cleared my cache.
It helps me track who is the most interested in services.
ActiveCampaign is easy to use. My emails get through. Particularly to the folks who still use yahoo and aol. With my previous email provider, deliverability to those email addresses was a problem. I have not had a problem with ActiveCampaign. The software has way more features than I currently use. I probably need a tutorial. They also have good customer service, as I've needed help when it was time to upgrade my account.
They don't notify when you hit the email threshhold for your tier. For example, I crossed the 1,000 email subscriber mark and all my automations shut down and I couldn't send an email out. The only reason I knew this had happened is because I logged in and discovered I couldn't send email. If for whatever I hadn't logged in, who knows when I would've learned of the problem.
ActiveCampaign is helping me stay in daily contact with my growing email subscriber base. I am able to send a quick campaign. The automation I use was built for me. So, I don't know how to build that and will probably need to hire someone to build one for the future. But I like its ease of use and only wish I was more tech savvy with it so I can could take advantage of all the bells and whistles it offers.
AC is so easy to use - it's very user-friendly and intuitive. It's easy to set up funnels, emails, store all our contact details and keep our pipeline up to date
The only downside is that I can't share a link to my newsletter via email/social media to make it easier for more people to read it
Make it easier to get my job done in less time by providing user-friendly tech
The most I like about Active Campaign customer service, because they have a Spanish speaking Team. Also, I love how Active Campaign can easily integrate with other platform, such like Facebook and WordPress.
The only thing a dislike about Active Campaign, it's that the form builder don't have many modern customizable option so the form looks modern, minimalist and chic. But it's something esthetic, so it's no a big issue.
My email marketing work flow, really gets better and better. The segmentation help me to have conversations with my leads towards their interests and needs, thats helps me to covert better.
I like the advanced marketing and sales features and integrations, as well as quick and friendly support. Plus, Active Campaign is a powerhouse email marketing tool.
Reporting is not as user-friendly and it is very basic. The email builder could be done better and offer more capabilities in terms of functionalities and graphic design.
Thanks to Active Campaign we can build up landing pages with forms, collect leads and send them into the right automation. Plus, we can also automatically create deals and assign them to our sales rep. All this is fully automated, so we save time and reduce errors.
The marketing automation is mature. The CRM has all the essentials.
The web interface needs a little upgrade, but they regularly improve the app
I tried a lot of CRM. Some good, some bad. Sometimes, it's too much sales focused and lacking marketing functions. ActiveCampaign is the best fit
I have found ActiveCampaign very easy to use
I haven't found anything I don't like about it so far
Integration with our CRM has made communication with our customers easier.
Active Campaign gives me and my clients the ability to have robust automation, beautiful emails, deliverability, a full crm, and amazing support for the price of the emailing companies that provide way less of all those things. For a small business owner Active Campaign is a game-changer for combatting overwhelm in your business.
With every software there are challenges, but AC handles them as quickly as possible.
Automation of communication, sales, funnels, and integration with websites for a more cohesive business model. This saves on stress and allows the customers to focus on sales.
The user interface is clean, crisp and easy to learn. I've used a lot of other systems that take weeks and special knowledge to figure out. I should have switched to ActviveCampaign a long time ago!
I ran into an issue while setting up external user access to my account and had some difficulties resetting two-factor authentication when I first began using ActiveCampaign. I was able to resolve my issue pretty quickly, however.
In my opinion, ActiveCampaign is a better email solution than ClickFunnels' email integration. With everything set up, my campaigns run on autopilot! A huge win for my productivity!
