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.
ActiveCampaign gives us the automation we need to streamline our email marketing processes and grow our email lists. It is user-friendly and easy to set up forms, email sequences, chatbots and landing pages all at a very affordable price.
There really isn't much that we dislike about ActiveCampaign.
ActiveCampaign helps us as a CRM as well as nurturing leads and prospects through automated email sequences and campaigns.
I really love Active Campaign. Easy to use, and I also trust the service.
Sometimes we face some bugs on the steps to sent the email.
I can connect better with all my clients and sell my products.
Functionality and ease of use, switched over from Mailchimp for this.
cost more than mailchimp but it's a better product
email marketing, housing tagging for all our leads
I find it most helpful that there are many tools to use on the platform and that most (if not all) of the emails actually go into the inbox rather than spam.
I haven't found anything I dislike at the moment.
ActiveCampaign sends me many tools I can work with to create efficient emails. This has helped me come up with new ideas to keep my customers engaged.
I love how I can set up and create emails for my clients that reach them with important information and it is all automated
There is a learning curve to how the workflow is set up. You need to have a good amount of tech understanding
It is solving the time it takes to market and reach all my customers
I love how Active Campaign, in its workflow, is set up to help you think of your audience first.
The lack of creativity (the number of fonts available is very low) on the eblast editor, and how you can't embed video to eblasts.
For a reasonable price AC is helping us think orrganizationally and strategically about our audience during our eblasts.
The ease and ability to import and manage contacts, the smart approach to campaign creation, it's made our communication strategy so much easier to implement.
We haven't found anything lacking so far, no complaints from us!
Direct access to our existing members, super simple contact management and really easy automations
easy to use, easy to use, easy to use. Thank you!
nothing really. Easy to use and understand
it's not solving any problems. it's an email solution.
We love that ActiveCampaign not only allows us to create engaging emails, but you can do so much more! We also really love the tracking and it's been really helpful to see where our customers are in the process and where they are engaging with us.
Getting started was a little daunting and I am definitely still learning, but there is so much support like training videos and online documents that it's easy to overcome.
ActiveCampaign is helping us reach our customers faster. They get an automatic email everytime they sign up through one of our forms. It's easier to get people scheduled for their trial and convert them into paying customers.
I love that ActiveCampaign is easy and intuitive to use, especially compared to competitors. I've used Infusionsoft (and Keap), Hubspot, Mailchimp, and others, both for myself and for clients of mine, and I always return to ActiveCampaign and convert my clients to ActiveCampaign. I've even made a tutorial on integrating ActiveCampaign in Bubble.io to make it easier for my clients to make the switch.
Am I allowed to say using it? lol I love ActiveCampaign, but I hate marketing... But to use ActiveCampaign to its fullest, you have to actually sit and write to your email list... but at least the software makes it easy... now if they could just make me do it on time.
It solves the problem of sending emails to my email list in total, and also in pre-defined sequences. It also acts as storage for my email list, and it takes care of the status of each email address so I don't have to worry about emailing people who don't want to hear from me anymore.
I like the automations in ActiveCampaign. I've built several successful e-mail funnels, and it gives me a lot of free time that I can spend on creating and improving my products or doing other stuff. It's much more effective for selling if compared to social media, e.g.
It's bit pricey. And sometimes not super-easy to understand all the different features and how to build sophisticated automations. On the other hand they have great onboarding webinars and other helpful resources that really do their job.
Effective communication with my future (and present) customers. Write once, and it works forever. Time saver.
The facilita for automate mailing campaings
A lot of verification steps for me or the team with we work
I fontana know... nothing on this time
I like that ActiveCampaign is such an incredible software with so many tools to help the customer experience go way much better with the implementation of marketing tactics that adjust to very public. I like the email template builder because it offers so much versatility and helps me create different templates that feel very on-brand. Additionally, I think that the analytics that this software provides is very profound and helps really dig in on what's going on and how our email marketing is doing in terms of visibility ad engagement. It is a great software to automate the email campaign process.
For ActiveCampaign, I feel like there is a tough learning curve in order to start using the software. It is a bit complicated and overwhelming because there are many features to start with, so it takes time to really feel comfortable while using it. I think it would be good to add more guides to help the implementation go smoother and faster.
For us, we have been able to see great results and improvement very quickly; our communication with customers and sending out email campaigns have improved so much, we now have total control over our analytics, and we are able to study them deeply and make the right decisions based on that. We are able to save so much time thanks to the automated tasks, which was our main issue as we spent a lot of time in the creation and delivery of the campaigns.
The variety of tools that provides our whole team in being successful.
The difficulty of reaching someone when there is a technological issue.
Being able to consistently reach put to our customers, resulting in a better return rate.
The automations are easy to use and help with not only sales but seamless client experiences.
The new editor seems to have some issues with the formatting of emails. It took almost a month to fix the design of an email after I worked with the online chat support, who could not figure it out.
ActiveCampaign is an alternative marketing platform to social media. It allows me to have full control over the platform and have a more personal reach to my subscribers with segmenting based on their actions and interests.
The logic trees you can create based on a customer's interactions with your products or emails is wonderful. If a customer purchases a product part of the way through your campaign you can easily remove them from the campaign. This feature was lacking in my previous email provider.
Modifying the various emails you have associated with an automation can be a bit cumbersome. Especially since you have to select the type of email before you can select which email you would like to either reuse or duplicate. It's not a huge blocker, but it has definitely been a hurdle that you will run into multiple times when building out campaigns.
All of my customer access controls are dependant on ActiveCampaign, and it works wonderfully with tools like Memberium. Being able to see when someone was subscribed to any given campaign and even the emails they have received has made technical support for customers a breeze, because I can tell whether or not the email was sent and if it's likely to be in my customer's spam folder. Nine times out of ten, the complaint of "I never received the email" can be quickly resolved by looking at the user profile.
Like the fact that it's priced based on audience and not on email sends like the others we looked at. The ease of use is amazing, and there are so many features.
I haven't found any parts of the software that I dislike yet. So far, it is so easy to use and user-friendly that it's tough to find a downside.
ActiveCampaign is solving an issue of our past two ESPs both charging by email send. As we got more sophisticated with our emails and automations it cost us more to do business. Moving to ActiveCampaign made it so much easier to move our business forward.
It is a great hub to do many of our essential marketing and keep it all organized for ease of use for our team, such as tracking new leads and the many automations we can set up to save time.
It can become a little overwhelming at times. However, that is to be expected with a program that can do so much. The form builder does need some work - it isn't very user friendly.
It is helping our team to be able to accomplish more in less time. We can offer our customers more, communicate better and stay organized all while doing so.
The user interface is user-friendly; I can shortly create broadcast emails. In addition, I can see the results thanks to the well-designed dashboard. I highly recommend ActiveCampaign to share content and commercial offers with your audience online.
I haven't experienced anything that could make me dislike ActiveCampaign.
ActiveCampaign helps me get in touch with my audience on a personal scale. It allows me to collect feedback from my prospects and customers.
Il sistema di creazione dei funnel di email marketing, con possibilità di creazione di CRM che ti aiutano alla vendita di vari prodotti, penso che sia vermanete il migliore in circolazione.
ActiveCampaing ha poche che svantagiose, trovo che tutti i prodotti offerti dalla piattaforma abbiamo una proprio utilità, unica cosa che effettivamente non mi piace è la difficoltà nell'allestire il proprio funnel di vendita, è poco intuitivo
I problemi principali che mi sta risolvendo sono le email di recupero carrello, il sistema è ben strutturato, grazie alla quale dopo 4 invi riesco a regalare un codice coupon all'utente così da assicurarmi al 100% di concludere la vendita
ActiveCampaign automates workflow via live drag and drop email editor when campaigning.
ActiveCampaign ain't SEO friendly but we integrated with Squarespace which advanced capabilities.
Email marketing optimization. Sending outbound emails.
It's easy to use and quite intuitive. Support is also excellent and fast. The guided steps to create campaigns and automations are of great help.
Reports are not the best. Some are a bit primitive in my view or are just not there. This needs improving soon.
ActiveCampaign helps me keep in touch with my subscribers in a way I don't have to be there all the time. Automations are a great thing!
The automation of the platform, and the user navigation makes it easy to find the things that I need, as well as set up the emails for future date sand times to allow more flexibility
There is not much that I would say I would change about active campaign; I really have not had any significant issues with this platform, all good reviews from myself
The active campaign allows up to touch our clients with emails and then access the data given to us to move forward most beneficially. We always have good data to rely on.
Functionality, ease of use, automation ability, price, education, and customer support.
Designing templates can be frustrating; maybe that's user knowledge. Reporting could be better.
Automation saves so much time and creates clean lists, forms help with lead gen
Automation ease of use. Good statistic tracking. Easy design and saving of templates to use again.
Well, it could be cheaper, but it is not too bad. I would like if text to subscribe were available in cheaper pricing instead of only the higher ones, or maybe I am mistaken about that being the case. I don't know. Sometimes the platform takes a short period of time to load, which could be a little better, but it is normally decent.
Good crm and helps to have the automation. I was using mailchimp for free, but the free version didn't have automation. Their pricing was a little higher for paid version and didn't have as good deliverability as active campaign.
I appreciate that it has a cheap plan when you're starting out and learning the ropes. It also has one of the most powerful automation tools for email marketing.
The user interface is a bit complicated at first, and the right menu isn't the most intuitive. I'd appreciate if I could filter information in the starting screen for a specific mailing list, instead of showing the global data.
So far, I haven't found any problem that needed to be solved, all things considered. I'd appreciate if the plataform had more options and support for Spanish, which is my native language.
I don't have to log in regularly to check updates. Everyone seems to work fine after it has been set up.
Probably the price is a bit steep for a small org. But that's just the cost of doing business.
For us, reaching out to customers and following up on those who have already ordered from us.
After bringing in other individuals into my business, I can still ensure that my own message and branding comes across by using the automations and tags.
Nothing. Active campaign has given me everything that I need for my business
Active campaign has ensured that all new sales/leads enquiries are being dealt with and ar in contact - ensuring that our ad spend is not going to waste,
Customer Service & Onboarding. The collective customer success team of ActiveCampaign has had an answer for every question that I asked. Not only an answer, but quickly too!
My biggest frustration is the occasional lag in the product when enter data or updating fields.
Easy automation for new signups, easy tagging, segmenting, and list creation. Also easy landing pages.
ich mag die intelligente art mit Mails meine verkäufe zu steigern. Ich bin mit der art und weisse der Auswertungen auch sehr zufrieden. Ich kann genau beobachten für was sich meine Kunden Interessieren und kann so ein gezieltes Marketing betreiben.
Tatsächlich den Preis. ich weiß das gute technik seinen Preis hat, aber es ist für eine kleinunternehmerin wie mich auch viel Geld. Dieses Marketinginstrument habe ich nur ein wenig finanziell unterschätzt.
Das ich gezielt das raus bekomme, was meine Kunden interessiert und was ich ihnen dann anbieten kann. Man fisc ht nicht im trüben, sozusagen. Das ist wahsninnnig Hilfreich
