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ActiveCampaign Pricing and Comparison with Other Alternatives

ActiveCampaign is undoubtedly one of the most popular CRM automation platforms. But even the most popular ones have their own drawbacks.

ActiveCampaign is no exception.

What do we mean by this?

ActiveCampaign is not the best solution for small businesses. In fact, ActiveCampaign pricing is priced deceptively low to lure users, and then shoots up as the number of contacts increases.

This blog aims to dig deeper and break down the pricing to help you understand why you are better off with a more affordable alternative. Then, we’ll list out three of the best ActiveCampaign alternatives.

Happy reading!

ActiveCampaign Pricing: What Do I Get?

If you decide to become a subscriber, you can choose among four ActiveCampaign plans at different costs. These are the Lite, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise plans.

Here’s an overview of ActiveCampaign costs for each of the four plans:ActiveCampaign pricing

ActiveCampaign Lite Plan

First is the Lite plan, which includes the following features:

  • Lite implementation
  • Data migration
  • Managed email delivery
  • Email-based support with live chat
  • Webhooks and API
  • Integrations
  • Social media tools
  • Event and site tracking
  • Auto-importing
  • Basic subscriptions
  • Unlimited email sending
  • GEO tracking
  • Optional paid email testing
  • Reporting
  • Autoresponders
  • Contact importing
  • Optional paid social data
  • Email designer (drag and drop)
  • 3 users
  • Marketing automation
  • Email marketing
  • Newsletter sending

ActiveCampaign pricing for any of its four plans varies based on how many contacts you have. Here’s an overview of the Lite plan pricing by the number of contacts:

  • $9 a month for 500 contacts
  • $29 a month for 1,000 contacts
  • $49 a month for 2,500 contacts
  • $79 a month for 5,000 contacts
  • $139 a month for 10,000 contacts
  • $229 a month for 25,000 contacts
  • $339 a month for 50,000 contacts
  • $449 a month for 75,000 contacts
  • $549 a month for 100,000 contacts

Note: Pricing mentioned above is for annual plans. Monthly pricing costs more. 

Read also: 5 of the Best ActiveCampaign Alternatives (Features, Pricing)

ActiveCampaign Plus Plan

Next is the Plus plan, the second tier of ActiveCampaign pricing. Your subscription earns you everything in the Plus plan, as well as these features:

  • Automation strategy consultation
  • Detailed onboarding consultation
  • Basic free custom email designs
  • One month of one-on-one training
  • No ActiveCampaign logos on forms
  • SMS subscriptions
  • Database syncing
  • Facebook Custom Audience integration
  • More advanced subscription forms
  • SMS sending
  • 5 free inbox previews a month for email testing, then paid after
  • SMS subscriptions
  • Custom user permissions
  • 25 users
  • Conditional content
  • Lead and contact scoring
  • Sales automation
  • CRM
  • Automations mapping
  • Landing pages

Going back to the sliding scale of ActiveCampaign pricing by your number of contacts, here’s what you’d pay for the Plus plan:

  • $49 a month for 500 contacts
  • $49 a month for 1,000 contacts
  • $99 a month for 2,500 contacts
  • $149 a month for 5,000 contacts
  • $229 a month for 10,000 contacts
  • $379 a month for 25,000 contacts
  • Custom pricing for 50,000 contacts and more

Note: Pricing mentioned above is for annual plans. Monthly pricing costs more. 

Read also: ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp vs EngageBay For Email Marketing: — The Winner?

ActiveCampaign Professional Plan

The third pricing plan available to you if you use ActiveCampaign is the Professional plan. This adds even more features, including what you’d get in the Lite and Plus plans, as well as:

  • Pro implementation
  • 3 months of one-on-one training
  • 50 users
  • Predictive sending
  • Attribution
  • Site messages
  • Split automations

Let’s take a closer look at the Professional plan pricing based on the number of contacts you have:

  • $149 a month for 500 contacts
  • $149 a month for 1,000 contacts
  • $149 a month for 2,500 contacts
  • $209 a month for 5,000 contacts
  • $339 a month for 10,000 contacts
  • $549 a month for 25,000 contacts
  • Custom pricing for 50,000 contacts and over

Note: Pricing mentioned above is for annual plans. Monthly pricing costs more. 

Read also: ActiveCampaign vs. GetResponse vs. EngageBay: Which is the Best CRM?

ActiveCampaign Enterprise Plan

The most encompassing plan ActiveCampaign offers is undoubtedly the Enterprise plan. Every feature above is included. Here’s what else your money gets you at this level of ActiveCampaign pricing:

  • Custom implementation
  • Uptime SLA
  • Reputation monitoring and personalized message deliverability
  • Expedited support via email, live chat, and phone
  • A dedicated account representative
  • Custom marketing strategy and updates every quarter
  • Phone support
  • Premium custom email design and a waiver of your $395 fee
  • Unlimited one-on-one training
  • Custom SMS phone number
  • Custom email server domain
  • Custom app CSS and HTML
  • Custom app URL
  • Compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
  • Unlimited email testing
  • Unlimited users

ActiveCampaign’s Enterprise plan is custom-priced. You need to talk to sales to get a quote.

Read also: ActiveCampaign Pricing and Comparison with Other Alternatives

Is ActiveCampaign the Right Marketing Automation Solution for You?

ActiveCampaign email marketing software

ActiveCampaign lets you create and send email newsletters to your subscribers to keep them engaged and eager to open your next emails. You can select from a variety of templates for creating newsletters. These templates may be more text-based or image-based, depending on your company’s preferences.

According to ActiveCampaign, you can work with 10 different newsletter templates for 10 email types. You can also automate your newsletters, selecting when they get sent out, and to whom.

All that said, is ActiveCampaign’s newsletter service ideal for your small business or startup? Well, for companies on a budget, you can send newsletters as part of the Lite plan. You can also use ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation services in this first pricing plan.

Do keep in mind that at this tier, you’d have to pay to test your emails.

ActiveCampaign’s automation is quite renowned, and with their included CRM, you can take your marketing campaigns and newsletters further. Remember though that you can’t access the CRM features until you at least upgrade to the Plus plan.

If you don’t need a lot of automation at this stage of your business, then the newsletter and automation services through ActiveCampaign likely won’t suit you. You can create simple email sequences with other software that we’ll discuss later, and often by paying less.

Also, ActiveCampaign is considered an advanced marketing solution, be that for their newsletters and other areas of marketing and sales. If you’re looking for an easy-to-use software, this isn’t it.

Read also: ActiveCampaign vs. HubSpot vs. EngageBay – Which CRM Is Best?

The Downsides of ActiveCampaign

Are you still on the fence about whether ActiveCampaign could benefit your small business or startup? Here are some ActiveCampaign downsides you’ll want to give some serious consideration to before you proceed.

Short Trial

Before you commit to any software, we always recommend downloading the software on a trial basis first. During this crucial time, you should play around with all the features, even those your company usually wouldn’t bother with.

Many sales and marketing solutions give you ample time to get a feel for their software, about a month. That’s not so with ActiveCampaign. You only get 14 days to explore the software in full.

Given how expansive ActiveCampaign’s software is, this might not be enough time for you to truly learn the ins and outs.

No Free Plan

If the trial is short, then at least you could rely on a free plan to play around with the most basic features. That’s what some sales and marketing solutions offer, but again, you won’t find this with ActiveCampaign.

You’re forced into paying for any plan, even the Lite plan. Granted, this isn’t super expensive if you stick to a minimal number of contacts, but there are other problems with ActiveCampaign pricing. We’ll discuss these momentarily.

Not having a free plan is a glaring issue for a few reasons. As we discussed, if you want to use ActiveCampaign for longer than a trial basis but without paying, you can’t. If your company is on a budget­­ – which is common for small businesses and startups ­– you might be reticent to sign up for ActiveCampaign because you’d have to fork over a lot of your hard-earned money.

Hard for Beginners to Grasp

hard-beginner

We’re not the only ones to say this: ActiveCampaign is not super beginner-friendly.

For example, ActiveCampaign lets you write your own code with their custom app feature as part of the Enterprise plan. You can use HTML and CSS to create an app that’s truly yours.

This sounds great, and if you’re talented at coding languages, then you’ll be grateful for this feature. If you’re not so savvy at coding, then this feature has a very steep learning curve, even too steep. You’ll almost never touch the feature even though you’re paying for it every month.

Even outside of that, some users have experienced difficulties with aspects of the software that shouldn’t be super hard. Placing radio buttons and text boxes are two such issues that even someone moderately okay at tech should be able to figure out. Yet, with ActiveCampaign, the software has a higher degree of difficulty than average.

Again, for some users (especially tech-savvy ones), this might not be such a big deal. For others, it could be a dealbreaker or darn close to it.

Expensive Pricing Tiers

expensive

Upon first glance at ActiveCampaign’s pricing plan, their service looks inexpensive. However, it’s only for 500 contacts that you’re paying to the tune of $9 to $229 a month. As you recall, that’s for an annual plan too; all plans cost more if you’re billed by the month.

At 1,000 contacts, your bill jumps to between $25 and $229 a month. You won’t pay less than $75 a month once your company grows to 5,000 contacts, and the Enterprise plan at that point costs $359 a month. That’s more than likely well outside of the budget of most startups and small businesses.

Read also: Find Your Perfect CRM Match: HubSpot vs ActiveCampaign

No CMS for the Lite Plan

ActiveCampaign gets a lot of acclaim for its CMS, but you’re shut out from the service if you subscribe to the Lite plan. The built-in CRM only becomes available to you once you commit to the Plus plan.

Going without a CRM is not recommended, even in your company’s early days. Your options then are to either pay for the Plus plan or to buy a separate CRM. Both choices are expensive.

When charged annually, the Plus plan costs $49 a month for 500 contacts, $99 a month for 2,500 contacts, $135 a month for 5,000 contacts, and $199 a month for 10,000 contacts. In other words, it gets pricy fast for startups on a budget.

Limited Users for Lower Pricing Plans

Even if you didn’t need ActiveCampaign’s CRM and thus decided to buy the Lite plan, you get so few users that this pricing tier almost isn’t an option for many companies. With support for 3 users, you’re capped pretty low.

Small businesses and startups likely need more users than that, or they soon will. The Plus plan increases your user count to 25 people, which is better, at least for a company of your size. Again though, with the extra users comes the higher fees of the Plus plan.

Read also: Is HubSpot Worth It? An In-depth HubSpot Review for Small Businesses

User reviews of ActiveCampaign

Let’s check out some of the issues faced by ActiveCampaign users. In their own words:

ActiveCampaign user review ActiveCampaign user review ActiveCampaign user review

What Are the Alternatives to ActiveCampaign?

If ActiveCampaign pricing exceeds your budget as a startup or small business, you’re not out of options. The following solutions are viable ActiveCampaign alternatives that may fit your company’s needs even better.

EngageBay

ActiveCampaign alternative: EngageBay

Your first option is EngageBay, an all-in-one sales and marketing solution with CRM. Created as an affordable alternative to today’s more costly software, EngageBay is for small businesses and startups alike.

You don’t have to pay a single cent to use EngageBay’s CRM, already making this service more cost-effective than ActiveCampaign.

In EngageBay’s All-in-One Suite, you get these features:

  • CRM (available for free)
  • Landing pages
  • Ticketing
  • Email marketing
  • Views
  • Contact management
  • Live chat (also available for free)
  • Email sequences
  • Macros
  • Web forms
  • SLAs
  • Landing pages
  • Marketing automation

The Marketing Suite will help you harness your marketing potential with the following features:

  • Bulk SMS marketing
  • SMS marketing
  • Email templates
  • Contact segmentation
  • Push notifications
  • Email marketing automation
  • Site messaging
  • Inbound marketing automation

Don’t forget the sales! Here’s what you’ll find in EngageBay’s CRM & Sales Bay:

  • Deal management
  • Sales tools
  • Employee management
  • Sales CRM (available for free)
  • CRM email integration
  • Lead management
  • Contact management
  • CRM Telephony
  • Appointment scheduling
  • Project management
  • Lead scoring
  • 360-degree customer views

Finally, in the Service Bay, you have these handy features:

  • Reports
  • Custom tickets
  • Canned responses
  • Service automation
  • Helpdesk reports

EngageBay Pricing

engagebay pricing
EngageBay is among the most affordable CRM tools

Pricing for the all-in-one plan is as follows:

  • Free: $0 for 500 contacts
  • Basic: $14.99 for 1,000 contacts
  • Growth: $49.99 for 10,000 contacts
  • Pro: $99.99 for unlimited contacts

EngageBay also offers a 10% discount on annual plans and a 20% discount on biennial plans.

 

The ultimate comparison of EngageBay with ActiveCampaign

Drip

ActiveCampaign alternative: Drip

Another ActiveCampaign alternative to consider is Drip. Their company offers optimization, engagement, personalization, and customer data tools.

Here is an overview of Drip’s features:

  • Workflows
  • Email marketing and automation
  • Social media tools
  • Revenue attribution
  • Personalization
  • Audience segmentation
  • Integrations
  • Customer behavior and event tracking
  • Custom fields and tagging

Drip PricingDrip pricing

 

Drip prices increase per user. This is what their pricing model looks like:

  • $39 a month for 2,500 contacts
  • $49 a month for 3,000 contacts
  • $69 a month for 4,000 contacts
  • $209 a month for 15,000 contacts
  • $529 a month for 35,000 contacts

Insightly

ActiveCampaign alternative: Insightly

The third option you might consider over ActiveCampaign is Insightly. This CRM and marketing automation platform includes these features:

  • Data security such as encryption, two-factor authentication, and single sign-on
  • Integrations
  • iOS and Android app for opportunities management, project updates, and business card scanning
  • Dashboards with metrics tracking
  • Custom apps that include workflow automation, calculated fields, and validation rules (but don’t require coding knowledge)
  • Dataset modeling
  • Relationship linking
  • Email sending
  • Workflow automations
  • Lead routing
  • Email template builder
  • Customer journeys
  • Lead segmentation

Insightly Pricing

Insightly pricing

Insightly offers different pricing plans for its marketing and CRM services.

For the CRM, the Plus plan starts at $29 a month per user, the Professional plan is $49 a month per user, and the Enterprise plan is $99 a month per user.

Insightly’s marketing plans include the Plus plan at $299 a month, the Professional plan at $599 a month, and the Enterprise plan at $1,299 a month. You’re not charged per user for Insightly’s marketing services.

You can also bundle Insightly’s CRM and marketing features together for a custom fee. Outside of that, Insightly is also more reasonable than ActiveCampaign pricing.

Read also: The Top 8 EngageBay Alternatives of 2022 [Features, Pricing, Reviews]

Conclusion

ActiveCampaign is a CRM, marketing, and sales tool that seems attractive at first glance. Upon doing some further digging, though, you may find that ActiveCampaign pricing is a little outside of your budget, especially if you’re a startup or small business.

For an efficient option that doesn’t skimp on features, EngageBay is the best option. Their free plans never cost you a cent, and if your company needs more features, EngageBay’s paid plans are highly affordable.

EngageBay features
EngageBay features

Sign up now for free, or book a 30-minute demo with our experts 🙂

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