4 Best ActiveCampaign Alternatives – In-Depth Feature and Pricing Comparison

Welcome to my honest comparison of the 4 best alternatives to ActiveCampaign! In this guide, I’ll give you a detailed breakdown of the features and pricing, so you can make an informed decision on which email marketing platform is the best fit for your business.

Maybe you’ve tried ActiveCampaign and it didn’t meet your expectations. Whether it was the high cost, slow customer support, or its complicated interface, we understand. Some users also found that setting up automation took a lot of time and was harder than expected.

We get it—no tool is perfect. But don't worry, after doing plenty of research and testing, we’ve discovered some great alternatives to ActiveCampaign that might work better for you.

Below, we'll go over the following tools:

1. ActiveCampaign
2. GetResponse
3. Sendinblue
4. HubSpot
5. Mailchimp

Additionally, these are the criteria by which we’ll judge them:

We’ll evaluate them based on these key points:

• Ease of Use: How simple it is to get started with and use the software.
• Email Deliverability: How well the platform ensures your emails reach the inbox.
• Customer Support: The speed and effectiveness of their customer service.
• Feature Score: How many useful features the platform offers compared to other options on this list.
• Pricing: How affordable and cost-effective the tool is for the services it provides.

In a hurry? Here’s a quick summary:

• GetResponse is perfect if you want an all-in-one marketing tool to build funnels, send emails, and automate tasks, all at a reasonable price.
• Sendinblue is great if you need a reliable, budget-friendly alternative to ActiveCampaign, with excellent customer support.
• Mailchimp is a solid choice if you want an affordable, easy-to-use option with lots of automation features and helpful guides.
• HubSpot is best if you plan to use its CRM, sales features, and advanced reporting to grow your business.

If you’re taking the time to review all the details, keep reading – this article dives deeper into each option!

Table of Content on 4 Best ActiveCampaign Alternatives

• ActiveCampaign — overview
• ActiveCampaign alternative #1: GetResponse
• ActiveCampaign alternative #2 – Sendinblue
• ActiveCampaign alternative #3 – HubSpot
• ActiveCampaign alternative #4 – Mailchimp
• Feature comparison table of the 4 best ActiveCampaign alternatives
• So what tool should you choose?

ActiveCampaign — overview

ActiveCampaign is a powerful platform that combines customer experience automation (CXA) tools. It offers everything you need, including email marketing, automation, and CRM tools, to help you track your important customers and deliver a great experience. It’s an all-in-one solution that's hard to beat.

Over 130,000 businesses in more than 150 countries use ActiveCampaign to create meaningful connections with their customers.

What’s great about ActiveCampaign is that it goes beyond just sending simple emails. It helps you build strong customer relationships throughout every stage of the customer journey.

What We Like About ActiveCampaign:

• Advanced Marketing Automation: ActiveCampaign's automation tools are easy to use. With a simple drag-and-drop feature, you can set up automated workflows in no time, even if you’re not a tech expert.
• CRM Capabilities: ActiveCampaign's CRM works seamlessly with their email marketing software. It’s easy to use, affordable, and perfect for small to medium-sized businesses.
• Great Email Deliverability: ActiveCampaign has a high email deliverability rate of 91%, according to Email Tool Tester’s testing from March 2021.

What We Don’t Like About ActiveCampaign:

• Complex Dashboard and UI: The interface can be a bit overwhelming, especially for beginners. It’s not as intuitive as some other platforms, and if you’re new to email marketing and automation, it might take a while to get the hang of it. Plus, you have to build everything from scratch – there are no pre-built templates to help you get started faster.
• Higher Price Compared to Alternatives: ActiveCampaign is more expensive than other options that offer similar features, like Sendinblue or GetResponse.
• CRM Lacks Advanced Features: While ActiveCampaign's CRM works well for basic needs, it’s not as advanced as other standalone CRM solutions like Salesforce or HubSpot. If you need more complex CRM tools, you might want to look elsewhere.

ActiveCampaign pricing

ActiveCampaign starts at $15 per month, but if you have more than 500 contacts (which is common), you'll likely need to upgrade to their "Plus" package or higher. This means the costs can quickly add up, making it less affordable than it might seem at first.

While ActiveCampaign isn't overly expensive, there are other options that might fit your budget better, and we'll look at those in a moment.

Overall, ActiveCampaign is a great choice for businesses that want an easy-to-use, all-in-one platform for email marketing and customer management. However, if you're looking for very advanced CRM features or a more affordable option, there might be better choices out there for you.

ActiveCampaign alternative #1: GetResponse

If you're looking for a great alternative to ActiveCampaign, GetResponse is a top choice. We’ll give you a fair and honest review, including both the advantages and drawbacks of using GetResponse. Let’s dive into the details.

GetResponse is an all-in-one marketing platform suitable for businesses of any size—whether you're a small startup or a large company. It offers a range of tools like a website builder, email marketing, funnel management, paid ads, signup forms, and more, all in one plan. This makes it an excellent option for experienced marketers who want to manage their marketing with a single monthly subscription.

Pretty cool, right? Now, let’s go over the pros and cons of GetResponse.

Reasons to choose GetResponse

• Easy to Use – Getting started with GetResponse is super simple. Even if you're switching from another platform, you'll quickly adapt to the new interface and be able to manage your email campaigns, design funnels, and create landing pages with ease.
• Unlimited Emails – Unlike some other platforms, GetResponse doesn't charge based on how many emails you send. Instead, pricing is based on the number of contacts you have. So, whether you send one email every few months or multiple emails daily, your cost won’t change.
• Great Customer Support – GetResponse is known for its excellent customer service. You’ll typically get a response within just a couple of minutes if you need help.

• Affordable Pricing – Starting at $15 per month for up to 1,000 contacts, GetResponse is more affordable than ActiveCampaign, which starts at $29 per month for just 500 contacts. Even with higher-tier plans, GetResponse can save you money while offering a lot of powerful features.
• Create Effective Websites and Funnels – Similar to platforms like ClickFunnels, GetResponse makes it easy to build websites, funnels, and landing pages. Whether you're creating sales funnels, webinar funnels, or lead-generation funnels, it’s beginner-friendly and can help you increase conversions.

Reasons not to choose GetResponse

• Not Ideal for Large Enterprises – While GetResponse is fantastic for increasing sales and building audiences, its interface can get a bit overwhelming for large enterprises. However, their customer success team is always ready to help, and if you choose the MAX plan, you'll get a dedicated account manager to assist you.
• Fewer Integrations – GetResponse offers fewer integrations than some other tools, like Mailchimp. While it supports around 150 integrations, you can still connect it with other platforms using APIs or tools like Zapier. So, it’s not a huge issue, but it’s something to keep in mind.
• Limited Automation on Basic Plan – The most affordable plan at $15 per month has limited automation features. If you need advanced automation, you may want to consider a higher-tier plan, which offers more powerful automation options.

GetResponse pricing

Paid plans start at $15 per month for up to 1000 subscribers and go up to $56 per month for the creator marketing plan.

GetResponse also offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts.

Each larger package will provide all the features of the previous plan, plus additional features to further help you crush your email campaigns.

To see how much you'll save, let's put it into perspective. Let's say you have 25,000 contacts that you need to send emails to. ActiveCampaign will cost you $391 per month, while GetResponse will cost $142 per month, saving you almost $249 per month.

Read more: GetResponse vs. ActiveCampaign in-depth comparison

ActiveCampaign alternative #2 – Sendinblue

Sendinblue is another great option if you're looking for a full-featured alternative to ActiveCampaign, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers marketing automation and email marketing tools to help you effectively engage with your audience via email and SMS.

One of its biggest strengths is the ability to manage both your marketing and transactional emails all in one place.

Reasons to choose Sendinblue

• More affordable than ActiveCampaign – If you don’t need to send more than 300 emails per day, Sendinblue has a free plan that can be really helpful. It's always a plus when a service offers a solid free plan.
• A lot of email templates to choose from – Sendinblue offers over 60 professionally designed email templates that are perfect for different purposes. You can fully customize these templates, making it easy to create emails that fit your brand.
• Great for transactional emails – If your business regularly sends urgent transactional emails (like order updates, password resets, etc.), Sendinblue has a dedicated SMTP server for this. ActiveCampaign doesn’t have a built-in server for transactional emails, so you’d need to pay extra for a separate service if that’s something you need.
• User-friendly – Getting started with Sendinblue is super easy. All you need to do is name your campaign, add the email addresses, subject lines, and import your contacts. You can also fine-tune your campaigns by using custom fields to make your emails more personal.

Reasons not to choose Sendinblue

• Fewer automation features than ActiveCampaign – ActiveCampaign lets you send unlimited emails through automated workflows, while Sendinblue limits you to 2,000 contacts in their automation workflows.
• Fewer third-party integrations – Sendinblue offers over 50 integrations, which is decent but still fewer than ActiveCampaign, which has more than 100. You might want to check if your existing tools work with Sendinblue before deciding if it’s the right fit.
• Limited personalization options – While Sendinblue is easy to use, it lacks some of the advanced personalization features that ActiveCampaign and other enterprise-level alternatives offer. However, it’s still a great tool for quick experimentation and simple marketing tasks.

Sendinblue pricing

Unlike some other tools like GetResponse, Sendinblue prices its plans based on how many emails you send, not the number of contacts you have in your list.

• Free Plan – You can start with the free plan, which allows you to send up to 300 emails per day.

As your business grows, you can move to paid plans that offer more features and help you generate a better return on investment (ROI).

For $25 per month, you get:

• Send up to 10,000 emails per month
• Unlimited daily email sends (as long as you stay within the monthly limit)
• A/B testing
• Email support
• Advanced statistics
• Remove the Sendinblue logo from your emails

Premium packages offer even more features and increase your monthly email sending limits.

This pricing is one of the reasons Sendinblue is a solid and cost-effective alternative to ActiveCampaign, with many of the same features included in its plans.

Related: GetResponse vs. Sendinblue review

Read more related content:

1. Best alternatives to ClickFunnels

2. Best email marketing services out there

ActiveCampaign alternative #3 – HubSpot

HubSpot can sometimes feel a little overwhelming. It offers a wide range of digital marketing services, which might leave you wondering: what exactly do they specialize in? It seems like HubSpot does a bit of everything.

But if we focus on their email marketing solution, here are the three main features they offer:

• Email Marketing – HubSpot allows you to send emails and create landing pages, covering all your email marketing needs.
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) – HubSpot’s CRM is included for free with every paid plan, making it easy to manage your contacts and leads.
• HubSpot Sales – This feature helps you with everything sales-related, from making calls to tracking leads. It also includes a lead scoring system to prioritize your best prospects.

Now, let’s dive into a few reasons why you might want to choose (or not choose) HubSpot as an alternative to ActiveCampaign.

Reasons to Choose HubSpot

• HubSpot’s CRM – The CRM system is one of the best. It brings together all your customer data, helping you deliver a great experience and support for your team.
• Email Marketing – While ActiveCampaign is mainly an email marketing tool, HubSpot is more focused on connecting with your audience and telling your brand story. HubSpot offers more customization options, like tailoring the CRM and adjusting the times emails are sent based on your audience.
• Growth Features – HubSpot offers more than just email automation. It helps with website management, SEO, social media, chatbots, and more. You also get tools like a help desk, customer feedback tools, and a knowledge base, all in one place.
• Advanced Reporting – HubSpot shines in reporting. While ActiveCampaign offers basic reports on automation, goals, and campaigns, HubSpot allows you to create custom reports based on sources, events, contacts, pages, and more, making it much more robust.

Reasons Not to Choose HubSpot

• Advanced Segmentation – Unlike ActiveCampaign, HubSpot doesn’t support tagging, which lets you group customers based on interests and where they are in their buyer’s journey.
• Split Testing – HubSpot doesn’t allow you to split test automation workflows to see which ones perform better. This feature isn’t built into HubSpot, so you’ll need to get creative with workarounds if you want to test different approaches.
• Predictive Content – HubSpot doesn’t offer predictive content features, so you can’t automatically send tailored content to users based on what they’re most likely to engage with.

HubSpot Pricing

HubSpot has several pricing tiers depending on the features you need, starting with a free version and moving up to paid plans for more advanced tools and capabilities.

ActiveCampaign alternative #4 – Mailchimp

You’ve probably already heard of Mailchimp — it’s one of the most well-known email marketing tools out there.

While many people think of it as a basic tool made for beginners and small businesses, it's actually pretty powerful and useful for a lot of different marketers — even those with more experience.

Compared to ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp is easier to use. It has a cleaner, more beginner-friendly setup, which makes it a great option if you’re new to email marketing. On the other hand, ActiveCampaign is better suited for experienced marketers who’ve worked with advanced tools before and want deeper features.

Here’s a simple breakdown of the pros and cons of using Mailchimp:

✅ Why You Might Want to Use Mailchimp

• Good automation tools: Mailchimp offers helpful automation features. While ActiveCampaign has deeper and more advanced automation, Mailchimp still gives you things like customer journeys, behavior-based emails, date-based triggers, and even options to send postcards.
• Over 200 integrations: You can connect Mailchimp to many other tools you might already use — like Shopify, WordPress, or your CRM. That makes it easier to get everything working together without much hassle.
• Affordable pricing: Compared to many other email marketing platforms, Mailchimp is budget-friendly. It's a solid choice if you’re looking for good value without breaking the bank.

❌ Why Mailchimp Might Not Be Right for You

• Email sending limits: Mailchimp doesn’t just limit how many subscribers you can have — it also limits how many emails you can send each month. For example, on the basic plan, you can only send 10 emails per subscriber monthly. That might not be enough if you plan to email your list often.
• Slow customer support: When we tested their support, it took more than two days to get a response. That can be frustrating if you’re dealing with an urgent issue.
• Outdated email templates: Some of Mailchimp’s free email templates feel a little old-school. If you're trying to match your brand's look and feel, you might find them too plain or generic. And if you want more design control, you’ll need to pay for their Standard plan.

Mailchimp pricing

• Free Plan: Great if you’re just starting out. You can have up to 2,000 contacts and send 10,000 emails per month. Just keep in mind: the features are limited, and your contacts will have to confirm their signup twice.
• Essentials Plan: Starts at $9.99/month for up to 500 contacts. If you’re growing your list, say up to 2,000 contacts, this plan will cost about $30.99/month.
• Standard Plan: Designed for bigger businesses with larger email lists. It can handle up to 25,000 contacts and costs around $230/month. This is ideal if you're running frequent campaigns and have the budget for it.

💡 Final Tip: If you’re not sure about Mailchimp, the free plan is a good way to test it out before spending any money. It gives you enough to learn the basics and see if it fits your needs.

Want to explore more options? Check out our list of Mailchimp alternatives and competitors for more tools that might be a better fit for your business.

Read more: Mailchimp alternatives and competitors

Feature comparison table of the 4 best ActiveCampaign alternatives

Comparison Table

So what marketing platform should you choose?

We get it — you're probably tired of hearing the same old “it depends on your needs” answer. So, to make things easier, we’ve broken down the key points from this article to help you quickly figure out which tool is right for you.

✅ Go with Sendinblue if:

You don’t want to stress over how big your contact list is and you're looking for a more affordable option compared to ActiveCampaign. Sendinblue is great for most types of businesses and gives you good value without limiting your contact numbers.

💰 Choose Mailchimp if:

You’re on a tight budget but want something that’s super easy to use and lets you create beautiful email designs. Mailchimp is perfect for beginners or small businesses who want a smooth experience. Plus, since it has a huge community and tons of online guides, getting help or solving problems is pretty simple.

🏢 Pick HubSpot if:

You’re running a larger business and need a full-featured, professional tool — not just for emails, but for your entire marketing, sales, and CRM process. HubSpot works best if you plan to use its whole system. Just remember, it’s built mainly around customer relationship management (CRM), while ActiveCampaign focuses more on email marketing. So think about what your business needs most right now.

🎯 Go for GetResponse if:

You want an all-in-one tool that lets you build websites without any coding, create sales funnels that actually convert, grow your email list, and run both automated and regular email campaigns. If you're looking for a complete marketing solution that does a bit of everything, GetResponse is a great choice.

Author's note: This comparison is accurate as of January 2, 2022. We do our best to keep it as accurate as possible, and we check it regularly, however, if you want to familiarize yourself with what our competitors are offering, you should check it on their official website or contact their representatives.