"Convertscripts - Write your copy 10 times faster with our templates"

Get access to our handpicked library with proven marketing examples of 6-7 figure email sequences, funnels, sales pages and ads:

ActiveCampaign Review

ActiveCampaign Review 2020: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly...

Is ActiveCampaign right for you?

Choosing the right email and marketing automation tool for your business can be challenging. That's why we've created this extensive Activecampaign review. Most people looking for a marketing automation app like ActiveCampaign are coming from email apps like Mailchimp or CampaignMonitor. These email solutions are great at delivering solid basics for the best possible price. Whereas apps like ActiveCampaign offer the same basics combined with powerful automation features, thus helping you to get more work done in less time. And, surprisingly, at a very affordable pricetag. Check out our detailed ActiveCampaign review below to see if this tool is right for you...

Our Review Score: 4.3/5

1) Email builder: 4.0/5

2) Email templates: 3.5/5

3) Form building: 3.5/5

4) Segmentation: 5.0/5

5) Automation: 5.0/5

6) Splittesting: 5.0/5

7) Integrations: 4.0/5

8) Reporting & tracking: 4.0/5

9) Support & Community: 5.0/5

10) Ease of use: 3.5/5

11) Value for money: 4.5/5

ActiveCampaign User Reviews
{{ reviewsOverall }} / 5 Users (64 votes)
Value for money
Ease of use
Effectiveness
Support

ActiveCampaign Review: Main Pro's and Con's

Main pro's

  • Very affordable considering all the stuff you get
  • Best automation features of all the tools we've tested
  • Visual automation builder (easy to use): Setting up automations works really well with ActiveCampaign's visual workflow builder; tons of automation triggers and actions
  • Drag-and-drop email editor makes it easy to create nice looking emails
  • Splittesting: Best split testing in automations of all ESP's
  • Form builder: Excellent builder for forms, emails and automations
  • Good support: The live chat support and email support is really quick and helpful.
  • Great segmentation & targeting features: ActiveCampaign has the ability to heavily segment your contacts and target only the specific ones you want to talk to.
  • Create & Share templates: ActiveCampaign set up an automations marketplace where you can copy and paste automated sequences & email templates (really cool!)
  • Integrations: ActiveCampaign is integrated with every major app.
  • Reporting: Decent tracking + reporting functionality
  • Cool advanced feature #1: Auto-detect time zone of subscribers based on IP address
  • Cool advanced feature #2: Unlimited custom fields
  • Cool advanced feature #3: Very good conditional logic in emails
  • Free account migration service if you want to switch to them

Main con's

  • The interface can be a bit slow to navigate
  • Slight learning curve for beginners (but nothing you can't handle)
  • The form builder is very limited on the lower plan
  • Not many pre-designed email templates
  • ActiveCampaign is a CRM and tag-based email service. However, if you want to send a campaign broadvast you still need to use a list. You can't send it to people with a tag across multiple lists. The workaround is that you create 1 master list with all your contacts as a base list, and create a segment of people with a certain tag who are on that list. Then it gets a lot easier.

ActiveCampaign Review Ratings Details

How does ActiveCampaign score as a Marketing Automation tool? After an in-depth ActiveCampaign review, using the the tool for our own Marketing purposes, and seeing how the tool stacks up against other tools, we have constructed this feature table to give you a clear overview of the most important features. Every rating is accompanied by a small summary.

FeatureScoreReview
Overall Score(4.3/5)ActiveCampaign is without a doubt one of the most effective tools out there. ActiveCampaign has a vast selection of different features. Although there is a slight learning curve for beginners, everyone should be able to master the program and have great results.

1 – Email Builder

(4.0/5)ActiveCampaign’s editor works pretty intuitively and has many features available. For instance, with ActiveCampaign you can reuse certain customizations (save them as blocks). Also, it is easy to see what changes people have made, listed in a orderly fashion.

2 – Email Templates

(3.5/5)ActiveCampaign has a decent set of different email templates, but we hope for a bit more options in the future (you can get extra templates on the marketplace however). Their drag-and-drop visual editor is pretty easy to use and gives you freedom in what you want to create.

3 – Form Builder

(3.5/5)Active Campaign’s visual form builder works well. Downside is that only the more expensive versions give you access to more form functionality and removing the ActiveCampaign branding.

4 – List Management & Segmentation

(5.0/5)With ActiveCampagin it is easy to segment your contacts in a vast variety of different ways. You can target as specific as you want and send personalized content. You can use both lists & tags.

5 – Automation

(5.0/5)With ActiveCampaign setting up automations is easy with their visual workflow builder. A great feature is the copying and pasting of automated sequences into your email service. Also, as no other tool, ActiveCampaign has set up an automations marketplace where other users can give away or sell their automations, and you can import them into your account with 1 click.

6 – Splittesting

(5.0/5)Best A/B-testing of all tools out there. You can basically splittest everything from titles, to email content, and even complete automations! And you get detailed reportings.

7 – Integrations

(4.0/5)ActiveCampaign integrates with basically every app, (also Zapier integrations). So you should be able to connect with whatever app you like.

8 – Reporting

(4.0/5)Active campain has decent reporting with great visuals. They also offer goal tracking, which means you can track conversions within Activecampaign. This way, you can A/B-test about everything you want to (even your automations), which is awesome!

9 – Support & Community

(5.0/5)​There is absolutely no shortage of information when it comes to using ActiveCampaign. Their website is basically a library of information guided with great video’s. Their support is unparallelled. You have the option to use live chat or email. The support during our time as customers ánd during this ActiveCampaign review were very quick and comprehensive. The craziest part is that they will guide you with personalized video’s!

10 – Ease of use

(3.5/5)You need a bit of time to get all of the available features under your control, but when you do, there’s not much you can’t do.

11 – Value for money

(4.5/5)Great value for money considering all the stuff you get. If you did an ActiveCampaign review yourself, you would know it’s a great investment.

ActiveCampaign pricing

Pricing is certainly an important aspect of this ActiveCampaign review. How much does it cost to use ActiveCampaign? Below you can find the prices of the Lite plan, based on the amount of contacts you need to manage.

We try to update the pricing in this ActiveCampaign review as best we can. However, the pricing as listed on this page might be differtent from the prices listed on the ESPs official site due to changes.

1.000 contacts10.000 contacts25.000 contacts50.000 contacts100.000 contacts
Lite planLite planLite planLite planLite plan
$29/per month
Free migration
$139/per month
Free migration
$225/per month
Free migration
$299/per month
Free migration
$459/per month
Free migration
Free 14 day trialFree 14 day trialFree 14 day trialFree 14 day trialFree 14 day trial

See all Activecampaigns' plans

We try to update the pricing in this ActiveCampaign review as best we can. However, the pricing as listed on this page might be differtent from the prices listed on the ESPs official site due to changes.

ActiveCampaign Features (Marketing & Sales)

We've compiled some of the most important marketing and sales features from this Activecampaign review in the table below. This is especially handy if you are a B2B organisation or an organisation with a salesteam, because you might need features like a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system included in your platform. Check it out:

Want to see which Email Marketing Service scores best? Check out our top-to-bottom Best Email service provider ranking overview.

 ActiveCampaignAWeberConstant ContactConvertKitDripGetResponseMailchimp
Marketing Features       
Native Conversion tracking🟢🟢🔴🟢🟢🔴🔴
Web activity tracking🟢🟢🔴🔴🟢🟢🟢
Splittesting Campaigns🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢
Splittesting Automations🟢🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
Dynamic Personalized Content🟢🟢🟢🔴🟢🟢🟢
Multichannel Attribution🟢🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
Site Messaging🟢🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
Facebook Integrations🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢
SMS Integrations🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🔴🔴
Webinar integrations🟢🟢 🟢🟢🟢🔴🟢
Native Landingpage builder🔴🔴🟢🟢🔴🟢🟢
Native Shopping Cart🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
Sales & CRM Features       
Leadscoring🟢🔴🟢🔴🟢🟢🔴
Native CRM System🟢🔴🔴🔴🔴🟢🔴
Task Management🟢🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
Realtime Sales alerts🟢🔴🟢🔴🔴🟢🔴
Gmail integration🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🔴
Mobile App CRM🟢🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
Create quotes & invoices🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴

Who is ActiveCampaign right for? It's great when...

#1 You plan to use marketing automation long-term and use it's power to the fullest

If you are serious about marketing automation, ActiveCampaign is for you. It is the most comprehensive tool we have reviewed when it comes to automation features. The reporting is solid in general, it has the best A/B-testing features of all tools available(you can basically split test whatever you like, including complete automations & funnels). This is very powerful. 

#2 You have a salesteam or are in B2B and are looking for an integrated marketing- and sales platform

If you need to integrate sales with marketing, ActiveCampaign is your best choice because of the built-in CRM, lead scoring functionality & sales automation features. You can create a visual pipeline with dealstages inside ActiveCampaign and build automations on top of it. ActiveCampaign also integrates with the major CRMs like Salesforce & Pipedrive.

See also: Sales funnels | Book funnels | Challenge funnels | Ecommerce funnels | High ticket sales funnels | Lead funnels

#3 You are looking for an 'all-in-one' marketing automation platform, and not 'just another email tool' 

You need a tool that is capable of more than just setting up email sequences. If you really want to "automate" your business & marketing, ActiveCampaign is for you. It also allows you to use SMS marketing, send 'site messages' (pop up messages to your website visitors), upload your email-lists directly to facebook for retargeting, import social media profiles based on the email address, and much more.

It's not so great when...

#1 You are in Ecommerce

If you sell physical products, you are probably better off using a tool like Klaviyo. They are tailored to ecommerce brands who want to take their email marketing to the next level and have much better ROI reporting than activecampaign does for ecommerce. 

Also, maybe check out Drip, because they focus on Ecommerce as well. You do need a bit more programming skills for that, though.

#2 You don't really need automations

You are probably better off with another software if your email marketing needs are very limited and you don't want to spend much time figuring out the tool. ActiveCampaing is pretty advanced and with all the different features it takes effort and time to set up effective campaigns and monitoring the results. A tool like Mailchimp would suit you better. 

Checkout Mailchimp here.

ActiveCampaign Alternatives

Although we do recommend ActiveCampaign as being one of the best Marketing Automation tools out there, we do know that no tool is for everybody. For this reason, we have provided three alternative tools that we believe can be good alternatives if ActiveCampaign is not what you are looking for. Also, we have provided a short list of the features that could be good alternative features compared with ActiveCampaign.

Alternative #1: GetResponse

GetResponse works quickly, is easy to use, and has a good amount of features available. All in all, one of the better tools out there. Compared to ActiveCampaign, we recommend this tool if price is your main concern. GetResponse offers the cheapest plans of all. Here are some advantages of using GetResponse over ActiveCampaign:

  • With GetResponse you can do undo/redo actions, which is a handy feature.
  • With GetResponse you can build landingpages
  • GetResponse has a bigger selection of email templates
  • GetResponse is cheaper for all plans

Read Activecampaign vs GetResponse
Read Full GetResponse Review

Alternative #2: Convertkit

Convertkit is easy to use, and suitable for those who just got started, or just need their basic automation needs covered. We would especially recommend Convertkit to bloggers. With Convertkit, you can also create landing pages. Here are some advantages of using Convertkit over ActiveCampaign:

  • ConvertKit’s interface is more user friendly
  • With Convertkit, you are able to use the 'Resend-to-Unopens-button', for resending broadcasts to subscribers who missed it the first time around.
  • Convertkit has a native landing page builder.
  • Convertkit is cheaper for the plans up to 25,000 contacts, compared to ActiveCampaign.

Read Activecampaign vs Convertkit
Read Full Convertkit Review

Alternative #3: Drip

Drip is a good tool with some outstanding features. We would especially recommend this tool for people working in ecommerce. Here are some advantages of using Convertkit over ActiveCampaign:

  • Drip is the best tool when it comes to segmentation features.
  • Drip exceeds ActiveCampaign's tracking & reporting features.
  • Drip is specialized in ecommerce features.

Read Activecampaign vs Drip
Read Full Drip Review

Conclusion

At our online marketing agency in the Netherlands we use ActiveCampaign for all our clients. We've tried a few email software tools but none of them offer the value ActiveCampaign while having a really affordable price. It's great for B2C and B2B customers and we have accounts with 1.000 to 100.000+ subscribers in both markets using ActiveCampaign to their advantage. It's really consistent across the board with all the important features and a great tool to start with for marketing automation. You can make an impact quickly while never running out of features when you want to get more advanced. Ofcourse this is our humble opinion, but if you’re thinking about trying ActiveCampaign we really advise you to do it! 

ActiveCampaign User Reviews

Please leave your own ActiveCampaign review below. We are always looking for users to give their two cents on this software. Please let us know:

1) What you like about this software?
2) What you dislike about this software?
3) Who would you recommend it to? Who is it best for?
4) How did this software contribute to your business?

Leave your rating

Your browser does not support images upload. Please choose a modern one

What people say... Leave your rating
Order by:

Be the first to leave a review.

User Avatar User Avatar
Verified
/ 5
{{{ review.rating_title }}}
{{{review.rating_comment | nl2br}}}

Show more
{{ pageNumber+1 }}