Email marketing still delivers one of the highest ROIs of any channel, which means choosing the right email marketing service is one of the most important decisions a business can make.
ActiveCampaign remains one of the leading email marketing services thanks to excellent deliverability, a deep feature set, and robust automation. With consistently high ratings and positive reviews, it’s a top performer among email marketing platforms and a smart choice for both new and experienced users.
ActiveCampaign Compared to the Best Email Marketing Services
Below you’ll find our Golden Eggs, the best email marketing services we found after careful research and review-mining.
Constant Contact is our favorite for reliable list-building, analytics, and overall ease of use. They offer a free 30-day trial for new users in most regions who want to test features before committing.
MailerLite is the best choice for beginners, with a short learning curve, a clean interface, and great customer support. You can try premium features free for 14 days.
Omnisend is a strong option for ecommerce, with customer insights, landing page templates, and the ability to embed products right into your email designs. New users can start on a free plan or request a demo to see the features in action.
ActiveCampaign: The Good and The Bad
ActiveCampaign is known for high deliverability, powerful automation, and thoughtful design. But despite everything it does well, there are a few areas that could be better. Here’s what we loved—and what we didn’t—about ActiveCampaign.
What ActiveCampaign Is Good At
In terms of functionality and ROI, ActiveCampaign is one of the most capable email marketing platforms available. It offers an extensive range of automation options, a flexible builder, intuitive segmentation, and industry-leading deliverability.
Automation: ActiveCampaign’s automation tools are a standout. You can build sequences from scratch or customize templates included with your account.
Automations are easy to visualize, highly customizable, and save a ton of time. You can add behavioral triggers that send emails, branch paths, or tag users based on actions.
The tools are more sophisticated than most competitors—yet still approachable. Templates are geared toward both common sequence types and specific industries, lowering the learning curve for new users.
Deliverability: ActiveCampaign has an excellent record for inbox placement. Compared to many other email marketing services, it gives you a better chance of staying out of spam and landing in the primary inbox.
Better deliverability means more opens and clicks—and a higher likelihood of real ROI from your campaigns.
Design: The interface is clean and user-friendly. Automations are easy to create and analyze, lists and segments are well organized, and analytics are simple to find and understand.
The drag-and-drop email builder is intuitive for editing templates or designing from scratch. You can create reusable content blocks and save them as templates, which helps with brand consistency and production speed.
Segmentation: ActiveCampaign offers granular segmentation to label, tag, and organize subscribers. You can also automate segmentation based on behavior, source, or engagement.
Advanced options—like lead and engagement scoring that trigger automations when thresholds are met—make it easy to adapt ActiveCampaign for any niche and surface valuable audience insights.
Customer Support: ActiveCampaign has a strong reputation for fast, high-quality support. While live chat isn’t 24/7, responses during U.S. business hours are typically quick.
Support often includes step-by-step walkthroughs and video tutorials tailored to the issue, which shortens resolution time and helps new users learn the platform.
Analytics: Reporting tools help you monitor campaigns, understand subscribers, and improve sequences over time.
You can identify optimal send times, find highly engaged subscribers, and track goal completions—presented in clear reports and charts that are easy to share with a team.
Extra Features: ActiveCampaign can operate as a full CRM and supports extras like SMS marketing (via add-ons), lead capture, landing pages, and pop-up builders.
Testing is excellent too, with A/B testing and conversion-focused reporting that extends beyond open and click rates to landing pages and pop-ups.
What ActiveCampaign Is Lacking
ActiveCampaign is one of the best all-around options, but it isn’t perfect. The breadth of features can create a steeper learning curve, performance can slow down when working in heavy builders, and live chat coverage is limited outside U.S. hours.
Steep Learning Curve: The platform’s depth—especially around automation and segmentation—can be overwhelming for first-time email marketers.
There are plenty of tutorials, but working through them all takes time, and it can feel like a lot at the start.
Inconsistent Speed: Some users report occasional slowdowns or bugginess when using the visual builders.
That’s frustrating if you’re trying to move quickly with production or you’re new to design and automations.
Less Support Outside US Timezones: Live chat is responsive during U.S. business hours, but international users may wait longer for help.
If immediate support is critical and you’re based outside the U.S., factor that into your decision-making.
ActiveCampaign Options and Pricing
ActiveCampaign offers multiple plans that add features as you move up tiers. Pricing is contact-based—your monthly cost increases as your list grows—and differs by billing cycle and region.
There’s no forever-free plan, but there is a 14-day free trial so you can test the platform before choosing a plan.
ActiveCampaign Starter
This entry-level plan works best for small businesses or new users.
It includes essentials like automation, email templates, segmentation, and performance reporting, plus core integrations and standard support. Deeper ecommerce and CRM features are limited on this tier.
Starter pricing typically begins around $15–$19 per month for up to 1,000 contacts and scales with list size. For many small teams, this tier is enough to launch and optimize effective email sequences.
ActiveCampaign Plus
Plus includes everything in Starter with more automations, advanced reporting options, sales and ecommerce integrations, and higher usage limits. All paid plans include 1:1 onboarding and migration help, and Plus adds more user seats for growing teams.
Pricing increases with contacts; larger accounts can request a custom quote. This plan suits growing teams that want strategy support and collaboration features.
ActiveCampaign Pro
Pro adds features like predictive sending, split automations, attribution and conversion reporting, and expanded design/testing capabilities. You’ll also unlock branding controls, deeper CRM integrations, and higher usage limits.
Cost scales by contact count. Choose Pro if you need advanced reporting, AI-assisted optimization tools, or more sophisticated cross-channel automation than Plus provides.
ActiveCampaign Enterprise
Enterprise includes everything in the lower tiers plus premium CRM integrations, a dedicated account team, increased send limits, and advanced governance. It also supports more complex security and compliance needs.
Enterprise pricing starts higher than other tiers (often around the high-$100s/month for 1,000 contacts) and scales with list size. Larger databases or custom requirements will require a tailored quote. This plan is best for organizations that need hands-on support and enterprise-grade features.
ActiveCampaign in Summary
ActiveCampaign is frequently named the best email marketing platform for its balance of power and usability. It’s intuitive yet sophisticated, and its feature range fits virtually any niche.
That said, other email marketing services may be a better fit depending on your goals and budget. Remember our Golden Eggs—Constant Contact excels for reliability and ease of use, MailerLite is ideal if you’re just getting started, and Omnisend shines for ecommerce. Or check our other top recommendations to see how ActiveCampaign compares and pick the one that best meets your needs.
