ActiveCampaign Pricing - Is There a More Affordable Alternative?

If you haven’t heard it yet, let me tell you that there are 450+ email marketing software in the world. Some are free and do the same work my pigeon can do. Some are so expensive that the bills can look like your phone number. Here's a bit more on how email marketing pricing is done.

Stay hopeful. I am going to tell you about ActiveCampaign’s pricing. Take notes.

ActiveCampaign offers affordable pricing while providing email marketing, powerful marketing automation, and CRM tools you need to boost engagement in your audience. Their powerful automation features are usually expected only in high-end plans of other software.

ActiveCampaign Pricing & Features Snapshot

Here's a snapshot of ActiveCampaign's pricing and features for you.

Pricing:

Marketing:

Sales:

Automation:

Campaign:

ActiveCampaign Pricing Quick Summary

ActiveCampaign does not offer a free plan, but offers a 14-day free trial on all paid plans. For 1000 subscribers, ActiveCampaign's paid plans start at $29/month (billed yearly), and it goes up to $1059/month (billed yearly), which offers features like 10X contact email send limit, subscription forms, marketing automation, chat, email and phone support, custom Mailserver domain and much more.

Activecampaign pricing model is pay-per-subscriber or pay-per-feature. All plans are based on the number of subscribers or the features you get.

There is a 10X contact email send limit on each plan. The cheapest is the Lite plan, billed annually for 1000 subscribers for $29/mo.

Now, you will have to read more than this short summary to know which of their four different offers would we recommend.

Starter Plan

Starter

1000 subscribers
Monthly Payment: $19/mo

Annual Payment: $15/mo (billed annually)

Even the most basic plan from ActiveCampaign has powerful email automation, design options, and social media integration. You can even track the actions of your website visitors.

This plan is great if you have a newsletter and you are building your audience as you go, as it provides basic things to get you started - subscription form, email marketing, sending newsletters and 10X contact email send limit.

Here are exact functionalities you will get with this plan:

• 1 user account
• Send Newsletters
• Email Marketing
• Marketing Automation
• Subscription forms - basic/ inline only
• In-Depth Reporting
• GEO Tracking
• 10X contact email send limit
• Auto Import From Other Services
• Site & Event Tracking
• Social Media Tools & Integrations
• API & WebHooks
• Live Chat & Email Based Support
• Managed Email Delivery

This plan is good for small teams or independent businesses that don’t require rigorous sales processes.

But it won’t work if you are conscious about ActiveCampaign’s log showing at the bottom of emails. Any email you send or any subscription form that you build with the Lite tier of ActiveCampaign will come with the company's branding attached.

Plus Plan

2500 subscribers
Monthly Payments: $119/mo
Annual Payment: $95/mo, billed annually

This plan includes everything in Lite plus unlocks the capability to have 3 users and features like built-in CRM, Sales Automation, lead scoring.
That’s not all.

You also get SMS subscription service, integration with Facebook and Shopify. Since you get some powerful automation features, they will also provide consultation on your automation strategy.

It also removes ActiveCampaign branding from your emails and forms. If you feel like you will need help making the most of all these features, you can benefit from the 1-month 1-1 training that they provide with this plan.

It’s good for any e-commerce, sales-focused company with a mid-size team of fewer than 25 users.

Professional Plan

2500 subscribers
Monthly Payments: $169/mo
Annual Payment: $149/mo, billed annually

This plan has everything from the first two plans and adds advanced marketing features like Predictive Sending, Site Messaging, and Attribution that help you create even more personalized experiences for your customers.

With the increase in cost comes the ability to use machine learning features like predictive sending and split automation - The split automation action lets you test entire automation workflows against one another. Instead of a narrow point of view of "which email got the most clicks", look at the bird’s eye view and ask "which funnel won the most customers."

Enterprise Plan

2500 subscribers
Monthly Payments: $289/mo
Annual Payment: $255/mo, billed annually

Two words that define this plan are - sophisticated and custom.

Made for companies with heavy budgets for email marketing, this plan provides custom email domain, customer SMS. You also get phone support, SMS guidance, and unlimited one-on-one training to ensure that you're making the best use of all the features.

It is designed for companies that can afford to have custom features, need priority support and an ever-growing team that will need 10 user accounts.

Try me, before you buy me

They don’t have a forever free plan but that shouldn’t stop you from checking it out. You can go for their 14-day free trial and even request a demo from their sales reps. And I have to tell you that their sign up process is as quick as posting an Instagram story.

Unsubscribed, Duplicate or Unconfirmed Contacts

Does ActiveCampaign charge for Unsubscribed, Duplicates or Unconfirmed Contacts?

I can give you an easy answer but it’s important for you to understand the basics first so you don’t stay confused. Trust me, it’s helpful.

Contacts on your list(s) can have one out of these four statuses: Active, Unconfirmed, Unsubscribed, or Bounced.

An Active contact is someone that has confirmed their subscription to your list (if you are using opt-in confirmation) and has not unsubscribed or bounced. A contact will no longer be counted as “Active” if your campaigns bounce or they unsubscribe from your lists.

An active contact counts as only one contact regardless of how many lists they are on.

A contact is labeled as unconfirmed if they submit a form that includes an opt-in confirmation email (double opt-in), but have not yet clicked the confirmation link.
Only active contacts count toward your contact limit (the number that is used to determine your billing plan).

Ok, you deserve a straightforward answer now.

No, ActiveCampaign doesn’t charge you for unsubscribed, duplicates or unconfirmed. Cheers!

Discounts are always delicious

If you commit for a year, you can get a 20-25% discount on any plan. That’s surprisingly bountiful!

For non-profits, offer a 20% discount, on top of the yearly plan discount. You can just contact them with proof of non-profit status.

What happens if you outgrow your Subscribers’ limit?

If you are close to approaching your contact limit, you will get an email notification once every 15 days until you upgrade your account. Your account will not be automatically upgraded.

You will not be able to create or send any campaigns and your contacts won’t be added to automation. This is a bummer but at least it informs you well before you expect a new, higher bill. So do let your finances know to keep some cash handy.

Does ActiveCampaign play fair when you want to Upgrade or Downgrade?

Yes, the system automatically calculates and makes adjustments for you & makes the bill on a prorated basis.

For example, let's say you are on a Starter plan and are paying $39 per month. In the middle of your billing cycle, you choose to upgrade to a Plus plan at $95 per month. We would then charge you a prorated fee of $56 to cover your upgrade for the rest of the half of your billing cycle. You will then be charged $95 when your new billing cycle begins.

I got 99 problems, and a fine print is also one

If you don’t love reading, you would never notice the tiny print under the pricing from ActiveCampaign & guess what's there...

Should you read it?

No, something that you might want to read and decide if that is deal-breaking for you.

Did you buy your account for a huge discount from a reseller? Well, you don’t get one-on-one training then.

Thankfully, the fine print ends here. *phew*

ActiveCampaign's Refund Policy

There are no full or partial refunds offered by ActiveCampaign. So before you make a commitment, try it out for free for 14-days.

I did some math for you and here's the conclusion

Their pricing scales well with an increase in subscribers or according to your needs for advanced features. So if you have a good plan to scale your business, you can choose ActiveCampaign. They will even help you migrate to their tool for free, for any plan.

I would recommend ActiveCampaign if you are looking for powerful automation features, but if you are not tech-savvy, it can get overwhelming, and you will definitely want to explore some ActiveCampaign alternatives.
If you want all the features of ActiveCampaign, plus simplicity and affordability, you can check SendX out.

Before you go and add numbers, I have done some math for you comparing ActiveCampaign and SendX - SendX is 54% cheaper! It will cost you only $7.49/mo for 1K subscribers. You can send unlimited emails at this pricing. But the incredible part is, it includes more features like advanced segments and email templates at lower prices.

So do check it out and try all the features with a 14-day free trial. No credit card required.