AWeber vs ActiveCampaign

AWeber was founded in 1998 by Tom Kulzer. Headquarters in Chalfont, PA.

ActiveCampaign was founded in 2003 by Jason VandeBoom. Hubs in Chicago, Sidney, and Dublin.

No coding or design skills are required. The software is intuitive with many pre-made templates and automations but lacks advanced features like photo editing inside the email builder.

No coding or design skills are required as there are plenty of automation recipes available. The system itself is comparatively complex, though, and needs some getting accustomed to.

Small to medium companies that only need an email marketing platform with basic features.

Businesses that plan to scale their email marketing up to include CRM, e-commerce integrations, and diverse automation schemes.

Has a free plan for up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails a month. The features are limited, only basic templates and support are available on the free plan.

No free plan. Has a free 14 days trial with up to 100 email sends to 100 contacts. The features available within the trial match the Professional tier of features.

The trial is limited to 1 user and doesn’t include:

• Predictive Sending
• Predictive Content
• Sending auto-responder campaigns
• Custom fields in forms
• Using “Email Results” in subscription forms
• SMS credits or sending
• Adding a domain to a landing page

For up to 500 contacts, billed yearly/monthly:

• Lite $12.50 / $14.99
• Plus $20 / $29.99
• Unlimited $899

Other pricing features:

• 3 months of service free and up to 60.5% discount for nonprofits
• 20% discount for students
• Customer referral program
• Account hold package for $4.99 a month

Marketing + CRM

For 500 contacts, billed yearly/monthly:

• Lite $9 / $15
• Plus $49 / $70
• Professional $149 / $187
• Enterprise — individual pricing

Other pricing features:

• 2-year price lock
• Billing pause for 12 months with the account and campaigns intact.
• Only charges for the contacts the client actively markets to, no matter how many lists they’re on.
• A 20% discount for nonprofits.
• Free 14 days trial.

• 24/7 support via email
• Live chat: Mon-Fri 7:00 am — 10:00 pm ET (UTC-5)
• Sat-Sun 8:00 am — 5:00 pm ET (UTC-5)
• Support phone line: 8 am — 8 pm ET (UTC-5)
• Guides and YouTube tutorials
• 24/7 paid email marketing master class
• AWeber expert service

Working hours: 9 am – 11 pm CDT (GMT-5)
Either live chat or email requests

Aside from online support, ActiveCampaign offers:

• Free online training
• Community and forum
• FAQ website section
• Study Hall — in-person learning classes

• Email automation and pre-built autoresponders
• Landing page and sign-up forms builder
• Custom sales pages
• Web push notifications
• Integrations with various services
• Drag-and-drop email builder
• Custom template design service
• Free migration services
• 3 mobile apps for iOS and Android with various features

• Marketing automation
• Landing page builder
• Built-in CRM for small-medium-sized businesses
• Many service integrations
• Drag-and-drop email designer
• Free migration from other services
• SMS marketing
• Site messages
• Live chat and automated chatbot workflows

600+ templates and 600+ free stock photos
Custom email template design service

Templates for:

• Newsletter
• Holiday
• Various industries (real estate, food services, agencies, etc.)
• Birthdays and anniversaries
• Events

125+ templates
No-code dynamic content available
Email template recommendations and guides

Templates for:

• Abandoned Cart
• Conference Event
• Customer Service
• Holiday
• Newsletter
• Reviews Feedback

700+ integrations including WordPress, PayPal, Intercom, Pipedrive, Shopify, Facebook, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Twilio, Zapier, and more

Facebook, Google Analytics, WooCommerce, WordPress, Shopify, Unbounce, ClickFunnels, Salesforce, Zapier, and more

• Website
• 3 mobile apps for Android and iOS (possible to check email marketing stats, add new subscribers, create and send newsletters)

• No installable solution.

• Website
• Email extensions for Chrome and Outlook
• Mobile app for Android and iOS (possible to review email reports, track customer activity, and manage CRM data).

• No installable solution

English

Czech Dutch English French German Hungarian Indonesian Italian Polish Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese Russian Slovenian Spanish Danish Finnish Simplified Chinese Turkish Vietnamese

Offers 3 types of email marketing automations:

• Open-based to track and reward the most engaged subscribers
• Click-based to send campaigns based on subscribers’ actions
• List-based to easily organize lists

800+ automation recipes for email and other marketing channels.

Offers the whole customer experience automation:

• Links different integrated services (like Shopify or Facebook) into cohesive scenarios.
• Collects broad data on each customer, so it’s possible to customize segments based on almost any parameter.
• Helps to choose the best content, send time, and delivery channel for each individual customer.
• Has AI advice on improving the marketing strategy.

• Only necessary email marketing features
• 700+ integrations
• 3 mobile apps for different purposes
• Easy-to-use no-code automations
• 24/7 email support
• Landing page builder

• Hundreds of automation options even for sophisticated purposes
• CRM features
• Mobile app
• A dedicated email deliverability specialist checks the client’s email for compliance before sending
• Automation of 1:1 communications to customers on the website or social media

• Dynamic content requires coding
• Free plan and Lite plan are very limited
• Relatively high prices
• Lacks advanced features (like photo editing)

• High price and no free plan
• Customer support is often unavailable or slow
• Complicated automations system
• Steep learning curve
• Reports aren’t great (not enough information, no real-time results, visually unappealing, etc.)