AWeber vs ActiveCampaign
Trying to choose between AWeber vs ActiveCampaign as your email marketing software? Here's when to choose each tool – and the pros and cons to know about.
- 3.4 TrustPilot
- 4.4 Capterra
- 4.2 G2
Average 4 / 5
AWeber
An email marketing software with automations and integrations. It can also be used to build landing and e-commerce pages.
Pricing
Starts from $12.50 a month for 500 contacts (billed yearly)
Key features
- Email automation
- Landing page builder
- Custom sales pages
- Web push notifications
- Integrations with various services
- Drag-and-drop email builder
Support
24/7 support via email, limited hours support on the phone and in the live chat.
- 3.6 TrustPilot
- 4.6 Capterra
- 4.6 G2
Average 4.3 / 5
ActiveCampaign
An automation platform that combines email marketing, marketing automation, CRM, and machine learning for cross-channel management, segmentation, and personalization. It can also be used to automate sales and support processes.
Pricing
Starts from $9 a month for 500 contacts (billed yearly)
Key features
- Automation features for marketing
- Integrated CRM tools
- Integrations with various popular services
- Landing page constructor
- Intuitive email builder
Support
Availability: 9 am - 11 pm CDT (GMT-5) Communication in the chat or via email
General info about company
AWeber
AWeber was founded in 1998 by Tom Kulzer. Headquarters in Chalfont, PA.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign was founded in 2003 by Jason VandeBoom. Hubs in Chicago, Sidney, and Dublin.
Difficulty
AWeber
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.
ActiveCampaign
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.
Best for
AWeber
Small to medium companies that only need an email marketing platform with basic features.
ActiveCampaign
Businesses that plan to scale their email marketing up to include CRM, e-commerce integrations, and diverse automation schemes.
Free plan
AWeber
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.
ActiveCampaign
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
Pricing
AWeber
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
ActiveCampaign
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.
Support
AWeber
- 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
ActiveCampaign
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
Features
AWeber
- 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
ActiveCampaign
- 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
Templates
AWeber
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
ActiveCampaign
125+ templates
No-code dynamic content available
Email template recommendations and guides
Templates for:
- Abandoned Cart
- Conference Event
- Customer Service
- Holiday
- Newsletter
- Reviews Feedback
Video/screenshots
AWeber
ActiveCampaign
Integrations
AWeber
700+ integrations including WordPress, PayPal, Intercom, Pipedrive, Shopify, Facebook, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Twilio, Zapier, and more
ActiveCampaign
Facebook, Google Analytics, WooCommerce, WordPress, Shopify, Unbounce, ClickFunnels, Salesforce, Zapier, and more
Devices
AWeber
- Website
- 3 mobile apps for Android and iOS (possible to check email marketing stats, add new subscribers, create and send newsletters)
- No installable solution.
ActiveCampaign
- 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
Languages
AWeber
English
ActiveCampaign
Czech
Dutch
English
French
German
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Slovenian
Spanish
Danish
Finnish
Simplified Chinese
Turkish
Vietnamese
Automation
AWeber
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
ActiveCampaign
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.
Pros
AWeber
- 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
ActiveCampaign
- 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
Cons
AWeber
- Dynamic content requires coding
- Free plan and Lite plan are very limited
- Relatively high prices
- Lacks advanced features (like photo editing)
ActiveCampaign
- 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.)
Reviews from experts
AWeber
It’s fair to say, AWeber has all the basics you need for a small business and does quite a good job at educating first-time users with its range of customer support articles, videos, and podcasts. The issue is that, apart from customer service and landing page solution, there isn’t a particular area where Aweber really excel in when it comes to its features.
It allows me to quickly create engaging emails with their drag-and-drop email builder. I also appreciate that I can track the success of my emails with their comprehensive reporting suite. Additionally, I love the variety of automated features like segmentation, list segmentation, and automation rules. All of these features make AWeber a great choice for businesses looking to maximize the impact of their email marketing campaigns.
Cons: AWeber has some features that I found difficult to use. For example, I found the automation rules difficult to configure, and the interface was a bit overwhelming. Additionally, the customer service was not always helpful or responsive to my inquiries. I also found that some of the reporting was not very detailed and I was not able to access some of the data I needed
ActiveCampaign
“ActiveCampaign is a solid choice for your email marketing needs. There are few flaws (though they matter), and if you want a service you can integrate into almost any tool chain, ActiveCampaign’s feature-packed plans have few equals.
While its decent feature set could potentially be let down by the rather high prices on more expensive plans, ActiveCampaign still provides good value for your money”.
“So do we recommend ActiveCampaign?
As this ActiveCampaign review highlights, it’s really tough to fault ActiveCampaign, not only do they offer almost everything you need within an email marketing platform, but they do it very well.
The reporting offers you insight into almost all facets, such as page visits, geo-tracking, openers, ecommerce and more. One area that is slightly lacking is the email builder, not offering an experience as slick as other services out there, with a few niggling features that could be done better (like the revision history)”.
*This information is current as of 09/28/2023. While we regularly update our articles, it`s possible that this article may not contain some of the latest information.
