ActiveCampaign vs Constant Contact

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

The company was founded in 1995 by Randy Parker and was later sold to Endurance International in 2015. In 2021, it was acquired by ClearLake Investments. Headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts.

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.

Beginner-friendly. Basic tutorials are built into the interface.

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

Small businesses, nonprofits, and event organizers. Some features are aimed at sales and marketing directors.

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

No free plan. Depending on the location, users can get a 14 or 60 day free trial with access to the core features and send up to 100 emails. No credit card required.

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.

Based on number of contacts and email sends. Overage fees of $0.002 per email apply.

For up to 500 contacts, billed monthly:

Lite $12

• 1 user
• 1 GB storage
• Monthly email sends: 10x your number of contacts.

Standard $35

• 3 users
• 10 GB storage
• Monthly email sends: 12x your number of contacts.

Premium $80

• Unlimited users
• 25 GB storage
• Monthly email sends: 24x your number of contacts

Other pricing features:

• Everyone: 15% off for 12-month prepay
• Nonprofits: 20% off for 6-month prepay and 30% off for 12-month prepay
• Full refund for closing account within 30 days of signing up. Conditions apply.
• Free trial
• Customized solutions for agencies, organizations in need of 5+ accounts, franchises, and member-based associations.
• Lead Gen & CRM starting at $449/month
• SMS Marketing, starting at $10/mo USD for 0-500 messages with any paid plan. Available only for US customers.

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

• Live chat and phone for all the plans during the office hours.
• Live chat: Mon-Fri 3 am-8pm ET
• Phone: Mon-Fri 8am-8pm ET, Sat 10 am-6pm ET
• Knowledge Base
• Product Help Center
• Community Forums

• 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

• Drag-and-drop email templates
• Dynamic content in email
• Reporting (engagement, campaign comparison, open rate by device, heatmap*, revenue*)
• Automations (pre-built and custom templates)
• AI Content Generator
• Marketing CRM
• Web sign-up forms
• Polls & surveys
• Landing page builder
• Social media posting
• Event management, including selling services and merch with the tickets and accepting payments
• Scheduled email sends
• Contact segmentation
• Social media ads manager
• Facebook retargeting ads*
• Google Ads Manager*
• SEO recommendations*
• 5,000+ integrations
• SMS marketing (US only)**
• Subject line A/B testing

_____________________
*Available only with Premium
**Charged separately

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

Templates for:

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

• Over 200 mobile-responsive templates
• Drag-and-drop editing

Popular templates:

• Newsletter
• Holiday-themed
• Retail
• Industry-specific
• Customizable Standard template to any occasion

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

Over 5,000 integrations, including Google and Facebook Ads, WordPress, Canva, Vimeo, SalesForce, Eventbrite, Shopify, Stripe, WooCommerce, social media

• 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

• iOS
• Android
• Web

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

Danish Dutch English French German Italian Portuguese Castilian Spanish Latin American Spanish Swedish

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.

• Automated email and SMS messages.
• Automation Path Builder with a library of plug-and-play path templates and ability to create a custom path.

Some path templates are compatible with Shopify and WooCommerce, including:

• Welcome email series
• Abandoned cart messages
• Win-back series
• Thank you series
• Request a review

• 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

• Ease of use
• Diverse template library — more than 200 mobile-ready email templates categorized by tag
• Over 5,000 Integrations with filters by category
• Sharing newsletter content on social media in one-click
• Niche features for event organizers
• Automated contact list segmentation based on engagement

• 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.)

• Steep price tag for the users who have more than a couple hundred subscribers and going beyond basic functionality. Some features are not included in the plans and cost extra, like SMS
• Automation can’t include multiple channels, actions and conditions. Selection of triggers is also limited
• A/B testing is limited to subject lines
• No customization options for sign up forms
• Only five templates for landing pages
• No geographical breakdown of the regions that are engaging more, or the time that subscribers open emails
• No RTL language support
• Account can be canceled only by phone