Mailchimp vs ActiveCampaign

Mailchimp was founded in Atlanta in 2001 by Ben Chestnut, Mark Armstrong, and Dan Kurzius. Headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Was acquired by Intuit in 2021.

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

Creating emails doesn’t require design or coding skills. However, the interface can be confusing to novices.

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 e-commerce companies that want email marketing together with their website hosting.

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 1,000 emails a month and a daily send limit of 500. It has a lot fewer features than paid plans, fewer available templates, and customer support for 30 days only.

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 monthly:

• Essentials $13
• Standard $20
• Premium $350

Other pricing features:

• 1-month free trial for Essentials and Standard
• A Pay As You Go plan
• Two possible pauses of the account’s billing every 12 months
• 15% discount for nonprofit organizations

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.

• Email support on paid plans and 30-day only on a Free plan
• 24/7 chat support on paid plans
• Support phone line for the Premium plan: Mon-Fri 6:30 am — 6:00 pm ET (UTC-5)

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 with pre-made customer journeys
• Hosting, websites, and landing pages builder
• Online store creator
• Marketing CRM
• Integrations with popular services
• Drag-and-drop email builder and pre-made templates
• A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.

• 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

100+ templates for emails and landing pages
AI assistant for designing
The free plan has a limited number of pre-built templates

Templates for:

• Welcome messages
• Sales
• Newsletter
• Events
• Announcements
• Win-back

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

Templates for:

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

315 integrations including WordPress, Shopify, Facebook, Stripe, LiveChat, Canva, Unsplash, and more.

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

• Website
• A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.

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 Spanish Portuguese

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

Many pre-built automations (called customer journeys):

• Welcome series
• Abandoned cart
• Product retargeting
• Lead generation
• Order notifications, and more

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.

• Essential features for small businesses
• 315 integrations
• Website hosting
• A mobile app
• Stylish design and built reputation
• 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

• Relatively high prices
• Free and Standard plans are very limited
• Limited customization
• Customer support is hard to reach and isn’t very helpful
• Many people find the interface not user-friendly
• Unsubscribed and inactive accounts are still included in sending limits

• 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.)