Campaign Monitor vs Keap
Trying to choose between Campaign Monitor vs Keap as your email marketing software? Here's when to choose each tool – and the pros and cons to know about.
- 4.6 TrustPilot
- 4.6 Capterra
- 4.1 G2
Average 4.4 / 5
Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor is a global technology company that provides an email marketing platform that’s easy to use yet extremely powerful. It powers media moguls, tech giants, nonprofits, and other industries.
Pricing
From $9 to $989 a month depending on the tariff and the contact list size
Key features
- No-code email editor
- Automated sequence builder
- List management and segmentation
- Personalization
- Analytics
- A/B testing
Support
Online support with limited working hours, the Help center on the website, video tutorials, courses
- 2.6 Trustpilot
- 4.1 Capterra
- 4.2 G2
Average 3.6 / 5
Keap
A sales and marketing automation platform catered to small businesses. Has CRM and email and text marketing features.
Pricing
Starts at $159 a month for 1,500 contacts (billed yearly)
Key features
- Email automation
- Drag-and-drop email builder
- Segmentation
- Reporting and analytics
- Integrations with various services
- CRM
- Virtual phone number
Support
24/7 online chat support, email support, and call-in support for the UK, US, and Australia. US call-in support is available on weekdays from 6 am to 7 pm PST.
General info about company
Campaign Monitor
Founded in 2004 by Ben Richardson, based in Nashville. Belongs to CM Group, along with other marketing software companies like Sailthru and LiveClicker.
Keap
Keap was founded in 2001 by brothers Scott and Eric Martineau and now CEO Clate Mask. The company headquarters is in Chandler, Arizona.
Difficulty
Campaign Monitor
The email editor is WYSIWYG and the platform provides users with a great choice of templates and an automated email builder for your brand — no coding or design skills are required. Campaign analytics come in the form of digestible graphs that are easy to interpret for junior marketers.
Keap
Although users can create emails and automations without coding or designing, the platform is vast and can be overwhelming to navigate.
Best for
Campaign Monitor
Marketing agencies, small organizations, publishers
Keap
Small businesses that need to constantly keep in touch with clients via not only email but also text and phone.
Free plan
Campaign Monitor
No free plan, free trial only.
The free trial only allows sending test campaigns to 5 people or less, importing contact lists, and creating customer journeys without sending them
Keap
No free plan, only 14 day free trial.
Pricing
Campaign Monitor
Dynamic, depends on the contact list size and the tariff type:
- Basic: $9–$299/month
- Unlimited: $30–$699/month
- Premier: $158–$989/month
All tariffs are limited to 50000 contacts.
Keap
Keap has three plans, billed yearly/monthly:
Pro $159 / $199
- 1,500 contacts
- 2 users
- Email marketing
- Marketing, sales & workflow automation
- CRM
- Quotes, invoices & payments
- Landing pages & online sales
- Text marketing (US)
Max $229 / $289
- 2,500 contacts
- 3 users
- Core features
- Dedicated phone line (US & Canada)
- Appointments
- Enhanced landing pages & sales tools
- E-commerce tools (promo codes, order bumps, etc.)
- Advanced reporting
Ultimate $279 / $349
- 2,500 contacts
- 3 users
- Core features
- Premium CRM & sales management
- Advanced marketing & sales tools (round robin, email health report, etc.)
- Permission levels for users
- Affiliate management & collaboration
- Advanced reporting
Other pricing features:
- 14 days free trial with all the features
- All plans require a mandatory one-time onboarding fee of $999
Support
Campaign Monitor
An in-app Digital Assistant tool. Support agents around the world are available in the following hours:
- America: Mon to Fri 6 am to 5 pm PST/PDT
- Australia and Asia: Mon to Fri 9 am to 5 pm AEST/AEDT
- Europe: Mon to Fri 9 am to 5 pm BST/GMT
Limited support (unspecified working hours) is available on weekends and during holidays. Support phone numbers are only available for Premier users.
Aside from online support, Campaign Monitor offers:
- Video tutorials for newbies and experienced users
- A 30-minute Getting Started course
- Email Academy — an email marketing course
- Resources for developers
- The in-app Help Center with documentation
Keap
24/7 online chat support, email support, and call-in support for the UK, US, and Australia. US call-in support is available on weekdays from 6 am to 7 pm PST.
Customer support managers for each user, access to Keap Academy’s live training events and online learning platform, and Knowledge Base.
Features
Campaign Monitor
- Supports SMS notifications
- Advanced segmentation — available for Premier users
- Link Review — checks for broken links
- Free email template builder
- Campaign analytics
- CAN-SPAM compliance checker
- Integrations with CRM systems and more
Keap
- Email and text marketing automation in a drag-and-drop builder
- Segmentation
- Reporting and analytics
- Integrations with various services
- CRM
- A mobile app for iOS and Android for a virtual phone number and leads management
- Forms and landing pages
- Appointments booking and payments
Templates
Campaign Monitor
108 free mobile-friendly templates available without signing up, templates sorted by email types from announcements to transactional.
If you don’t like templates, you can build emails from scratch using blocks in the email builder.
Recently launched their own stock with free images.
Campaign Monitor also has an automated custom template builder where you fill in the questionnaire and get a bunch of email templates with the logo of your business and custom design.
Keap
18+ templates
Templates for one on one email conversations with clients
Templates for:
- Promo emails
- Online stores
- Flash sale
- Healthcare
- Home decor
- Fitness
Video/screenshots
Campaign Monitor
Keap
Integrations
Campaign Monitor
- Data for marketing: Salesforce, WordPress, Shopify +
- List growth: Intercom, OptinMonster, Unbounce +
- CRM: Raiser’s Edge NXT, Lexer, Qgiv +
- Advertising: AdRoll, Facebook Lead Ads, Rungopher+
More than 100 integrations are available for CRM, list management, surveys, and more
Keap
29 integrations including Zapier, Jotform, WordPress, Instapage, OptinMonster, and more.
Devices
Campaign Monitor
- A web app accessible from phones
- No mobile app
Keap
- Website
- A mobile app for Android and iOS to use a virtual phone number and manage contacts. Available in the U.S., Australia, Canada, U.K., and New Zealand
- No installable solution.
Languages
Campaign Monitor
English
Keap
English
Automation
Campaign Monitor
The drag-and-drop interface for creating automated email sequences that includes:
- Triggers — subscribers’ actions that start or continue the sequenc
- Yes/No rules for personalization
- Timers — for example, you can send emails 3 or more days after a certain subscriber’s action or the previous email in the sequence
The sequence is visualized like an activity diagram where every element is customizable.
Keap
Marketing and sales automations:
- Free consultation
- Deal follow-up
- Reminders
- Yearly birthday greetings
- Review request
Pros
Campaign Monitor
- Good WYSIWYG email editor interface
- Easy and simple email automation
- Easy-to-understand campaign reports with good infographics
Keap
- Helpful automations
- Many features (CRM, email marketing, etc.) in one place
- Customer support
- Integrations
Cons
Campaign Monitor
- No live chat support + no 24/7 support
- All of the tariffs are limited to 50000 contacts
- No functional free trial you can actually use for work
- Contact importing is difficult when matching custom fields
- Split testing only allows 2 email versions
- No landing page builder
Keap
- No A/B testing
- Difficult to cancel and billing issues
- Steep learning curve
- Software is slow
Reviews from experts
Campaign Monitor
“Feature-wise, there’s not really much to fault it on, but ‘power’ email marketing users will find the A/B testing feature a bit basic and will notice the absence of a fully fledged landing page creator.”
“It’s easy to find all features, which means you can get up and running quickly and get the most out of the solution without having to spend days playing around with it. If you sell products online, you’ll love the focus on optimizing transactional emails and tracking their performance so you can understand what works in terms of customer engagement.”
Keap
Overall: Keap Max Classic: It does the job supporting our business. But none of us like using it. We have too many integrations and automations set up that it would just be too arduous to switch.
Pros: Keap Max Classic: It has a lot of features to support businesses that need the room to scale up. It is pretty powerful in what it can do.
Cons: Keap Max Classic: It is convoluted, complex, and confusing. We had to make custom forms and interfaces for our staff because everyone was too confused working directly within Keap. It is also SLOW. Most functions are not snappy. Creating and maintaining campaigns get really confusing really quickly once you graduate from the simplest of campaigns.
Keap allows small business owners like me to create systems and automation to run, grow and scale our businesses. As a solopreneur just starting out, I couldn't hire an assistant to help me schedule appointments or to send out my emails. I was losing potential clients due to lack of follow-up. My business was chaotic. Keap helped me create processes that run, practically on autopilot, while I am working on my business and working for my clients. It is like having a couple of extra employees.
What do you dislike about Keap?
Keap is a very robust platform, which means it does have a bit of a learning curve. They provide training and plenty of resources to help you learn, but it takes a little time to understand all its abilities fully.
*This information is current as of 02/13/2024. While we regularly update our articles, it`s possible that this article may not contain some of the latest information.
