ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is priced by the size of your contact list, not by the seat: Per contact (from $15/mo), with no monthly base fee ($0) and no onboarding fee (None). The catch most comparisons miss is that seats are still capped. Starter covers one user, Plus one, Pro three and Enterprise five, and extra users are charged on top, so a five-person sales team does not pay the headline price. The calculator on this page applies both the contact ladder and the seat charges, so the estimate moves when you change either.

No: No. Every list size has a price, which makes ActiveCampaign one of the few CRMs here with no free tier at all. If a free plan is what you need, HubSpot and Zoho both have one, and Capsule is free for up to two users.

It is both, and the order matters. ActiveCampaign began as an email marketing platform and its automation is Yes (best-in-class), which is why it wins on that axis against every dedicated CRM in this table. The CRM side is real (deal pipelines, Yes, contact records and Yes email tracking) and is included on every plan, but a sales team that lives in a pipeline all day will find Pipedrive or HubSpot more purpose-built. Buy ActiveCampaign when marketing automation is the reason you are shopping.

ActiveCampaign sells an Enhanced CRM add-on (advanced pipelines, AI deal analysis and one-to-one sales engagement) for an extra monthly fee on top of your plan. The standard CRM is already included in every plan, so the add-on is an upgrade rather than a requirement, and the cost estimate on this page does not assume you buy it.

The price climbs a contact ladder, stepping up each time your list crosses a band, and it counts every contact you store, including people who never open anything, so list hygiene is a real line item. The Starter plan is sold up to 25,000 contacts; past that you are on Plus or higher. Above 200,000 contacts ActiveCampaign publishes no price at all and quotes instead, which is why the table shows "Get quote" rather than an invented number at that size.

Integrations are a genuine strength: 870+ apps, plus Yes API access. Its AI is Native (Active Intelligence), and it offers Native MCP (official), so it can be driven by AI assistants directly, which most CRMs in this table still cannot do. Support is 24/7 chat.

ActiveCampaign starts at $15/mo (Starter) on the Starter plan. Pricing scales by contact count, so the monthly fee rises as your list grows. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial.

No. ActiveCampaign does not offer a free plan. You can try the platform with a 14-day free trial, after which a paid subscription is required. If a permanent free tier matters, look at Mailchimp, Brevo, or Kit instead.

The Starter plan includes basic automation workflows. The Plus plan and above unlock advanced multi-step automations, conditional logic, a built-in sales CRM, and goal-based sequences. Predictive sending, which uses AI to determine the best send time per contact, is available on higher tiers. This is the deepest automation engine in this comparison.

Yes. ActiveCampaign offers an official MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, which lets AI assistants and agents connect to your account to read data and trigger actions through a standard interface, rather than relying only on Zapier or community workarounds.

Yes. ActiveCampaign offers SMS marketing to US mobile numbers as a paid add-on. Email and SMS can be coordinated within the same automation flows, so multi-channel sequences stay aligned.

ActiveCampaign offers more powerful marketing automation and a built-in CRM, while Mailchimp has a more familiar interface and a free entry tier. ActiveCampaign suits businesses that treat automation as the core of their marketing; Mailchimp suits those who want a simple, recognizable tool. Compare both at your list size in the table above.