Most email tools can send a newsletter. ActiveCampaign is built for the step after that, when you want an email to go out because someone clicked a link, abandoned a cart, visited your pricing page twice or went quiet for 60 days. The company says more than 180,000 businesses use it, and its visual automation builder is the main reason people pick it over cheaper tools.
It isn’t the cheapest option, and the bill grows with your list. But if your business makes money from follow-up, ActiveCampaign is one of the best automation platforms a small or mid-sized team can buy, and the 14-day trial (no card needed) makes it easy to find out.
What ActiveCampaign costs in 2026
ActiveCampaign prices by plan and by contact count. These are the published prices for 1,000 contacts, checked October 24, 2026 on ActiveCampaign’s pricing page:
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | Users | Monthly sends |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $19 | $15 | 1 | 10,000 |
| Plus | $59 | $49 | 1 | 10,000 |
| Pro | $99 | $79 | 3 | 12,000 |
| Enterprise | $179 | $145 | 5 | 15,000 |
Prices climb quickly with list size. At 5,000 contacts, Plus is $179 a month on monthly billing and Pro is $259. Starter tops out at 25,000 contacts and is only sold to new customers. Yearly billing saves about 20%, nonprofits can ask for a further discount, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first paid subscription.
One pricing detail to check before you import. According to ActiveCampaign’s help center, accounts opened on or after November 3, 2025 count every contact toward the plan limit, including unsubscribed and bounced contacts. Older accounts count only active contacts. Clean your list first, or you may land a tier higher than you expected.
Which plan makes sense
Starter is fine for a welcome series and a newsletter, but each automation is limited to five actions. That sounds like plenty until you add a wait step, a condition and a tag.
Plus is where most small businesses end up. It removes the action limit and adds landing pages, site messages, generative AI for copy and images, ad audience syncing and the option to buy the Enhanced CRM add-on for deals and pipelines.
Pro adds predictive sending (each email goes out when that contact is most likely to open), conditional content in a single email, advanced segmentation and revenue attribution. It’s worth it once you have enough data for those tools to matter.
Enterprise is for teams that need single sign-on, HIPAA support, custom objects, Salesforce and other premium CRM integrations, and a dedicated account team.
The automation builder, in plain terms
You build automations on a canvas: pick a trigger (a form signup, a tag, a purchase, a page visit, a date), then add emails, waits, if/else branches, goals and CRM actions. More than 950 prebuilt recipes cover common jobs like welcome series, abandoned carts, lead scoring and win-back campaigns, so you rarely start from a blank screen.
A few real examples of what it handles well:
- A course creator sends a different follow-up to people who watched the free lesson than to those who didn’t.
- A Shopify store sends a cart reminder after an hour, then a second one with a coupon only to first-time buyers.
- A consultant scores leads on page visits and email clicks, then creates a deal and notifies a salesperson when the score passes 50.
Every plan includes the Active Intelligence AI tools: an AI automation builder, AI campaign builder, suggested segments and spam checks, plus a monthly pool of AI credits. They help you get a first draft working faster, but you’ll still want to review the logic yourself.
Email, CRM and ecommerce features
The email designer includes 250+ templates, A/B testing and dynamic content. Site and event tracking come on every plan, so automations can react to what people do on your website. Standard Shopify, WooCommerce and Square integrations are included from Starter, with deeper ecommerce reporting on Plus and attribution on Pro. ActiveCampaign lists more than 1,000 integrations, including Zapier, WordPress, Stripe and Calendly.
The CRM side is solid for small sales teams. With the Enhanced CRM add-on you get deal pipelines, tasks, lead scoring and one-to-one sales emails tied to the same contact records your marketing uses.
What owners complain about
ActiveCampaign scores well with users on sites like G2 and Capterra, and the praise is consistent: automation depth, segmentation and good deliverability. The recurring complaints are fair to know about:
- Price creep. The bill rises with every contact tier, and the 2025 contact-counting change made this sharper for new accounts.
- Learning curve. Simple campaigns are easy, but advanced automations take time to plan and test.
- Add-ons. Sales pipelines, SMS and transactional email cost extra, so the real monthly cost can be higher than the plan price.
- Starter limits. The five-action cap pushes many users to Plus sooner than they planned.
None of these are deal breakers. They mostly mean you should price your actual list size and add-ons before committing.
ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse, AWeber and Brevo
| ActiveCampaign | GetResponse | AWeber | Brevo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $15/mo yearly (1,000 contacts) | Free plan; Starter $19/mo | Lite from $15/mo (500 subscribers) | Free plan; Starter from $9/mo |
| Pricing model | Contacts | Contacts | Subscribers | Email volume |
| Automation depth | Excellent | Good | Basic to good | Good |
| Built-in CRM | Yes, plus Enhanced CRM add-on | Limited | No | Yes, basic |
| Best for | Behavior-based journeys and sales follow-up | Email plus webinars and courses | Simple newsletters with great support | Big lists sent occasionally |
If you mainly want webinars and courses alongside email, our GetResponse review is a better starting point. For a simpler, beginner-friendly tool, see our AWeber review. If you have a large list and send rarely, our Brevo review explains its volume-based pricing. Creators who want funnels, courses and email in one cheaper account should read our Systeme.io review, and if you also need landing pages driven by chat, our Manychat review covers Instagram and Messenger automation. More options are in our email marketing reviews.
Who should skip ActiveCampaign
Skip it if you send one simple newsletter a month, if your list is large but your budget is small, or if you want a free plan you can stay on indefinitely. A lighter tool will do the job for less. The pros and cons are summarized below.
Our take
ActiveCampaign is still one of the strongest email automation platforms you can buy in 2026. Plus is the plan we’d start most small businesses on, because the Starter action limit is easy to outgrow. Use the 14-day trial to build one real automation, check the price at your true contact count, and you’ll know quickly whether the extra cost pays for itself.
We research software from published plans, documentation and user feedback rather than long-term account testing; our review method explains how.