7 Best ActiveCampaign Alternatives for Email Marketing in 2021

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Are you thinking about switching off of ActiveCampaign? Or simply not feeling what they’re offering?

Sifting through the other hundred-something email marketing automation tools out there can be quite a feat.

Before we dive into the best ActiveCampaign alternatives available, let’s take a closer look at what ActiveCampaign is, as well as the pros and cons of the platform.

What is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign is one of the most popular email marketing solutions when it comes to scaling your email marketing efforts. It combines email marketing, automation, and a CRM tool, all in one platform that enables you to optimize your email strategy while delivering more value to your audience.

While ActiveCampaign possesses the key features a marketing automation tool should have, it may not necessarily be the right fit for you.

Pros of ActiveCampaign:

• Powerful automation features
• Detailed analytics reports
• Free migration from other email marketing tools

Cons of ActiveCampaign:

• Not as beginner-friendly as other automation tools
• May be too complex for your needs
• No free plan

To help you weigh out your options, here are our top 7 best ActiveCampaign alternatives to consider in 2021.

Best ActiveCampaign alternatives for 2021

Tool	Best for	Highlights	Channels	Free	Starting Price
Omnisend	Scaling ecommerce businesses, agencies	Easy drag-and-drop email editor, powerful omnichannel automation, behavioral targeting	Email, SMS, Web Push Notifications, Google Ads, Facebook Ads	Yes	$16/month
HubSpot Email Marketing	SaaS, SMBs, scaling businesses	Native integration with HubSpot CRM	Email	Yes	$40/month
Constant Contact	Solo marketers and ecommerce businesses	500+ integrations	Email, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads	Trial only	$20/month
Sendinblue	Ecommerce and agencies	SMS marketing	Email, SMS, Chat, Facebook ads	Yes	$25/month
AWeber	Digital media and solo marketers	Email testing across devices	Email	Yes	$16/month
MailChimp	Small businesses	Landing pages	Email, Google and Facebook Ads, Postcards	Yes	$9.99/month
GetResponse	Mid and large businesses	Webinar software	Email, Facebook Ads	Trial only	$15/month

Omnisend

Omnisend is a sophisticated marketing automation platform tailored for ecommerce. It covers all ecommerce needs from list building and sending marketing campaigns to launching behavior-based automations and comprehensive reporting. If you’re a sales-driven online business, Omnisend is a great alternative to ActiveCampaign because the platform and features are specifically geared towards the various channels involved in ecommerce marketing.

In-depth and simple to install integrations with leading ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, Shopify Plus, Bigcommerce, Magento and others makes it incredibly easy to switch from whatever email service provider to Omnisend.

Best ActiveCampaign alternative for: ecommerce marketing automation.

Features:

• Ease of Use: Three years in a row, Omnisend is a top-rated tool for its user-friendly interface as well as ease of setup. Although the tool has a lot of sophisticated features, it was built with usability in mind. That’s why marketers don’t face a steep learning curve once they switch to Omnisend.
• Segmentation and retargeting: Set up filters to create segments based on your visitors’ behavior as well as their purchase data. You can then target specific shoppers based on what they bought, their average order value, how recently they made a purchase, and more.
• Automation workflows: Use pre-built or custom automation workflows like cart, product and browse abandonment, re-activation, or a welcome series to personalize your customers’ journey. You can even create custom offers and set up various incentives to optimize your visitors’ engagement with your store. For example, you can offer certain discounts to cart abandoners or display a special message to your first-time buyers.
• Intuitive content editor: The drag-and-drop message editor is easy to use, and there are plenty of customizable templates to choose from. Plus, you can effortlessly add interactive elements like the Gift Box or Scratch Card to boost your click-through rates.
• Connect with your customers via SMS, Facebook and Google retargeting ads, or web push notifications. All of these communication channels can easily be integrated with your store using the automation workflows or by sending one-off campaigns.
• Ecommerce integrations with all major ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, and Zapier.

Pricing:

Omnisend offers a free plan, which allows you to send up to 15,000 emails per month and includes email campaigns, sign-up forms, and basic reporting. Plans that include automation and SMS marketing start at $16 per month.

HubSpot Email Marketing

HubSpot’s email marketing tool is part of HubSpot’s integrated CRM platform. Compared to ActiveCampaign, HubSpot has a much more robust offering. You’ll find that the platform comes with all the tools you need to support your email drip campaigns, from landing pages to capture new email subscribers, to email templates to help you create beautiful designs, or contact management tools to stay organized.

Best ActiveCampaign alternative for: those looking for a robust full-feature marketing solution.

Features:

• Powerful CRM: HubSpot’s powerful CRM keeps a detailed log of all your subscribers’ interactions with your business and is automatically kept up to date so you can offer them the best experience. With this information, you can easily personalize your marketing emails as well as the content they view on your website pages, and consequently increase your conversions. And best of all, the CRM is absolutely free.
• Easy to use: HubSpot’s interface is highly intuitive, making it incredibly easy to create beautiful emails and other marketing assets. The email builder uses a drag-and-drop editor, which makes it simple to create custom email designs that will match the look and feel of your brand. The pre-built templates make it even easier to get an original look that you can add your own personal touch to, with designs tailor-made for various email marketing goals.
• Custom reports: ActiveCampaign shows you the data you need to report on your emails’ performance, but HubSpot lets you go one step further by enabling you to create custom reports where you can track the metrics that matter most to you. This makes reporting a lot more relevant to your goals and business.
• Landing pages: Landing page design plays a big role in driving conversions. HubSpot has everything you need to create optimal landing pages, including personalization tokens to customize your visitors’ experiences. Any email address you collect via your landing pages are automatically added to and tracked in the CRM.
• Free to get started: Get started for free with a CRM with unlimited contacts, email marketing, live chat, forms, landing pages, an ad management tool, a meeting scheduler, a WordPress plugin, and more. It has all the tools you need to run a successful email marketing campaign.

Pricing:

HubSpot’s free plan includes 2,000 emails per month, unlimited contacts, and free tools to run your marketing campaigns, including landing pages, forms, and more. Paid plans with automation and more advanced reporting start at $40+ per month.

Constant Contact is easy to use and has a lower price point than most email marketing tools, making it a rather good alternative for small businesses new to email marketing.

If you’re looking for an alternative for Constant Contact, check out this curated list of 7 tools you need to check in 2021.

Best ActiveCampaign alternative for: solopreneurs and SMBs new to email marketing

Features:

• Beginner-friendly: Constant Contact’s email builder is fairly intuitive and simple to navigate, meaning new marketers won’t feel too overwhelmed by the platform. You can easily customize the look of your emails using the drag-and-drop editor and create email templates that are both mobile-friendly and professional.
• More than just email: Constant Contact allows you to connect with your audience in more ways than just email. For example, you can seek feedback from your subscribers by adding surveys and polls to your emails, set up landing pages to collect donations, or even create and manage events with the Eventbrite integration.
• Email marketing automation: Easily scale your marketing efforts with email automation. You can greet new subscribers with automated welcome series, nurture leads with targeted drip campaigns based on their interactions with your emails, and increase engagement by automatically resending emails to non-openers.
• Niche integrations: Constant Contact has more integrations than ActiveCampaign, featuring 500+ integrations spanning across a wider range of industries.
• Website builder: Though part of a separate plan, starting at just $10 per month, you can quickly set up a website with Constant Contact’s website builder.

Pricing:

Constant Contact has two main plans starting at $20 and $45 per month respectively. Both plans can quickly get pricey as you get more subscribers, so this tool is really best if you’re just starting to build your email list.

Sendinblue

Both Sendinblue and ActiveCampaign are easy to use digital marketing platforms with sophisticated features that appeal to both beginners and advanced marketers.

Best ActiveCampaign alternative for: Marketers working in ecommerce

Features:

• Free to get started: Sendinblue’s free plan offers the essential tools you need to begin ramping up a simple, functioning email marketing campaign. You get access to the core email functionalities as well as SMS marketing and contact management tools.
• SMS marketing: Incorporate SMS campaigns into your email workflows, allowing you to stay in constant contact with your subscribers. Whether it’s to inform them of your latest promotion or to notify them of their latest purchase tracking info, you’ll be able to effectively communicate with them.
• Pre-built templates: Quickly create emails from the template library or build a new design from scratch. You can then edit the design further by adding the blocks and style that you want using the drag-and-drop builder to match your brand.
• Automation workflows: The automation workflow builder allows you to automate tasks such as sending emails and SMS messages, categorizing contacts into different lists, and updating their information in your database.
• Landing pages: Create lead generation or call-to-action landing pages using a drag-and-drop page builder. The landing page builder allows you to choose a layout from pre-built templates or build your own from scratch.

Pricing:

Sendinblue’s free plan includes 300 emails per day with unlimited contacts. Paid plans start at $25 per month for up to 100,000 emails with no daily sending limit.

AWeber

AWeber is one of the classic email marketing tools to have surfaced in the late 90s. This tool is a better alternative to ActiveCampaign if you have a very small list and are just getting started with your email strategy.

Best ActiveCampaign alternative for: digital media and solo marketers

Features:

• Template library: Out of all the email marketing tools on the market, AWeber has one of the larger email template libraries with 700+ designs and 600+ stock photos available to choose from.
• Free to get started: AWeber has a free plan for lists under 500 subscribers that gives you a chance to start building your list and strategy with no financial risk. The free plan also lets you set up your own landing pages so you can capture those new email addresses.
• Marketing automation: If you’re looking to get started with email marketing automation, AWeber has some decent options to help you perform basic automation tasks like assigning triggers and flows to your emails and automatically tagging the contacts in your lists for better targeting.
• Mobile app: AWeber also has a mobile app with all the key features right at your fingertips. This comes in handy when you’re often on-the-go.
• Email testing: Through various integrations, you can easily test out your emails across multiple email clients and devices to make sure everything looks good before hitting that send button. This will help make sure your emails are always up to your quality standards and always looking professional.

Pricing:

AWeber’s free plan is capped at 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails per month with most of the basic email features. For more functionality like split testing and segmentation, paid plans start at $16 per month.

MailChimp

MailChimp is a popular email marketing software used by businesses of all types, from publications to mom-and-pop businesses, and offers all the tools you need to run an effective and compelling email marketing campaign. Whereas ActiveCampaign is better suited if you’re already serious about email automation, MailChimp is a better option if you’re still finding your footing and expect to grow in the future.

Best ActiveCampaign alternative for: scaling businesses

Features:

• Easy to use: Overall, MailChimp’s interface is very user-friendly, making it quite easy to pick up.
• Behavioral targeting: The behavioral tagging options allow you to better target your marketing campaigns with events like a welcome email for new subscribers. You can also keep track of your website engagement with remarketing ads after visitors leave your site.
• Automation: Mailchimp has what they call “pre-built journeys,” which is a selection of pre-built automation flows that allow you to send out personalized product recommendations and order notifications.
• Budget-friendly: You can get started for free sending unlimited emails to up to 2,000 contacts, and even start building forms and landing pages.
• Learning resources: Because beginners are a huge portion of MailChimp’s target audience, they have many learning resources available to help you get started and learn the basics for becoming a well-rounded email marketer.

Pricing:

Mailchimp’s free plan offers basic email marketing functionality for up to 2,000 subscribers. Paid plans start at $9.99 per month.

GetResponse

Finally, GetResponse is another email and marketing automation platform that can be a great ActiveCampaign alternative if you’re part of a relatively big marketing department.

Best ActiveCampaign alternative for: medium- to large-sized companies

Features:

• High deliverability: To make sure your emails actually make it to your contacts’ inbox, you need to have good deliverability rates. GetResponse boasts a 99% deliverability rate, which means your emails likely won’t get caught in your contacts’ spam filters.
• Automation: Easily scale your email marketing campaigns with time-based and action-based messages. Use time-based automated emails to wish happy birthday to your subscribers, or action-based emails to send a message any time someone looks at a product page, for example. You can also combine these automations with signup flows, landing pages, online payments, and even webinars.
• Email templates: GetResponse gives you access to 150+ pre-made email templates that you can edit as much or as little as you please.
• Social ads: Build your own online ads with a selection of templates available for various social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. You can then use the retargeting feature to promote relevant offers to your subscribers.
• Webinar software: Host unlimited webinars with up to 1,000 live attendees and two presenters. GetResponse’s webinar software can store up to 20 hours of recorded footage. Interactive tools and built-in email marketing ensures better performance and conversions.

Pricing:

GetResponse offers 4 paid plans based on your contact list size, starting at $15 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers.

Wrap Up: ActiveCampaign Alternatives for Email Marketing Automation

Choosing the right tool for your business is a crucial decision that can help shape your company’s success — especially if you are an ecommerce business. It can be draining and time-consuming to sift through countless product and pricing pages, not knowing what is what. We covered 7 ActiveCampaign alternatives that will hopefully help you sort through all the noise and focus on what you need.

Regardless of the product you choose, the important thing to remember is to think long-term and pick a software that you can grow into.

Special thanks to our friends at Omnisend for their insights on this topic.