Convertkit vs ActiveCampaign: Which Is Better for Email Marketing? (2023)
A huge part of building an email list is choosing the right email marketing solution for the task.
Without the right one, it’ll be hard to create campaigns, let alone track metrics that help you plan your future campaigns.
Convertkit and ActiveCampaign are two excellent email and marketing automation tools that offer amazing features and functions.
But in a Convertkit vs ActiveCampaign showdown, which one does a better job?
This article hopes to answer the above question.
We’ll dive into each platform’s features, pricing, and more to help you make an informed purchasing decision.
Disclosure: We earn a commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you. You can read our affiliate disclosure in our privacy policy.
Convertkit vs ActiveCampaign: Overview
| Feature | Convertkit | ActiveCampaign |
| Free Plan / Trial | Free until you hit 1000 subscribers | Maximum 14 days |
| Price | Starts at $15 a month (for 300 subscribers) | Starts at $29 a month (paid annually) |
| Automation | Yes | Yes |
| Email Builder | Yes | Yes |
| Landing Pages / Forms | Yes | Yes |
| SMS Marketing | No | Yes |
1. Convertkit
Overview
Convertkit is one of the most popular email marketing services available. This email automation and marketing software platform offers a seamless blend of intuitive design and raw technical power. It’s aimed at creators, letting them automate systems that help grow their audiences and, ultimately, their incomes.
Key Features
- Its email editor lets you build emails easily.
- Convertkit includes an email designer for creating high-converting newsletter marketing campaigns.
- It includes tools for audience segmentation.
- Customizable email and landing page templates.
- Monetization tools let you sell digital products.
- Easy-to-use email automation builder.
- Tools for building landing pages.
- Convertkit integrates with many third-party apps.
User Experience
Convertkit is a user-friendly email marketing tool. You don’t need technical skills or a coding background to create landing pages or set up campaigns and email broadcasts.
Its intuitiveness boils down to the tool’s drag-and-drop interface, which provides a visual means of building email automation sequences that engage your email subscribers.
When combined with all of the features this email marketing software offers, Convertkit provides an excellent user experience.
Pricing
Convertkit has three plans:
- Free Plan: Convertkit’s free plan is free for up to a thousand email subscribers. Its features aren’t as robust as the paid plans, but you get unlimited landing pages, broadcasts, and opt-in forms.
- Creator Plan: The Creator plan starts at $15 per month. It has all the free plan’s features, along with extras like live chat and email support, automated emails (sequences), free migration from your existing tool, and visual marketing automation builders.
- Creator Pro: Creator Pro starts at $29 per month. In addition to the Creator plan’s features, it lets you score your email subscribers, provides advanced reporting features, offers a newsletter referral system, and accommodates unlimited team members.
Both paid plans accommodate a minimum of 300 subscribers and support third-party integrations. Every plan lets you sell digital products and subscriptions.
Please note that the prices for each paid plan quoted above will change depending on the number of subscribers you have.
Bottom Line
Small businesses and creators (bloggers, affiliate marketers, etc.) will get the most out of Convertkit’s intuitive design and powerful features.
2. ActiveCampaign
Overview
ActiveCampaign is an email marketing, automation, and CRM platform for businesses and creators. It’s useful for delivering personalized messages to audiences at the right moment, scoring leads, and collecting emails, among many other use cases.
In addition, it offers intuitive tools for creating landing pages and forms and nurturing leads. With over 900 integrations (including a WordPress integration), this email marketing platform fits into any business’s workflow.
Key Features
- Assorted sign-up forms let you collect contact details for your future email campaigns.
- Its CRM features make managing customer relationships a breeze.
- This email marketing software has tools for analyzing marketing campaigns.
- Its advanced automation feature lets you personalize customer journeys.
- A drag-and-drop interface for building email templates.
- ActiveCampaign provides lead-scoring capabilities.
User Experience
Thanks to its drag-and-drop design system and collection of email templates, ActiveCampaign offers an intuitive user experience. The templates let you create emails and landing pages with ease.
Also, its predictive sending feature takes email personalization off your hands by analyzing an individual subscriber’s history.
Using the characteristics it finds (location, usage, etc.), the predictive content AI will tailor your email’s text to their preferences in order to increase their chances of converting.
The above features and more make ActiveCampaign excellent from a user’s point of view.
Pricing
ActiveCampaign has five plans for email marketing and automation:
- Marketing Lite: This plan costs $29 a month. It’s meant for individuals and small teams, and it provides basic email automation and marketing tools.
- Marketing Plus: ActiveCampaign’s Marketing Plus plan costs $49 a month. It has every Marketing Lite feature and extras like lead scoring, e-commerce automation, and integration with Shopify, Woocommerce, and BigCommerce.
- Plus Plan: The Plus plan costs $49 a month. It accommodates three users and has all the Marketing Plus plan’s features.
- Professional Plan: This plan costs $149 a month. It accommodates five users, has all of the Plus plan’s features, and features extras like Salesforce integration and attribution reporting.
- Enterprise Plan: The Enterprise plan has a custom price. You can request pricing information from its sales team. This plan provides features like unlimited email tests and single sign-on.
Please note that all plans require that you pay annually. With the exception of the Marketing Lite plan, you can include an SMS marketing add-on to most plans.
Bottom Line
ActiveCampaign is best for businesses. This award-winning marketing software provides the tools needed to guide audiences along their customer journeys.
Additionally, its breadth of integrations makes it a worthy addition to almost any workflow.
Related: Email Marketing Types
Convertkit vs ActiveCampaign: Common Questions
Although both tools offer a lot of value, we’ll need to compare them side-by-side to determine which of them is the better option.
Which Has the Better User Interface?
Convertkit
Convertkit has a beginner-friendly dashboard that makes it easy to use. First-time users will find this uncluttered user interface navigable and won’t have any issues creating campaigns after having a look around.
The menu bar is placed in the top center of the screen so you’ll always find the functionality you need when you need it.
ActiveCampaign
As a comprehensive email and marketing automation platform, ActiveCampaign’s dashboard is packed with menu options.
While the software’s designers do an excellent job of organizing all the elements, it can be intimidating to look at.
Verdict
Convertkit is the clear winner here. If you’ve never used email marketing software before, you’ll take to its uncluttered user interface like a duck to water.
In comparison, ActiveCampaign’s dashboard is busy and has a higher learning curve.
Which Provides the Best Analytics?
Convertkit
Convertkit provides basic campaign analytics metrics. You can track email open rates, new subscribers, the number of people who opted out of your list, click rates, and more.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign offers comprehensive reporting and analytics tools. In addition to the usual campaign KPIs (open rate, etc.), you can track engagement, replies, and other metrics that provide insight into your potential customers’ behavior.
Verdict
ActiveCampaign is the more comprehensive of the two email automation platforms. It goes beyond what Convertkit offers, making it much easier to plan new campaigns and make adjustments to existing ones.
Which Offers the Better Free Plan?
Convertkit
Convertkit’s free trial lets you market to up to 1,000 subscribers while providing access to most of the features you need (unlimited landing pages, forms, broadcasts, etc.).
Unfortunately, it doesn’t include automated email sequences.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign doesn’t have a free subscription tier. Instead, it offers a 14-day free trial.
While you’ll get access to most of the essential ActiveCampaign features during the trial, it only accommodates up to 500 subscribers.
Verdict
If you’re the type of customer who needs time when trialing a software application, you’ll agree that Convertkit wins this round.
The tool also beats ActiveCampaign in the subscriber department by letting you market to 500 more subscribers than ActiveCampaign’s trial period can accommodate.
Which Has Better Customer Support?
Convertkit
Convertkit offers multiple avenues for support, including a Facebook group, a forum where you can access tutorials and guides, and live chat and email support (when you subscribe to a paid plan).
The company’s support staff respond to queries quickly, usually within an hour or two after receipt.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign, too, provides several means of getting support when you need it. You can access a detailed knowledge base for tutorials and troubleshooting tips, chat with the support team, or call (Enterprise plan alone).
Additionally, you can get support in multiple languages.
Verdict
This round ends in a tie because both tools offer excellent customer support, troubleshooting resources, and online where you can seek help from other users.
Related: Achieving Successful Email Marketing
Convertkit vs ActiveCampaign: How to Decide Between Them
Before putting down money for either marketing tool, it’s worth considering the following factors:
Tools and Features
The first factor you need to consider is this platform’s suite of tools and features vis-à-vis your specific needs.
If you run a small business or you’re a solo creator, it’s unlikely you’ll need a feature-packed email marketing application. Your needs may be as straightforward as collecting emails and setting up automated campaigns. In that case, go with Convertkit.
In contrast, if you’re managing a bigger team, you’ll need features that accommodate each member’s needs. ActiveCampaign is the more comprehensive option and will offer better value for money in that regard.
Pricing and Subscriber Count
When you first start out, you may not have a single subscriber in your email list. Therefore, it’ll make sense to start with your chosen software’s most affordable plan. You’ll need to consider the cost of the plan in relation to the minimum number of subscribers it accommodates.
Ideally, the plan should be affordable and let you market to as many subscribers as possible. For example, Convertkit’s Creator plan starts at $15 for up to 300 subscribers, ticking both boxes. As you scale your subscribers, you can pay a higher price as needed.
Trial Period
It’s never a bad idea to test-run an email subscription app before making a financial commitment. In that regard, it’s worth checking out its free plan to see what it offers.
The main consideration you should have relates to time and features. An email marketing software that gives you more time to trial would ordinarily take higher priority than one that doesn’t.
However, you also need to factor in the features the free trial lets you access. If a tool gives you ample time to test it out and lets you test most of its features, as Convertkit does, it’s a keeper.
Ease of Use
Finally, consider the tool’s ease of use and your know-how before making your purchasing decision. If it’s your first time dabbling in email marketing, you’ll be better off choosing software that is intuitive and unintimidating.
Convertkit delivers on both fronts, as it’s so straightforward to use that anyone can create campaigns.
As you build proficiency and your needs evolve and your list grows, you can consider the more comprehensive ActiveCampaign.
Final Thoughts
So, which of these two tools is better for email marketing? The answer is, it depends on your needs, budget, and skill level.
In a contest of features, ActiveCampaign is the superior software application. you can do more with it, as well as get more information out of it regarding your marketing campaigns.
In contrast, Convertkit is the more approachable of the two tools, meaning it doesn’t have a high learning curve.
Also, it’s more budget-friendly and it has a free plan you can test for as long as your subscribers remain under 1000.
With that in mind, be sure to consider the factors mentioned in the article to ensure making the right decision.
