# #3 ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is an email marketing and marketing automation platform with segmentation, landing pages, a built-in CRM and WhatsApp messaging, priced by contact count. Website: activecampaign.com. Category: [Email Marketing & Lifecycle](https://gtmranked.com/best/email-marketing/). Score 46/100 (11 positive, 5 mixed, 4 negative of 20 independent comments).

**Verdict:** More than half of the 68 comments are promotional: plugs for competing tools, a vendor reply, and a cluster of near-identical praise in Feb and Mar 2026 repeating the same abandoned-cart and automation-builder talking points. Among the rest, users consistently rate its automation builder as more capable than Mailchimp, Brevo or MailerLite for multi-branch workflows, and see it as a cheaper HubSpot alternative for email. The main trade-off is cost at scale: billing is by stored contacts rather than sends, users describe steep price jumps as lists grow, and two say removing old contacts to cut the bill is deliberately slow.

**What users like:**
- Automation builder handles complex, multi-branch and behaviour-based workflows better than Brevo, Mailchimp or MailerLite [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1lebhzu/_/no75fb8/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1nhf18x/_/nf1xl58/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1nhf18x/_/nej00ko/) [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1lv1j3z/_/nm7vqpo/) [5](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1p7frf6/_/nr015bo/)
- Users moving off HubSpot find comparable email marketing power for noticeably less money, with CRM features built in [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1odksu0/_/nkuyuu6/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1lebhzu/_/myj6o4u/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1odksu0/_/nl0h2ut/)
- Rated well for deliverability, and one user notes its reporting filters out bot clicks and Apple opens [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1hrd1hw/_/m55hmi6/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1rky8nv/_/o8os48s/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1nhf18x/_/niepvhu/)

**What users complain about:**
- Billing scales with stored contacts, not sends, so costs climb steeply as a list grows; users call it expensive at scale and note recent price increases [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/ecommerce/comments/1v68bgp/_/p0005se/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1h1xfb5/_/lzgymyf/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1lv1j3z/_/n9juhmp/) [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1odksu0/_/nl0h2ut/) [5](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1odksu0/_/nkuyuu6/) [6](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1lv1j3z/_/nul689l/) [7](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1h1xfb5/_/lzfeviy/)
- Removing old contacts to cut the bill is hard: one user says they are not allowed to delete contacts, another describes an archive-then-delete process that still needs support's sign-off [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/1lv1j3z/_/nul689l/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/ecommerce/comments/1v68bgp/_/p0005se/)

**Best for:** Teams that need multi-branch, behaviour-based email automation beyond what Mailchimp or MailerLite offer; B2B and non-ecommerce companies leaving HubSpot mainly for email marketing; Businesses with modest, actively mailed lists.
**Skip it if:** Large lists that are mailed rarely, since billing follows stored contacts; Cold outreach, which permission-based marketing platforms like this one do not allow; Budget-first senders who only need simple newsletters.
**Pricing (vendor-stated, checked 2026-10-14):** Email plans billed annually and priced by contact count: Starter from $15/mo, Plus from $49/mo, Pro from $79/mo, Enterprise from $145/mo. WhatsApp and Email + WhatsApp plans are also listed. 14-day free trial with no credit card; no free plan.

Full review: https://gtmranked.com/tools/activecampaign/