The 8 best ActiveCampaign alternatives in 2026

ActiveCampaign is a seriously robust marketing automation platform. With CRM, pipeline management, email marketing, and automation features—just to name a few—there's very little the platform can't do. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's the exact right tool for you. 

Maybe ActiveCampaign offers more power than you really need. Or you can't unlock its full potential because you're still digging through FAQs on how to set up all the advanced features. Whatever the reason, you might be shopping for another option. 

Based on extensive testing done by the Zapier team, here's my roundup of the best ActiveCampaign alternatives. 

The best ActiveCampaign alternatives 

• HubSpot for an AI-powered CRM 

• Mailchimp for beginner email marketers 

• MailerLite for email marketing for small businesses

• Kit for creators

• Klaviyo for email drip campaigns with deep segmentation

• EngageBay for a free CRM 

• ClickFunnels for a complete suite of marketing tools 

• Omnisend for eCommerce

The best ActiveCampaign alternatives at a glance 

The best ActiveCampaign alternative for an AI-powered CRM 

HubSpot

HubSpot pros: 

• Integrated AI tools are more practical for a wider audience than ActiveCampaign's

• Highly customizable reports that you can integrate in your dashboard via widgets

HubSpot cons: 

• Automation builder is a little less intuitive 

• Pricing plans are confusing and can scale quickly

If you're in the market for a CRM alternative to ActiveCampaign, no doubt HubSpot has come up in your research. And for good reason: ActiveCampaign and HubSpot are both top-of-the-line CRM platforms that offer a lot of similar features, such as strong automation capabilities, templates, and a built-in CMS (content management system). But feature for feature, HubSpot feels a bit more cohesive. 

ActiveCampaign offers some unique AI features, including an AI automation builder and Predictive Content (you feed it a set of draft emails, and the AI chooses which email to send to each customer). But HubSpot's AI, Breeze, is more widely useful and is built in across almost every HubSpot feature. For example, you can use Breeze Copilot to generate copy for drip campaigns or automated sequences, and you can use Breeze Agents to identify and prioritize quality leads in your CRM. 

Like ActiveCampaign, HubSpot integrates with Zapier, which means you can connect it to thousands of other apps. Do things like automatically sync contacts across different apps, register contacts for events, or move contact details in and out of your lists—based on triggers or directly from your favorite AI tool. Learn more about how to automate HubSpot, or get started with a pre-made workflow.

HubSpot pricing: Free plans available for individuals and small teams; paid Marketing plans start at $15/month/seat (billed annually). Most business plans also cost an additional one-time professional onboarding fee (starting at $1,500). 

Read more: ActiveCampaign vs. HubSpot

The best ActiveCampaign alternative for beginner email marketers

Mailchimp

Mailchimp pros: 

• User-friendly interface with helpful tips and best practices 

• Includes customer journey mapping, list segmenting, and A/B testing  

Mailchimp cons: 

• Relatively limited free plan compared to other apps  

• AI tools aren't as impressive as ActiveCampaign's

Where ActiveCampaign is a great option for advanced email marketers, Mailchimp is better if you're newer to email marketing. 

Mailchimp offers most of the same features ActiveCampaign does—for example, a landing page builder, list segmentation, retargeting ads, and A/B testing—but Mailchimp makes using these features simpler. And it provides helpful tips and best practices along the way. For example, when setting up a subject line, a sidebar reminds you about recommended character length and emoji use.

ActiveCampaign makes no such effort to hold your hand. If you dig around ActiveCampaign's site, you can find guides and video tutorials for basic features like importing contacts. But for more advanced features, you'll have to click all the buttons or turn to Google to figure it out. 

If you want advanced features and are willing to do the work to figure out how to use them, ActiveCampaign is for you—and it's much closer to a true CRM. But if you're just starting out or trying to build simple emails, Mailchimp will get you where you need to be. 

Mailchimp also integrates with Zapier, allowing you to do things like automatically subscribe new form responders, leads, or spreadsheet entries to a Mailchimp list. Learn more about how to automate Mailchimp, or get started with a pre-made workflow.

Mailchimp pricing: Free plan includes 250 contacts and limited monthly email sends; paid plans start at $10/month (billed annually), which includes 3 users and 5,000 monthly email sends.

Read our app comparison: ActiveCampaign vs. Mailchimp

The best ActiveCampaign alternative for email marketing for small businesses 

MailerLite 

MailerLite pros: 

• Great free plan

• 3x cheaper than ActiveCampaign's top plan 

• Simple to design and manage forms and landing pages

MailerLite cons: 

• Basic eCommerce integrations 

• Limited set of email automation templates 

If you run a small business and you want effective email marketing without the complexity, your decision is about to get a lot easier. MailerLite is an email marketing tool built for small businesses, and it comes with one of the best free plans around. For example, for zero dollars a month, you get up to 12,000 monthly email sends for up to 500 contacts, unlimited segmentation, and one free website. 

ActiveCampaign doesn't offer a free plan (only a free 14-day trial). After that, you'll pay $15/month for 1,000 contacts on the entry-level Starter plan, which is missing many of ActiveCampaign's most appealing features, like landing pages, generative AI, and pop-up forms. To access those features, you're looking at $49/month for the next level up. Meanwhile, for the same number of contacts and all the bells and whistles, including an AI writing assistant and AI-powered landing page builder (granted, less advanced than ActiveCampaign's AI), MailerLite's highest-priced Advanced plan tops out at just $18/month (though it increases from there based on subscriber count).   

Beyond the price tag, MailerLite is also much more straightforward and intuitive to use than ActiveCampaign. For example, MailerLite's form builder uses one-click presets to help you choose between different form layouts and settings, while ActiveCampaign's form designer requires more jumping between tabs and customization.

MailerLite also integrates with Zapier—meaning you can automate things like adding new MailerLite subscribers from spreadsheets, other sources, or directly from your favorite AI assistant. Here are more ideas for how to automate MailerLite.

MailerLite pricing: Free plan includes 500 subscribers and 12,000 monthly email sends; paid plans start at $9/month (billed annually), which includes 3 users and unlimited emails.

Read our app comparison: MailerLite vs. ActiveCampaign

The best ActiveCampaign alternative for creators 

Kit (formerly ConvertKit)

Kit pros: 

• Generous free plan

• Flexible tagging allows for easy search and segmentation

• Intuitive email editor that works like a web builder

Kit cons: 

• A/B testing limited to only subject lines 

• Emphasis on minimal, text-forward newsletters can be limiting

Kit's suite of tools is unlike what you'll see in ActiveCampaign (or most other email marketing apps) because its focus is to help solo creators and small eCommerce businesses. The first sign that things are different is the Creator Network, which looks a bit like Substack: it's a simple site that explains who you are, allows people to subscribe to your newsletter, and includes an archive of past emails.  

Kit also offers a powerful set of tools to monetize your audience:

• The Sponsor Network places ads in your newsletter.

• Kit Commerce helps you sell and deliver digital products like eBooks and courses.

• Paid newsletter subscriptions let you charge subscribers in exchange for premium content.

• Tip jars give your audience a way to support you on a one-off basis.

• Paid Recommendations let you earn commissions for recommending other newsletters.

With ActiveCampaign, you're on your own when growing your list, and there aren't any built-in monetization features. Your best bet is to use ActiveCampaign's tagging and automation options to nurture subscribers toward a sale. 

When you integrate Kit with Zapier, you can connect it to all the other apps you use for your creator business—and you can access it directly from the AI tools you already use. Learn more about how to automate Kit.

Kit pricing: Free plan includes up to 10,000 subscribers and basic features; cost of paid plan depends on the number of subscribers but starts at $33/month (billed annually) for unlimited automations and email sequences, A/B tested subject lines, and other advanced features.

Read our app comparison: Kit vs. ActiveCampaign

The best ActiveCampaign alternative for email drip campaigns with deep segmentation

Klaviyo

Klaviyo pros:

• Centralizes email, SMS, and WhatsApp in one platform with unified customer data

• Highly granular segmentation based on real-time behavioral and transactional signals

Klaviyo cons:

• Pricing scales quickly as your list grows 

• Built primarily for eCommerce; less natural fit for B2B or service-based businesses

If ActiveCampaign ever felt like it was asking you to build your segmentation from scratch, Klaviyo starts from a different premise. It centralizes everything it knows about a contact—like site activity, purchases, engagement history, consent status, and custom properties—into individual profiles, then makes it all available as a drip trigger or filter condition. Instead of working with broad rules, you're acting on specific signals.

That's important when you're building out a multi-step drip sequence. Viewing a product page, starting checkout, hitting a date-based milestone, or going quiet for 30 days can each fire a different branch in the same automation. Klaviyo might send an email, SMS, or WhatsApp message depending on what that person actually needs. The real-time analytics and campaign previews let you dial in the strategy as you go, so your lifecycle sequences get sharper over time instead of just running on autopilot.

You can make Klaviyo even more powerful by connecting it with Zapier. Add new Typeform or Jotform leads directly to Klaviyo lists, sync Google Sheets contacts into Klaviyo profiles, or trigger Slack alerts when a subscriber hits a specific engagement milestone. You can even talk to Klaviyo directly from your favorite AI chatbot. Learn more about how to automate Klaviyo with Zapier.

Klaviyo pricing: Free plan available for up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends/month. Email plan from $20/month for up to 500 contacts (pricing scales with list size).

For more options: The best email drip campaign software

The best free ActiveCampaign alternative for a CRM

EngageBay

EngageBay pros: 

• All-in-one CRM with lots of extras

• Automation is easy to set up  

EngageBay cons: 

• Free plan is limited to 250 contacts 

• Profitability analysis and integrated multi-channel analytics available only on paid plans

If you're looking for a CRM alternative to ActiveCampaign and affordability is your top priority, go with EngageBay. It tops Zapier's list for the best free CRM software specifically because of the CRM features it offers for free and because it comes with all sorts of extras. 

There's a full marketing suite, including lead scoring, landing pages, pop-ups, email templates, newsletters, and tools to capture new contacts; a service suite that lets your customers create support tickets and assigns them to your team automatically; and a basic live chat module you can integrate on your website, with stats to help you see first response time, chat duration, and total chats. It's a lot—all for free.

There is a drawback to this flexibility, though: you can add only 250 contacts to the platform on the free plan, so consider archiving inactive contacts to keep using it for longer. The good news: even the highest-tier plan is a fraction of the price of most of ActiveCampaign's plans.

You can also integrate EngageBay with Zapier to keep your information automatically flowing in and out of your CRM to your other apps, including your AI tools, so your pipeline updates based on real-time signals. Learn more about how to automate EngageBay with Zapier, or get started with a pre-made workflow.

EngageBay pricing: Free plan includes 250 contacts and basic versions of all the other features; paid plans start at $12.74/user/month (billed biennially).

For more options: The best free CRM software 

The best ActiveCampaign alternative for a complete suite of marketing tools  

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels pros: 

• Advanced landing page builder with multiple customization options 

• Ability to A/B test pages to optimize for conversion 

ClickFunnels cons: 

• Less intuitive user interface (but there's lots of training material to help) 

• Pricing plans start at more than six times that of ActiveCampaign's entry-level pricing

If you need a comprehensive suite of tools that not only drives and nurtures leads but also converts them into paying customers, ClickFunnels is the way to go. 

The platform allows you to set up interconnected landing pages (called sales funnels) designed specifically to turn page visitors into email subscribers or customers. If you're marketing and selling products, these funnels can perform a series of automated actions that move contacts from leads to sales. You can even add order bumps, one-click upsells, downsells, or other types of limited-time offers to your funnels. And you can A/B test every funnel page to optimize customer journeys. 

You won't get any of these conversion features in ActiveCampaign (because it wasn't designed for selling). The landing pages can only collect email addresses or payment. And you can't connect them to move visitors from one stage to the next. On top of that, ActiveCampaign only offers landing pages on its Marketing Plus plan and upwards, which are quite expensive. 

You can unlock thousands of integrations when you connect ClickFunnels with Zapier to automate your most repetitive ClickFunnels tasks and take action directly from your AI chatbots. Learn more about how to automate ClickFunnels.

ClickFunnels pricing: Free 14-day trial; Launch plan for $81/month (billed annually) includes 2 seats, unlimited funnels, and 10K contacts.  

Read our app comparison: ClickFunnels vs. ActiveCampaign ​​​

The best ActiveCampaign alternative for eCommerce 

Omnisend

Omnisend pros:

• Supports email, SMS, and push notification campaigns

• Tons of pre-built templates, automation flows, segments, and content blocks

Omnisend cons:

• Steep price scaling 

• Super limited subscriber and send allowances on the free plan 

If you're looking for an email marketing app to support your eCommerce business, ActiveCampaign offers more than enough functionality to get the job done. But if you're overwhelmed by all that it can do, especially since it's not just an email marketing platform, go with Omnisend—it was built from the ground up for eCommerce. 

The way Omnisend gets eCommerce is uncanny. It caters to your needs as an online retailer in a way ActiveCampaign doesn't. Here's an example: if you're having trouble with lead generation, Omnisend will help you set up cool campaigns, like a wheel of fortune spinner with different deals assigned to each slice, that you can then implement on your website. Your visitors can trade their email for a spin, which increases not only your list, but also the likelihood of a first sale. 

Omnisend also leverages the data from your eCommerce platform to identify abandoned carts, so you can send folks a friendly reminder and even suggest a couple of products that go well with what's already in the cart. It's another way Omnisend helps you create emails with dynamic content, taking personalization to the next level. 

When you connect Omnisend with Zapier, you can streamline even more of your eCommerce email marketing workflows. For example, you can automatically add new subscribers from other apps and send information from Omnisend to all the other apps you use—or access Omnisend directly from your AI chatbot with Zapier MCP. Learn more about how to automate Omnisend.

Omnisend pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $11.20/month for 500 subscribers. 

For more options: The best email drip campaign software 

Which ActiveCampaign alternative should you use?

I'm going to give you the annoying answer no one likes to hear: it depends. Do you want a CRM? Or an email marketing app? Decide that first and then figure out what your other key priorities and pain points are. Then try out the ActiveCampaign alternative that offers the best package for your needs. 

Ok, fine. Twist my arm. If you need a gentle nudge in one direction, here's what I'd suggest: if you're just starting to grow your subscriber list and want to keep things simple, you can't go wrong with MailerLite for email marketing or EngageBay for a CRM. If you're an eCommerce brand that needs to turn behavioral data into targeted sequences, Klaviyo is worth the learning curve. And if you want a platform that does everything from CRM to funnels and email campaigns, HubSpot or ClickFunnels are great places to start.

Whichever tool you land on, be sure to connect it to Zapier. Every app in this list integrates with Zapier, which means you can give your AI tools secure access to all your apps and automate the handoffs between your email marketing tool, your CRM, your lead capture forms, and the rest of your stack without building those connections from scratch.

Related reading: 

• The best CRMs for small businesses

• CRM automation to boost your team's productivity

• The best email newsletter platforms and software

• B2B email marketing: Proven strategies and examples

• The best email marketing automation tools

• The best marketing automation software

This article was originally published in July 2024. The most recent update, with contributions from Nicole Replogle, was in May 2026.