ActiveCampaign is a Marketing automation / CRM platform by ActiveCampaign, LLC. This profile pulls together ActiveCampaign's ratings across the major review sites, its company and funding details, leadership, features, pricing, and the latest news, with every external source cited at the bottom.
About ActiveCampaign, LLC
ActiveCampaign is a cloud-based marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM platform founded in 2003 by Jason VandeBoom in Chicago, Illinois. The company started as a software consultancy before pivoting to a SaaS product focused on small business email marketing, and spent more than a decade bootstrapped before raising outside capital for the first time in 2016. That restraint shaped the product: ActiveCampaign is known for automation depth that punches above its price point, with a visual automation builder that rivals tools costing three to five times more. By 2026 the company serves more than 180,000 customers in 170+ countries and employs approximately 900 people. It raised a Series C in 2021 at a $3 billion valuation and remains private, headquartered in Chicago with offices in Indianapolis, Dublin, Sydney, and São Paulo. The product competes with Klaviyo in ecommerce email, with HubSpot in B2B marketing automation, and with Mailchimp in the SMB email segment.
| Category | Marketing automation / CRM platform |
| Company | ActiveCampaign, LLC |
| Founded | 2003 |
| Headquarters | Chicago, Illinois, US |
| Industry | Software Development · Marketing Automation / Email Marketing |
| Team size | ~900 (2025) |
| Ownership | Private |
| Founder / CEO | Jason VandeBoom (founder, 2003) |
| Specialties | Email marketing, marketing automation, CRM, SMS marketing, site tracking, lead scoring, split testing, dynamic content |
| Website | activecampaign.com |
Find ActiveCampaign on: Wikipedia · Crunchbase · LinkedIn · G2 · Capterra · producthunt.com
ActiveCampaign ratings across the web
Aggregated from the major review platforms. Each links to the source.
Also rated: TrustRadius 8.5/10 (904).
Rating breakdown
Per-category scores from Capterra ActiveCampaign (2,427 reviews).
Who uses ActiveCampaign
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What people say about ActiveCampaign
Our synthesis across 13,541 G2 reviews at 4.5/5 and 2,427 Capterra reviews at 4.6/5, plus Gartner and TrustRadius. No fabricated quotes, this is the consistent pattern across reviews and third-party analyses.
Most praised
- The visual automation builder is praised as the best in its price class, with conditional logic, wait steps, and goal tracking that most competitors charge significantly more to unlock
- Deliverability rates are consistently cited as excellent, with reviewers comparing favorably to Mailchimp and Klaviyo for inbox placement on cold and warm lists alike
- The 1-on-1 onboarding session included with every paid plan, even the $15/mo Starter, is called out by new users as a differentiator that accelerates time to first campaign
Most cited complaints
- The learning curve for the automation builder steepens quickly beyond basic sequences; new users without marketing ops experience report feeling overwhelmed within the first 30 days
- Reporting is functional but not deep; reviewers wanting cohort analysis, revenue attribution by source, or detailed A/B test statistics often end up exporting data to a BI tool
- Price increases at higher contact counts surprise users: the jump from 1,000 to 10,000 contacts roughly doubles or triples the monthly cost, and tiered pricing is not always clearly communicated during signup
What we found testing it
What's great
- Strongest visual automation builder in the SMB-to-mid-market segment; conditional branching, split testing, and goal-based routing all live in the same drag-and-drop canvas
- Native CRM baked into the Plus tier at $49/mo; no separate CRM subscription for teams that want a lightweight pipeline alongside their email automation
- ActiveIntelligence AI (predictive sending, predictive content) is included from Professional tier up, no add-on SKU
Watch-outs
- Contact-based pricing escalates fast; a 10,000-contact list pushes Plus to $174/mo and Professional to $286/mo, which surprises teams that come from flat-fee tools
- Support quality has dropped in recent Reddit threads; users report longer response times on standard plans vs. the 2022-era reputation
- Starter plan caps automation at five actions per workflow with no branching logic, a meaningful wall that catches solo operators off guard
ActiveCampaign funding & ownership
| Round | Amount | Date | Lead investor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | $20M | 2016 | Silversmith Capital Partners |
| Series B | $100M | Jun 2019 | Susquehanna Growth Equity |
| Series C | $240M | Apr 2021 | Tiger Global Management (at $3B valuation) |
Low-to-moderate risk. ActiveCampaign is a well-capitalized private company with $360 million in total funding, a $3 billion Series C valuation from 2021, and more than 180,000 paying customers. The product has been cash-flow positive for much of its history and the company is not dependent on continued VC funding to operate. The main risks are competitive pressure from Klaviyo (which owns ecommerce email) and HubSpot (which owns B2B mid-market), plus the general SaaS valuation compression since 2022 that makes an IPO or strategic exit at the 2021 valuation difficult. No immediate existential concern, but an independent path to public markets is harder than it looked in 2021.
ActiveCampaign features & integrations
Feature availability
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Ai optimization | ✓ ActiveIntelligence |
| Deliverability score | 95% |
| Free tier | no, 14-day trial |
| Sms channel | Professional+ |
| Visual builder | Yes |
Security & compliance
| Standard | Availability |
|---|---|
| GDPR | Yes |
| HIPAA | No (ActiveCampaign does not sign BAAs) |
| SOC 2 Type II | Yes (SOC 2 Type II) |
| SSO / SAML | Yes (Enterprise plan) |
Integrations: Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, Salesforce, Zapier, Slack, Stripe, Facebook Ads, Google Analytics, and Calendly.
ActiveCampaign leadership
ActiveCampaign pricing
| Plan | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | From $15/mo (1,000 contacts) | Solo operators and micro-businesses needing email automation without CRM |
| Plus | From $49/mo (1,000 contacts) | Growing teams needing CRM pipelines, landing pages, and lead scoring |
| Professional | From $79/mo (1,000 contacts) | Teams needing predictive sending, site personalization, and Salesforce integration |
| Enterprise | From $145/mo (custom) | Larger orgs needing SSO, custom reporting, dedicated support, and custom mail server domain |
The catch: ActiveCampaign prices by contact count and feature tier, not by user seat, which works well for teams that need unlimited user access but poorly for anyone with a large list. The Starter plan at $15/mo for 1,000 contacts is a genuine entry point, but it strips out CRM, SMS, and predictive sending. The Plus plan at around $49/mo for 1,000 contacts is where most marketers actually land, once they want lead scoring and CRM pipelines. At 10,000 contacts, Plus runs closer to $99-125/mo. The Enterprise plan unlocks SSO, custom reporting, and dedicated support, but pricing is custom and typically quoted starting around $145/mo for small contact counts.
ActiveCampaign alternatives & where it appears
Featured in our guides
ActiveCampaign product changelog
What ActiveCampaign has actually shipped, summarized from its own release notes and dated. Not auto-generated, updated as part of our freshness checks.
- June 18, 2026
AI-generated automation recipes
ActiveCampaign launched AI automation recipe generation, letting users describe a workflow goal in plain text and receive a pre-built automation sequence to customize, cutting setup time for common use cases.
Source - April 9, 2026
Predictive sending expansion
Predictive sending, which delivers emails at each contact's individually optimized send time based on engagement history, was expanded to all paid plans rather than being limited to Enterprise.
Source - February 14, 2026
Shopify integration rebuild
ActiveCampaign shipped a rebuilt Shopify integration with real-time order sync, product blocks in email, and abandoned cart triggers that fire within five minutes of cart abandonment.
Source - October 22, 2025
SMS marketing available in 30+ countries
Two-way SMS marketing and transactional SMS expanded to more than 30 countries, with opt-in compliance flows built into the setup wizard for each region's regulations.
Source - July 11, 2025
Revenue reporting dashboard
ActiveCampaign added a native revenue attribution dashboard linking automation performance directly to closed revenue via CRM deal tracking, without requiring a third-party BI tool.
Source
Latest ActiveCampaign news
Auto-pulled from Google News, refreshed on each deploy. Headlines link to the source.
- 15 Best Email Marketing Platforms 2026: Free & Paid - BrevoWed, 19 Aug 2026
- ActiveCampaign Review: An Automation Powerhouse for Data-Driven Email Marketing - PCMagSat, 14 Mar 2026
- ActiveCampaign is First to Launch AI that Acts, Not Just Answers at Spring Innovation Keynote - Business WireWed, 18 Mar 2026
- I Tested G2's 10 Best Marketing Automation Tools: My Review - G2 Learning HubMon, 20 Jul 2026
- Why 77% of marketers are missing out on the full benefits of autonomous marketing - Marketing BrewFri, 27 Feb 2026
- Best Marketing Automation Software (2026): 11 Tools Compared - BrevoFri, 13 Mar 2026
ActiveCampaign FAQs
Does ActiveCampaign have a free plan?
No. ActiveCampaign does not offer a permanent free plan. A 14-day free trial is available without a credit card, covering the full platform. Paid plans start at $15/mo for up to 1,000 contacts on the Starter tier. For a free entry point in email automation, Mailchimp and the Freshdesk-adjacent Freshmarketer both offer limited free tiers.
How does ActiveCampaign pricing work?
ActiveCampaign pricing is based on two variables: your contact count and your plan tier. The plan tier (Starter, Plus, Professional, Enterprise) determines which features you access. The contact count determines what you pay within that tier. A Plus plan for 1,000 contacts costs roughly $49/mo; the same Plus plan for 10,000 contacts runs closer to $99-125/mo. Users are billed monthly or annually, with annual billing saving approximately 20%.
Is ActiveCampaign good for ecommerce?
It is competitive but not the category leader. ActiveCampaign handles abandoned cart flows, product blocks in email, Shopify and WooCommerce syncs, and revenue attribution. Where it falls short compared to Klaviyo is ecommerce-specific analytics depth and the native product recommendation engine. Teams running Shopify stores with more than $1M in revenue should compare both products directly; at lower volumes, ActiveCampaign's broader CRM and automation features often make it the better all-in-one.
Is ActiveCampaign a public company?
No. ActiveCampaign is a private company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It raised approximately $360 million across three rounds, with the most recent being a Series C in April 2021 at a $3 billion valuation led by Tiger Global Management. As of mid-2026 the company has not announced IPO plans.
Who is ActiveCampaign best for?
ActiveCampaign is strongest for SMB and lower-mid-market B2B and B2C teams (1-200 employees) that need serious marketing automation without the HubSpot price tag. It is a particularly good fit for coaches, agencies, course creators, and SaaS companies that run complex drip sequences and want CRM and email in one tool. Very large enterprises with advanced territory management or regulated-industry compliance requirements typically outgrow it.
Sources
Every external figure on this page traces to a public source, last collected on the dates shown.
- G2: ActiveCampaign reviews — rating 4.5/5, 13,541 reviews, read live (accessed 2026-08-30)
- Capterra: ActiveCampaign — rating 4.6/5, 2,427 reviews, sub-scores, demographics (accessed 2026-08-30)
- Gartner Peer Insights: ActiveCampaign — rating 4.4/5, 71 ratings (accessed 2026-08-30)
- TrustRadius: ActiveCampaign — score 8.5/10, 904 reviews (accessed 2026-08-30)
- Crunchbase: ActiveCampaign — ~$360M total funding, Series C at $3B valuation, investor list (accessed 2026-08-30)
- Wikipedia: ActiveCampaign — founding, founder, HQ, product history, funding (accessed 2026-08-30)
- LinkedIn: ActiveCampaign company page — industry, company size, HQ, specialties, employee count (accessed 2026-08-30)
- ActiveCampaign pricing page — plan tiers, contact-count scaling, feature breakdown (accessed 2026-08-30)