Catalog entry · InboxRatio Editorial

ActiveCampaign: User reviews, pricing & features

ActiveCampaign is an email-first platform pairing email marketing with marketing automation (its CRM is an adjunct, which is why it stays inside our email-platform catalog scope). activecampaign.com served the product homepage directly when we verified it in August 2026. The company also owns Postmark, the transactional service listed separately in this catalog.

Its pricing page publishes annual-billed prices only — no monthly billing toggle exists. At 1,000 contacts with 10,000 monthly emails, Starter is $15/month billed annually. Against that entry price, the tier covering unlimited automation, API access, and branding removal is Plus at $49/month on the same annual-billed basis — the API and branding clauses were verified 20 August 2026 from ActiveCampaign's help center, which makes both available on every plan, so the gap is purely the Starter automation cap. There is no free plan; a 14-day trial is offered. Pricing checked 19 August 2026.

Measured · September 2026

Our deliverability test

94/100Excellent deliverability

Placement

Inbox94.4%
Tabs (Promotions / Updates)3.5%
Spam1.3%
Missing0.6%
Bounced0.2%

By mailbox provider

Gmail97/100
Outlook89/100
Yahoo94/100

From our pricing dataset

Pricing at a glance

Tier	Monthly price	What's included
Starter	$15/mo annual-billed	1,000 contacts · 10,000 emails/mo
Plus	$49/mo annual-billed	1,000 contacts · 10,000 emails/mo
Pro	$79/mo annual-billed	1,000 contacts · 12,000 emails/mo
Enterprise	$145/mo annual-billed	1,000 contacts · 15,000 emails/mo

Functional tier

Plus at $49/mo is the cheapest ActiveCampaign tier with automation workflows, API access, and vendor-branding removal all included. Annual billing only.

Pricing checked 19 August 2026 · monthly billing, prices as shown by the vendor.

From our feature dataset

Deliverability capabilities audit

The 17 deliverability capabilities we check every vendor for — authentication help, IP management, list hygiene, and reputation tooling. This audits what ActiveCampaign documents; it is separate from our tested deliverability ranking.

15 of 17 documented capabilities

Yes:
SPF assistance
'Configure Domain' option sets up DKIM, DMARC and SPF for you; manual walkthrough alternative
Yes:
DKIM setup
Automatic or guided DKIM setup when adding a sending domain
Yes:
DMARC support
DMARC setup + troubleshooting docs; free domain test with 'detailed report on your DMARC, SPF, and DKIM configurations'
Partial:
Dedicated IPpartial
'pre-warmed dedicated IPs' for high-volume senders; dedicated help article on using/maintaining one
Yes:
Shared IP pools
Shared IPs are the default (dedicated-IP article weighs risks vs 'deliverability... with a shared IP')
Yes:
IP warming
Dedicated IPs delivered pre-warmed
Partial:
Automated warmuppartial
Vendor-side pre-warming of dedicated IPs; no customer-facing automated warmup tool stated
Not documented:
IP pools managementnot documented
Yes:
Bounce management
Bounces auto-routed to ActiveCampaign servers via Mailserver Domain CNAME; delivered = did not bounce

Yes:
Suppression lists
'The Exclusion list is a list of email addresses that are prevented from receiving campaigns and automation emails from you' (Starter plan label); retrieved via help-center JSON API
Yes:
Complaint management
'protect you from excessive spam reporting to maintain your sender reputation'
Yes:
Feedback loop handling
'ActiveCampaign has registered for feedback loops with all major inbox providers'; complainers 'appear unsubscribed from your list and are added to the backend exclusion list'; retrieved via help-center JSON API
Partial:
Reputation monitoringpartial
Vendor maintains sender reputation; team monitors high-volume senders — no customer dashboard stated
Not documented:
Blacklist monitoringnot documented
Partial:
Deliverability analyticspartial
Delivery/opens/clicks monitoring + cross-inbox campaign preview
Yes:
Deliverability consulting
'Our team helps high-volume senders'; 'in-house expert team is available to walk you through solutions'
Yes:
Domain authentication guidance
SPF/DKIM/DMARC authentication docs + free public domain-check tool

Items marked — are not documented by the vendor. In this category, silence is itself a signal. How we read vendor claims: methodology.

From our feature dataset

ActiveCampaign feature matrix

What the vendor documents, category by category. ◐ marks tier-gated or limited capabilities; — means the vendor does not document it.

Email6 of 6 documented

Yes:
Marketing campaigns
'Email Marketing: 94.2% deliverability rate, rated #1'
Yes:
Transactional email
'Transactional Email: Powered by Postmark' (add-on product)
Partial:
SMTP relaypartial
Via Postmark ('Made with love at ActiveCampaign'), which supports SMTP and API but runs as a separate account/pricing from the marketing platform
Yes:
Bulk sending
Campaign sends 10x-15x contacts/mo by plan
Yes:
Email templates
'250+ professional templates'
Yes:
Drag-and-drop editor
'Drag, drop, and design professional emails without any technical skills or design experience needed'

Automation6 of 6 documented

Yes:
Email sequences
Marketing automation core; Starter capped at 5 actions/automation, unlimited from Plus
Yes:
Drip campaigns
Automated campaign series
Yes:
Event-based automation
'Site & Event Tracking: behavioral triggers based on member link clicks'
Yes:
Behavioral automation
Behavioral triggers from site/event tracking
Yes:
Workflow builder
Automation builder (5-action cap on Starter)
Yes:
Conditional logic
Split & conditional actions 'send your contacts down different paths based on the actions they take' (If/Else yes/no paths)

AI5 of 6 documented

Yes:
AI email generation
'Instantly generate a full, on-brand campaign' with Active Intelligence
Yes:
AI subject lines
AI Campaign Builder will 'generate a subject line, preheader, layout, images, content, and call to action'
Yes:
AI content optimization
'Predictive Sending: Get 17% higher click-through rates on average with AI-enhanced sending'
Yes:
AI segmentation
'AI Suggested Segments'
Not documented:
AI campaign recommendationsnot documented
Yes:
AI agent / assistant
'Active Intelligence handles the busywork'; reporting insights from a single prompt

Personalization4 of 4 documented

Yes:
Segmentation
'granular segmentation'
Partial:
Dynamic contentpartial
Conditional Content 'lets you dynamically show or hide content in your emails based on your contacts' interests' — help article carries a Pro plan label (Banner_Pro); retrieved via help-center JSON API
Yes:
Personalization variables
'A personalization tag is a small piece of code that pulls in the appropriate value for a contact, deal, account, or custom object field' (usable in campaigns, subject lines, SMS); retrieved via help-center JSON API
Yes:
Behavioral targeting
Site & event tracking drives targeting

Analytics4 of 4 documented

Yes:
Opens & clicks
'Monitor successful deliveries, opens, and clicks'
Partial:
Conversion trackingpartial
Conversion Attribution report (last-touch, 7-day window) — help article labelled Pro plan (Banner_Pro); retrieved via help-center JSON API
Yes:
Campaign reporting
'Analytics & Reporting: Get reporting insights with just one prompt'
Partial:
Deliverability analyticspartial
Delivery monitoring + campaign preview across inboxes; no inbox-placement product stated

Developer features5 of 5 documented

Yes:
API
API on all plans — 'Getting started with the API' tagged Starter/Plus/Pro/Enterprise, needs only a valid account
Partial:
SMTP APIpartial
SMTP and API sending only through Postmark (ActiveCampaign-owned, separate account/pricing); ActiveCampaign API v3 docs point to Postmark for email API use cases
Yes:
Webhooks
'Webhooks provide the ability to receive real-time data updates about your contact & campaign activity' — 30+ event types; triggered by contact, user, system or API
No:
SDKs / client libraries
Per ZoomInfo Pipeline (Aug 2026): 'ActiveCampaign does not publish official SDKs in any language.' Vendor API overview mentions only a Postman collection
Yes:
Public API docs
'comprehensive API documentation to help you build custom integrations'

Marketing platform7 of 7 documented

Yes:
CRM
'CRM: Kommunicate grew conversions 1.5x... using our CRM and automation'
Yes:
Signup forms
'Forms: Capture leads on any page and route them into automations instantly'
Partial:
Popupspartial
Modal ('a pop up that will appear on top of your webpage content'), floating bar and floating box forms — each 'Available on Plus, Professional, and Enterprise'; retrieved via help-center JSON API
Yes:
Landing pages
'Build and publish landing pages without a developer'
No:
Chatbots
'Conversations is no longer available for purchase to new customers as of January 3, 2023' (Conversations = chat widget + chatbot automation; legacy accounts only); retrieved via help-center search API
Yes:
SMS
'SMS Marketing: 98% open rates'
Yes:
Other channels
'WhatsApp Messaging'

E-commerce5 of 5 documented

Yes:
Store integrations
WooCommerce, Square integrations
Yes:
Cart recovery
'Abandoned Cart feature for Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and third-party integrations, you can automatically email contacts who abandoned their carts'; retrieved via help-center JSON API
Yes:
E-commerce automation
'Abandons Cart' automation trigger configurable by store, product, category and cart value; ecommerce page cites '900+ pre-built recipes'
Yes:
Purchase tracking
Syncs customer and order details (product titles, cart totals, images) to contact records; 'Analyze purchase histories and individual product success'
Partial:
Product recommendationspartial
'Products' content block sends 'personalized product recommendations' — requires Shopify/WooCommerce Deep Data; Plus, Professional or Enterprise only; retrieved via help-center JSON API

Features checked 10 September 2026 · from vendor documentation and official feature pages.

AI & agent readiness · checked 2026-09-10

ActiveCampaign and AI agents

75/100AI-native

Official MCP server · hosted, connect by URL

AI agents and assistants can work with ActiveCampaign directly through ActiveCampaign Remote MCP Server: manage contacts, tags, lists and custom fields; read campaigns and campaign links

MCP server
Official.
45/45
Official agent skills
None found.
0/10
AI assistant apps
Claude
10/20
AI-friendly docs
llms.txt · AI docs page
10/15
Built-in AI features
AI email generation, AI subject lines, AI content optimization, AI segmentation, AI agent / assistant
10/10

Scored 0–100 from public evidence: an official MCP server weighs most (40, +5 when hosted), then official agent skills, AI assistant apps, AI-friendly docs and built-in AI features. "Not found" means we couldn't locate it on ActiveCampaign's public pages or the official MCP registry, not that it can't exist. This is context, never part of the Deliverability Score.

Captured from the vendor website

ActiveCampaign in screenshots

ActiveCampaign website: homepage hero section — ActiveCampaign homepage, August 2026
Source: vendor website · 21 August 2026

ActiveCampaign website: product/features section — Homepage AI campaign section with product UI
Source: vendor website · 21 August 2026

Independent review platforms — shown as context; never part of our measured Deliverability Score

What users say

Trustpilot

2.7/5

1,429 reviews

Checked 21 August 2026

4.4/5

14,782 reviews

Checked 23 August 2026

Capterra

4.6/5

2,568 reviews

Checked 21 August 2026

Weighted average 3.6/5 across 18,779 reviews.Large review base

Trustpilot counts for half of the average: it is an open platform where businesses can't remove negative reviews. G2 and Capterra share the other half, and a platform with fewer than 100 reviews counts proportionally less.

Same primary category, from our catalog

Alternatives to ActiveCampaign

Mailchimp

$$$

Email marketing platform with automation and e-commerce email, sold globally; owned by Intuit. The highest-demand service in our catalog.

View profile →

Brevo

Email marketing plus transactional email and SMTP relay on one platform; the European demand anchor in our catalog.

View profile →

Constant Contact

US-focused email marketing platform — roughly four-fifths of its search demand comes from the United States.

View profile →

Selected by catalog rule — same primary category, same depth tier first, then catalog demand order. Never hand-picked.

Generated from our datasets — every value verified and dated

Frequently asked questions

What is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign is an email marketing service in the InboxRatio catalog, also covering marketing automation. Its regional focus is Global.

How much does ActiveCampaign cost?

Paid ActiveCampaign plans start at $15/mo (Starter tier), prices as shown by the vendor, last checked 19 August 2026. The cheapest tier with automation, API access and branding removal all included is Plus at $49/mo.

Does ActiveCampaign document its deliverability capabilities?

ActiveCampaign documents 15 of the 17 deliverability capabilities we audit every vendor for (authentication help, IP management, list hygiene, reputation tooling). This audits what the vendor documents — it is separate from our measured Deliverability Score, and undocumented items are themselves a signal. How we read vendor claims.

What do users say about ActiveCampaign?

Across 18,779 reviews on Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra, ActiveCampaign averages 3.6/5, with Trustpilot counting for half of the average. User ratings are shown as context only — never part of our measured Deliverability Score.

Has ActiveCampaign's deliverability been tested by InboxRatio?

Yes — ActiveCampaign was measured in our seed-list deliverability test on 2 September 2026. Results publish to the email deliverability ranking; the full protocol is documented in our methodology. How we test.

What are the main ActiveCampaign alternatives?

From our catalog, the closest alternatives are Mailchimp, Brevo and Constant Contact — services sharing ActiveCampaign's primary category (email marketing), selected by a neutral catalog rule, never hand-picked.