As a one-stop email marketing service ActiveCampaign which starts at $9 per month has a lot to offer including unlimited emails with all of its plans third-party integrations and a variety of auto-responders. This results in a rather busy interface which can be hard to take at first glance. ActiveCampaign (which begins at $9 per month) also offers a relatively short 14-day free trial when most competitors offer at least 30 days (but at least it doesn't require a credit card). ActiveCampaign has an extensive library of online support resources and onboarding services and you can receive help via live chat but not by phone. It's comparable to Campaign Monitor ($9.00 at Campaign Monitor)(Opens in a new window) in many ways though each bests the other one in some areas. For the best email marketing experience look to our Editors' Choice picks in this category: Campaigner ($9.00 at Campaign Monitor)(Opens in a new window) and MailChimp ($9.00 at Campaign Monitor)(Opens in a new window) each of which offers live support and great features.

Pricing and Features

Like several other email marketing programs ActiveCampaign also extends its features into marketing automation as you'll see below. The company organizes its plans depending on the number of subscribers you're looking to reach. Plans begin at $9 per month for up to 500 contacts and unlimited emails. At each subscriber level you can upgrade to a Plus plan that adds several features including customer relationship management (CRM) a custom domain and custom branding. There's also an Enterprise plan that includes a dedicated account representative onboarding and more. Plans go all the way up to 100000 contacts; if you need more you can contact ActiveCampaign for a custom plan. In between you can opt for 2500 contacts for $29 per month 5000 contacts for $45 per month and so on. All plans include unlimited emails unlike Campaign Monitor which offers both basic plans with limited emails and more expensive unlimited plans. You can save 15 percent off the monthly cost by paying annually; however ActiveCampaign does not offer pay-as-you-go plans as Campaign Monitor and MailChimp do.

ActiveCampaign offers a 14-day free trial that does not require a credit card. To get started all you need is your company name and email address. Next you set up a password and then select the service you're looking for—in addition to email marketing it offers marketing automation CRM and sales automation. Then choose the number of contacts you have and whether you need any help setting up your account.

The dashboard is overwhelming at first glance. It's hard to know where to look first. On the right rail is a social activity feed including social shares unsubscribes click rates and more. To the left of that is an overview of your campaign activity. Part of the confusion is that it's filled with sample information that vanishes when you mouse over it. This gives you an idea of what your dashboard will look like once you're up and running but it's jarring to see that on your first login. It's also confusing since ActiveCampaign also offers CRM and other features that you may not plan to use but show up on the dashboard anyway if you're using the free trial. Along the top of the screen are your main options: contacts campaigns lists and other non-email marketing-related features.