ActiveCampaign Pricing 2026: Plans and Costs | Review

ActiveCampaign pricing is a contact-based, four-tier structure covering Starter, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise plans, with monthly costs of $15, $49, and $149 at 1,000 contacts plus custom Enterprise rates. Each plan scales by contact count, so list growth raises the bill - a Starter plan can triple in price by 25,000 contacts.

This guide breaks down every plan, maps the contact-based pricing curve, and compares ActiveCampaign to Mailchimp and HubSpot. Our analysis draws on ActiveCampaign’s current official pricing documentation and independent research rather than sponsored placement. AI Productivity may earn a commission from links on this page; our analysis and rankings are editorially independent.

Pricing at a Glance

ActiveCampaign offers four active campaign plans - Starter at $15/mo, Plus at $49/mo, Professional at $149/mo, and custom-quoted Enterprise - all priced at the base 1,000-contact tier. Here is every ActiveCampaign plan side by side:

Starter Plan: Email Marketing Essentials

The Starter plan costs $15 per month ($12 monthly billed annually) and covers email marketing essentials - a drag-and-drop builder, basic automation, and forms - for one user and 1,000 contacts. It is the entry point for businesses that need more than a free email tool but are not ready for CRM integration. ActiveCampaign’s automation getting started guide walks through setting up workflows on this tier.

What is included:

• Email marketing - Drag-and-drop builder with 250+ templates and A/B testing
• Marketing automation - Visual builder with triggers, conditions, and actions
• Inline forms and landing pages - Capture leads with embedded forms and standalone pages
• Site tracking - Trigger automations based on visitor page visits
• 10x email send limit - Up to 10,000 emails per month at 1,000 contacts
• 1 user plus email and chat support

Key limitations: The Starter plan has no CRM - no deal pipelines, no contact scoring, no sales automation - and no lead scoring. The single-user cap makes it strictly a solo-operator tool.

Who it is for: Solopreneurs, freelancers, and small businesses with one person managing email marketing. When a second team member needs access or the sales team wants deal tracking, an upgrade to Plus becomes necessary.

Plus Plan: CRM and Sales Automation

The Plus plan costs $49 per month ($39 monthly billed annually) and adds a built-in CRM, lead scoring, and sales automation for up to three users, turning ActiveCampaign from an email tool into a full marketing-and-sales platform. The jump from Starter to Plus is the most significant upgrade in the lineup.

What Plus adds over Starter:

• CRM with sales automation - Deal pipelines, contact records, and automated sales workflows, replacing a separate CRM like Pipedrive or Zoho
• Lead and contact scoring - Score contacts on engagement and route high-scoring leads to sales
• Landing pages - Advanced builder with conversion tracking and A/B testing
• SMS marketing - Text messages within automation workflows (credits purchased separately)
• 3 users plus custom audiences - segment sync to Facebook and Google Ads
• Advanced automations - Branching, goals, and multi-step conditional paths

The value calculation: Plus replaces a standalone CRM (Pipedrive, HubSpot Starter), an email tool (Mailchimp), and lead scoring software - bundling all three for about $39 monthly on the annual plan, with tighter integration than stitching tools together via Zapier. That bundling is the core pitch: “ActiveCampaign combines email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM tools in a single platform,” according to research analysts at Gartner Peer Insights, where the platform holds a 4.5 out of 5 rating across more than 500 verified reviews.

Who it is for: Growing businesses with 2-3 person teams needing both marketing automation and sales pipeline management - B2B lead nurturing, marketing-and-CRM stack consolidation, and agency client work.

Who it’s not for: Plus skips predictive sending, split automations, and attribution reporting. The 3-user cap is a hard ceiling and extra seats are billed per-user, so skip Plus if the team needs AI send-time optimization or more than three logins.

Professional Plan: Predictive AI and Advanced Reporting

The Professional plan costs $149 per month ($119 monthly billed annually) and unlocks ActiveCampaign’s AI features - predictive sending, win probability scoring, split automations, and attribution reporting - for up to five users. This tier targets marketing teams that need optimization, not just automation.

What Professional adds over Plus:

• Predictive sending - Machine learning delivers each email at the optimal send time per individual contact
• Split automations - A/B test entire automation paths, not just individual emails
• Attribution reporting - Track which channels and touchpoints contribute to conversions
• Custom reporting - Drag-and-drop report creation on any data point
• Site messaging - Targeted on-site messages based on contact data and behavior
• Win probability - AI scores each CRM deal by likelihood to close
• 5 users and a 12x email send limit - marketing-team capacity with higher send volume

The AI advantage: According to ActiveCampaign’s machine learning documentation, predictive sending typically increases open rates by 15-25% compared to manual send-time selection - for a list of 10,000 contacts, that is 1,500-2,500 additional opens per campaign.

Who it is for: Marketing teams of 3-5 people at mid-market companies that have outgrown “set it and forget it” automation, run multi-channel campaigns, and need attribution reporting for budget justification.

Enterprise Plan: Custom Pricing for Complex Organizations

The Enterprise plan uses custom quote-based pricing - ActiveCampaign does not publish rates and teams contact sales - and adds unlimited users, SSO, HIPAA support, and a dedicated account representative. Based on public information and user reports, Enterprise pricing typically starts around $250-$350 a month for base contact tiers.

What Enterprise adds over Professional:

• Unlimited users - No cap on team members
• Custom mail server domain - Send from your own domain for deliverability control
• Custom reporting and dashboards - Granular reporting including cross-account analytics
• Dedicated account representative - A named contact for strategic guidance
• HIPAA support - Compliance for healthcare organizations
• Uptime SLA and custom onboarding - Availability guarantees plus migration assistance
• Single sign-on (SSO) - Enterprise identity management

Who it is for: Organizations with 10+ users, companies in regulated industries needing HIPAA compliance, agencies needing custom domain sending, and businesses whose data needs exceed Professional’s reporting. If IT requires SSO or legal requires an SLA, Enterprise is the only path.

Who it’s not for: Enterprise pricing is opaque - quotes start at $250-$350 a month but jump with seats and volume, and onboarding can take 4-8 weeks. Skip it if the team has fewer than 10 users and does not need HIPAA or SSO.

How Does ActiveCampaign Pricing Scale as Contacts Grow?

ActiveCampaign pricing scales upward at every tier as a contact list grows - a Starter plan rises from $15 to $289 a month between 1,000 and 100,000 contacts. This contact-based scaling is the single most important factor in long-term budgeting. Here is how pricing per month scales across contact tiers:

Key observations from the scaling curve:

• Starter at 25,000 contacts (around $149 a month) costs the same as Professional at 1,000 contacts - the feature difference then matters more than the price
• The 1K-to-10K jump is the steepest percentage increase: Starter rises 5.3x ($15 to $79), Plus 3x, Professional 2.1x
• Above 50,000 contacts the gap between tiers narrows, and Enterprise custom pricing may become more economical

The 20% annual discount applies at every contact tier - Plus at 10,000 contacts drops from around $149 to approximately $119 a month, a saving of $360 per year.

Total Cost: Annual vs Monthly Savings

Annual billing cuts every ActiveCampaign plan by a flat 20% - $36 a year on Starter, $120 on Plus, and $360 on Professional at the base tier.

Annual billing is the clear choice for any business committed for 12+ months; the 14-day free trial allows a risk-free evaluation first.

What Are the Hidden Costs in ActiveCampaign Pricing?

The main hidden costs in ActiveCampaign pricing are SMS credits, per-user fees beyond the plan cap, complex migration services, transactional email, and premium integrations - each sits outside the published plan price and can raise the real monthly spend:

SMS Credits

SMS marketing is available on Plus and above, but message credits are purchased separately. US messages typically cost $0.015-$0.025 per SMS, so sending 5,000 messages a month adds $75-$125 to the bill. International messaging costs more.

Additional CRM Users

Plus includes 3 users and Professional includes 5; additional users cost extra and can become a meaningful line item. Enterprise solves this with unlimited users.

Migration and Onboarding

ActiveCampaign offers free migration from competing platforms, but complex migrations with deeply nested automations may require paid professional services - budget $500-$2,000.

Transactional Email

Transactional emails (order confirmations, password resets) require a separate Postmark integration or similar service - not unique to ActiveCampaign, but worth budgeting for.

Third-Party Integrations

The platform integrates with 900+ apps natively, but premium integrations (Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics) may need higher tiers or middleware like Zapier (around $19.99 a month and up).

Pricing Comparison: ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp vs HubSpot

ActiveCampaign Plus costs $49 a month versus $20 for Mailchimp Standard and $15 for HubSpot Starter at 1,000 contacts, but ActiveCampaign is the only one of the three that includes a full CRM and lead scoring at that price. The ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp gap narrows at scale, while HubSpot becomes far more expensive once advanced automation is needed.

Key takeaways from the comparison:

• Mailchimp is cheaper at entry level but lacks CRM; the two converge near $350 a month at 50,000 contacts, where ActiveCampaign still includes CRM and lead scoring
• HubSpot Starter is the cheapest entry point at around $15 a month but jumps to around $890 a month for Professional Marketing Hub once A/B testing or attribution is needed - nearly 6x ActiveCampaign Professional
• ActiveCampaign Plus offers the best mid-market value, filling the gap between Mailchimp’s simplicity and HubSpot’s enterprise pricing

For more, see Best Email Marketing Platforms 2026 and our Mailchimp alternatives roundup.

Best Picks by Use Case

The best ActiveCampaign plan depends on team size and sales needs: Starter suits solo email marketers, Plus fits 2-3 person teams wanting CRM, Professional serves 3-5 person teams needing AI optimization, and Enterprise covers 10+ user organizations with compliance requirements. Match your situation to the right tier below.

Choose Starter (around $15 a month) if: you manage email marketing alone, your list is under 5,000, and you have no sales pipeline.

Choose Plus (around $49 a month) if: your team has 2-3 people, you want CRM and sales automation alongside email marketing, or you are consolidating a separate CRM-plus-email setup.

Choose Professional (around $149 a month) if: your marketing team has 3-5 people, predictive sending and attribution reporting would measurably improve results, or your list is above 10,000 contacts.

Choose Enterprise (custom pricing) if: your organization has 10+ users, HIPAA compliance or a custom SLA is required, or SSO is an IT requirement.

A practical decision framework: Start with Plus if uncertain - the CRM integration is the feature most businesses wish they had adopted sooner, and it pays for itself by eliminating a separate CRM subscription. Run Plus for 3-6 months, then evaluate whether Professional’s predictive sending justifies the upgrade.

The Bottom Line

ActiveCampaign pricing in 2026 unlocks optimization features as needs grow: Starter (around $15 a month) handles solo email marketing, Plus (around $49 a month) is the standout value combining email automation, CRM, and lead scoring, and Professional (around $149 a month) adds AI-powered optimization. The critical variable is contact count - a Plus plan grows from around $49 a month at 1,000 contacts to roughly $349 at 50,000 - so budget for list growth and use the 20% annual discount to offset it.

For most small to mid-size businesses, the Plus plan on annual billing (around $39 a month) is the right starting point. See our best marketing automation tools breakdown, or the complete ActiveCampaign review for features beyond pricing.

FAQ

How much does ActiveCampaign cost per month?

ActiveCampaign costs $15 a month for Starter, $49 for Plus, and $149 for Professional at 1,000 contacts, with custom pricing for Enterprise. All plans scale with contact count, and annual billing saves 20% across all tiers.

Is there a free plan for ActiveCampaign?

No, ActiveCampaign does not offer a free plan. There is a 14-day free trial with Professional tier features; after it ends, the lowest-cost option is Starter at $15/month (about $12 a month annually) for up to 1,000 contacts.

How does ActiveCampaign pricing compare to Mailchimp?

ActiveCampaign Starter (around $15 a month for 1,000 contacts) is comparable to Mailchimp Standard (around $20 a month for 500 contacts). At 10,000 contacts, ActiveCampaign Plus runs roughly $159 a month versus Mailchimp at around $110, but ActiveCampaign includes CRM and sales automation Mailchimp charges extra for - often making it cheaper overall for businesses that need a CRM.

What is included in the ActiveCampaign Plus plan?

The Plus plan (around $49 a month for 1,000 contacts) includes everything in Starter plus CRM with sales automation, landing pages, lead scoring, SMS marketing, custom audiences, and e-commerce integrations. It supports up to three users and is the most popular tier for small businesses needing marketing and sales tools in one platform.

Does ActiveCampaign pricing increase as my contact list grows?

Yes, all ActiveCampaign plans use contact-based pricing that scales with list size. A Starter plan goes from around $15 a month at 1,000 contacts to roughly $149 a month at 25,000 contacts, and Plus scales from around $49 to roughly $259 across the same range. Cleaning inactive contacts helps control costs as lists grow.

How does ActiveCampaign compare to ConvertKit pricing and GetResponse pricing?

ConvertKit pricing (now Kit) starts around $25 a month for 1,000 subscribers and is built for creators, while GetResponse pricing starts at roughly $19 a month with a webinar-focused feature set. ActiveCampaign Starter is cheaper at around $15 a month and offers deeper automation and a built-in CRM that neither alternative matches at entry-level pricing.

Related Reading

The reviews and guides below cover ActiveCampaign and the platforms most often compared with it:

• ActiveCampaign Review - Features, automation builder, and CRM capabilities
• HubSpot Review - ActiveCampaign’s primary enterprise competitor
• Mailchimp Review - Email platform many ActiveCampaign customers migrate from
• Best Email Marketing Platforms 2026 - ActiveCampaign across the email marketing landscape
• HubSpot Pricing in 2026 - Detailed pricing analysis of the enterprise competitor

External Resources

These primary sources verify the pricing and feature details cited throughout this guide:

• ActiveCampaign Official Pricing Page - Current plan details and contact tier calculator
• ActiveCampaign Learning Center - Free courses on automation strategy and platform features
• G2 Pricing Overview for ActiveCampaign - Independent verified-buyer pricing data and plan comparisons