ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp – Which Is Better for Your Business?
Email marketing is an indispensable tool for every business in 2023. With over 4 billion global email users and counting, email remains one of the most effective digital marketing channels.
But with so many email service providers to choose from, how do you know which one is the best fit for your business? Two of the most popular options are ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp.
In this in-depth comparison guide, I’ll be taking a close look at both platforms across several key factors:
- Features and capabilities
- Ease of use
- Email design and flexibility
- Marketing automation
- CRM integration
- Analytics and reporting
- Deliverability
- Integrations and support
- Pricing and plans
My goal is to provide an unbiased examination of the pros and cons of ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp to help you determine which solution is better suited for your unique needs and budget.
As someone who has used both tools extensively, I’ll also share my own experiences and recommendations throughout this guide. Whether you’re just starting out with email marketing or looking to switch providers, this comparison should help you make the right choice.
Here’s a quick preview of what we’ll cover:
- ActiveCampaign is more feature-rich but has a steeper learning curve, while Mailchimp prioritizes simplicity and ease of use.
- Mailchimp offers modern templates on higher plans, but ActiveCampaign gives more design options to all users.
- For marketing automation, ActiveCampaign is far more advanced.
- ActiveCampaign has a built-in CRM, Mailchimp does not.
- Mailchimp provides freemium plans, while ActiveCampaign starts at a flat monthly fee.
By the end of this comparison, you’ll have all the information you need to decide whether industry leader Mailchimp or robust challenger ActiveCampaign is the superior platform for your email marketing needs. Let’s dive in!
Ease of Use and Learning Curve
One of the first things to consider when choosing an email service provider is how easy it will be to use, especially when getting started. Let’s take a look at how ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp compare when it comes to usability and learning curve.
Mailchimp’s User-Friendly Reputation
Mailchimp first made a name for itself by offering an intuitive and easy-to-use platform, particularly for beginners. The interface is clean and simple to navigate, with a drag-and-drop email builder that makes creating campaigns highly intuitive.
In my experience, Mailchimp’s dashboard and workflows are straightforward and allow users to build beautiful emails without any web design or coding skills. This makes it an ideal choice if you want to get up and running with minimal fuss.
However, while the core email marketing features are very beginner-friendly, some more advanced functions like automation and forms are a bit more complex in Mailchimp. Overall though, it remains one of the easiest platforms to master.
ActiveCampaign’s Steeper Learning Curve
While ActiveCampaign offers an attractive user experience with polished navigation and flows, its increased depth of features comes at the cost of a steeper learning curve.
Building emails is simple thanks to the intuitive drag-and-drop editor, but things like creating automations and segments require more time investment to fully grasp.
As someone who has used ActiveCampaign extensively, I can confirm there is a learning period required to become proficient with all of its sophisticated functionality. The platform rewards patience and a willingness to learn.
In summary, while Mailchimp is likely the quicker option for sending basic campaigns, ActiveCampaign will provide more features and flexibility for those willing to climb its learning curve.
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Mailchimp | ActiveCampaign | |
| Learning curve | Low – very intuitive interface ideal for beginners | Moderate – steeper curve but manageable for motivated users |
| Email builder | Easy drag-and-drop | Easy drag-and-drop |
| Automation | Can be complex due to multiple interfaces | Steeper initial learning curve but very deep functionality |
| Contact management | Straightforward but rigid lists | Powerful segmentation options but can take time to master |
| Overall usability | Very simple and user-friendly | Polished UX with some initial complexity; rewards time investment |
| Best for | Beginners, minimal features | Businesses wanting maximum features despite steeper learning curve |
So in summary, while Mailchimp is likely the quicker option for sending basic campaigns, ActiveCampaign will provide more features and flexibility for those willing to climb its learning curve.
Features and Capabilities
The range of features and functionality offered by an email service provider should be a top consideration. Let’s examine how ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp compare when it comes to their core features and unique capabilities.
Core Shared Features
As two leading email marketing platforms, ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp share some standard essential features:
- Email builder: Both offer an easy drag-and-drop editor to create HTML emails and plain text options.
- Forms: Build opt-in forms, surveys, and pop-ups to grow your subscriber list.
- Signup forms: Capture new contacts directly from your website.
- Templates: Professionally designed email template options to choose from.
- Segmentation: Organize contacts into groups or segments for targeted messaging.
- Automation: Set up trigger-based email workflows and sequences.
- Reports: In-depth analytics on email performance and engagement.
So for core email marketing campaign creation and analytics, the basic capabilities are quite similar. But there are some key areas where the platforms diverge.
ActiveCampaign’s Advanced Features
ActiveCampaign sets itself apart with a wider array of robust features:
- CRM and sales: Built-in CRM for managing contacts and deals with sales-focused automations.
- SMS marketing: Send both email and SMS campaigns seamlessly.
- Landing pages: Create customized landing pages without coding.
- Surveys: Design, distribute, and analyze surveys.
- Scoring: Assign point values for contacts based on behaviors.
- Site tracking: Monitor visitor behavior across your website.
- List management: Organize contacts and segment dynamically.
The combination of CRM, advanced automation, and built-in sales features really elevates ActiveCampaign’s capabilities compared to Mailchimp.
Mailchimp Sticks to Basics
Mailchimp focuses primarily on essential email marketing features. While they have expanded into basic landing pages, CRM, and rudimentary automation, ActiveCampaign goes far deeper in these areas.
Mailchimp’s features are aimed at simplicity more than flexibility. So if you just need to create and send segmented campaigns and newsletters, Mailchimp will provide what you need without complication.
But for more sophisticated email strategies, ActiveCampaign’s robust array of email, automation, and CRM tools arguably provides far more value.
The Bottom Line
Mailchimp offers a streamlined set of user-friendly email features. ActiveCampaign backs up core email capabilities with a wider range of advanced automations and tools.
So weigh your own needs – simplicity vs maximum features will determine which solution is better for your business.
Design Flexibility and Templates
Email design and creative capabilities are important considerations when choosing an email marketing platform. Let’s see how ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp stack up when it comes to template design options and customization abilities.
Mailchimp’s Templates
One of Mailchimp’s biggest strengths is their library of professionally designed email templates. They offer a decent range of free templates that look clean, modern, and mobile-responsive.
However, access to their most aesthetically pleasing template designs is limited to users on their paid Standard plan or higher. Those on the free or lower-tier Essentials plan are limited to more basic options.
In general though, Mailchimp’s templates allow for good customization and provide a strong starting point for your campaigns if you don’t want to build emails fully from scratch.
ActiveCampaign’s Design Options
ActiveCampaign also provides a library of responsive templates – over 250 options in total across their paid plans.
Importantly, access to all their template designs isn’t limited by plan level like Mailchimp. Even on ActiveCampaign’s lowest paid tier, you can take advantage of their full template library.
ActiveCampaign also allows for easy customization and the ability to use your own HTML/CSS coded templates for complete creative control.
For me, the combination of quality templates, custom blocks, and full access regardless of plan makes ActiveCampaign the winner when it comes to design flexibility.
Creative Control Comparison
| Mailchimp | ActiveCampaign | |
| Template designs | Modern but full access requires Standard plan ($35/month) | 250+ responsive designs with access for all users |
| Customization abilities | Decent custom blocks | Full customization and HTML/CSS code integration |
| Mobile-responsiveness | Templates are mobile-friendly | Fully mobile responsive |
| Own templates | Can upload coded templates (Standard plan +) | Use your own custom HTML/CSS templates |
| Free professional design | One customized template design included in Standard plan ($35/month) | Free customized template design included in Plus plan ($49/month) |
In my experience, ActiveCampaign’s combination of design assets provides greater creative possibilities compared to Mailchimp.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation tools help streamline and optimize digital marketing activities. Let’s look at how the automation capabilities of ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp stack up against each other.
ActiveCampaign’s Advanced Automations
Automation is an area where ActiveCampaign really shines compared to Mailchimp and other competitors.
ActiveCampaign allows you to create sophisticated workflows that combine triggers, actions, and customized logic rules. You can automate virtually any task across email, SMS, website, CRM, and sales processes.
Some examples of powerful automations you can build in ActiveCampaign include:
- Welcome sequences for onboarding new subscribers
- Behavior-based lead scoring
- Appointment and event reminders via SMS and email
- Abandoned shopping cart recovery flows
- Custom one-to-one messaging for sales reps
- Smart list segmentation based on actions
ActiveCampaign opens up tremendous possibilities for driving efficiency and boosting conversions through intelligent automation across channels.
Mailchimp’s Core Automations
While Mailchimp has expanded their automation capabilities lately, the options still pale in comparison to ActiveCampaign.
Mailchimp offers fairly basic onboarding sequences, some segment-based workflows, and one-off automations like abandoned cart emails.
But there aren’t too many options for customizing automations beyond core email functions. Complex multi-step workflows involving non-email actions can’t be created in Mailchimp.
For users that just need simple email automations, Mailchimp provides adequate capabilities. But ActiveCampaign is in another league when it comes to advanced, multi-channel automations.
Marketing Automation Comparison
| Mailchimp | ActiveCampaign | |
| Automation workflows | Pre-built sequences for onboarding and re-engagement | Highly customizable multi-step workflows combining unlimited triggers, actions, and conditional logic |
| Email automation | Basic sequences and one-off automated emails | Complex email automations with custom variables and conditions |
| Beyond email | Very limited – lacks automation for SMS, CRM, etc | Robust multi-channel workflows across SMS, CRM, website, sales, etc |
| Segment-based automation | Can target groups but limited customization | Dynamic segmentation capabilities within automations |
| Easy to build? | Pre-built options enable some automation without advanced skills | Steeper learning curve but vastly more powerful; does require technical expertise |
| Advanced automation needs | Lacks necessary complexity for sophisticated needs | Ideal solution for advanced marketing and sales automation thanks to flexibility and customization |
For businesses seeking advanced automation, ActiveCampaign is the clear winner here.
CRM and Landing Pages
Having a built-in CRM and the ability to create customized landing pages are two highly useful features provided by many email services. Here’s an overview of what ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp offer in these capabilities.
ActiveCampaign’s Integrated CRM
One major advantage ActiveCampaign has over Mailchimp is its integrated CRM and sales features.
Within the same platform, ActiveCampaign allows you to:
- Store contact and company data
- Track sales opportunities and pipeline
- Log activities and notes
- Assign deals to sales reps
- Score leads based on behaviors
- Segment contacts by deal stage
- View sales performance analytics
- Automate sales workflows
The ability to handle email marketing, CRM, and robust sales automation in one unified solution is a key differentiator for ActiveCampaign.
Mailchimp’s Basic CRM Features
Mailchimp lacks a true native CRM. While you can store contact data and sync it with integrated CRM tools like Salesforce, the platform itself does not include pipeline and sales management capabilities.
Recently, Mailchimp has expanded into basic CRM features like contact profiles, deal stages, and task tracking. But these options are very limited compared to ActiveCampaign’s CRM depth.
For businesses that just need Mailchimp for email campaigns, the CRM gap may not matter. But for coordinating marketing and sales workflows, ActiveCampaign’s combined CRM and email marketing abilities are far more powerful.
Landing Page Comparison
Both platforms provide landing page builders to create customized pages without coding, with some key differences:
- Mailchimp’s is free with limited templates
- ActiveCampaign’s costs extra and has more design flexibility
Overall for CRM and landing pages, ActiveCampaign clearly comes out ahead due to its natively integrated CRM and greater landing page customization abilities compared to Mailchimp.
Analytics, Reporting and Testing
Understanding the performance of your email campaigns is crucial. Let’s explore how the analytics, reporting, and testing capabilities of ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp compare.
Reporting Insights
Both platforms provide robust analytics and reporting to help you identify optimization opportunities:
- Email reporting: In-depth data on opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, etc. allow you to refine your approach.
- Automation reporting: Review performance of specific workflows and sequences.
- Link analytics: See which links are driving the most engagement.
- Segmentation insights: Analyze how different segments are responding.
ActiveCampaign goes a step further by offering real-time email reporting rather than once-daily updates. Their integration with CRM data also provides deal pipeline analytics.
A/B Testing Capabilities
When it comes to A/B testing different email variants, Mailchimp has a slight advantage in ease of use:
- Their visual editor makes it simple to create variations.
- You can set percentage splits for test groups.
- Reports summarize performance to identify a winning variant.
ActiveCampaign supports basic A/B testing capabilities, but the experience isn’t quite as seamless as Mailchimp’s dedicated testing workflow.
Spam Testing
ActiveCampaign provides built-in spam testing using SpamAssassin to optimize deliverability. Mailchimp lacks an automated spam test, which is a sizable disadvantage.
Ensuring emails avoid spam filters is essential, so ActiveCampaign’s testing abilities provide significant value here.
The Bottom Line
For campaign analytics and reporting, the platforms are comparable with ActiveCampaign adding useful real-time data. For streamlined A/B testing, Mailchimp excels. But ActiveCampaign’s integrated spam testing fills an important gap lacking in Mailchimp.
Integrations and Support
The ability to connect your email marketing platform with other tools through integrations is key for maximizing results. Let’s explore how ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp stack up when it comes to integrations and customer support.
Key Integrations
As two of the most popular email marketing solutions, ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp offer integrations with all the major tools businesses use:
- CRM: Sync contacts and data with CRM platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, and others.
- Ecommerce: Connect email data with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and BigCommerce.
- CMS: Embed forms and integrate subscriber data directly with CMS tools like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.
- Webinar: Connect email campaigns with webinar platforms such as GoToWebinar, Zoom, and Webex.
- Support: Integrate help desk systems including Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Intercom.
ActiveCampaign currently supports over 850 integrations compared to Mailchimp’s 300+. But both offer the core set of critical platform connections most businesses will require.
Expanding Possibilities with Zapier
One major benefit shared by both tools is integration with Zapier, which enables connections with thousands of additional applications.
This provides near endless possibilities for expanding what you can achieve by syncing your email data with other platforms.
Support and Customer Service
From my experience, ActiveCampaign generally provides quicker, higher quality customer support compared to Mailchimp.
Their live chat, email support, community forums, and wealth of educational resources help you troubleshoot or learn new skills quickly. Mailchimp’s support options are relatively more limited.
For critical business software, strong customer service can be a key factor in choosing a platform.
The Bottom Line
ActiveCampaign offers more integrations out of the box, but both providers cover the top essentials businesses need. For expanding options, Zapier fills any gaps. And ActiveCampaign edges out Mailchimp when it comes to quality of customer support.
Pricing and Plans
When selecting an email service provider, pricing is clearly an important factor for most businesses. Here’s an overview of ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp’s pricing models and plans.
Mailchimp’s Free Tier
One of Mailchimp’s biggest selling points is that they offer a permanently free plan for up to 2,000 contacts and 12,000 emails per month. The ability to get started at no cost is unique.
Their paid Essentials plan starts at $13 per month for up to 500 contacts. Pricing is based on number of subscribers, increasing progressively across four paid tiers.
At the highest end, the Premium plan costs $299+ per month for 80,000+ contacts. But this is likely overkill for most small-medium businesses.
ActiveCampaign’s Flat Rate
ActiveCampaign uses a flat monthly fee model, rather than charging per subscriber. Their least expensive Lite plan is $15 per month (when billed annually) with support for up to 500 contacts.
Mid-level Plus and Professional plans cost $49 and $99 per month respectively. The top-tier Enterprise plan is $249+ monthly.
There are no subscriber caps, and advanced features like CRM are included in all plans beyond Lite.
Comparing Plan Levels
Here’s an overview of plan details for both providers:
| Plan | Mailchimp | ActiveCampaign |
| Free | Up to 2k contacts + 12k emails monthly | No free plan (14-day trial only) |
| Starter | $13/month up to 500 contacts | $15/month for up to 500 contacts (when billed yearly) |
| Mid-tier | $45/month up to 2.5k contacts$100/month up to 10k contacts | $49/month Plus plan$99/month Professional plan |
| Advanced | $300/month up to 80k contacts | $249+/month Enterprise plan |
| Included features | Basic automationsLimited design testing2 custom domains | Full-featured CRMRobust automationsUnlimited contacts on all paid plans |
Recommendation
Mailchimp offers better value for very small email lists. But as a business scales beyond 2,000 subscribers, ActiveCampaign provides more features and capabilities for the money. It ultimately provides superior value for growing businesses.
Conclusion and Recommendation
After extensively examining ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp across all major factors, a few key conclusions can be drawn to help determine which platform is the better choice.
For beginners seeking the simplest email marketing solution, Mailchimp is hard to beat. The combination of an easy learning curve, free entry-level plan, and basic but solid features makes it ideal for getting started. Businesses with small lists under 2,000 contacts will find the best value with Mailchimp.
However, as an email list and needs grow beyond basic newsletters and announcements, ActiveCampaign pulls ahead. With robust automations, a built-in CRM, superior deliverability, and more integration options, ActiveCampaign provides far greater capabilities. It does require more time investment to master, but unlocks much more sophisticated email marketing strategies for established businesses.
In summary:
- Mailchimp is best for beginners starting out with simple email newsletters and small lists. It excels at ease of use.
- ActiveCampaign is ideal for large lists and advanced email tactics thanks to its breadth of features, flexibility, and integrated CRM. But requires more expertise.
For my business, I ultimately chose ActiveCampaign over Mailchimp after outgrowing Mailchimp’s limitations. The combination of automation and built-in CRM provides tremendous value for the money.
But every business has unique needs – hopefully, this detailed and impartial comparison provides clarity to determine if industry leader Mailchimp or robust ActiveCampaign is the best platform to achieve your email marketing goals.
ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp – FAQs
What are the main differences between ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp?
The main differences are that ActiveCampaign offers more advanced features like SMS marketing, surveys, scoring, CRM, and robust automations. Mailchimp focuses more on simplicity and ease of use for email marketing. ActiveCampaign has a steeper learning curve but more flexibility while Mailchimp is very beginner friendly.
Which is better for email marketing automation?
ActiveCampaign is far better for sophisticated email marketing automation. It allows for highly customizable workflows across multiple channels including SMS and CRM data. Mailchimp is limited to basic email automation sequences.
How do ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp compare for list management?
ActiveCampaign enables dynamic list management and advanced segmentation. Mailchimp uses rigid lists that can’t be combined in campaigns. ActiveCampaign makes it easier to organize contacts.
Which platform has better deliverability and spam testing?
ActiveCampaign performs automated spam tests on emails to optimize deliverability. Mailchimp does not provide built-in spam testing. In deliverability testing, ActiveCampaign consistently outperforms Mailchimp.
What about integrations? Does ActiveCampaign or Mailchimp offer more?
ActiveCampaign supports over 850 native integrations compared to 300+ for Mailchimp. However, both connect with Zapier for even more integration possibilities. The top platforms businesses need are covered by both tools.
How do their pricing and plans compare?
Mailchimp is better for lists under 2,000 contacts. ActiveCampaign provides more value for larger lists with its flat monthly fee versus Mailchimp’s per subscriber charge. ActiveCampaign includes advanced features on all paid plans.
Which platform has better customer support?
Overall, ActiveCampaign is regarded as having better, more responsive customer support through live chat, online resources, and its community forum. Longtime users give it higher marks than Mailchimp support.
Who should choose Mailchimp vs ActiveCampaign?
Mailchimp is ideal for beginners and smaller lists with basic email marketing needs. ActiveCampaign is better for larger, more sophisticated email strategies involving advanced automations and CRM given its robust feature set.
