ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp are two of the most popular email marketing platforms on the market. Both platforms offer a wide range of features and are suitable for businesses of all sizes. So, which platform is right for you?
In this article, we’ll compare ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp side-by-side, looking at factors such as features, pricing, integration, ease of use, deliverability, email analytics and support.
By the end of this article, you’ll know which platform best suits your business needs.
Activecampaign vs Mailchimp: Comparison Summary
Both ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp are great options for basic email marketing features. However, every additional part may make a significant difference for those who want to make the most of their email campaigns.
Activecampaign is a more comprehensive platform with automation, CRM integration, and detailed segmentation features.
It’s also more expensive than Mailchimp. If you’re looking for a simple marketing solution, Mailchimp is a great choice.
However, if you want to make the most of your campaigns and maximize your results, Activecampaign is the better option.
About Activecampaign
ActiveCampaign is a cloud software platform for small and medium-sized enterprises based in Chicago, Illinois.
The firm provides solutions that combine transactional email, email marketing, marketing automation, sales automation, and CRM systems to create customer experience automation.
ActiveCampaign is suitable for people who know how to use email marketing software and have experience setting up autoresponders and creating segments.
It is a good tool for B2B and B2C marketers since it enables you to manage the business and individual consumer accounts.
About Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an American marketing automation platform and popular email marketing service that enables you to manage mailing lists and deploy email marketing campaigns.
Mailchimp is an easy-to-use solution that provides many tips for digital marketing. The tips are personalized and tailored to your goals and experience, making them a good option for novice email marketers.
With a robust feature set, including complex segmentation and customization capabilities, Mailchimp is also ideal for marketers who want to build more advanced campaigns.
Activecampaign vs Mailchimp: Factors
There are several factors to consider when determining which platform is right for you, including:
1. Features
One of the most important factors to consider is each platform’s features. Activecampaign and Mailchimp offer a wide range of features, but the two platforms have some critical differences.
What ActiveCampaign offers
ActiveCampaign provides a limited set of email templates. This means you have to put more effort into designing your messages and thinking about how to start an email.
However, because these templates are designed with specific purposes – such as product suggestions, discount codes, and welcome emails – it’s simpler to adapt your emails to them.
The downside is that creating your email from scratch can be more time-consuming.
The features that Activecampaign offers are:
1. Email testing
Once you’ve created your email, you can test it to see how it will look in different browsers and devices. This is a valuable tool that helps to ensure your email looks great for everyone who receives it.
The email testing features are great since you can see what your message looks like on mobile and desktop devices and a variety of email clients.
There’s also a spam check, which examines your email address, the email client you’re using, and your email domain to see whether your message will be classified as spam.
2. Advanced Segmentation
ActiveCampaign’s segments are based on criteria you can set, such as demographics, location, or behaviour. It’s a great way to target your messages to specific groups of people, and you can even create segments based on interactions with your website or app.
You can also create dynamic segments, which update automatically as new subscribers meet your set criteria. This is a valuable tool to target your audience with laser precision.
3. CRM Integration
CRM integration is a valuable feature for sales teams, enabling them to track interactions with leads and customers. It also allows you to send automated messages based on specific actions taken in the CRM system, such as making a purchase or scheduling a meeting.
You can also create automation workflows that trigger specific actions in your CRM system based on interactions with your emails. For example, you could add a lead to a sales pipeline when they open an email or click on a link.
4. Auto Responder
ActiveCampaign’s autoresponder feature enables you to send automatically-triggered messages based on specific actions taken by your subscribers.
For example, you could send a welcome email when someone subscribes to your list or a purchase confirmation message when they make a purchase.
You can also create customized messages for different audience segments, which is a valuable tool for personalizing your communications.
5. Custom Domain
The custom domain feature allows you to use your domain name for your ActiveCampaign account. This is a valuable tool for building brand awareness and increasing trust with your audience.
It also makes tracking interactions with your emails easier since all of the links in your messages will contain your domain name.
6. Detailed Email Analytics
ActiveCampaign provides detailed email analytics that shows you how your messages are performing. You can see things like open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate.
You can also track specific email interactions, such as whether a subscriber clicked on a link or forwarded your message to a friend. This valuable information can help you improve your email marketing campaigns.
7. Social Data Enrichment
The social data enrichment feature allows you to add social media data to your contact records. This valuable information can help you understand your audience better and create more targeted messages.
You can also use this data to create segments of your audience based on their social media activity. It will help you to target your messages more effectively and connect with your audience on a deeper level.
What Mailchimp offers
Mailchimp is simple to use, especially if you have a basic understanding of email marketing. The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate.
The features offered by Mailchimp are comprehensive and cover all the basics of email marketing automation.
1. Email Templates
Mailchimp offers a wide range of email templates that you can use to create your messages. There is a template for every type of message, from promotional to transactional.
You can also customize the templates to match your brand identity. This is a valuable tool for creating consistent and professional-looking messages.
2. Marketing CRM
The marketing CRM feature lets you track your subscribers’ interactions with your brand. It also enables you to send automated messages based on specific actions taken by your contacts.
You can also use the marketing CRM to segment your audience and effectively target your messages. This is a valuable tool for increasing the ROI of your email marketing campaigns.
3. Audience dashboard
An audience dashboard is a valuable tool for understanding your subscribers. It provides you with insights into things like demographics, interests, and engagement levels.
You can also use the audience dashboard to create segments of your audience and effectively target your messages. This is a valuable tool for increasing the ROI of your email marketing automation campaigns.
4. Segmentation
Mailchimp’s segmentation feature allows you to divide your audience into groups based on specific criteria to send them more targeted and relevant content.
This is a powerful tool that can help you boost your open and click-through rates, as well as improve your overall marketing ROI.
You can segment your audience based on demographics, interests, engagement levels, and contact history. This is timely information that may assist you in crafting more relevant messages.
5. A/B Testing
Email testing is a valuable tool for optimizing your email marketing campaigns. It allows you to test different versions of your messages and see which ones perform better.
This is valuable information that can help you to improve the overall performance of your email marketing campaigns.
6. Automation
Mailchimp’s automation feature allows you to send automated messages based on specific interactions with your subscribers. This is a valuable tool for increasing the ROI of your email marketing campaigns.
You may execute automated communications regarding contact activity, subscriber interaction, and purchase history. This information might help you connect with your audience more personally.
7. Predicted demographics
The predicted demographics feature lets you see the likelihood that a subscriber will engage with your content based on their demographic information. This valuable information can help you target your messages more effectively.
You may employ this information to better segment and target your communications. This is an essential tool for increasing the return on investment of your email marketing automation.
Activecampaign vs Mailchimp: Pricing
It’s essential to understand how pricing changes based on the different plans and how many contacts you have.
ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp costs go up as you add more people to your contact list.
MailChimp
The MailChimp pricing plans are as follows:
- The mailchimp’s free plan includes up to 2,000 contacts and 10,000 sends per month.
- The Essentials plan starts at $9.99/month for up to 50,000 contacts and 500,000 sends per month.
- The Standard plan starts at $14.99/month for up to 100,000 contacts and 1,000,000 sends.
- The Premium plan starts at $299/month for up to 200,000 contacts and 2,000,000 sends.
ActiveCampaign
The ActiveCampaign pricing plans are as follows:
- The Lite plan is $15/month for up to 500 contacts.
- The Plus plan starts at $70/month, including all Lite features plus SMS marketing automation, lead scoring and unique branding.
- The Professional plan costs $159 per month and includes all the features of the Plus plan, as well as A/B testing and advanced segmentation.
- The Enterprise plan is $279 per month and includes all the features of the Professional program, as well as priority support and custom reporting.
For most packages, Active Campaign is more expensive than MailChimp. Despite this, ActiveCampaign provides a greater variety of tools and features, making it a superior choice for companies that take email marketing seriously.
Activecampaign vs MailChimp: Integration
Both ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp offer a wide variety of integrations with popular business applications.
MailChimp
MailChimp offers almost 200 integrations with different software programs, including all of the most popular CRMs, eCommerce platforms, CMSs and web builders, and social networks.
Plus, they also connect to Zapier, which allows for even more integration possibilities.
Some of the most popular MailChimp integrations include:
- Salesforce
- WordPress
- Shopify
- Google Analytics
- ShopSync
- Acuity Scheduling
- PayPal
- Square
- Chargify
- Google Analytics
The integration between MailChimp and Google Analytics is very valuable, as it allows you to see how your email marketing campaigns perform in terms of website traffic and conversion rates. This information can be precious in optimizing your campaigns for better results.
ActiveCompaign
ActiveCampaign integrates with over 260 apps and also connects with Zapier. Some of the most popular integrations include CRMs, eCommerce platforms, webinar software and accounting programs.
Some of the most popular ActiveCampaign integrations include:
- Salesforce
- WordPress
- WooCommerce
- Zapier
- Shopify
- Magento
- Typeform
- Google Analytics
- Unbounce
ActiveCampaign has a slight edge over Mailchimp regarding the number of available integrations. However, both email marketing providers offer various integrations with popular business applications.
Activecampaign vs MailChimp: Ease of use
Both ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp are relatively easy to use, though ActiveCampaign is slightly more user-friendly.
MailChimp
MailChimp has a very intuitive drag and drop editor that makes it easy to create beautiful emails without technical knowledge. Plus, their template gallery includes over 100 professionally-designed email templates that can be customized to match your brand.
The MailChimp interface is very well organized and easy to navigate. The features and tools are clearly labelled and can be easily found in the main menu.
It is a helpful solution when starting with email marketing or if you don’t want to spend much time setting up and learning how to use new email marketing software.
You’ll get much assistance from Mailchimp when you first start using it. It explains how to do things and why it is beneficial to perform them in specific ways.
For example, Mailchimp compares the advantages of segmenting your contacts list to send more targeted emails.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a complex solution that offers a lot of features. Learning how to use it can be challenging if you’re not familiar with it.
The interface is not as intuitive as Mailchimp, and finding the features you’re looking for can be difficult.
However, ActiveCampaign does offer a few helpful tutorials that explain how to use their email marketing software. These tutorials are well-written and provide step-by-step instructions with screenshots.
Knowing where to begin is difficult because many elements rely on previously completed activities.
For example, you can’t generate a lead score until you’ve created a segment. The seasoned ActiveCampaign email marketers might already be aware of this, but it’s unclear if you’re new to the platform.
ActiveCampaign also doesn’t have a lot of support from inside the app. It would be good if they had an intro video that showed people where everything is and how to use it. They assume that you already know how email marketing works.
Activecampaign vs MailChimp: Deliverability
Deliverability is the percentage of emails successfully delivered to the recipient’s inbox. It’s essential to have a high deliverability rate because it ensures that your emails will reach your target audience.
MailChimp
MailChimp has an excellent reputation for deliverability. They use best practices to ensure their customers’ emails are delivered to the inbox.
They also have a strict anti-spam policy and monitor their customers’ email campaigns to ensure they comply. If MailChimp suspects your campaign is spam, they will suspend it immediately.
There is no dedicated IP address with MailChimp, meaning your deliverability rate may be lower than it would be with another provider. However, their excellent spam monitoring makes up for this.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is also very good with the deliverability of their emails. I have not had any significant issues with them in this department. They also offer some great deliverability options and tools, which is a huge advantage.
It is also important to note that ActiveCampaign is white-listed with Gmail, which means that emails from ActiveCampaign are less likely to be marked as spam by Gmail.
Overall, ActiveCampaign delivers better deliverability than Mailchimp. If you want to ensure that your emails reach the inbox, ActiveCampaign is the better option.
Activecampaign vs MailChimp: Email Analytics
It’s essential to track your email analytics to see what’s working and what’s not. Email analytics can tell you how many people opened your email, clicked on the links, and unsubscribed from your list.
MailChimp
MailChimp offers basic email analytics showing how many people opened your email and clicked on the links. It also shows you the unsubscribe rate and the number of bounces.
The reporting is simple and easy to understand. You can see which links were clicked the most and which ones weren’t clicked at all. MailChimp also allows you to A/B test your email subject lines and content to see what works best for your audience.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign’s email analytics are more robust than MailChimp’s.
In addition to showing you how many people opened your email and clicked on the links, it also offers you the number of people who didn’t open the email (but still received it), the number of times each link was clicked, and which city and country your subscribers are from.
It also allows you to segment your subscribers based on their behaviour. So, if you want to send a follow-up email to people who didn’t open your first email, you can do that easily.
The reporting is more detailed and allows you to see which links were the most popular, which subscribers were the most engaged, and which were at risk of unsubscribing.
Activecampaign vs MailChimp: Support
The most important thing to consider when choosing an email service provider is the level of support you need. If you’re just starting, you might not need much backing. But if you’re running a business, you’ll want to ensure you have access to someone who can help you if things go wrong.
MailChimp
The support options for MailChimp include a knowledge base, email support, and live chat. The knowledge base is extensive and includes how-to guides and FAQs.
Email support is available 24/7, and you can usually expect a response within a few hours. Live chat is only available during business hours.
You only get access to email support if you’re on a free plan. You may use live chat assistance Monday through Friday if you select a paid plan.
In addition, if you choose the Premium (most expensive) plan, you’ll get only phone support on Mondays through Fridays.
When you try to get help from Mailchimp, the first thing they will ask you to do is search their Knowledge Base. You can contact customer support if you can’t find what you need there.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign offers email support and lives chat support. The company also has an extensive knowledge base, including guides, how-tos, and FAQs.
Email or phone support is available 24/7, and you can usually expect a response within a few hours. Live chat is open during business hours.
It is much easier to get in touch with a human at ActiveCampaign than at Mailchimp. You don’t have to search through a knowledge base to find a way to contact customer support.
Which you should choose
ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp are excellent email marketing platforms, but which is better depends on your needs.
If you need advanced automation and segmentation capabilities, ActiveCampaign is a clear choice. It is also a good choice if you need more support options and better deliverability.
Mailchimp is a good choice if you are just starting with email marketing or need free plans. It is also a good choice if you don’t need as many features as ActiveCampaign offers.
Conclusion
If you are looking for an email marketing platform with advanced features and great support, ActiveCampaign is the better choice. However, if you need a free plan or you’re just starting out, Mailchimp is a good option.
We hope you found this article helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. Thank you for reading!
Brian Shelton is an entrepreneur, marketer, and life-long learner committed to helping businesses achieve impactful results. He founded Grow Predictably to provide tailored marketing strategies to generate predictable, profitable growth. With over a decade of experience in the industry, Brian has helped businesses, large and small. reach their goals and drive positive change in the world.