ActiveCampaign Review: Is It Worth Paying For? (Compared to HubSpot Marketing Hub, Klaviyo, Keap & GetResponse)
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The problem: your email list has outgrown a “send a newsletter” tool
There’s a specific moment a lot of small businesses hit: the email list has a few thousand people on it, a handful of automated sequences would obviously help (abandoned cart, post-purchase follow-up, a re-engagement flow for people who went quiet), and the tool that felt perfectly fine for sending a monthly newsletter suddenly feels like it’s missing half the machinery. You want contacts to move through stages automatically based on what they click or buy, you want sales follow-up to happen without someone remembering to do it manually, and you want one dashboard instead of stitching together an email tool, a spreadsheet, and a separate CRM.
That’s the category these five tools compete in, and it’s a genuinely confusing one to shop for, because “marketing automation” means something different depending on which vendor is describing it. For some of these tools it means visual workflow builders with dozens of trigger conditions. For others it means a CRM with email bolted on. For at least one it means an ecommerce-specific engine built around SMS and purchase behavior rather than general-purpose email. Picking based on brand recognition or a single “best marketing automation tool” listicle is how a lot of small teams end up paying for enterprise-grade complexity they don’t need, or outgrowing a simpler tool within six months.
The workflow moment that makes this concrete: a small services business sets up a simple “download the lead magnet → three-email nurture sequence → notify the sales rep if they click the pricing link” automation. In one of these tools that’s a ten-minute visual build. In another, the equivalent needs a paid tier several times more expensive than the entry plan to unlock. Knowing which is which before signing up saves both money and a migration headache later.
Three things that actually matter when you’re choosing
1. What “automation” actually includes at the price you’re looking at. Every tool in this category advertises “marketing automation” on its homepage, but the entry-level plan’s automation capability varies enormously — from a single automation workflow, to unlimited workflows with basic branching, to a full visual automation builder with CRM-stage triggers. Checking what the cheapest plan that includes the automation features you actually need costs is more useful than comparing headline “starting at” prices, which are often for a tier that doesn’t include automation at all.
2. Whether it’s a marketing tool with light CRM, a CRM with light marketing, or genuinely both. ActiveCampaign and HubSpot both market themselves as unified marketing-and-sales platforms, but they arrived from different directions — ActiveCampaign built automation first and added CRM/sales pipeline features on top, while HubSpot’s Marketing Hub is one module of a broader CRM suite. Keap is built CRM-and-invoicing-first with marketing automation layered in. Klaviyo is built almost entirely around ecommerce purchase and browse behavior rather than a general sales pipeline. GetResponse sits closer to a traditional email marketing platform with automation and some course/webinar tools added on. None of these framings is wrong, but picking the one that matches how your team actually sells (a sales rep working a pipeline vs. a fully self-serve online store) matters more than which one has the longer feature list.
3. What happens to the price as your list — or your ambitions — grow. This is the area where the gap between these five tools is largest and most consequential. Some scale in small, predictable steps as your contact count rises. At least one has a documented jump between its entry tier and the tier that unlocks meaningful automation that’s large enough to reshape a small business’s software budget overnight. Checking the price at the next tier up — not just the one you’d sign up for today — avoids a nasty surprise in month seven.
How they compare on price
| Tool | Entry price | Where automation actually becomes usable | What it’s really for |
|---|---|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign | Starter: $15/mo billed annually ($19/mo month-to-month) for 1,000 contacts, 1 user | Plus tier (from $49/mo annually) adds unlimited automation actions, standard CRM, and landing pages | Automation-first email marketing with a built-in CRM and sales pipeline |
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | Free ($0), or Starter from roughly $15-$20/seat/month for 1,000 marketing contacts | Professional tier: $800/mo (3 seats, 2,000 contacts), plus a mandatory one-time $3,000 onboarding fee | Marketing module of a full CRM suite, built for teams already in or moving into the HubSpot ecosystem |
| Klaviyo | Free up to 250 profiles (500 email sends/mo); Email plan from ~$30/mo at 1,000 profiles | Automation flows are included from the paid Email plan; Email+SMS from ~$60/mo at 1,000-1,500 profiles | Ecommerce-specific email and SMS marketing built around purchase and browse behavior, no annual discount on self-serve plans |
| Keap | From $299/mo billed annually ($2,988/year), 2 users included, +$39/mo per additional user | Automation, CRM, and invoicing are all included from the single main plan | All-in-one CRM, invoicing, and marketing automation for solopreneurs and small service businesses |
| GetResponse | Starter: $19/mo ($15.58/mo billed annually) | Marketer tier ($59/mo, or $48.38/mo annually) unlocks unlimited automation, abandoned-cart recovery, and sales funnels — Starter includes only 1 automation workflow | Email marketing platform with automation, landing pages, and (on higher tiers) course/webinar tools added on |
The HubSpot jump is the one worth flagging most clearly: Starter sits in the same price range as ActiveCampaign or GetResponse, but Professional — the tier where the automation, attribution, and reporting most people actually associate with “HubSpot” live — costs roughly 40-50x more per month, before the mandatory onboarding fee is even added in. That’s not a criticism of HubSpot’s product, which is built for a different scale of team, but it does mean the entry price on its own tells you very little about what you’d actually pay to get the features that make it worth choosing over the other four.
The breakdown, tool by tool
ActiveCampaign
What it’s for: small and mid-size businesses that want a visual automation builder and a genuine CRM/sales pipeline in the same product, without needing to move up to HubSpot’s price bracket to get there.
Pros
- Automation and CRM are available together from a relatively affordable Plus tier, rather than being split across a huge price gap the way HubSpot’s are
- 14-day free trial with no credit card required, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee — one of the more generous risk-reversal combinations in this comparison
- Free migration and onboarding are included rather than billed as a mandatory separate fee
Cons
- Starter and Plus tiers are limited to a single user login, which is a real constraint the moment more than one person needs to build or edit campaigns
- Pricing is contact-tier based and rises as your list grows, the same way most of the tools here do, so the $15-19/mo entry price is specifically for smaller lists
- The CRM/sales-pipeline features, while genuinely useful, are less deep than a dedicated sales CRM — teams with a complex, multi-stage enterprise sales process may still want a separate tool
HubSpot Marketing Hub
What it’s for: teams that are already using (or plan to use) HubSpot’s broader CRM suite and want marketing, sales, and service data unified in one system, and have the budget for it once they outgrow Starter.
Pros
- The free plan is a genuinely usable starting point with real CRM and basic marketing tools, not just a countdown trial
- Once on Professional or Enterprise, the platform’s automation, attribution reporting, and integration with HubSpot’s CRM/sales tools are comprehensive and built for scale
- Being part of a much larger suite means marketing, sales, and customer service data live in one place rather than needing separate tools stitched together
Cons
- The gap between Starter (~$15-20/seat) and Professional ($800/mo) is the steepest jump of any tool in this comparison — there’s no mid-tier option that bridges “basic email” and “full automation”
- Professional and Enterprise both carry mandatory one-time onboarding fees ($3,000 and $7,000 respectively) on top of the monthly price
- Marketing contact limits are lower per dollar than some of the other tools here at the Professional/Enterprise tiers, so a larger list adds cost on top of the base price
Klaviyo
What it’s for: ecommerce businesses, especially Shopify stores, that want email and SMS marketing driven by actual purchase and browsing behavior rather than generic list segmentation.
Pros
- Deep native integration with ecommerce platforms and purchase-behavior triggers (abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase flows) that the more general-purpose tools here don’t match natively
- The free plan (up to 250 profiles) includes real automation flows and reporting, not just a stripped-down sample
- Combined email and SMS in one platform and one price, rather than needing a separate SMS tool
Cons
- No annual billing discount on self-serve plans as of this writing, unlike every other tool in this comparison — the monthly price is the price, however long you stay
- Built specifically around ecommerce data; a services business without a storefront or purchase events to trigger on will find much of the product’s core value doesn’t apply
- Pricing is profile-based and can climb quickly for larger lists, since every subscribed contact counts toward the active-profile total regardless of purchase history
Keap
What it’s for: solopreneurs and small service businesses (coaches, consultants, small agencies) that want CRM, invoicing, appointment booking, and marketing automation bundled into a single tool rather than assembled from separate products.
Pros
- Genuinely all-in-one: CRM, sales pipeline, invoicing/payments, appointment scheduling, and marketing automation are included in the single main plan, not sold as add-on modules
- Automation is available from day one on the only plan, so there’s no separate “automation tier” to upgrade into later
- Built-in text marketing (SMS) is included at a base allotment, with paid add-on tiers for higher volume
Cons
- The highest entry price in this comparison by a wide margin ($299/mo billed annually) for a tool aimed at small/solo businesses, which is a meaningful budget commitment before ever seeing if it’s the right fit
- Only 2 users are included at the base price; additional users cost $39/mo each, which adds up for a growing team
- Implementation/onboarding services are described as required for faster results, which can mean additional cost or setup time beyond the subscription price itself
GetResponse
What it’s for: small businesses and solo creators who want straightforward email marketing with the option to add automation, landing pages, and — on higher tiers — course and webinar hosting, without needing a separate platform for each.
Pros
- The lowest true entry price of the five for a paid plan with real functionality ($15.58/mo billed annually for Starter)
- The Creator tier bundles a website builder, course hosting (up to 500 students), and webinars alongside email marketing — a combination none of the other four tools offer natively
- 14-day free trial across the paid tiers, with access to premium features during the trial period
Cons
- Starter, the cheapest paid tier, includes only 1 automation workflow — meaningful automation requires upgrading to Marketer ($48.38/mo annually) or higher, similar to the pattern seen with ActiveCampaign’s Plus tier
- Sales-pipeline/CRM functionality is lighter than ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, or Keap, since GetResponse’s roots are in email marketing rather than CRM
- Downgrading a plan reportedly requires contacting support rather than being self-serve, which is worth knowing before committing to a higher tier to test it out
Which one fits your situation
Want automation and a real CRM together without HubSpot’s price jump: ActiveCampaign’s Plus tier is the most direct match — automation, CRM, and sales pipeline together at a fraction of HubSpot Professional’s cost, with a 14-day trial to test the fit first.
Already committed to (or planning to grow into) the HubSpot ecosystem: Start on the free plan or Starter to get familiar with the CRM, but budget for the jump to Professional before you actually need the automation features — the gap is real and worth planning around rather than discovering later.
Running an ecommerce store, especially on Shopify: Klaviyo’s purchase-behavior triggers and combined email/SMS are built specifically for this use case in a way the more general-purpose tools here aren’t — just factor in that there’s no annual discount to offset the monthly cost.
A solopreneur or small service business that wants one tool for CRM, invoicing, and marketing: Keap’s all-in-one approach can replace three or four separate subscriptions, but go in knowing the $299/mo entry price is the highest of this group.
Want to start cheap and grow into automation gradually: GetResponse’s Starter tier is the least expensive real starting point here, with a clear upgrade path to Marketer once basic email marketing outgrows a single automation workflow.
Not sure yet how much automation you’ll actually use: Start free with either HubSpot’s free CRM or Klaviyo’s free 250-profile plan (whichever matches whether you’re a services business or an ecommerce store), and treat the first month as a test of how much of the automation tooling you reach for before paying for a higher tier anywhere.
Common questions
Is ActiveCampaign or HubSpot the better “all-in-one” platform? It depends on scale and budget more than features. ActiveCampaign gets you automation and CRM together at a price a small business can commit to immediately. HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, once you’re on Professional or Enterprise, is more comprehensive and integrates with a much larger suite of sales and service tools — but the price and mandatory onboarding fee put it in a different budget category than the other four tools in this comparison.
Can I use Klaviyo if I don’t run an ecommerce store? Technically yes, but most of what makes Klaviyo distinct — purchase and browse-behavior triggers, product recommendation blocks, abandoned-cart flows — assumes there’s a storefront generating those events. A services business would be using a fraction of the product for the same price as a purchase-behavior-driven store, so one of the other four tools here is generally a better fit.
Why is Keap so much more expensive than the others at the entry level? Keap bundles CRM, invoicing/payments, appointment scheduling, and marketing automation into a single plan rather than splitting them into tiers, which is reflected in the base price. For a business that would otherwise pay for three or four separate tools, the math can still work out — the comparison is against the bundle’s total cost, not against another tool’s cheapest single-purpose tier.
Does GetResponse’s course and webinar functionality replace a dedicated platform for that? For someone already using GetResponse for email and wanting a lightweight way to host a small cohort course (up to 500 students on the Creator tier) or run occasional webinars, it can reasonably replace a separate tool. It’s not built to compete feature-for-feature with a dedicated course platform at scale, but as an added capability bundled into an email marketing subscription, it’s a genuine differentiator among these five.
Which of these has the most generous free trial or free tier? HubSpot’s free plan and Klaviyo’s free 250-profile plan are both genuinely usable ongoing free tiers rather than time-limited trials. ActiveCampaign and GetResponse both offer 14-day free trials with real feature access. Keap’s free trial exists but is the most limited of the group, capping emails and excluding payment processing and text messaging.
Where to start
If your business already sells through an online store, Klaviyo’s free tier is the fastest way to see whether purchase-behavior automation moves the needle before paying anything. If you’re a services business that wants automation and a CRM together without committing to HubSpot’s Professional price bracket, start free with ActiveCampaign’s 14-day trial and build the one automation workflow that would save your team the most manual follow-up time — that single build is usually enough to tell you whether the rest of the platform is worth paying for.
Whichever tool you start with, treat the free trial or free tier as a test of the automation you’d actually use day to day, not just the email-sending basics every tool here handles competently — that’s where the real price difference between these five ends up mattering most.