Act-On Software vs. ActiveCampaign

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Act-On
Score 8.2 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Act-On is an adaptive marketing platform designed to drive personal and purposeful multi-channel marketing. Its foci are inbound and outbound marketing, for enabling a tighter alignment with sales and turning data into actionable insights.
$900
per month (starts at 2,500 active contacts)
ActiveCampaign
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with a platform for intelligent marketing automation. It provides email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM tools that help businesses to create incredible customer experiences.
$9
per month
Pricing
Act-On SoftwareActiveCampaign
Editions & Modules
Professional
$900
per month (starts at 2,500 active contacts)
Enterprise
$2,000
per month ( starts at 2,500 active contacts)
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Act-OnActiveCampaign
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe Professional package starts at 2,500 active contacts, 3 marketing users, 50 sales users and 30,000 API calls per day. The Enterprise package starts at 2,500 active contacts, 6 marketing users, 100 sales users and 30,000 API calls per day. Annual contract required.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Act-On SoftwareActiveCampaign
Considered Both Products
Act-On
Chose Act-On Software
To improve the system, Act-On is developing custom reports and workflows. It is incredibly flexible as well as functionally sound and reliable. The other features that our team enjoys the most are the features such as all contacts. Creating landing pages and web forms is a snap …
Chose Act-On Software
Many more, too^^^

The best after any free one. Once a company has a budget it's time for Act-On.
ActiveCampaign
Chose ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign has a lot more capabilities and features than Act-On, for a much better price. We used Act-On at the bare minimum, only using it to send out newsletters that we built in HTML. With ActiveCampaign, we are now using conditional content, contact tags, automations, …
Chose ActiveCampaign
We switched over to ActiveCampaign mainly because of cost savings. As we have gotten to use the service, I have noticed ActiveCampaign is more intuitive, provides a wealth of helpful information and resources, and is generally more pleasant to use. The customer support with …
Chose ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is one of the most robust marketing automation platforms available today and allows us to integrate with virtually all other marketing tools in our tech stack. When vetting a marketing automation software to support our clients, we did not like that other larger …
Chose ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is the budget option, no doubt. There isn't a single other tool even near it in price that offers anywhere near the level of tools that ActiveCampaign offers.

However, just because it's really inexpensive, don't let that lead you to think its a "cheap" tool. They …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Act-On SoftwareActiveCampaign
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
7.8
113 Ratings
1% above category average
ActiveCampaign
8.9
664 Ratings
14% above category average
WYSIWYG email editor8.1112 Ratings9.4581 Ratings
Dynamic content8.192 Ratings9.1520 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.292 Ratings8.8471 Ratings
Landing pages8.1108 Ratings8.0338 Ratings
A/B testing8.195 Ratings9.2380 Ratings
Mobile optimization7.2103 Ratings9.3526 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.1112 Ratings7.2631 Ratings
List management8.1111 Ratings9.6650 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences7.187 Ratings9.7574 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.1
113 Ratings
5% above category average
ActiveCampaign
7.5
524 Ratings
3% below category average
Lead nurturing automation8.1104 Ratings9.2491 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading8.1104 Ratings8.0359 Ratings
Data quality management8.1102 Ratings9.2401 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks8.195 Ratings9.2355 Ratings
Lead segmentation and distribution00 Ratings1.81 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
7.5
77 Ratings
1% below category average
ActiveCampaign
9.6
374 Ratings
23% above category average
Calendaring6.88 Ratings9.6295 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing8.176 Ratings9.5286 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.1
71 Ratings
8% above category average
ActiveCampaign
9.6
287 Ratings
24% above category average
Social sharing and campaigns8.169 Ratings9.6254 Ratings
Social profile integration8.163 Ratings9.5250 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.1
114 Ratings
8% above category average
ActiveCampaign
8.4
627 Ratings
11% above category average
Dashboards8.1109 Ratings8.0597 Ratings
Standard reports8.1112 Ratings8.0584 Ratings
Custom reports8.184 Ratings9.1377 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
7.9
107 Ratings
4% above category average
ActiveCampaign
9.2
491 Ratings
19% above category average
API8.167 Ratings9.6391 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals8.171 Ratings9.3267 Ratings
Customizability8.189 Ratings9.4420 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com8.165 Ratings9.392 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM8.136 Ratings9.860 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM7.129 Ratings9.856 Ratings
Third-party software integrations00 Ratings7.520 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Act-On SoftwareActiveCampaign
Small Businesses
Vbout
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Score 9.5 out of 10
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Act-On SoftwareActiveCampaign
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(219 ratings)
7.8
(676 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.9
(112 ratings)
8.4
(25 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(32 ratings)
7.7
(38 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(14 ratings)
9.1
(5 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(13 ratings)
7.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(39 ratings)
1.3
(41 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.7
(4 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Online Training
9.3
(16 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(22 ratings)
8.7
(14 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(1 ratings)
6.4
(4 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.4
(2 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(1 ratings)
1.4
(5 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(2 ratings)
6.4
(4 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(2 ratings)
7.2
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
Act-On SoftwareActiveCampaign
Likelihood to Recommend
Act-On
Act-On simplifies the creation of landing pages, web forms, email campaigns, and other types of marketing automation. Designing a customer journey using the workflow builder (a nurturing flow) is possible. It is used in various ways and in a variety of contexts. Tactical's knowledgeable support team helped us unlock Act-On's potential for complex integrations and marketing campaigns. In some areas, it would be beneficial to improve functionality.
Read full review
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is brilliant for small businesses wanting a secure, reliable and user friendly email capture software that filters users emails into the appropriate category/tags and have endless options when it comes to having different lead magnets and ways users may sign up. It's been super handy for my small business to send regular emails and be able to analyse the success rates and open rates of emails and the ability to resend them with a different subject line. It's made email marketing really easy peasy.
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Pros
Act-On
  • Establishes a simple but very decisive way of how to perform specialized marketing work.
  • It includes the monitoring of advertising networks or account management on digital platforms and social networks.
  • The support is solid; it takes all the suggestions and doubts I have regarding the software.
Read full review
ActiveCampaign
  • The graphic design is very good, especially fonts, colours and templates
  • Flexibility of design and functionality
  • Takes a little while to learn it, but generally user-friendly
  • Looks very professional but doesn't cost much to get started
  • There are masses of integrations for ActiveCampaign, and the ones I tried all worked well and didn't take long to figure out.
Read full review
Cons
Act-On
  • The designer tools, especially for emails, were often difficult to use. The formatting of the text would be all over the place and change / refuse to change at random. Moving boxes around was shifty and sometimes nearly impossible. It just wasn't customizeable enough. No "undo" functionality either.
  • The only way to collect information expansively over time (there's a term Act-On uses for it, I can't recall) where it adds questions to the form each time a user fills it out, is if the person were to fill out the same form multiple times. I know this does happen for some websites/resources, but as a company that wanted to collect new information each time someone filled out any form, regardless of the resource or the URL, that was simply not an option, and that doesn't really make a lot of sense. I know it's not really possible to track someone but if they filled out the first part of the form and then it added new questions to answer, and then they submitted and got through the gating, that would actually be helpful.
  • There was no "trash can" of sorts in case you deleted something by mistake. This could be so stress-inducing if it was a major project. My coworker did this once, contacted Act-On, they couldn't even recover it.
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ActiveCampaign
  • The email designing part could be easier to use. There are certain simple shortcuts that don't work, for example, adding links is more complicated than it should be, moving blocks around is hard, etc.
  • There's no good way to filter by 'active' and 'inactive' subscribers when editing en-mass.
  • I'd like more reporting data on one page.
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Likelihood to Renew
Act-On
It's my single biggest asset in my current role. With limited resources, its enabled Anachron to punch well above our weight marketing wise and although we're still at the beginning of our journey I know the system can scale with us
Read full review
ActiveCampaign
I am committed at the moment. Rebuilding the automations I have would be a huge time drain. Plus the cost of learning a new system and the risk to deliverability of porting a 6,000 person list to a new platform. Also, AC offers everything I need ast a reasonable (but a little high) price. So, why not a 10? Because, early 2023, AC dropped a massive 2x price hike on long-term customers. They knew few would shift, so this feels like a cynical cash grab and left a bad taste, If they do something like this again, this camel will have a broken back.
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Usability
Act-On
It's good, but not quite brilliant. Some parts of the interface are still a bit outdated. The product has been evolving very fast, though, and I believe in a few months it will be up there with the best of them, interface wise as well.
Read full review
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign has been the easiest marketing automation software we have ever used. They provide tips throughout the entire process of anything you are building. Their support team through LIVE CHAT has been extremely fast and helpful. The monthly meetings provided with the enablement team has helped us through several large and urgent needs.
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Reliability and Availability
Act-On
I have always found them quick to respond to my query by web inquiry. In those instances when I call, I have always reached help quickly. They are conscientious and skilled in discussing my concern and finding a solution to my problem. Other tech organizations should use Act-On as a model for top-notch customer service.
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ActiveCampaign
I haven't experienced application errors or unplanned outages at all. Active Campaign is ultra reliable and I would not be using them if that were the case. Also, the helpful emails they send are welcomed and informative, and present very practical tips and guidance for using the platform. They're always demonstrating new features and I'm thankful for that.
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Performance
Act-On
Great for the most part. Sometimes there are little lags, but that's likely because I'm requesting to see a lot of data at one time.
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ActiveCampaign
Oh my gosh, Active Campaign's performance gets an A+++ in my book. The pages load quickly and so do the reports. I haven't noticed any slowdowns when it's integrating with other programs and it performs excellently on all levels.
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Support Rating
Act-On
Since we start using Act-on for ourselves and our clients, we have been supported very well. Often we need to integrate with legacy systems and we find the support team on our side during the whole endeavor. Always asking if they can help us further, always willing to do a better job. The support of Act-On is one of the main differentiators
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ActiveCampaign
This might be the best part. The chat support lady offered to make a video to help me solve my problem. I worked in customer service for years and I've never done that, lol. So, if they're offering things like that, I can only imagine that they'd be able to handle most any issue you throw at them.
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In-Person Training
Act-On
Dan D. was great. He took the time to understand how I needed the program to run, and was very flexible to our special CRM setup.
Read full review
ActiveCampaign
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Act-On
Act-On had a lot of resources, and their staff was great at answering any questions I had to make sure we got started on the right foot. Looking back, I would have preferred some additional training sessions since we didn't have any previous experience with Marketing Automation and best practices.
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ActiveCampaign
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Act-On
What impressed me most is that Act-On showed full committment in making our implementation successful, even when it required additional support from their team. This gave me a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings. Most other software software vendors are not anywhere close to being this responsive and effective
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ActiveCampaign
Very satisfied with our implementation in our professional medical practice, allowing us to be on top of client service, and not miss out on crucial information and insights. Marketing is often neglected in professional practices and ActiveCampaign solved this problem with aplomb.
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Alternatives Considered
Act-On
Act-On is easier to use than Marketo, but not as visually appealing and user-friendly as HubSpot. It's much better than Pardot, as Pardot feel clunky every step of the way. SharpSpring is comparable because of its price point but surpasses Act-On in its tools and intuitive interface. We selected Act-On because of the pricing model and thought all things would be close to parity with other options. It depends on the team you have. If you have developers and a marketing team that knows some html/css, you can get by with Act-On.
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ActiveCampaign
I moved to ActiveCampaign from Mailchimp. Admittedly, I was using the free version of Mailchimp, but I had numerous episodes of subscriber data NOT being added to Mailchimp, despite using API to integrate with my mailing list. Obviously, I couldn't pay for clicks and not capture subscriber data, so I had to find something else. ActiveCampaign has been 100% reliable in testing.
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Scalability
Act-On
Before I feel like I need more features, the Act-On customer service reps are contacting me telling about new features as part of my account.
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ActiveCampaign
My web designer told me about Active Campaign and although I don't recall which platform I had before, I LOVE Active Campaign and its user friendliness. The transition was seamless and I've never had a problem with functionality or server failure.
Active Campaign provides so many features, and makes it easy for non-techies to maneuver around the site with ease. They capture information and put it in an easy-to-read format.
At this point, I don't think I'd ever use any other platform!
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Return on Investment
Act-On
  • With the Automated Series, we were able to put in place campaigns that generated revenue that took no time to continue running once set up. This was a positive feature allowing employees to work on another project while the campaign ran on their own.
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ActiveCampaign
  • I haven't monetized my list yet so no clear ROI but great from a list-building perspective
  • The software is not cheap so at times I feel like I may not be getting the most out of the product because I'm not using all of the features
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ScreenShots

Act-On Screenshots

Screenshot of List Segmentation - Segmentation using behavioral, demographic and/or firmographic dataScreenshot of the Quickstart PageScreenshot of Landing Page Composer - landing pages are designed with a drag and drop function

ActiveCampaign Screenshots

Screenshot of tagging, that when combined with conditional content helps to put the right message in front of each customer.Screenshot of marketing automationScreenshot of audience segmentation based on engagement, purchase activity, lead score, or any other dimensionScreenshot of live chat, site messaging, email, and a unified inbox that can be used to build relationships with customers.Screenshot of the CRM, which helps sales reps to get more done in less time