ActiveCampaign vs. Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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.
$19
per month
Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
The Bronto Marketing Platform was an email marketing solution from Oracle which was acquired from NetSuite in 2016. It was optimized for creating automated, yet personalized emails, and subscriber profile segments, analyzing click and visit behavior, and tracking geolocation. It has since been discontinued.N/A
Pricing
ActiveCampaignBronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCampaignBronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsRequest pricing at info@bronto.com.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ActiveCampaignBronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Considered Both Products
ActiveCampaign

No answer on this topic

Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Chose Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Bronto has so many features packed into one platform that are not all obvious. Bronto replaces a giant stack of tools I would otherwise have: Drip for marketing automation, Litmus or Glock Apps for spam testing, Zapier and Twilio for SMS, Hootsuite for social posting, and …
Chose Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Bronto does all of it in one platform, including product recommendations. The only system that comes close is Zaius, and it’s twice the price and doesn’t do social posting.
Chose Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
They have a strong Magento integration, which is a great thing for B2C Magento e-commerce business. Also, they have all the automation features, which allows you to automatize the sendings depending on your strategy, but Bronto charges additional for each new features.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
ActiveCampaignBronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.9
664 Ratings
13% above category average
Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
7.4
58 Ratings
9% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor9.4581 Ratings7.050 Ratings
Dynamic content9.1520 Ratings6.450 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content8.8471 Ratings6.449 Ratings
Landing pages8.0338 Ratings4.525 Ratings
A/B testing9.1380 Ratings9.055 Ratings
Mobile optimization9.3526 Ratings7.850 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting7.3631 Ratings9.458 Ratings
List management9.6650 Ratings7.456 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences9.7574 Ratings8.448 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
7.5
524 Ratings
3% below category average
Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation9.2491 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading8.0359 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management9.2401 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks9.2355 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead segmentation and distribution1.81 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.5
374 Ratings
22% above category average
Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Calendaring9.6295 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing9.5286 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.5
287 Ratings
23% above category average
Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns9.6254 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration9.4250 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.3
627 Ratings
10% above category average
Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
7.6
57 Ratings
2% below category average
Dashboards8.0597 Ratings7.857 Ratings
Standard reports8.0584 Ratings7.856 Ratings
Custom reports9.1377 Ratings7.143 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.2
491 Ratings
19% above category average
Bronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
-
Ratings
API9.6391 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals9.2267 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability9.4420 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com9.392 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM9.760 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM9.856 Ratings00 Ratings
Third-party software integrations7.520 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ActiveCampaignBronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.5 out of 10
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Emma by Marigold
Emma by Marigold
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ActiveCampaignBronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(676 ratings)
8.1
(60 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(25 ratings)
8.0
(5 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(38 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(5 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(5 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
1.4
(41 ratings)
2.0
(2 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(14 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
6.4
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.5
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.2
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCampaignBronto Marketing Platform (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
The Bronto Marketing Platform
If you're a mid-size to larger business and rely on regular email engagement from customers, then Bronto Marketing Platform could be a potentially great partner if not game-changer for how you've been doing email campaign management previously. Their automation tools and development interface is amicable. The amount of data that's collected and available from engagement with subscribers through their tools can be overwhelming. Still, if you enjoy digging into every kernel of possible user activity information, you'll love it.
Read full review
Pros
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
The Bronto Marketing Platform
  • It's easy to work with – it has seamless integration across all platforms, which helps when you're working with big clientele.
  • It's logically organized, which can't be said of all ESP's.
  • It has the LIVE CHAT support. A lot of email marketing clients simply don't have that. It's the little things!
Read full review
Cons
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.
Read full review
The Bronto Marketing Platform
  • Segmenting- although there's a lot that can be done with segmenting audiences, there's a bit of a learning curve when it comes to setting up segments. Wish it was more intuitive.
  • Workflows- setting up automation workflows requires some practice and I've needed to consult a Bronto support person each time I set up a new workflow.
  • Bronto Pop-up manager- we use this feature, not sure how common it is among Bronto clients, but there is overall some improvement needed with this tool. There is limited capability to update the look and feel of the pop-up manager, and we've run into some conflicts with other pop-ups on our website interfering with the Bronto pop-up.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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The Bronto Marketing Platform
Never really had any issues that caused out-of-the-ordinary frustration levels. Of course, you'll have days where the learning curve of using a tool gets challenging. Still, I don't remember ever really coming across an obstacle or roadblock while using the tool because of a feature or function it just couldn't do successfully or at all. Customer support was always available as needed, and it was generally easy to find answers to questions when they arose.
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Usability
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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The Bronto Marketing Platform
Usability is great. Very intuitive drag-and-drip metaphor for building automations. And the UI is very user-centric. It constantly prompts you with suggestions and next steps such that you hardly have to refer to the (excellent) documentation.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
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.
Read full review
The Bronto Marketing Platform
I never experienced any downtime.
Read full review
Performance
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.
Read full review
The Bronto Marketing Platform
No issues.
Read full review
Support Rating
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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The Bronto Marketing Platform
They used to be good, but they've evolved into a monolithic bureaucratic nightmare after the Netsuite / Oracle acquisition. Can't talk to anyone that actually knows the system and support tickets seem to go days or weeks without responses and resolution.
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Online Training
ActiveCampaign
No answers on this topic
The Bronto Marketing Platform
They have lots of videos on list importing / segmentation / report customization etc. when you sign on they give a link to online tutorials and documentation which is very helpful. They have very helpful PDFs on how to import / set up platform
Read full review
Implementation Rating
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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The Bronto Marketing Platform
Easy to set up.
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Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
The Bronto Marketing Platform
Bronto hits the sweet spot for us. It is most similar to the Salesforce family of products. Salesforce however can feel cluttered and configuration and setup can be time consuming and confusing. Bronto is much more streamlined and also has features built in that may require additional purchases in the Salesforce world. Adobe Campaign is a very powerful solution and can do many things hard to achieve in Bronto. However, Campaign is much more of a developer tool where Bronto is easy to learn and use right out of the box.
Read full review
Scalability
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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The Bronto Marketing Platform
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
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
Read full review
The Bronto Marketing Platform
  • Offering great reporting for tracking everything. I can see what emails are working (I track on a monthly basis) and what people are clicking.
  • A/B split testing lets us try different things. Try this and that.
  • Creating lists and segments of subscribers lets us look at who is the best performing contacts. Really get 'into the data' and understand what is working and what is not.
Read full review
ScreenShots

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