ActiveCampaign vs. Campaign Monitor by Marigold

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.
$15
per month
Campaign Monitor by Marigold
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Campaign Monitor by Marigold enables users to create, send, and optimize email marketing campaigns.
$11
per month
Pricing
ActiveCampaignCampaign Monitor by Marigold
Editions & Modules
Starter
$15
per month
Plus
$49
per month
Pro
$79
per month
Enterprise
$145
per month
Lite
$11
per month
Essentials
$19
per month
Premier
$149
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCampaignCampaign Monitor by Marigold
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsNo matter what plan you choose, our services are designed to help you get the most out of your investment — so you can focus on running your business. ActiveCampaign services included in all plan tiers: ActiveTraining Community access Contact migration Customer enablement workshops Video tutorials Chat and ticket support Knowledge base & help guides
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ActiveCampaignCampaign Monitor by Marigold
Considered Both Products
ActiveCampaign
Chose ActiveCampaign
I've used Hubspot, Mailchimp, and Campaign Monitor extensively for other clients. All of them have their benefits. But many of them either have limited functionality or are incredibly expensive. ActiveCampaign is robust enough to handle the integrations and automatons we need …
Chose ActiveCampaign
The key reasons I've chosen ActiveCampaign over others are:
  1. Combined CRM and email marketing in one place
  2. Contact tagging (some other email apps have this, some don't)
Chose ActiveCampaign
  • It costs more than some, less than others, so the price is competitive.
  • The features are above most: constituent metrics, campaign and automation metrics, automation creation with options to integrate with other systems.
  • The ease with which a professional email can be composed …
Chose ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign has advanced automation features, but lacks advanced design, layout and testing features. ActiveCampaign has a great interface for creating new automations and forms to get them up and running quickly, but the design of the automated emails that goes out has many …
Chose ActiveCampaign
As I said before, Active Campaign is the best tool for manage and design email flow for automation. In my opinion, it has all that is necessary for managing customers and leads.
Chose ActiveCampaign
  • It's way better than Constant Contact (I still use Constant Contact for one of my clients and find it very, very frustrating!).
  • I like some options ActiveCampaign has over Campaign Monitor - tagging, automation, etc. are all a lot better/easier. BUT we have noticed a significant …
Chose ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign has a much more powerful and flexible automation builder, as well as the pipeline function (Deal) that is fully integrated with the rest of the product.
For example, you can set up automation with conditions that push a contact across a sales pipeline based on …
Chose ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is an awkward middle child between full fledged marketing automation (HubSpot, Marketo, Infusionsoft) and Email Service Providers (MailChimp, ConstantContact, CampaignMonitor). It's a step up from the ESPs with richer list management and branching logic without …
Campaign Monitor by Marigold
Chose Campaign Monitor by Marigold
UI and usability are much better than all of them. While others offer tags which is my preferred method of list management, they're severely lacking in usability.
Chose Campaign Monitor by Marigold
Campaign Monitor is at the bottom of the list. Our department had selected the service prior to my employment.
Chose Campaign Monitor by Marigold
We use a variety of products in this space for all kinds of purposes. This is a simple solution to get you started. When we first started with them, they billed themselves as a simple email tool for designers, which largely remains their legacy. Every product they offer is …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
ActiveCampaignCampaign Monitor by Marigold
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.2
679 Ratings
7% above category average
Campaign Monitor by Marigold
7.6
26 Ratings
4% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor7.4596 Ratings9.511 Ratings
Dynamic content6.8532 Ratings7.923 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content6.6482 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Landing pages6.1349 Ratings2.01 Ratings
A/B testing9.9391 Ratings7.923 Ratings
Mobile optimization8.5538 Ratings7.03 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.4645 Ratings10.01 Ratings
List management9.9664 Ratings8.33 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences9.9586 Ratings7.73 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.3
534 Ratings
6% above category average
Campaign Monitor by Marigold
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation9.9500 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading8.3366 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management8.5407 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks7.9361 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead segmentation and distribution7.29 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.8
383 Ratings
27% above category average
Campaign Monitor by Marigold
-
Ratings
Calendaring9.8303 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing9.9289 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
7.7
292 Ratings
2% above category average
Campaign Monitor by Marigold
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns7.9259 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration7.5254 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
7.3
642 Ratings
0% below category average
Campaign Monitor by Marigold
10.0
4 Ratings
27% above category average
Dashboards7.3611 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Standard reports7.3599 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Custom reports7.3387 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.1
503 Ratings
19% above category average
Campaign Monitor by Marigold
-
Ratings
API9.1401 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals9.1274 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability7.9429 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com9.895 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM9.962 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM9.958 Ratings00 Ratings
Third-party software integrations7.830 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-Send Testing
Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
-
Ratings
Campaign Monitor by Marigold
8.3
6 Ratings
4% above category average
URL Validation00 Ratings9.73 Ratings
Link Tracking00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
Spam Testing00 Ratings7.36 Ratings
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User Ratings
ActiveCampaignCampaign Monitor by Marigold
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(691 ratings)
8.8
(28 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.8
(25 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(52 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(5 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
7.2
(5 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
1.3
(41 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.4
(4 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(4 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.0
(5 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.4
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.3
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCampaignCampaign Monitor by Marigold
Likelihood to Recommend
ActiveCampaign
I've been using ActiveCampaign since around 2018-2019 and I've always been satisfied with the software. It's simple to use, connects with the other tools I use and makes it easy for me to duplicate automations, email templates and workflows as I need to. On top of that, any time I've had an issue (which I think is around twice in the past 5/6 years), the customer service has always been super helpful and my issue has been resolved quickly.
Read full review
Marigold
Campaign Monitor by Marigold is great at both scaling up as you grow (i.e. for a startup or if you're starting fresh on building a subscriber list) and providing more than just basic templates and tooling. We vetted across a lot of different options to account for where we were starting and where we hope to grow into with our opt-in email marketing, and Campaign Monitor stood out.
Read full review
Pros
ActiveCampaign
  • Collects and filters emails from various lead magnets exceptionally well (especially if a user wants to re-sign up to the same lead magnet and go through it again, they can)
  • Super easy to use email creation that is aesthetically pleasing and user friendly
  • Easy email sequences and user classification from a large range of opt in trigger options
Read full review
Marigold
  • Campaign Monitor’s support is great. They have a great help page built out to help answer all your questions, and if you do have a question or issue that needs extra support, their support team responds within a couple hours to help resolve the issue.
  • The email builder is very clean and easy to use. It makes A/B testing, personalization, and dynamic content easy to implement.
  • I appreciate the insights reporting that Campaign Monitor provides. We use that regularly for our quarterly reporting to track list growth, as well as campaign performance from a high level.
  • The automation is very straight forward and has truly transformed our marketing. The learning curve is pretty low, so my entire team knows how to use it to create and edit automated email journeys.
Read full review
Cons
ActiveCampaign
  • It took me a while to get to understand where to find things, and I used a free online course from a consultant who specialises in AC to help me get the foundations set up more easily. That said, there were lots of onboarding workshops, which were good. It just felt like it required a lot of different angles of learning to just get started.
  • The customer support took longer than other software to get back to me via email, though once I found the chat option for my most recent query, that was fast.
  • I've ended up switching to another programme where more software is more naturally integrated, and the AC equivalent is included in the price, along with many other types of software. However, design-wise, ActiveCampaign is much better.
  • I also had a problem with a form used on my WordPress website, which has a BuddyBoss platform - the colours on the form would be overridden by colour choices for the website, so they were hard to read (pink text on purple background instead of the gold text it was meant to be)
  • I couldn't always find the templates I was looking for or how to access them for automation-based emails. I think when I used it, there was a new type of template for newsletters that weren't available for automations, so I had to recreate it, which added time.
Read full review
Marigold
  • I'd prefer a central contact list with tags, rather than multiple lists. I can have one person on 5 lists and that counts as 5 subscribers.
  • While the email builder is very good, I'd prefer more customisation options.
  • Updates they make are good, but are perhaps a little slow.
  • I'd like better mobile compatibility. I get that might not be possible for the email builder (although aiming for that would be great) but for lists, reports etc there's no reason that shouldn't be mobile-compatible or have a mobile app.
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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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Marigold
It flexes with us both because of the tiered pricing, and due to the comprehensive tools available. We're able to go from one newsletter to many, and few automations to many very easily while not paying for a Cadillac when what we need is a sturdy crossover.
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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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Marigold
It's a very user friendly tool and a highly intuitive interface. It's really clearly thought out, so from a users perspective it feels very simple. By comparison, we've also used Mailchimp, and when comparing one to the other, the Mailchimp dashboard is far less logical and intuitive.
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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.
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Marigold
There have only been a couple of instances where it's been down and this has typically been middle of the night type situations that were planned downtime so they could work on maintenance. They provide notice well ahead of these instances. I've never noticed a surprise outage.
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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.
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Marigold
I have noticed no slow page loads within the design interface or reports. It's all quick, even with list uploads which are notorious for being clunky in other systems. It's all been quick and easy for us.
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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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Marigold
We haven't had to use support yet.
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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Marigold
No answers on this topic
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.
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Marigold
The ability to track the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns in real-time is what makes Campaign Monitor interesting to use. All the vital features that we need to run professionally designed email campaigns that look wonderful on any device so that we boost our business are included in this platform.
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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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Marigold
It is so easy to use, and the things you'd want to have as you scale and get to a more complex email marketing approach are all there. From automations to lots of mobile responsive templates, it's easy to set up what you need and then customize for your brand.
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Professional Services
ActiveCampaign
No answers on this topic
Marigold
I did not use the professional services
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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
Marigold
  • Simply: it has made getting things done easier.
  • It has empowered non-technical users to work comfortably in the system.
  • Deliverability is good: Thanks to the implementation team doing their due diligence on incoming clients and their setup.
  • It was more cost effective than previous (feature rich) system.
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