ActiveCampaign vs. dotMailer

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ActiveCampaign
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
ActiveCampaign is presented as an AI-first marketing platform for marketers, agencies, and entrepreneurs. It uses Active Intelligence for goal-aware automation and personalized experiences across email, SMS, and WhatsApp. ActiveCampaign integrates with 950+ apps and generates insights to optimize every workflow.
$19
per month
dotMailer
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
N/A
$150
per month
Pricing
ActiveCampaigndotMailer
Editions & Modules
Starter
$19
per month
Plus
$59
per month
Pro
$89
per month
Enterprise
$159
per month
Growth
$150.00
per month
Professional
$500.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCampaigndotMailer
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsActiveCampaign offers a discount for annual billing of up to 20%. 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
ActiveCampaigndotMailer
Considered Both Products
ActiveCampaign
Chose ActiveCampaign
We switched from Mailchimp to ActiveCampaign this year as we were having all kinds of issues with Mailchimp and were looking for an email marketing solution that offered decent automation features. ActiveCampaign is leagues above Mailchimp in terms of user experience, features, …
dotMailer
Chose dotMailer
DotMailer is built for eCommerce. Drip, ActiveCampaign, and Infusionsoft are not eCommerce platforms out of the box, though they can be tailored to that use case. DotMailer is especially geared toward retail businesses.
Features
ActiveCampaigndotMailer
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.4
684 Ratings
10% above category average
dotMailer
9.0
1 Ratings
12% above category average
WYSIWYG email editor8.1601 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Dynamic content7.6536 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.5485 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Landing pages6.4352 Ratings00 Ratings
A/B testing9.0394 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization8.6542 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.9650 Ratings9.01 Ratings
List management9.5669 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences10.0590 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.3
537 Ratings
6% above category average
dotMailer
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation9.2503 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading8.4367 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management9.0409 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks7.4362 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead segmentation and distribution7.613 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.9
385 Ratings
28% above category average
dotMailer
-
Ratings
Calendaring9.9305 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing9.9289 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
7.4
293 Ratings
1% below category average
dotMailer
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns7.6260 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration7.1255 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
7.6
646 Ratings
4% above category average
dotMailer
-
Ratings
Dashboards7.6615 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports7.6603 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports7.6390 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.1
505 Ratings
20% above category average
dotMailer
-
Ratings
API8.7403 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals8.3275 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability7.8431 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com9.894 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM9.961 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM9.957 Ratings00 Ratings
Third-party software integrations9.133 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ActiveCampaigndotMailer
Small Businesses
Vbout
Vbout
Score 10.0 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 9.1 out of 10
VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.1 out of 10
Emma by Marigold
Emma by Marigold
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ActiveCampaigndotMailer
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(695 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(25 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(57 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.3
(41 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.3
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCampaigndotMailer
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.
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dotMailer
Well suited for a company with a larger marketing budget as this is a costly program compared to the other ESPs. If your use case is not eCommerce, you would probably be better off with a standard ESP like Drip.
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
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dotMailer
  • Easy Editor - no HTML required. It's very easy to drag and drop your elements, customizing the campaign according to your needs.
  • Reports- the reports are robust, showing you your open rates, browsers used, who clicked what, etc. It is easy to section out this information and deliver it to the appropriate stakeholders.
  • Templates - building your own template library makes creating and sending campaigns and quick and easy experience. In a global company like ours, it also enables consistency across the brand locations throughout the world.
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.
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dotMailer
  • Integration is overly complex.
  • Cannot progressively profile from anything other than an email address.
  • Too expensive.
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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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dotMailer
Since this is used on a global scale and it is preferable to all of our brands, I cannot see us switching to a different provider. We have built years worth of contacts and templates within our current system, which saves our marketing team a lot of time when putting together future campaigns. All of them are mobile optimized which makes it even easier to work with
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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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dotMailer
No answers on this topic
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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dotMailer
No answers on this topic
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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dotMailer
No answers on this topic
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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dotMailer
No answers on this topic
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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dotMailer
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.
Read full review
dotMailer
DotMailer is built for eCommerce. Drip, ActiveCampaign, and Infusionsoft are not eCommerce platforms out of the box, though they can be tailored to that use case. DotMailer is especially geared toward retail businesses.
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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dotMailer
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
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dotMailer
  • Better customer service
  • Increased brand awareness
  • Increased brand engagement
  • Streamlined processes
  • Regular communication with customers
  • Increased audience/reach
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ScreenShots

ActiveCampaign Screenshots

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