ActiveCampaign vs. Mautic (open source) vs. Omnisend

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.

Incentivized

Mautic is not Salesforce or Dynamics of course; it is hard to install, still buggy and you have to know what you're doing if you want to use it. But that is your admission fee to an always free system that does essentially all the same things as the pricey alternatives, does it effectively and gives you total control. Mautic was acquired by Acquia, the company behind Drupal, and has been making substantial upgrades since that seem to be accelerating. The system has an active user community, active development and will only get better, making it an excellent choice to grow with and build your own systems around and never be dependent on third parties

It's kind of an automation workflow, but for example you can set up a popup to appear at a specific time on a specific product page and offer the visitor something. The visitor then signs up and then (after you've set up your automation sequence) that visitor gets a specific welcome page based on the popup they signed up through, and then a specific order confirmation email and everything else flows from that specific popup. That's great because it's allowed us to sort of fine-tune our offerings to get our visitors' emails in the first place and offer, for example, someone browsing a product page for 3 minutes something different than someone staying 20 seconds on the homepage and then leaving.

• 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

Incentivized

• Marketing email organization
• Email tracking
• Email automation
• Contact management
• Open rates
• Delivery rates
• A/B testing
• Email sending
• Unsubscribe management
• SMTP management

• Newsletter campaigns - the content editor is the usual one you see on email marketing apps, but it works so smoothly and well. Of course, there's Product Picker that allows you to just pick a product from your store and it goes straight into your newsletter--no need to add images or descriptions. Really easy.
• Popups are great because they look amazing right out of the box. It's all pre-filled so if you don't like looking at a blank screen, you can just adapt the wording and it's there. voila!
• Automation really is nice and it's the bulk of what we're doing now. It's like second level ecommerce marketing I guess, because you really see after some time how having automated steps can really save you time and make you a lot more money. Omnisend's automations are really good and intuitive and was really easy to learn and implement.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Setting up the email templates has required hiring a professional. The templates that are provided are not fully responsive.
• More responsive form templates are needed.

Incentivized

• Initial setup wasn't firing right, support issue was handled pretty quickly and easily.
• It does not go back and put previous orders/customers into the automation. It will only work with go-forward customers from the time you install the product. (At least that's what the outcome of our support inquiry told us...).
• Would like to see more sample templates and campaigns.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

The platform is super easy to use — even without deep technical knowledge. And the best part is, Omnisend keeps improving all the time.

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Support is weird. They ask you to keep everything in one thread, but they can't see your replies if they forward it to tech, and things easily get lost. Also tech support is HORRIBLE, they just seem snobby, and give horrible advice liek to test things on a live version vs staging

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Infusionsoft, at the time I tested it, had a crazy editor--very unintuitive and not very clean. Mautic (open source) makes it much easier to build up campaigns. Besides that, it didn't provide what we needed to justify the lack of possibility to self-host it and the requirement to pay for it.

We can create marketing campaigns that can span across multiple channels so that we can reach more customers regardless of the platform they are using. The system combines multiple channels into a single workflow for maximum engagement. Comes with various features that make it easy to personalize messages based on the customer's journey.

Incentivized

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!

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• We made our ROI back within a year.
• Fulfills our needs and our client's needs, our clients love it.
• I would just add more templates to the email construction selection, other than that, it is just perfect.

Incentivized

• I am able to see if ordered were placed based on who opened the email and clicked on links.
• It’s had a positive impact on my business by being able to see what emails have produced direct sales.
• It has helped to increase website traffic
• It has allowed my to expand how I can communicate with potential customers.

Incentivized