ActiveCampaign vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ActiveCampaign
Score 8.2 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.
$15
per month
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.
$69
per month per agent
Pricing
ActiveCampaignZendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
Starter
$15
per month
Pro
$49
per month
Plus
$79
per month
Enterprise
$159
per month
Suite Team
$69
per month per agent
Suite Growth
$115
per month per agent
Suite Professional
$149
per month per agent
Suite Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCampaignZendesk Suite
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional Details20% discount available with annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ActiveCampaignZendesk Suite
Considered Both Products
ActiveCampaign
Chose ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a low-cost, highly flexible solution that is ideal for small or even larger businesses. The price point vs the feature set is spot on. I have tried "freemium" versions of other software, which are clever ploys to upsell you to a paid tier. At least with …
Chose ActiveCampaign
I have used Campaign Monitor in the past. This is a great product but lacked lead scoring and direct integration with Salesforce (it's available, but through a third party vendor that comes at a cost).
Chose ActiveCampaign
Each of the platforms has very similar features, but in our findings, the value of having all the features in one platform is how Active Campaign leads the industry in terms of features as well as the pricing. The other platforms will allow for the same they seem to be a la …
Zendesk Suite

No answer on this topic

Features
ActiveCampaignZendesk Suite
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.6
688 Ratings
12% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG email editor8.3605 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic content8.0539 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.9488 Ratings00 Ratings
Landing pages7.0356 Ratings00 Ratings
A/B testing8.9398 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization8.8545 Ratings00 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting9.0654 Ratings00 Ratings
List management9.4673 Ratings00 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences10.0594 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.6
541 Ratings
10% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation9.1507 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading8.5370 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management9.4413 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks8.2365 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead segmentation and distribution7.817 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.7
388 Ratings
26% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Calendaring9.9308 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing9.4291 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
7.2
295 Ratings
3% below category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns7.5262 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration6.9257 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
7.9
650 Ratings
8% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Dashboards8.0619 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports7.9607 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports7.8394 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.1
509 Ratings
20% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
API8.7407 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals8.7278 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability7.9435 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com9.497 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM9.964 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM9.959 Ratings00 Ratings
Third-party software integrations9.237 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.8
171 Ratings
7% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.2170 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.2117 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings8.6118 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings8.2121 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.4171 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings9.3170 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.4
155 Ratings
4% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings8.4149 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.5142 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.8
167 Ratings
10% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings9.0137 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings8.570 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings8.4111 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings9.3164 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings9.0127 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ActiveCampaignZendesk Suite
Small Businesses
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.1 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.1 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
ActiveCampaignZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(699 ratings)
9.0
(209 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(25 ratings)
10.0
(43 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(62 ratings)
8.8
(82 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(5 ratings)
9.1
(14 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(5 ratings)
9.1
(11 ratings)
Support Rating
1.3
(41 ratings)
5.7
(31 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(1 ratings)
6.4
(10 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.5
(14 ratings)
9.1
(19 ratings)
Configurability
6.4
(4 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.0
(5 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.4
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.3
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCampaignZendesk Suite
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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Zendesk
Being a customer support agent, I found it very good when it comes to send an email or call or chat- with the user. I can do all that from the one single platform which is so easy and time saving for you. It does not take much time to use this, We can chat- with the user and at the same time we can send an email to them as well.
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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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Zendesk
  • UI/UX; mature macros and automations, slick and well thought out UI.
  • Reporting, reporting, reporting. With user, org, and ticket level tags, we can track every aspect of our ticket flow.
  • Extensibility; the app marketplace is a great resource for expanding functionality from the baseline offering.
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
Zendesk
  • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
  • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
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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.
Read full review
Zendesk
Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
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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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Zendesk
Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
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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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Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
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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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Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
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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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Zendesk
We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
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Online Training
ActiveCampaign
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
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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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Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
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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.
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Zendesk
The customisable reporting every time. Our leadership reply on me to run my team and want to know what customers are telling us so they can elevate our products. We have extensive custom reports that tie up all aspects of our product and customer journeys. I've not found another product that allows me as much freedom as Zendesk Suite explore does, so far.
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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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Zendesk
WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
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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
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Zendesk
  • Integrating other AI solutions for an organization with high volumes can cost about USD5000 monthly. With Zendesk AI and by building onto the same with AI powered apps built for Zendesk Suite we save a projected USD4000 monthly.
  • Robust Zendesk APIs have enabled us to integrate our internal system with a customized app saving us hundreds of hours every quarter spent loading customer profiles that are not loaded instantly from the app.
  • Plug and play apps like Round robin save us weeks of sprint delay timelines as they do not require additional coding or developer support to install and start using.
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ScreenShots

ActiveCampaign Screenshots

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Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations