ActiveCampaign alternatives

Reachkit, which publishes this page, makes a cold email tool, so it’s not on this list: ActiveCampaign’s job, automated email to people who opted in, is not what Reachkit does. I checked every price below in October 2026 on the vendor’s own pages, and I say so wherever a figure comes from a review site instead.

The right pick depends on what you want fixed:

• Comparable automations for a smaller bill: GetResponse Marketer, about $114 a month for 10,000 contacts on third-party ladders.
• A lower bill that ignores unsubscribes: MailerLite, which charges only for active subscribers.
• A big list that gets a few sends a month, with a CRM: Brevo, priced by emails sent.
• Zoho CRM users, or the lowest price per contact: Zoho Campaigns.
• An online store: Klaviyo for segments built from orders, Drip for every feature on one plan.
• An app or SaaS product: Customer.io.
• A person on the phone and unlimited users: AWeber.
• A familiar tool with a free plan and 300+ integrations: Mailchimp.

Entries 1 to 3 do ActiveCampaign’s everyday job for less at 10,000 contacts. Like ActiveCampaign, all nine tools on this page need permission from the people you email.

MailerLite sells newsletters, automations, forms, landing pages and websites to small businesses and creators. The Polish company Vercom bought it in 2022.

Cost, as of October 2026: the free tier stops at 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails. Since June 16, 2026, 500 subscribers cost $12 a month on Comfort and $25 on Power, minus 10% on yearly billing. For a 10,000-subscriber list, review sites that read MailerLite’s slider give $89 (Comfort) and $129 (Power).

Why switch to it:

• Only active subscribers count, unlike on newer ActiveCampaign accounts.
• Comfort includes 3 seats and 50 active automations; Power lifts both limits and adds multiple automation triggers. Every plan comes with an official MCP server, so Claude can build a segment or draft a campaign in your account.

What to know first:

• Comfort caps sends at 10 times your tier, the same multiple as ActiveCampaign Starter and Plus.
• Most recent one- and two-star Trustpilot reviews describe a suspended account. Overall it rates 4.1 from 3,390 (October 2026).

Compared with ActiveCampaign: at 10,000 contacts Power’s $129 is close to half of Plus at $239, both billed monthly on third-party figures. Even MailerLite’s Free plan includes a landing page and a website; ActiveCampaign keeps landing pages for Plus and up. MailerLite profile

Brevo, the Paris company known as Sendinblue until 2023, runs email next to texting, WhatsApp, push, chat and a sales CRM under one login. You pay by emails sent per month, and the three smallest tiers cap contacts as well.

Cost, as of October 2026: Free sends 300 emails a day and keeps up to 100,000 contacts. For 5,000 emails, Starter is $9 a month and Standard $18; unlimited automation workflows start on Standard. From the 20,000-email tier, both store up to 500,000 contacts. Billing yearly saves 10%.

Why switch to it:

• Ten thousand contacts mailed four times a month is 40,000 emails: $89 on Standard, by Brevo’s price catalog.
• The CRM comes with the account: deals and one pipeline, free up to 50 open deals. Sales Essentials costs $31 a month for one seat if you outgrow that.

What to know first:

• Suspensions and support that starts with a bot are the recurring themes of its one- and two-star Trustpilot reviews, against 3.8 overall from 7,249 (October 2026).
• Standard includes one seat and allows up to three, at $12 a month for each extra one. Phone support needs Professional, from $499 a month.

Compared with ActiveCampaign: ActiveCampaign bills what you store, Brevo what you send. That same month runs $239 on ActiveCampaign Plus billed monthly, and Brevo’s deal pipeline needs no add-on. Brevo profile

Zoho Campaigns is the email, SMS and WhatsApp marketing app in Zoho’s suite. It has had built-in CRM sync since it launched in 2012.

Cost, as of October 2026: the Forever Free plan gives 5 users room for 2,000 contacts and 6,000 monthly emails. Paid plans begin at 500 contacts for $4 (Standard) or $6 (Professional) a month, a quarter less when paid yearly. For 10,000 contacts, the price data Zoho’s own page loads shows $49 and $81 on monthly billing, with no cap on emails.

Why switch to it:

• Users are part of the plan: up to 10 on Standard and 20 on Professional, with no seat fees.
• Every plan connects to Zoho CRM and Bigin, and also to Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

What to know first:

• Standard has basic workflows only. Abandoned-cart and purchase follow-up flows wait for Professional.
• Reviewers complain about slow support and an editor that looks dated. Zoho has rebuilt the app, but only new accounts get the new version so far.

Compared with ActiveCampaign: Professional at 10,000 contacts costs $81, against $239 for ActiveCampaign Plus billed monthly, and a team of 20 needs no extra seats. G2 and Capterra both rate it 4.3 (October 2026). Zoho Campaigns profile

Entries 4 to 7 put automation first, each shaped around a different business: general marketing, stores, and software products.

GetResponse, founded in Gdańsk, Poland in 1998, sells email marketing and automation with landing pages, funnels, webinars, courses and a website builder.

Cost, as of October 2026: the free plan stops at 500 contacts and 2,500 newsletters monthly. With 1,000 contacts you’d pay $19 for Starter, $59 for Marketer or $69 for Creator each month, 18% less on yearly billing. At 10,000 contacts, price ladders on review sites show $79, $114 and $134. Sends are unlimited on all three.

Why switch to it:

• Marketer brings unlimited workflows, abandoned-cart recovery and sales funnels, with 5 users.
• Most of its recent five-star Trustpilot reviews are about support (4.2 from 1,045). Since October 5, 2026 an MCP server comes free with every account; its listed tools cover contacts and newsletters, with none for automations.

What to know first:

• Starter allows a single workflow, so anyone leaving ActiveCampaign for its automations needs Marketer.
• GetResponse doesn’t issue refunds, and contacts added in a month count even if you delete them later.

Compared with ActiveCampaign: this is the closest swap on automation. Marketer at 10,000 contacts costs $114 against $239 for Plus, both monthly. SMS and transactional email are Enterprise-only at GetResponse, where ActiveCampaign sells SMS as an add-on from Plus. GetResponse profile

Klaviyo, listed on the NYSE since September 2023, builds profiles from a store’s orders and browsing, then sends email, SMS, WhatsApp, RCS and push.

Cost, as of October 2026: Free covers 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month. Klaviyo’s Shopify App Store listing starts the Email plan at $20 a month for 500 profiles, and third-party calculator readings put 10,000 at $150 and 15,000 at $350. Texting is billed separately.

Why switch to it:

• Only profiles you can still email are billed, so suppressed ones fall off the count.
• Composer, live since October 13, 2026, builds a campaign’s audience, copy and timing, and Klaviyo says nothing goes live without you.

What to know first:

• The Email plan more than doubles in price between 10,000 and 15,000 profiles.
• Its Trustpilot score is 1.6 from 370 reviews, and Trustpilot’s summary names billing and support as the main complaints; on the Shopify App Store it’s 4.7.

Compared with ActiveCampaign: ActiveCampaign’s automations fit any business and lean toward sales with the CRM add-on; Klaviyo’s segments start from what customers bought. At 10,000 profiles its $150 sits under Plus at $239. Klaviyo profile

Drip is ecommerce email from Minneapolis (founded in 2012, per Drip). It syncs with Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce and adds visual workflows, dynamic segments and pop-ups.

Cost, as of October 2026: one plan, priced by active people. It’s $39 a month for up to 2,500, with unlimited sends on standard tiers (pricing). Third parties checked in autumn 2026 list 5,000 people at $89 and 10,000 at $154. The 14-day trial needs no card, and there’s no free plan.

Why switch to it:

• No feature tiers or seat counts: the $39 account has every feature, unlimited users and unlimited sub-accounts.
• Its MCP connector costs nothing. You choose at connection whether Claude or ChatGPT may only read your account or also create drafts and schedule sends. Lists above 17,500 contacts are migrated for you at no charge.

What to know first:

• Each bill is set by the previous month’s peak of active people, so deleting people mid-cycle doesn’t lower it.
• Drip’s own pages disagree on texting. An October 14, 2026 release note launched SMS for the US, with no price on the pricing page, yet an October 2026 page Drip wrote for AI assistants says SMS isn’t offered.

Compared with ActiveCampaign: Drip gives a store every feature for $154 at 10,000 people, against $239 for Plus. It’s built for ecommerce, so a B2B list that feeds a sales team still fits ActiveCampaign better. Drip profile

Customer.io, started in 2012 and led by a CEO based in Portland, Oregon, messages people based on what they do in your app: email, push, in-app, texts, WhatsApp, LINE or webhooks, fed by SDKs, APIs and warehouse syncs.

Cost, as of October 2026: the Essentials plan starts at $100 a month, which buys 5,000 profiles, 1 million emails and as many seats as you like. Each profile past 5,000 adds $0.009, so 10,000 come to $145 (pricing). Premium starts at $1,000 a month billed yearly. The 14-day trial needs no card.

Why switch to it:

• 1 million emails a month on Essentials, far beyond the 10 to 15 sends per contact in ActiveCampaign’s plans.
• Seats are unlimited, and the hosted MCP server is read-only by default; changing live data needs an admin to switch it on.

What to know first:

• You pay for every profile that existed during the month, deleted ones and test workspaces included. That’s close to ActiveCampaign’s new-account rule.
• On G2, reviewers bring up how long it takes to learn. The few Trustpilot reviews (2.3 from 26) also mention price increases when contracts renew.

Compared with ActiveCampaign: ActiveCampaign starts from forms and lists, Customer.io from events your app sends, which suits a product team better than a newsletter. At 10,000 profiles it costs $145 against $239 for Plus billed monthly. Customer.io profile

Entries 8 and 9 fix the service side: a person to call, and a familiar tool with a free plan.

AWeber has sold email marketing to small businesses and creators since 1998. Its homepage offers help around the clock by phone, chat or email, handled by its own staff.

Cost, as of October 2026: the free plan takes 500 subscribers and 3,000 monthly emails. For 500 subscribers, Lite costs $15 a month and Plus $30. AWeber prints every tier on its pricing page: 10,000 subscribers cost $100 on Lite or $135 on Plus.

Why switch to it:

• Plus has unlimited users, lists and automations, where ActiveCampaign Plus includes one user.
• Unsubscribes stay off the bill, the MCP server and AI writing tools come with every plan, and AWeber’s homepage offers free migration by its own team.

What to know first:

• Its automations go less deep: G2’s summary says AWeber “may not match the advanced capabilities of ActiveCampaign”.
• Among its Trustpilot reviews (4.3 from 178, October 2026), some describe trouble cancelling or charges they disputed. After 14 days the trial becomes a paid subscription automatically.

Compared with ActiveCampaign: at 10,000 subscribers, Plus costs $135 against $239 for ActiveCampaign Plus, both billed monthly, and you trade automation depth for a phone number. AWeber profile

Mailchimp, founded in Atlanta in 2001 and part of Intuit since November 2021, is email marketing and automation for small businesses, with SMS as an add-on.

Cost, as of October 2026: nothing for up to 250 contacts and 500 monthly sends. Paid plans for 500 contacts begin at $13 (Essentials) and $20 (Standard) a month, and Premium begins at $350 for 10,000. For a 10,000-contact list, price tables from review sites show about $110 on Essentials and $135 on Standard.

Why switch to it:

• A free plan, which ActiveCampaign doesn’t have, plus 300+ integrations and 3 seats on Essentials.
• Users in the US, Canada, the UK or Australia can use Mailchimp’s own app inside ChatGPT and Claude.

What to know first:

• Unsubscribed contacts count until you archive them, so unsubscribes still cost money here.
• Essentials stops flows at 4 steps and branching needs Standard. Phone support is Premium-only, and Trustpilot shows 2.5 from 1,554 (October 2026).

Compared with ActiveCampaign: Standard at 10,000 contacts costs $135 against $239 for Plus, both billed monthly. ActiveCampaign goes further on automation, with predictive sending and conditional content on Pro. Mailchimp profile and Mailchimp alternatives

Start from the reason you’re leaving, then price each option at your real contact count:

• The bill, with a newsletter and a few automations. MailerLite, or Zoho Campaigns if a plainer editor doesn’t bother you.
• The bill, with automations you rely on. GetResponse Marketer keeps unlimited workflows at about half the price of ActiveCampaign Plus at 10,000 contacts.
• A list over 10,000 that gets a few sends a month. Brevo, since sends set the price.
• A sales team. Brevo’s built-in CRM, or Zoho Campaigns next to Zoho CRM.
• A store. Klaviyo for order-based segments, Drip for one plan with everything.
• A software product. Customer.io.
• Support. AWeber’s phone line, with lighter automations.

Before you switch: commit-annually plans end only with the annual term, and cancelling them goes through ActiveCampaign’s Customer Experience team. First-time direct customers within 30 days of buying may qualify for its money-back promotion. Export your contacts and set up DKIM and DMARC in the new tool before its first send. Plans and limits are in our ActiveCampaign profile.

I wouldn’t move until I could say what ActiveCampaign is costing me. If it’s the bill on a list past 10,000, I’d price GetResponse Marketer and Brevo Standard at my real numbers, because both keep real automations. For a store, I’d put Klaviyo and Drip side by side. If the problem is getting help, AWeber, knowing its workflows go less deep.

ActiveCampaign’s anti-spam policy rules out one kind of email, and so do the tools above: writing to businesses that never signed up. That’s cold outreach. It belongs on separate domains and warmed inboxes, which is the setup Reachkit handles (cold email infrastructure).

Related: Klaviyo alternatives, MailerLite alternatives and the GetResponse profile.