ActiveCampaign vs. Mailchimp: Which is the better platform?

Discover the key differences between ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp to determine which marketing automation tool best suits your business needs and goals.

Choosing between ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp? This comparison will highlight each software’s features and purposes: ActiveCampaign for robust automation and Mailchimp for user-friendly email marketing.

Which tool aligns with your business needs? Let’s dive into the details to make your decision easier.

ActiveCampaign vs. Mailchimp: At a Glance

Criteria	ActiveCampaign	Mailchimp	Winner
SMB Guide’s Rating	8.2/10	8/10	ActiveCampaign
Marketing Automation Capabilities	Advanced automation	Basic automation	ActiveCampaign
Email Builder	Flexible, powerful	Intuitive, easy-to-use	Mailchimp
Personalization & Customization	Highly customizable	Basic personalization	ActiveCampaign
Campaign Performance Tracking	Detailed metrics	Standard metrics	ActiveCampaign
Email Deliverability	✅	✅	Tie
List Management	Dynamic segmentation	Simple lists	ActiveCampaign
A/B Testing	✅	✅	Tie
Advanced Reporting & Insights	In-depth insights	Basic reports	ActiveCampaign
Compliance & Security	✅	✅	Tie
User Experience and User Interface	Professional interface	User-friendly interface	Mailchimp
Integrations and Compatibility	950+ integrations	300+ integrations	ActiveCampaign
Customer Support	24/7 live support	Limited support	ActiveCampaign
Pricing	$15/mo – $1,169/mo	Free – $1,600/mo	Mailchimp
Scalability	Highly scalable	Moderately scalable	ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

ActiveCampaign is known for its marketing automation capabilities, making it a popular choice for those looking for comprehensive email and customer relationship management solutions.

Key features include:

• Email marketing
• Marketing automation
• CRM tools
• Omnichannel marketing
• Audience management
• Analytics and reporting
• Site tracking and integrations

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• Starter: Starts at $15/mo
• Plus: Starts at $49/mo
• Pro: Starts at $79/mo
• Enterprise: Starts at $145/mo

Mailchimp: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Mailchimp is one of the best email marketing automation platforms that can quickly turn your campaigns from boring to amazing.

With its cutting-edge features and user-friendly UI, even beginners at marketing can send attractive emails that engage, convert, and impress their target audience.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• Free Plan: Limited to 500 contacts and basic email templates.
• Essentials Plan: Starts at $13/mo/500 contacts. 
• Standard Plan: Starts at $20/mo/500 contacts, up to $800/mo/100,000 contacts
• Premium Plan: Starts at $350/mo/10,000 contacts, $1,600/mo/200,000 contacts, custom pricing for additional contacts.

Marketing Automation Capabilities

ActiveCampaign is known for its advanced automation features. It allows for complex workflows and automation sequences that can be customized based on user behavior, actions, and more.

This makes it ideal for businesses looking to automate intricate marketing processes.

Mailchimp offers simpler automation capabilities. It suits standard automation tasks like welcome emails and abandoned cart reminders.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Email Builder

ActiveCampaign is a straightforward drag-and-drop email builder that offers numerous templates and the ability to create highly personalized emails.

However, it is limited compared to some specialized email builders.

Mailchimp is renowned for its user-friendly and versatile email builder. It’s great for creating visually appealing emails without much hassle.

The tool has an extensive template library and is easy to use, but some users find customization options limited.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Personalization & Customization

ActiveCampaign excels at personalization, allowing dynamic content based on user data and behavior. It offers a high level of customization and segment-specific content, but it requires more setup and understanding.

Mailchimp offers good personalization features but at a more basic level. It’s easy to implement basic personalization, but it’s less sophisticated than ActiveCampaign.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Campaign Performance Tracking

ActiveCampaign provides detailed analytics and reporting tools. It allows for tracking customer journeys and measuring campaign effectiveness.

It offers in-depth insights and customizable reports, but it can be complex for users who need simple metrics.

Mailchimp offers comprehensive, easy-to-understand reports and analytics. It’s user-friendly and provides clear visual data, but it doesn’t offer as much granularity as ActiveCampaign.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Email Deliverability

ActiveCampaign generally maintains high deliverability rates due to its advanced targeting and segmentation. However, leveraging the targeted sending requires proper list management. 

Mailchimp is known for excellent deliverability rates, often exceeding 99%. It is reliable and consistent.

✅ Winner: Tie

List Management

ActiveCampaign has strong list management capabilities with segmentation based on numerous criteria. It offers detailed segmentation, tags, and custom fields, but is more complex to manage. 

Mailchimp provides effective list management with tagging and segmentation. It’s simple to use and effective for small to medium-sized lists.

It is less advanced than ActiveCampaign.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

A/B Testing

ActiveCampaign allows for multivariate testing, offering deeper insights. It also offers advanced A/B testing capabilities but is more complex to set up. 

Mailchimp offers straightforward A/B testing for subject lines, content, and send times. It’s easy to set up tests and interpret results, but it is limited to simpler tests unless you pay for a higher-tier plan.

✅ Winner: Tie

Advanced Reporting & Insights

ActiveCampaign is known for its advanced reporting tools, which offer detailed insights into campaign performance. It offers customizable dashboards with deep analytics, but this can be overwhelming for basic users.

Mailchimp provides robust analytics that are suitable for most small businesses. It offers user-friendly and valuable insights but is less detailed than ActiveCampaign.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Compliance and Security

Both platforms adhere to major compliance standards, such as GDPR, and provide strong security measures to protect user data.

Both are secure and compliant, so you don’t need to worry about your data.

✅ Winner: Tie

User Interface and User Experience

ActiveCampaign offers a clean, professional interface but can be intimidating for beginners. It’s professional and feature-rich, but it has a steeper learning curve.

Mailchimp is known for its intuitive and user-friendly design, making it accessible for all skill levels

It’s easy to navigate and beginner-friendly, but some advanced features can be harder to find.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Integrations and Compatibility

ActiveCampaign supports extensive integrations, including CRM, e-commerce, and other marketing tools. It offers seamless integration with many other tools.

However, some integrations require technical setup.

Mailchimp integrates with many platforms, offering plugins and APIs for various needs. However, advanced integrations occasionally have limitations.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Customer Support

ActiveCampaign offers 24/7 support via chat, email, and phone. It’s responsive and helpful, but premium support can be pricey. 

Mailchimp provides comprehensive support through chat and email. Phone support is available on higher tiers.

It offers good support resources and an extensive knowledge base. Phone support is limited on lower tiers.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Pricing

ActiveCampaign pricing ranges start at $15 to $145, depending on the plan you choose, and scales as your subscriber list grows.

It is priced higher but offers more advanced features, making it suitable for growing businesses needing sophisticated tools. 

Mailchimp pricing ranges from $0 to $800. It is generally more affordable, especially beneficial for small businesses or those with basic needs.

It’s cost-effective with a free tier available but it can become expensive as you scale.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Scalability

ActiveCampaign is designed with scalability in mind, offering a comprehensive suite of tools that grow your business. As your needs evolve, you can leverage more advanced features like CRM integration, sales automation, and conditional content.

It can become expensive as you scale, especially if you need access to higher-tier features. The complexity of advanced features may require more time and expertise to fully use.

Mailchimp provides a range of features suitable for small to medium businesses and offers advanced capabilities as businesses scale. Its tiered pricing structure allows for gradual upgrades as needs grow.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Standout Features of ActiveCampaign

Advanced CRM integration

Act active campaigns CRM is natively integrated with its email marketing platform, providing a seamless experience for managing customer relationships and marketing automation in 1 place.

This integration allows users to:

• Track detailed interaction histories.
• Automate follow-up tasks based on customer behavior.
• Create automated sales pipelines.

These capabilities make it easier to maintain consistency across marketing and sales efforts, leading to more personalized and effective customer interactions.

Conditional content

ActiveCampaign offers conditional content, which allows users to display different content blocks within the same email based on specific subscriber attributes or behaviors.

This feature enhances personalization by:

• Showing tailored messages to different segments within a single campaign.
• Increasing relevance and engagement rates by delivering more targeted content.
• Reducing the need to create multiple versions of the same email for different audiences.

This level of customization is particularly beneficial if your business has a diverse customer base that requires highly personalized communication strategies.

Predictive sending

ActiveCampaign’s predictive sending feature uses machine learning to analyze individual subscriber data and determine the best time to send emails for optimal engagement. benefits include:

• Improved open rates by sending emails when subscribers are most likely to check their inbox.
• Enhanced overall campaign performance through data-driven optimizations.
• Automated adjustments that save time and increase efficiency without requiring manual intervention.

This feature ensures that each email has the highest possible chance of being seen and acted upon, making campaigns more effective.

Standout Features of Mailchimp

All-in-one marketing platform

Mailchimp offers an all-in-one marketing platform that goes beyond email marketing to include tools for social media advertising, Landing pages, postcards, and more. this integrated approach allows you to:

• Manage various marketing channels from a single dashboard.
• Create cohesive multi-channel campaigns without needing multiple tools.
• Track performance across different types of media.

This feature is especially useful for small businesses and startups looking for a comprehensive marketing solution without the need for several disparate tools.

Free tier for small users

Mailchimp provides a free tier that includes essential email marketing features, making it accessible for small businesses and individuals who are just starting out.

The free plan offers:

• Up to 500 contacts and 1,000 email sends per month.
• Basic templates and email builder access.
• Basic reports and analytics.

This feature is particularly beneficial for startups and small businesses with limited budgets that need a cost-effective way to begin email marketing efforts.

In-app design tools

Mailchimp includes robust in-app design tools that allow you to create custom graphics and use pre-made templates for emails, landing pages, and social media posts.

These tools provide:

• An easy-to-use design interface with drag-and-drop functionality.
• Access to a wide range of stock images and design elements.
• Built-in photo editing capabilities.

These tools enable you to maintain a consistent, professional look across all your marketing materials without investing in additional design software or hiring graphic designers.

ActiveCampaign vs. Mailchimp: SMB Guide’s Verdict

Both are solid platforms with close scores in our ratings. ActiveCampaign suits businesses looking for advanced marketing automation, personalization, and detailed analytics.

It’s ideal for medium to large enterprises or businesses with complex marketing needs.

Mailchimp is more appropriate for small to medium-sized businesses seeking an affordable, easy-to-use platform with reliable deliverability and solid automation features.

Its user-friendly interface makes it an excellent choice for beginners or those with straightforward marketing requirements.

To choose the right one for your business, consider your budget, needs, and the complexity of the automations you plan to use.