MailerLite vs. ActiveCampaign: Which is the better platform?

Having trouble choosing the right email marketing software? In this MailerLite vs. ActiveCampaign comparison, we explore pros, cons, features and more.

Choosing between MailerLite and ActiveCampaign can be a challenge. Both email marketing tools offer unique features: MailerLite is known for its simplicity, while ActiveCampaign excels in automation.

Curious about which one fits your needs? Our detailed comparison will help you decide.

Read on to discover the best option for your business.

MailerLite vs. ActiveCampaign: At a Glance

Criteria	MailerLite	ActiveCampaign	Winner
SMB Guide’s Rating	8.2/10	8.2/10	Tie
Marketing Automation Capabilities	Basic automation	Advanced automation	ActiveCampaign
Email Builder	Intuitive, easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder	Flexible, powerful	MailerLite
Personalization & Customization	Basic personalization	Highly customizable	ActiveCampaign
Campaign Performance Tracking	More advanced	Detailed metrics	ActiveCampaign
Email Deliverability	✅	✅	ActiveCampaign
List Management	Easy to manage	Dynamic segmentation	ActiveCampaign
A/B Testing	✅	✅	ActiveCampaign
Advanced Reporting & Insights	Detailed reports	In-depth insights	ActiveCampaign
Compliance & Security	✅	✅	ActiveCampaign
User Experience and User Interface	User-friendly interface	Professional interface	MailerLite
Integrations and Compatibility	150+ integrations	950+ integrations	ActiveCampaign
Customer Support	Excellent support options	24/7 live support	ActiveCampaign
Pricing	Free – $1,900/mo	$15/mo – $1,169/mo	MailerLite
Scalability	✅	✅	ActiveCampaign

MailerLite: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

MailerLite is a popular email marketing platform that works for a wide range of businesses.

Key features include:

• Email marketing
• Automation
• Integration capabilities
• Forms and Popups
• Analytics and Reporting

Pricing

• Free: $0 for up to 1,000 subscribers
• Growing Business: Starts at $9/month and scales until you hit 50,000 subscribers
• Advanced: Starts at $18/month and scales until you hit 500,000 subscribers – then you must go to a custom-priced enterprise plan
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for businesses with over 100,000 subscribers.

ActiveCampaign: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

ActiveCampaign is a robust email marketing and automation platform for businesses seeking advanced tools to optimize their marketing efforts.

Standout features include:

• Advanced Marketing Automation
• Dynamic Content Personalization
• Comprehensive Email Campaign Analytics
• High Deliverability Rates
• Detailed Reporting and Insights
• Extensive Segmentation and List Management
• A/B Testing with Multiple Variables
• Strong Compliance and Security Protocols (GDPR, HIPAA)
• Wide Range of Integrations
• Premium Customer Support Options

Pricing

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

Marketing Automation Capabilities

MailerLite offers basic automation features that are easy to set up and perfect for small businesses or beginners.

It includes simple workflows like welcome emails, drip campaigns, and basic behavioral triggers, making it accessible but limited in complexity.

ActiveCampaign, on the other hand, excels with advanced automation capabilities. It supports complex workflows, detailed customer journey mapping, and robust CRM integration.

Features like dynamic content, multi-step automation sequences, and extensive behavioral triggers allow for highly personalized marketing strategies and deeper engagement.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Email Builder

MailerLite boasts a user-friendly drag-and-drop email builder designed for ease of use. It’s intuitive and ideal for beginners and small businesses looking to create visually appealing emails quickly.

With pre-designed templates and straightforward customization options, MailerLite simplifies the email creation process.

ActiveCampaign provides a more advanced email builder featuring various customization options and functionalities.

While powerful, it has a steeper learning curve, catering to users who require more detailed design capabilities and greater flexibility.

This builder is suited for those adept at creating highly customized and dynamic email content.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Personalization & Customization

MailerLite offers basic personalization and customization features that are suitable for straightforward campaigns.

Users can personalize emails with dynamic content blocks, merge tags, and simple segmentation to tailor messages to their audience.

ActiveCampaign excels in this area with extensive personalization and customization options. It allows for dynamic content based on user behavior, advanced segmentation, and detailed customer data integration.

This platform supports highly tailored messaging, ensuring each recipient gets a relevant and engaging experience.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Campaign Performance Tracking

MailerLite provides essential campaign performance tracking tools, including open rates, click-through rates, and basic engagement metrics.

These features offer a solid overview of campaign performance, making it suitable for users with straightforward analytics needs.

ActiveCampaign offers comprehensive performance tracking with advanced analytics. It includes detailed engagement metrics, conversion tracking, and insightful reports.

Users can dive deep into data to understand customer behavior, optimize campaigns, and drive better results.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Email Deliverability

MailerLite maintains high deliverability rates, ensuring that emails reach subscribers’ inboxes.

It includes essential features like spam testing and verification tools to help keep your email list clean and compliant. However, deliverability can vary based on the volume and quality of your email list.

ActiveCampaign is known for its robust deliverability, offering advanced features like spam testing, deliverability reporting, and optimization tools.

These capabilities help ensure consistent inbox placement, making it a reliable choice for businesses focused on maintaining high deliverability standards.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

List Management

MailerLite offers straightforward list management tools that cater to basic needs. Users can easily segment their audience based on demographics, behavior, and engagement.

It supports simple tagging and grouping to ensure relevant content reaches the right subscribers.

ActiveCampaign provides advanced list management capabilities. It excels with intricate segmentation, allowing users to create highly specific audience groups based on various criteria.

In addition, its powerful tagging system and automation rules enable precise targeting and personalization, ensuring optimal engagement.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

A/B Testing

MailerLite offers basic A/B testing capabilities, allowing users to test different subject lines, email content, and send times.

It’s designed for simplicity, making it easy for users to set up tests and quickly identify the more effective variations.

ActiveCampaign provides advanced A/B testing features. Users can test multiple variables within their campaigns, including email content, subject lines, and even automation workflows.

Detailed reporting helps users understand performance differences and optimize their strategies for better results.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Advanced Reporting & Insights

MailerLite offers essential reporting and insights, providing users with key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and subscriber activity.

The platform includes visual reports that are easy to understand, making it suitable for users who need straightforward analytics.

ActiveCampaign excels in reporting and insights with a robust suite of analytical tools. Users can access detailed reports on campaign performance, automation effectiveness, and customer behavior.

Advanced features include conversion tracking, revenue attribution, and predictive analytics, empowering users to make data-driven decisions.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Compliance and Security

MailerLite ensures compliance with major regulations such as GDPR and CAN-SPAM, providing tools to manage consent and maintain subscriber privacy.

The platform includes double opt-in processes, data encryption, and secure data storage to safeguard user information.

ActiveCampaign goes further with robust compliance and security measures. In addition to GDPR and CAN-SPAM compliance, it supports HIPAA compliance for healthcare industry users.

Advanced features include two-factor authentication (2FA), comprehensive data encryption, and regular security audits. These measures provide a high level of assurance for data protection and regulatory adherence.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

User Interface and User Experience

MailerLite provides a clean, intuitive user interface designed for simplicity. Its drag-and-drop editor and straightforward navigation make it easy for users, especially those new to email marketing, to create and manage campaigns without a steep learning curve.

ActiveCampaign offers a more feature-rich user interface that can initially seem complex but highly customizable.

It includes advanced tools and integrations that cater to experienced marketers.

While it might require some time to master, the extensive capabilities provide a powerful user experience for in-depth campaign management.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Integrations and Compatibility

MailerLite offers a solid range of integrations with popular tools and platforms like WordPress, Shopify, and Zapier.

These integrations help streamline workflows and enhance functionality, making it suitable for small to medium-sized businesses looking for essential connectivity.

ActiveCampaign excels in integration capabilities, offering an extensive library of integrations with major CRM systems, e-commerce platforms, and other marketing tools.

Its deep compatibility with various software solutions allows for seamless automation and data synchronization, catering to the needs of larger enterprises and advanced marketers.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Customer Support

MailerLite provides reliable customer support through email and live chat, catering primarily to small business users.

Their resource center includes comprehensive tutorials, guides, and webinars, making it easy for users to find answers independently.

ActiveCampaign offers robust customer support with multiple channels, including email, live chat, and telephone assistance.

In addition to a rich knowledge base and extensive training resources, they provide one-on-one onboarding sessions and personalized support for higher-tier plans, ensuring users can fully leverage the platform’s capabilities.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Pricing

MailerLite offers a straightforward pricing structure. A free plan is available for up to 1,000 subscribers.

Paid plans start at an affordable rate and scale based on the number of subscribers, making them an attractive option for small businesses and startups looking for cost-effective email marketing solutions.

ActiveCampaign provides a more complex pricing model with tiered plans that include Lite, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise levels. While the entry-level plan is competitively priced, costs can rise significantly with advanced features and higher subscriber counts.

The investment reflects the platform’s extensive capabilities and is well-suited for larger businesses seeking comprehensive marketing automation.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Scalability

MailerLite is designed to grow with small to medium-sized businesses. Its user-friendly interface and affordable pricing make it a practical choice for businesses starting their email marketing journey.

While it’s highly capable for basic needs, it may show limitations as businesses scale and require more advanced features.

ActiveCampaign excels in scalability, supporting businesses from startups to large enterprises. ActiveCampaign can handle complex marketing strategies and growing subscriber lists with advanced automation, robust analytics, and extensive integrations.

Its tiered plans offer progressive features that align with business growth, ensuring long-term adaptability.

✅ Winner: ActiveCampaign

Standout Features of MailerLite

Built-in photo editing

MailerLite includes a built-in photo editor that allows users to tweak images directly within the platform. This feature simplifies preparing visuals for email campaigns, eliminating the need for third-party editing tools.

ActiveCampaign lacks this built-in capability, requiring users to edit images externally before uploading them.

Standout Features of ActiveCampaign

Split testing for automations

ActiveCampaign provides split testing for entire automation sequences, allowing users to test and optimize different workflows. This feature helps marketers determine which strategies are most effective in driving engagement and conversions.

MailerLite offers A/B testing for emails but does not support split testing for automation sequences.

MailerLite vs. ActiveCampaign: SMB Guide’s Verdict

Both MailerLite and ActiveCampaign are excellent email marketing platforms, each with its own strengths.

MailerLite shines in simplicity and cost-effectiveness, making it perfect for smaller-scale operations.

ActiveCampaign, with its comprehensive suite of advanced features, is better equipped to handle the demands of larger businesses looking to automate and optimize their marketing efforts.