Four plans, but the real cost is determined by your contact count — and it scales faster than most people expect.
ActiveCampaign starts at $15/month for 1,000 contacts — competitive with Mailchimp. But add more contacts and the price climbs quickly. At 10,000 contacts on Plus you're paying $116/month. Plan your list size before committing.
Base prices are for 1,000 contacts, billed monthly. Annual billing saves roughly 20%.
This is where ActiveCampaign costs surprise people. The plan price is just the starting point — your actual cost depends on how many contacts are in your account. As your list grows, your bill grows automatically.
ActiveCampaign charges for every contact in your account — including unsubscribed and inactive contacts. Before importing a large list, remove anyone who hasn't engaged in 12+ months. A 20,000-contact list cleaned to 10,000 active contacts cuts your monthly bill nearly in half.
If you're committed to ActiveCampaign, annual billing is straightforward to justify. At 10,000 contacts on Plus: monthly billing is $116/month ($1,392/year), annual is roughly $92/month ($1,104/year). That's $288 saved annually.
The honest answer most reviews skip: ActiveCampaign is overkill for most small businesses, and the contact tier scaling makes that overkill expensive. You should not buy ActiveCampaign if:
The case for ActiveCampaign is the automation builder. Visual workflow editor, conditional branching, tag-based sequences, behavioral triggers, site tracking — these are genuinely best-in-class for under $100/month. If your email strategy involves anything more complex than "send broadcast to list," ActiveCampaign earns its price premium over Mailchimp.
The other thing you're paying for is deliverability. ActiveCampaign consistently ranks at or near the top of independent inbox-placement testing — around 93% deliverability vs Mailchimp's 92.6%. That's roughly 80 more emails landing per 10,000 sent. For a 5,000-subscriber list sending weekly, that's meaningful revenue over a year.
Most planning articles quote the $15 starting price and skip what happens as you grow. Here's the realistic 12-month cost on Plus (annual billing, ~20% off):
Plan for the list size you'll have in 18 months, not the list size you have today. The contact tier scaling is the surprise that catches most buyers off guard.
SaaS prices change constantly. We check 15+ pricing pages every quarter and send one email with everything that changed.
By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy. One email per quarter, no spam.
✓ You're in — we'll send one email per quarter.
No permanent free plan — only a 14-day trial. If a free email marketing tool is a requirement, ConvertKit's free Newsletter plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers, and MailerLite's free plan covers 1,000 with full features. ActiveCampaign's paid plans start at $15/month for 1,000 contacts.
Because pricing is contact-based. As your list grows, you automatically move into higher contact tiers. Unsubscribed contacts still count toward your total. Clean your list quarterly — remove unsubscribed and inactive contacts — to keep costs controlled.
At small list sizes (under 250 contacts) Mailchimp's free plan still works, though it was slashed to 250 contacts and 500 sends/month. At 1,000–5,000 contacts they're similar in price. Above 10,000 contacts, ActiveCampaign is often cheaper than Mailchimp's equivalent plan because ActiveCampaign's automation is more powerful so you need fewer workarounds. Full comparison: ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp →
The main additions in Plus are a built-in CRM (with deal tracking and sales automation), landing pages, and support for 3 users vs 1. If you're only doing email marketing and don't need CRM features, Starter covers most use cases. If you want sales automation connected to your email marketing, Plus is worth it.
No credit card. Full access to all features for 14 days.