ActiveCampaign's headline price is easy to love: Starter begins at $15 a month. The number that actually lands on your card depends on how many contacts you store and which tier you need, and both of those move faster than most people expect. This is a breakdown of what each plan includes, how contact-based pricing behaves as your list grows, and who should and shouldn't pay for it.
Short answer: ActiveCampaign is one of the strongest automation tools for small B2B and service businesses, and the CRM on the Plus plan is a real bonus. But you pay by contact count, the useful features sit on Plus ($49/mo and up), and the bill climbs steadily as your list grows. If you only send newsletters, it's more tool than you need.
The plans at a glance
Plan prices below are the entry-level figures from our product database, checked against ActiveCampaign's public pricing in October 2026. They're the starting price for the smallest contact tier, billed monthly in our listing. ActiveCampaign discounts annual billing, and the exact number changes with your contact tier, so confirm on ActiveCampaign's pricing page before you commit.
| Starter | Plus | Pro | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $15/mo | $49/mo | $79/mo | $145/mo |
| Users included | 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 |
| Email marketing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Marketing automation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CRM | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Landing pages | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lead scoring | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Predictive sending | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Split automations | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Attribution | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Custom objects | No | No | No | Yes |
| Dedicated account rep | No | No | No | Yes |
Two things jump out. First, Starter is genuinely limited: one user, email, basic automation and inline forms. Second, the CRM, landing pages and lead scoring all start at Plus, which is roughly three times the Starter sticker price. Most businesses that choose ActiveCampaign because of its reputation for automation and CRM end up on Plus, so $49 is the realistic entry point, not $15.
Why contact count matters more than the plan name
ActiveCampaign prices by the number of contacts in your account, not by emails sent. The starting prices above apply to the smallest contact tier. As your list grows, the same plan costs more.
From our product data, 10,000 contacts on Starter runs about $70 a month. That's the cheapest tier, with no CRM, no landing pages and one user. Move up to Plus at that list size and you're paying meaningfully more than the $49 headline. We haven't listed every contact tier here because ActiveCampaign adjusts them, so use the calculator on their pricing page with your real list size before deciding.
A few things make contact-based pricing bite harder than it looks:
- ▸You pay for everyone you store. Unsubscribed contacts generally stop counting toward billing only if you delete them or they're removed, so a dirty list is a more expensive list. Clean it before you migrate.
- ▸Duplicates count. If you import a purchased or merged list with the same person twice, you may pay for both.
- ▸Inactive contacts count too. A subscriber who hasn't opened anything in two years still sits in your total.
This is the same pattern we described in our Mailchimp pricing breakdown. Contact-based billing is standard in email marketing, but how fast the price rises differs from tool to tool.
What a real team pays
Here are three realistic scenarios. These use the entry-level plan prices and our listed Starter figure for 10,000 contacts, so treat anything beyond that as an estimate rather than a quote.
The solo consultant with 1,000 contacts. Starter at about $15 a month covers email and basic automation for one person. If you want a CRM to track client conversations, you need Plus at about $49. For one person, that's the question to answer first: do you need a pipeline, or just a welcome sequence and a newsletter? If it's the latter, a simpler tool will be cheaper.
The small agency with 5,000 contacts and three people. You need more than one user, so Starter is out. Plus gives you three users, the CRM and landing pages. Budget above the $49 entry price because of the larger list, and check the calculator for your exact tier.
The growing B2B company with 10,000 contacts and a sales team. This is where ActiveCampaign earns its keep, and where the bill climbs. Starter alone is about $70 at this size, so Plus or Pro will be noticeably higher. Pro adds predictive sending, split automations and attribution reporting, with five users included. If your sales process lives in the CRM, the combined cost can still undercut buying a separate email tool and CRM, but you should model it rather than assume.
What you actually get for the money
Automation is the headline feature. The visual builder handles multi-branch sequences, conditional logic, site-tracking triggers, event-based actions and CRM pipeline updates on one canvas. If you've been building workarounds in Mailchimp because it can't branch on behavior, this is the upgrade people usually mean. It's available from day one on every plan, which is a real point in Starter's favor.
The CRM is lightweight but useful. Deals, tasks and pipeline stages are all there on Plus and above. It's not Salesforce, and it's not trying to be. If you have more than roughly 50 to 100 active deals in flight at once, you'll likely outgrow it.
Deliverability and support get good marks. Reviewers regularly single out deliverability and the onboarding and customer success team as better than average for the price range, which matters more than people expect when you're moving a list.
Predictive sending and split automations are Pro features. Predictive sending picks send times per contact. It sounds great, but test whether it moves your open rates before paying the jump from Plus to Pro just for it.
AI and data handling. Per our data-privacy review, ActiveCampaign doesn't sell customer data, and AI features process campaign data without using customer data for training, with an opt-out. It's SOC 2 Type 2 certified, GDPR compliant, and stores data in US AWS regions. You can export and delete contacts.
The honest downsides
- ▸Steeper learning curve. The interface is powerful but dense. Expect a couple of weeks before it feels natural, and longer if you're coming from a simple drag-and-drop tool. We'd call the UI dated, not broken.
- ▸Pricing scales aggressively with contacts. This is the most common complaint, and the main reason to model costs at the list size you expect in a year, not the one you have today.
- ▸Key features are locked behind Plus. CRM, landing pages and lead scoring don't come with Starter, so the $15 plan is best thought of as an email-and-automation tool for one person.
- ▸Reporting is thinner on lower tiers. Better reporting and attribution push you toward Plus and Pro.
- ▸Overkill for email-only use. If you send a weekly newsletter and a welcome email, you'll pay for a lot of capability you won't touch.
- ▸Not ideal for e-commerce. Klaviyo and Drip have stronger purchase-behavior segmentation if you sell products online.
Who it fits, and who it doesn't
ActiveCampaign is a good fit for:
- ▸B2B SaaS and service businesses that want behavioral automation tied to site activity
- ▸Teams that outgrew Mailchimp's automation and need conditional multi-branch sequences
- ▸Small sales teams that want a simple CRM wired directly into their email marketing
- ▸Businesses running lead nurture sequences with scoring and multiple conditions
Look elsewhere if:
- ▸You're a creator with a newsletter and a modest list. Kit (ConvertKit) or Beehiiv are usually cheaper and simpler.
- ▸You run an online store. Klaviyo is built for it.
- ▸You have fewer than about 500 contacts and basic needs. A simpler, cheaper tool will do.
- ▸You need a deep CRM with hundreds of active deals. Use a dedicated CRM.
For a feature-by-feature matchup, see our ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp vs ConvertKit comparison, which covers where each one wins.
How to avoid overpaying
- Clean your list before you sign up. Remove duplicates, hard bounces and people who haven't engaged in a long time. Every contact you drop lowers your bill.
- Decide on Plus or Starter up front. If you know you need the CRM or landing pages, don't start on Starter and plan to upgrade a month later.
- Price your list a year out. If you add 500 contacts a month, your bill in twelve months is the one that matters.
- Ask about annual billing. ActiveCampaign discounts annual plans compared with monthly. If you're confident you'll stay, it's worth it, but don't lock in before you've used the 14-day trial.
- Use the trial properly. Import a real segment, build one real automation, and see whether the interface suits you before you pay.
My recommendation
If you're a B2B or service business that has hit the ceiling of a simpler email tool, ActiveCampaign on Plus is a sensible next step, and the automation and bundled CRM are real value. Go in with realistic numbers: $49 is the entry point for the useful features, and your contact count will push the bill up from there.
If you mainly send newsletters, or your list is small and your needs are basic, you can pay less elsewhere without missing much. And whichever way you lean, price your list at its expected size a year from now before you decide. That's the number that tends to surprise people.
Prices change often. We check them regularly, but ActiveCampaign adjusts tiers and discounts, so confirm the current figure on their site before you buy.