In this article, we'll compare two of the most popular tools, ActiveCampaign and HubSpot, so that you'll be able to make an informed decision about which platform is the best option for your business.
Comparsion ActiveCampaign vs HubSpot
Today's market is flooded with a plethora of marketing automation tools, which means it can be quite difficult to choose the right tool for your business.
Marketing automation platforms can perform a wide range of tasks for you, but their main goal is to help businesses streamline their marketing operations.
Some of the most common features of these platforms include email marketing, marketing campaign automation, lead segmentation and scoring, and website monitoring. Many of these platforms also offer a range of integrations with other customer relationship management (CRM) systems as well.
ActiveCampaign is a comprehensive marketing platform that was created in 2003 and is used by more than 145,000 customers worldwide. It helps businesses send and customize highly targeted email campaigns that include the most diverse automation features.
ActiveCampaign allows you to build segmented mailing lists, explore mechanisms that trigger automatic delivery of email content based on behavior, track campaign performance with comprehensive analytics, and create customized reports.
With an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor that lets you move items between different areas of the screen and a user-friendly interface, you can quickly and efficiently implement professional marketing automation in your business.
In addition, ActiveCampaign can be integrated with a variety of different marketing tools, including CRM tools, e-commerce platforms, webinar software, and many more. Specifically, these include Salesforce, Mailchimp, Shopify, Zoom, and Google Ads. ActiveCampaign also offers its own APIs for custom integrations.
As for pricing plans, ActiveCampaign offers 3 basic pricing packages. The Lite package, which includes email marketing automation, 24/7 chat and email support, inline forms, site or event monitoring, and APIs & Webhooks, can be used for $29 per month.
The Plus package includes all the features from the Lite package and is enriched with features such as Pop-up forms, conditional content creation, lead scoring and Facebook custom audience creation. You'll pay $49 per month for it.
The latest Professional package includes all the features from the previous two packages, plus enhanced features such as predictive sending, integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce, detailed web reports, and conversion tracking. The Professional package will set you back $149 per month.
Hubspot, founded in 2006, is a comprehensive marketing platform with more than 120,000 customers worldwide.
It organizes, automates and synchronizes basic sales and marketing functions such as contact lists, email campaigns, workflow automation and website monitoring.
It also offers a range of customizable options that help businesses build a loyal customer base by creating personalized messages tailored to the needs of individual customers. So, with Hubspot, you can gain valuable insights about your customers, increase leads and conversions, and create long-term relationships with your established contact base.
Among other things, this tool provides rapid integration of data from different sources and its transformation into useful information for more informed decision-making. It can be connected to various applications such as Google Ads, Dropbox, Salesforce, Zapier, Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or SurveyMonkey.
HubSpot offers 3 basic pricing plans for businesses of any size. The Starter package starts at $17 per month and is available from 1,000 contacts. Within that package, you'll have available features like email marketing, landing pages, live chat, or form building.
The following Professional package can be used starting from 2,000 contacts and starts at $740 per month. However, the number of available features and benefits increases significantly compared to the first package. For example, you'll find features like campaign reporting, creating custom reports, automating multi-channel marketing, and using social media to publish updates.
The third Enterprise package will set you back a minimum of $3,300 per month, and you can consider purchasing it starting with 10,000 contacts. It includes features such as tracking custom events on your website, detailed analysis of which channels you get the most revenue from, dividing tasks among team members, and collecting any type of customer data.
In the following paragraphs we will compare these two instruments in more detail, because although it may not seem like it at first glance, there are quite significant differences between them..
ActiveCampaign primarily focuses on marketing automation, customer segmentation, personalized email automation, and customer list management.
While Hubspot offers a broader range of tools and features designed for marketing teams to increase sales and improve service offerings.
ActiveCampaign provides businesses with features such as email automation, lead scoring and contact segmentation. Rather, it helps with automating and scaling campaigns.
In contrast, Hubspot offers a broader range of features, including lead management, contact segmentation, content creation and optimization, social networking, automation, and comprehensive analytics. It's designed more for sales and marketing teams.
The user interfaces and ease of use of the two tools differ significantly. ActiveCampaign is designed to be simple and straightforward, with an intuitive user interface and easy-to-use tools.
HubSpot has a slightly more complex user interface, which can be a bit confusing for those not familiar enough with the software.
Both platforms offer extensive customization options that allow companies to tailor CRM to their specific needs. With ActiveCampaign, users can customize the look and feel from their logo and theme to color schemes and fonts. In addition, ActiveCampaign offers the ability to customize the automation process with pre-made templates, drag-and-drop builders and conditional logic.
HubSpot, in contrast, offers a slightly more limited set of customization options. While the platform allows users to customize the look and feel, it doesn't offer the same level of automation customization as ActiveCampaign.
When it comes to integration, ActiveCampaign has more robust integration options than HubSpot. ActiveCampaign provides deep integration with a variety of third-party software. This makes it easier to run campaigns based on behavior and customer data.
HubSpot also offers several integration options, but they are more limited than ActiveCampaign. This means there are slightly fewer options when it comes to setting up automated campaigns.
ActiveCampaign offers 24/7 email and chat support, an extensive database of expertise and video tutorials. It also provides a wide variety of resources such as webinars, e-books and blogs. And it also offers the services of dedicated account managers to help its customers with any questions or problems.
HubSpot offers 24/7 phone and email support, as well as an extensive help center with articles and videos where you can often find and find out everything you need. In addition, it also offers live chat and a community forum to help you get the answers you need.
Both ActiveCampaign and HubSpot offer great tools for collaboration. ActiveCampaign has a "Team Collaboration Center" that makes it easy to share campaigns, proposals, and resources with other team members. In addition, the platform offers a shared calendar that allows team members to plan and coordinate campaigns.
HubSpot, in turn, offers a project management tool that allows individual team members to assign tasks, collaborate on content, and track progress. It also offers a to-do list and a progress timeline. With HubSpot, there is also the option of real-time communication through comments, mentions and private messages.
Both ActiveCampaign and HubSpot offer powerful analytics and data features to help businesses optimize their marketing. While ActiveCampaign focuses more on providing detailed information about user behavior, HubSpot provides more actionable insights and advanced analytics.
Overall, both ActiveCampaign and HubSpot offer mobile apps that give users on-the-go access to both data and CRM features. ActiveCampaign's mobile app is a bit more straightforward, while HubSpot's app is rather cluttered.
In conclusion, both HubSpot and ActiveCampaign offer powerful marketing automation tools that can help businesses grow. While HubSpot is great for its comprehensive content management capabilities and robust CRM, ActiveCampaign is an excellent choice for its ease of use, automation capabilities, and affordability.
Ultimately, the decision of which platform to use should depend on the unique needs of each business. For those looking for an all-in-one platform, HubSpot is the obvious choice, while ActiveCampaign offers an excellent alternative for businesses looking for a simpler and more affordable solution. However, if neither of these two platforms suits you, you can check out our comparison of the most popular CRM tools for other alternatives.