ActiveCampaign Pricing in 2026: What You Actually Pay at Every Stage

How ActiveCampaign Pricing Works in 2026

ActiveCampaign uses a contact-count + plan tier pricing model. You choose a plan (Starter, Plus, Professional, or Enterprise) and then pay based on how many contacts are in your account. Both variables — plan tier and contact count — affect your monthly cost. Understanding this dual-variable structure upfront prevents the pricing surprises that catch most new customers off guard.

ActiveCampaign Plans in 2026

Starter Plan

The Starter plan is the entry point for teams that need reliable email marketing and basic automation. Key inclusions:

• Unlimited email sending
• Marketing automation (single-step automations)
• Email templates and drag-drop editor
• Basic reporting
• 1 user seat

Starter pricing by contact count:

• 1,000 contacts: ~$15/month (annual billing)
• 2,500 contacts: ~$29/month
• 5,000 contacts: ~$49/month
• 10,000 contacts: ~$99/month
• 25,000 contacts: ~$169/month

Plus Plan

Plus is where ActiveCampaign becomes a genuine CRM + marketing automation platform. Key additions over Starter:

• Full CRM with deal pipeline management
• Multi-step automation workflows
• Lead scoring
• Conditional content
• 3 user seats
• Landing pages
• SMS marketing

Plus pricing (annual billing):

• 1,000 contacts: ~$49/month
• 5,000 contacts: ~$89/month
• 10,000 contacts: ~$139/month
• 25,000 contacts: ~$219/month

Professional Plan

Professional adds predictive intelligence and advanced reporting:

• Predictive sending (optimal send-time AI)
• Predictive content (AI-recommended content blocks)
• Split automations (A/B test entire automation paths)
• Salesforce native sync
• 5 user seats

Professional pricing at 10,000 contacts runs approximately $187/month annually. For teams where AI-powered send optimization and automation A/B testing justify the premium, Professional delivers meaningful lift on email performance metrics.

Enterprise Plan

Enterprise pricing is custom and unlocks unlimited seats, dedicated infrastructure, custom reporting, SLA guarantees, and a dedicated account rep. Typically starts around $300+/month for smaller enterprise use and scales significantly with contact count and feature scope.

The Contact Scaling Math

The most important thing to understand about ActiveCampaign pricing is how quickly costs scale with list size. A 25,000-contact list on the Plus plan costs $219/month — 4.5× the base price for Plus at 1,000 contacts. Teams importing large legacy contact lists should calculate their fully-loaded cost at current list size, not just the plan's entry price.

Practical benchmark: for a 10,000-contact list with a 3-person marketing team needing CRM and full automation, the Plus plan at ~$139/month is the right tier. That's $1,668/year — a realistic investment for the feature set it delivers.

What's Included vs. Add-On

Several features that feel like they should be included require separate add-ons:

• SMS credits — purchased separately; not included in plan pricing
• Dedicated IP for email sending — Pro feature at additional cost
• HIPAA compliance — requires Enterprise plan

ActiveCampaign vs. Competitors on Price

For a 10,000-contact list with automation capabilities:

• ActiveCampaign Plus: ~$139/month
• Brevo equivalent: ~$65/month (email-volume based, not contact-based)
• HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional: ~$890/month
• Mailchimp Standard: ~$110/month

ActiveCampaign sits in the mid-range — significantly cheaper than HubSpot at scale, moderately more expensive than Brevo or Mailchimp for large lists. The automation depth justifies the premium over Mailchimp for teams running multi-step behavioral workflows.

Is ActiveCampaign Worth the Price?

For startups and SMBs that need:

• Sophisticated email automation without HubSpot's price tag
• CRM integration within the marketing platform (not as a separate tool)
• Behavior-triggered sequences based on website activity, email behavior, and CRM events

ActiveCampaign delivers excellent value at the Plus tier. For teams that only need basic newsletters and simple drip sequences, cheaper alternatives like Brevo or MailerLite will serve you at a fraction of the cost.