ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is priced per contact rather than per user, so adding team members never increases your bill: Per contact (from £13/mo). The Starter plan covers up to 1,000 (Starter entry), with cost rising through published tiers as your contact list grows. There is no separate monthly base fee on top of that (£0).

No, ActiveCampaign does not have a free plan. A 14-day trial is available on every tier so you can test the full feature set, including its marketing automation, before subscribing. Billing is monthly or annually, with an annual commitment typically working out cheaper per month.

Yes. ActiveCampaign is EU/US hosting, so UK buyers see and pay pound prices rather than converting from US dollars at checkout. This removes the exchange-rate uncertainty that affects several other CRMs in this comparison, such as Copper and Insightly, which bill in US dollars.

ActiveCampaign combines a sales pipeline with marketing automation that is generally considered best-in-class, rather than treating email as an afterthought. Multi-step visual workflows, predictive sending, and lead scoring are all native. It connects with 870+ tools, covering most UK accounting, e-commerce, and email platforms, though its sales pipeline alone is lighter than dedicated tools such as Pipedrive.

Yes. Among its 870+ connections are Shopify, WooCommerce, Xero, and most mainstream email and helpdesk platforms. Native two-way sync is available for the most common tools, with Zapier extending reach to less common ones. This breadth is one of the wider integration libraries in this CRM comparison.

ActiveCampaign's AI features are Native (Active Intelligence), covering predictive sending and content generation inside its automation builder. For connecting external AI assistants and agents, its MCP support is Native MCP (official), meaning AI tools can query and act on your ActiveCampaign data through a first-party server rather than a third-party workaround.

ActiveCampaign holds a 4.6-star rating on Capterra from 2,528 reviews, one of the stronger review counts in this comparison. Users consistently rate its marketing automation depth highly, while some note the core sales pipeline is less full-featured than pipeline-first tools such as Pipedrive.

ActiveCampaign starts at £13/mo (Starter) on the Starter plan. Pricing scales by contact count, so the monthly fee rises as your list grows. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial.

ActiveCampaign bills UK customers in pounds (GBP), so there is no exchange-rate fluctuation on your invoice. The prices on its UK pricing page are the prices you pay.

No. ActiveCampaign does not offer a free plan. You can try the platform with a 14-day free trial, after which a paid subscription is required.

The Starter plan includes basic automation workflows. The Plus plan and above unlock advanced multi-step automations, conditional logic, and goal-based sequences. Predictive sending, which uses AI to determine the best send time per contact, is available on higher tiers.

Yes. ActiveCampaign offers SMS marketing to UK mobile numbers as a paid add-on. Email and SMS can be coordinated within the same automation flows, so multi-channel sequences stay aligned.

Yes. ActiveCampaign provides consent management, one-click unsubscribe, and sender identification tools that help you meet UK GDPR and PECR requirements. The platform also enforces confirmed opt-in for new accounts, which supports strong deliverability.

ActiveCampaign offers more powerful marketing automation and a built-in CRM, while Mailchimp has a more familiar interface and a free entry tier. ActiveCampaign charges only for active contacts (extra users cost nothing), whereas Mailchimp counts all contacts including unsubscribed ones. Compare both at your list size in the table above.