ActiveCampaign vs EmailOctopus

Two email marketing tools side by side. Prices are the starting plan a small business would pick, in USD.

Compare	ActiveCampaignActiveCampaign	EmailOctopusEmailOctopus
In one line	Email automation for businesses that follow up over weeks	Low-cost newsletters, free up to 2,500 subscribers
Starting price	From $15/mo	Free for 1 user
At 2,500 contacts	$39/mo	Free
Plans	At 1,000 contacts, billed yearly: Starter $15/mo (1 user, 5 actions per automation); Plus $49 (landing pages, unlimited actions); Pro $79 (3 users). Starter billed yearly rises to $39 at 2,500 contacts, $79 at 5,000, $149 at 10,000. Monthly $19/$59/$99	Free to 2,500 subscribers (10,000 emails/mo, branding, 1 user); Pro $9/mo billed yearly or $10 monthly at 500 subscribers, $28 at 5,000 and $40 at 10,000 billed yearly
Pricing model	Free trial	Free tier
Free trial	14 days	—
Users	1 on Starter and Plus; 3 on Pro	1 on free; unlimited on Pro
Both connect to	No shared connections on record.
Also connects to	HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, Shopify, Squarespace Commerce, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Teachable1,059+ listed by the vendor	None in our catalog
Team size	2–10 people · 11–50 people	Just me · 2–10 people
Available in	US · UK · CA · AU	US · UK · CA · AU
Phone support	Plans not stated	None listed
Live chat	Every paid plan	Pro and up
Support hours	Not published	Email: Every day, limited support on weekends
Incidents posted	11 incidents posted on ActiveCampaign's status page, which covers all ActiveCampaign products and regions, in the 90 days to Oct 27, 2026; 7 marked major or critical by ActiveCampaign. Status page	3 incidents posted on EmailOctopus's status page, which covers all EmailOctopus products and regions, in the 90 days to Oct 27, 2026; 1 marked major or critical by EmailOctopus. Status page
Capterra score	4.6 / 5 from 2,571 reviews	4.8 / 5 from 657 reviews
Trustpilot score	2.7 / 5 from 1,450 reviews	4.8 / 5 from 338 reviews
Fit: Retail shop	65	70
Fit: Restaurant or café	55	70
Fit: Service business	82	78
Fit: Agency or studio	85	65
Fit: Trades or contractor	55	60
Fit: Online store	82	50
Why people pick it	Unlimited automation steps from Plus up Over 1,000 integrations	Free up to 2,500 subscribers Cheap Pro plan with unlimited users
Where it falls short	Starter caps automations at 5 actions and has no landing pages CRM pipelines and SMS cost extra	Free plan keeps branding and 30 days of reports Most integrations go through Zapier
	Visit ActiveCampaign ↗	Visit EmailOctopus ↗

List-size prices are the vendor's published price for 2,500 contacts. How we calculate prices