Mailchimp vs ActiveCampaign

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

Compare	MailchimpIntuit	ActiveCampaignActiveCampaign
In one line	Newsletters and automations with a free tier	Email automation for businesses that follow up over weeks
Starting price	From $13/mo	From $15/mo
At 2,500 contacts	$45/mo	$39/mo
Plans	Free to 250 contacts; Essentials $13/mo at 500 contacts, $26.50 at 1,000, $45 at 2,500, $75 at 5,000, $110 at 10,000 (monthly); Standard from $20/mo	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
Pricing model	Free tier	Free trial
Free trial	—	14 days
Users	1 on free	1 on Starter and Plus; 3 on Pro
Both connect to	HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, Shopify, Squarespace Commerce, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Teachable
Also connects to	Freshsales, Subbly, Ecwid, Big Cartel, Square Online, Shift4Shop, Less Annoying CRM, Apollo.io +2 more	No others on record1,059+ listed by the vendor
Team size	Just me · 2–10 people · 11–50 people	2–10 people · 11–50 people
Available in	US · UK · CA · AU	US · UK · CA · AU
Phone support	Premium only	Plans not stated
Live chat	Essentials and up	Every paid plan
Support hours	Email: 24/7 · Live chat: 24/7	Not published
Incidents posted	Intuit has a public status page. Status page	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
Capterra score	Not listed	4.6 / 5 from 2,571 reviews
Trustpilot score	2.5 / 5 from 1,554 reviews	2.7 / 5 from 1,450 reviews
Fit: Retail shop	85	65
Fit: Restaurant or café	85	55
Fit: Service business	75	82
Fit: Agency or studio	70	85
Fit: Trades or contractor	60	55
Fit: Online store	80	82
Why people pick it	Everyone knows it Templates and automations	Unlimited automation steps from Plus up Over 1,000 integrations
Where it falls short	Pricing climbs with contacts Free plan has a badge	Starter caps automations at 5 actions and has no landing pages CRM pipelines and SMS cost extra
	Visit Mailchimp ↗	Visit ActiveCampaign ↗

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