Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is important for businesses. It helps businesses learn about their customers, optimize customer interactions, and automate different aspects of the business. 

Today, HubSpot and ActiveCampaign have become two of the most valuable platforms known to offer CRM opportunities to businesses of all sizes. But as an entrepreneur, it’s important to identify the differences between the two, so you can pick one that suits your needs.

HubSpot vs. ActiveCampaign: A Quick Comparison

HubSpot has shifted its focus by dedicating its resources to CRM development. It positions itself to compete with Salesforce and offer more features in content management, customer service, marketing, and sales. As your business grows, HubSpot can provide a foundation of interlinked data, which you can use to provide a superior customer experience. 

ActiveCampaign, on the other hand, is a marketing automation platform. It helps businesses engage with customers and create better customer experiences by automating support, sales, and marketing processes.

HubSpot vs. ActiveCampaign: Which Tool Performs Better?

HubSpot and ActiveCampaign are excellent tools for businesses. Their features streamline workflows and enable teams to work more efficiently. But how do they perform when put head-to-head? We’ll look into the features below to see which tool bests the other. 

• Customer Support
• Ease of Use
• Email Marketing
• Integration and Apps
• Pricing
• Reporting

Customer Support 

Learning how to use HubSpot or ActiveCampaign is as easy as 1-2-3 as both platforms offer customer support. This will lessen downtime and expedite your team’s ability to adapt to your chosen CRM tool.

HubSpot gives access to HubSpot Community to its users under its free plan. However, you need to sign up for its Starter plan or higher to use its in-app and email support. Users of the Professional plan can access phone support on top of the previously mentioned channels. 

One thing that makes HubSpot great in terms of customer support is its selection of free courses, articles, eBooks, and guides. 

ActiveCampaign provides customer support to its users via email and chat on all plans and phone support only on its Enterprise plan. The platform also has an extensive knowledge base, a community forum, and video courses. For Plus plans and up, users can enjoy one-to-one training. 

HubSpot and ActiveCampaign take customer support seriously, so expect to have your questions answered to a very high standard.

The winner: Both HubSpot and ActiveCampaign deserve a point each because they offer different support channels and learning materials.

Ease of Use

Contrary to popular belief, powerful tools like HubSpot and ActiveCampaign don’t have a steep learning curve. They’re fairly easy to use, even for users who are not tech-savvy. 

HubSpot has an uncomplicated and clean interface, and displays live chat support. It has various customization options but doesn’t feel overwhelming like it does with Salesforce and other powerhouse CRMs. HubSpot also gives a tour of the platform to help new users adapt and find essential features. 

With HubSpot, you can customize your dashboard and organize information based on what’s important to you. Over time, this will save you time and effort from digging into countless tasks. 

ActiveCampaign’s interface is also intuitive. You can customize your dashboard by adding different sections, like campaigns, top contacts, tasks, and many others. It also has a search bar, which you can use to find a specific campaign or contact. 

Creating an email campaign is easy in ActiveCampaign, as there are tooltips that show up when you hover over an element on your dashboard. This action explains how the element works, and if you still get stuck, don’t worry — you can use the tool’s live chat widget. 

However, ActiveCampaign doesn’t allow users to add multiple email addresses for the same contact or lead. HubSpot supports this feature.

The winner: HubSpot wins this round because ActiveCampaign has a steeper learning curve, especially for newbies.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is still relevant and effective in the business landscape. In fact, the future of email marketing centers on better data and personalization. Fortunately, HubSpot and ActiveCampaign have top-notch email marketing features.

HubSpot’s Free CRM plan lets you send up to 2,000 promotional emails monthly to your contacts, but design templates are only accessible when you avail of its paid plans. As an alternative, consider signing up for HubSpot’s Marketing Starter plan for 2,000 emails, 1,000 contacts, and access to email templates. 

ActiveCampaign has a good selection of templates under its most basic plan. By paying $29 a month, you can have 1,000 contacts and send unlimited emails every month.

The winner: Because of HubSpot limitations on its free plan, ActiveCampaign wins this round.

Integrations and Apps

Does your business rely on third-party apps? Fret not because HubSpot and ActiveCampaign support integrations and a myriad of apps. For starters, both platforms integrate with different analytics tools, CMS, eCommerce platforms, and more. 

ActiveCampaign integrates over 910 apps, including developer tools, education, event management, accounting, and databases. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can always set up an API on the platform. 

HubSpot has limitations with its integrations when you use its free plan — you’ll only be able to use about 40. But under its paid plans, you can access more apps under different categories, like marketing, customer service, sales, productivity, and many others.

The winner: HubSpot and ActiveCampaign deserve a point in this round because they offer numerous integrations.

Pricing

ActiveCampaign’s pricing plan recently changed to separate its sales and marketing features. Today, the prices of the plans depend on the number of features you need and how many contacts you have. Prices for ActiveCampaign’s Marketing plan start at $29 per month.

HubSpot also has a similar pricing structure, with plans separated into CRM and Sales, Service, and Marketing. To compare the pricing plans of HubSpot and ActiveCampaign, we’ll focus more on their Marketing plans: 

Plan	HubSpot	ActiveCampaign
Free Plan	Available	No free plan available but offers free trial
Starter or Lite	$30 a month for 2,000 emails and 1,000 contacts	$29 a month for unlimited emails and 1,000 contacts
Plus	–	$49 a month for unlimited emails and 1,0000
Professional	$890 a month for 20,000 emails and 2,000 contacts	$149 a month for unlimited emails and 2,500 contacts
Enterprise	$3,600 a month for 200,000 emails and 10,000 contacts	This plan is custom-priced. It’s best to talk to sales to get the best quote.

HubSpot’s free plan is generous when it comes to the number of users and contacts it supports — unlimited users and one million contacts. But you’re likely more interested in other essential features, like analytics and automation, which you can only access when you sign up for HubSpot or ActiveCampaign’s Starter or Lite plans or higher. 

When comparing CRM platforms in terms of pricing, be wary of HubSpot’s hidden costs. Besides paying for its plans, you also have to pay for onboarding fees on its Professional and Enterprise plans, which costs $3,000 and $6,000, respectively.

The winner: HubSpot’s prices and onboarding fees can be a deal-breaker, especially for small or new businesses. ActiveCampaign’s pricing is more accessible, and its features are just as good as what HubSpot offers. So, for this round, ActiveCampaign wins.

Reporting

Tracking the progress of your campaign is easier with HubSpot and ActiveCampaign, as both have excellent reporting features. 

ActiveCampaign generates reports for everything — from email newsletters and contacts to automations and eCommerce. When you have this array of data at your disposal, you can analyze different aspects of your marketing and sales effort in greater detail. It also generates a Deal Task Overview Report where you can access data on CRM-related tasks and results.

With HubSpot, you can pick what data appears on your reporting dashboard and view different reports side-by-side. This feature helps you get a holistic view of which of your strategies are working and which are not. You can also set your reports private or public and choose who you want to access them.

The winner: HubSpot and ActiveCampaign both stand out in terms of reporting. But because HubSpot’s reports are easier to read and give users the ability to customize their reporting dashboard, we’ll declare it the winner.

Summary

Curious about the key takeaways from our HubSpot vs. ActiveCampaign comparison? Check out the table below to learn which tool reigns supreme over certain features:

Feature	HubSpot	ActiveCampaign
Customer Support	🏆	🏆
Ease of Use	🏆
Email Marketing		🏆
Integration and Apps	🏆	🏆
Pricing		🏆
Reporting	🏆

HubSpot vs. ActiveCampaign: Which is Better?

There’s a fine line separating HubSpot and ActiveCampaign, so deciding which to use should all boil down to your business’s unique needs. 

If you’re looking for a CRM tool that does it all and you have the resources to spend, HubSpot is a better option for you. But if you want to focus on automation, ActiveCampaign is the best way to go because its plans will save you time and give you a great ROI in the long run.