Email marketing
ActiveCampaign vs. Ontraport: Which Marketing Automation Platform is Right for You?
At the heart of every prosperous business is a successful marketing campaign. And behind every successful campaign is a great email marketing tool. That’s why choosing the right email platform is critical to the performance of your business.
However, the email marketing field is wide and expansive. It seems like there’s always a new marketing platform right around the corner. So, how can you ensure that you subscribe to one that best fits your business?
Let us help you with that. In this article, let’s take a look at Ontraport and ActiveCampaign, compare their functionalities, and find out which type of businesses they’re perfect for.
ActiveCampaign vs. Ontraport: Head-to-Head Comparison
You can’t accurately compare tools without specific benchmarks to contrast them with. For this article, we’ll be using the following metrics:
- Usability and Accessibility
- Automation
- Editing and Templates
- E-Commerce
- Analytics
- Third-Party Integrations
- Customer Support
- Platform Cost
So, let’s dive in…
Usability and Accessibility
Ease of use is one of the most underrated but important aspects of the software. Email marketing platforms must be responsive and intuitive, and offer multiple navigation assist tools to assist your marketing campaign, especially if you’re a beginner.
Due to their wide range of features and complexity, both ActiveCampaign and Ontraport have a steep learning curve and are a tad more difficult to use than their more popular counterparts like Mailchimp or MailerLite. However, that’s not to say that they’re not usable.
ActiveCampaign has a more basic interface than Ontraport. It’s workflow-based, so creating multi-step campaigns is a breeze. Despite its expansive features, everything is where it should be and labeled correctly, thus you won’t get lost along the way.
Ontraport is similar to ActiveCampaign in that regard. However, what makes it different is that Ontraport is designed for large enterprises, as opposed to small businesses. Ontraport is less user-friendly but still overall intuitive.
Verdict: There’s not much difference between the two platforms, but ActiveCampaign (1-0) takes the cake as it’s more user-friendly.
Automation
In a business, there are a lot of repetitive tasks that could take up manpower and valuable time. Automating your business campaign can significantly improve the efficiency of your campaign and help minimize errors.
ActiveCampaign and Ontraport both have robust automation features. They offer an intuitive workflow-based automation builder. You also have access to A/B testing, which analyzes two different campaign strategies and finds out which is more effective. Furthermore, they also have pre-built automation maps, which you could utilize in automating marketing-related tasks instead of creating automation from scratch. Both are optimized for automation such as:
- Actions, such as when something is added to a sequence or a contact is updated.
- Filters, such as forks, waits, and splits.
- Goals, such as when a product is purchased or there’s a new sign-up.
- Triggers, such as when a product is added to the cart, relevant dates, or a field is updated.
Verdict: With so many shared features, this category is a tie.
Editing and Templates
Creating an aesthetically-pleasing email and landing page could make or break a marketing campaign. That’s why email marketing platforms must have a simple but flexible and expressive editor.
ActiveCampaign and Ontraport both have a drag-and-drop-based editor. Both also offer HTML editing for the tech-savvy. Using their editor, you’ll also have access to various design elements, such as social media buttons, promo buttons, e-payment buttons, and navigation buttons. As for landing pages, you can see a mobile view of your website while creating them using any of the platforms.
Ontraport has a feature where you can save parts of your emails as blocks. This allows you to reuse blocks containing the same design elements in your emails and landing pages, resulting in a more coherent brand language for your business. You simply have to decide which parts of your previous emails you want to integrate into your new ones and, from there, it’s a simple drag-and-drop.
Verdict: The ability to reuse gives Ontraport (1-1) the edge in editing and templates.
E-Commerce
For some businesses, it’s critical to sell products or services virtually. Thus, a great marketing tool should come with an e-commerce service.
This is what separates Ontraport from other email marketing platforms, as it has built-in e-commerce functionality. This platform supports different payment gateways, like PayPal and Stripe. You also get to provide the best post-purchase experience to your clients through Ontraport’s Fulfill Funnel. Moreover, Ontraport can also create coupon codes, invoice templates, and listings.
On the other hand, ActiveCampaign relies on third-party applications such as Shopify or WooCommerce for these features.
Verdict: After a strong showing, Ontraport (1-2) overtakes ActiveCampaign for the lead.
Analytics
In a marketing campaign, you can’t fly blind and expect to land a successful business model. You must always be fully aware of the shortcomings of your business and where it performs well. This allows you to shift your focus on the aspects of your business that needs to be tended to the most.
ActiveCampaign and Ontraport can automatically make campaign or marketing suggestions with your data. Furthermore, they both also offer similar reporting for:
- Automation Performance
- Email Performance
- Page Performance
However, because of its direct e-commerce integration, Ontraport offers better analytics for entrepreneurs running a virtual shop. Its in-depth sales report includes:
- Customer Value
- Open Orders
- Product Sales Logs
- Projected Sales
- Sales
- Shipping Collected
- Subscriber Retention
- Subscription Sales
- Taxes Collected
- Transaction Logs
Moreover, both tools directly integrate with Google Analytics and Mixpanel.
Verdict: Because it has better analytics, Ontraport (1-3) takes a commanding lead over ActiveCampaign.
Third-Party Integrations
To enable your marketing software to maximize its features, it must connect to as many third-party applications as possible
Ontraport has 107 native integrations while ActiveCampaign can connect with 910 apps without the use of bridging tools such as Zapier or Fuzed. Important native integrations for both apps include:
Advertising:
Audience Communication:
Lead Generation:
Payment
Verdict: It’s a clear-cut win for ActiveCampaign (2-3).
Customer Support
Another critical aspect of email marketing tools is the variety of support options they offer. An effective marketing platform must ensure that you have ample assistance in troubleshooting to better achieve your goals.
For ActiveCampaign and Ontraport, both offer live chat and email support. However, both platforms don’t offer 24/7 phone support, as they’re only available on:
- Ontraport: Monday – Thursday, 6am – 12am; Friday, 6am – 9pm; Saturday & Sunday, 9am – 9pm. PST.
- ActiveCampaign: Monday – Thursday, 7am – 9pm; Friday, 7am – 2:30pm. PST.
Besides better time availability, screen share support is also offered on all tiers for Ontraport. There is no screen share support on any tier for ActiveCampaign.
Verdict: With this win, Ontraport (4-2) secures the victory, but there’s one category left.
Platform Cost
When you’re availing of a service, one of your most important considerations must be the price tag. An email marketing tool doesn’t have to be cheap—but it must offer great value at its price. For ActiveCampaign and Ontraport, here’s what they offer:
ActiveCampaign
| Features | Lite | Plus | Professional | Enterprise |
| Price | Starts at $29 | Starts at $49 | Starts at $149 | Custom Cost |
| Maximum Contacts | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Monthly Email Sends | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Maximum Users | 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 |
Ontraport
| Features | Basic | Plus | Pro | Enterprise |
| Price | Starts at $29 | Starts at $99 | Starts at $149 | Starts at $299 |
| Maximum Contacts | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Monthly Email Sends | 1 million | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Maximum Users | 3 | 10 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
ActiveCampaign vs. Ontraport (Plus Tier)
| Subscriber Count | ActiveCampaign (Plus) | Ontraport (Plus) |
| 1,000 | $70 | $157 |
| 2,500 | $125 | $187 |
| 5,000 | $186 | $237 |
| 10,000 | $287 | $337 |
| 25,000 | $474 | $637 |
Verdict: Since it’s made for small businesses, ActiveCampaign (3-4) wins in the pricing category.
The Bottom Line
Ontraport ekes out a victory at 4-3. However, this should not discourage you from getting ActiveCampaign for your business. Each tool has its specialties and you must assess which features are more critical to the success of your business.
For instance, ActiveCampaign is a great tool for small businesses. Its easy-to-use interface and inexpensive price makes for an amazing email marketing starter. Moreover, it can integrate with a myriad of third-party applications which you can use to maximize your marketing dashboard. We guarantee that you won’t leave dissatisfied with ActiveCampaign.
On the other hand, Ontraport is an incredible tool for already established businesses or medium- to large-sized enterprises. Its editing dashboard is great for reusability and it has an extensive list of support options. Most importantly, it has a native e-commerce platform that gives you access to virtual shop creation and management without using a different application. However, since it’s enterprise-facing, expect larger costs when using Ontraport.
Either one of these tools would be more than enough for your business’s marketing automation needs. But, if you’re also interested in investing in an email marketing software, we recommend that you check out our articles on:
