MailerLite vs ActiveCampaign

by Gralio Feb 03, 2025

MailerLite and ActiveCampaign are both email marketing platforms, but they cater to different needs. MailerLite is better for businesses seeking simplicity and affordability, while ActiveCampaign is better for businesses that require advanced automation, CRM, and sales features.

At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.

This comparison was created by analysing 7781 reviews and 50 websites, saving 1 day, 19 hours, 38 minutes of reading.

Logo of MailerLite
MailerLite
Logo of ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign

About

MailerLite is an email marketing platform designed to help businesses grow. It allows you to create and send email newsletters, build landing pages, and automate your marketing. You can design visually appealing emails and web pages using pre-made templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. MailerLite also provides tools for segmenting your audience, personalizing content, and tracking campaign performance. Integrations with popular e-commerce and business applications are also available.
ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation platform designed for businesses of all sizes. It helps you create personalized customer journeys across various channels like email, SMS, and ads. You can automate repetitive tasks, track customer behavior, and improve your marketing campaigns with its CRM and sales automation features. ActiveCampaign integrates with over 900 popular business tools and offers a wide range of pre-built templates and automation recipes to streamline your marketing efforts.

Summary

Main difference
MailerLite is a more affordable and user-friendly email marketing platform ideal for businesses new to email marketing or seeking basic automation. ActiveCampaign is a more comprehensive marketing automation platform with advanced features like CRM and sales automation, better suited for businesses needing complex workflows and multi-channel marketing.

Relative strengths of MailerLite (compared to ActiveCampaign)

  • More affordable pricing plans, especially for smaller businesses.

  • Easier to use interface with a shorter learning curve.

  • Stronger customer support based on user reviews.

Relative weaknesses of MailerLite (compared to ActiveCampaign)

  • Less advanced automation features compared to ActiveCampaign.

  • Limited CRM and sales automation capabilities.

  • Fewer native integrations than ActiveCampaign.

Who should use MailerLite VS. ActiveCampaign

MailerLite is a user-friendly email marketing platform perfect for businesses getting started with email marketing. Users praise its affordability and intuitive interface, while some find the template customization options limited. It's a great option for those seeking a simple, cost-effective solution.

ActiveCampaign is a robust marketing automation platform empowering businesses to personalize customer journeys. Users praise its ease of use and comprehensive features, especially for creating targeted campaigns and automating workflows. However, some users have noted occasional glitches and slow loading times. ActiveCampaign offers a wide range of integrations and automation recipes, making it a valuable tool for businesses seeking to enhance their marketing ROI.

  • Best for small to medium businesses and entrepreneurs.

  • Ideal for various sectors, including E-commerce, Healthcare, and Marketing.

  • Best for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) looking to scale their marketing efforts.

  • Ideal for various sectors, including E-commerce, Healthcare, Finance, and more.

MailerLite and ActiveCampaign features

Supported
Partially supported
Not supported
Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need
  • Email Automation
    Supported

    MailerLite supports automated email marketing based on subscriber behavior and triggers.

    Supported

    ActiveCampaign supports automated email marketing based on triggers and subscriber behavior.

  • Newsletter Editor
    Supported

    MailerLite offers drag-and-drop, rich text, and custom HTML editors.

    Supported

    ActiveCampaign offers a drag-and-drop editor and templates for newsletters.

  • Email Marketing
    Supported

    MailerLite allows creating and sending engaging emails, designing visually appealing emails, personalizing messages, and segmenting audiences.

    Supported

    ActiveCampaign allows creating, sending, personalizing, and segmenting marketing emails.

  • Drip Campaigns
    Supported

    MailerLite supports drip campaigns through its automation features, email sequencing capabilities and personalisation options.

    Supported

    ActiveCampaign supports the automation and sending of pre-defined sequences of emails to nurture leads or onboard users with personalized content.

  • Workflow Automation
    Partially supported

    MailerLite supports email marketing automation and integrates with other tools for broader workflows.

    Supported

    ActiveCampaign supports workflow automation to automate sales workflows and tasks to reduce manual effort and improve efficiency.

Qualities

  • Value and Pricing Transparency
    +0.55
    Rather positive sentiment
    -0.27
    Neutral sentiment
  • Customer Service
    +0.89
    Strongly positive sentiment
    +0.41
    Rather positive sentiment
  • Ease of Use
    +0.85
    Strongly positive sentiment
    +0.62
    Rather positive sentiment
  • Reliability and Performance
    +0.33
    Rather positive sentiment
    +0.24
    Neutral sentiment
  • Ease of Implementation
    +0.42
    Rather positive sentiment
    +0.18
    Neutral sentiment
  • Scalability
    -0.41
    Rather negative sentiment
    +0.08
    Neutral sentiment
MailerLite and ActiveCampaign Pricing
No data

User sentiment

Rather positive
+0.55

See full Pricing page

No data

User sentiment

Neutral
-0.27

See full Pricing page

MailerLite and ActiveCampaign review insights

7714 reviews analysed from and

Users love

  • Affordable pricing and a free plan with essential features.
  • Excellent and responsive customer support.
  • User-friendly interface and easy to set up.
  • Integrates well with other platforms like WordPress and Zapier.
  • Easy to use and has all the features I need.
  • Campaigns get tracked and I know what works and what not.
  • Automations are easy to build.
  • My business is working while I am lying on my sofa.

Users dislike

  • The migration between Classic and New has been clunky and caused some users to lose data.
  • Limited customization options for email templates and landing pages.
  • Mobile app is underwhelming with limited functionality.
  • The drag and drop editor can be finicky at times.
  • The UI can be a bit glitchy.
  • It can be slow to load, I tend to have several browser tabs open to avoid losing time with the pages loading.
  • Prices for Brazil are expensive, there could be regional or student discounts.
  • Support in your own language would be nice.

MailerLite and ActiveCampaign Ratings

  • G2
    4.7/5
    (922)
  • Capterra
    4.7/5
    (1927)
  • G2
    4.5/5
    (2477)
  • Capterra
    4.6/5
    (2388)
  • TrustPilot
    3.6/5
    (67)
  • Glassdoor
    3.6/5
    (444)

Company health

Employee growth

13% increase in the last year
4% increase in the last year

Web traffic

10% decrease in the last quarter
11% decrease in the last quarter

Financing

No data
January 2021 - $360M

How do MailerLite's email templates compare to ActiveCampaign's automation recipes?

MailerLite's email templates are pre-designed layouts for creating emails, offering visual appeal and ease of use through a drag-and-drop editor. ActiveCampaign's automation recipes, on the other hand, are pre-built automated workflows that define a series of actions triggered by specific events or conditions. They are not directly comparable; templates are about email design while automation recipes are about automated processes. While MailerLite offers automation features, including the use of email templates within automated sequences, it's ActiveCampaign's automation recipes that provide more complex pre-built workflows for various marketing and sales processes.

Which platform better integrates with existing e-commerce platforms?

Both MailerLite and ActiveCampaign integrate with e-commerce platforms. However, ActiveCampaign, with its over 900 integrations and specific mention of CRM and sales automation features, likely offers more extensive and robust e-commerce integrations compared to MailerLite, which only mentions integrations with "popular" e-commerce applications without specifics. Therefore, ActiveCampaign likely provides better integration with existing e-commerce platforms.

What are the advantages of MailerLite?

MailerLite offers a more affordable pricing structure, including a free plan with essential features, making it advantageous for budget-conscious businesses. Users praise MailerLite's user-friendly interface and ease of setup, suggesting a shorter learning curve compared to ActiveCampaign. Furthermore, MailerLite receives positive feedback for excellent customer support, which can be crucial for users needing assistance.

What are the disadvantages of MailerLite?

MailerLite's drag-and-drop editor, while generally user-friendly, can be finicky at times. The platform's migration between its classic and new versions has caused some users to experience data loss. Customization options for email templates and landing pages are somewhat limited compared to other platforms. Lastly, the mobile app has limited functionality and is considered underwhelming by some users.

Alternatives to MailerLite and ActiveCampaign

Logo of HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot Marketing Hub is a comprehensive marketing platform designed for businesses of all sizes. It offers a suite of tools including email marketing, marketing automation, social media management, analytics, and SEO optimization, all within a single platform. This helps businesses streamline their marketing efforts, improve efficiency, and track results. Its focus on inbound marketing and lead generation makes it a popular choice for businesses looking to attract and convert leads into customers. HubSpot Marketing Hub integrates seamlessly with HubSpot's CRM platform for enhanced sales and marketing alignment.
Logo of Flodesk
Flodesk
Flodesk is an email marketing platform designed for ease of use, allowing businesses to create visually appealing emails and sales pages. It offers customizable templates, automation features, and analytics to track performance. Flodesk aims to provide a comprehensive platform for businesses to grow their audience, nurture leads, and generate sales, all within a single, user-friendly interface.
Logo of Klaviyo
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform designed for businesses of all sizes. It helps you create personalized marketing campaigns across email, SMS, and other channels. Klaviyo offers tools for email and SMS marketing, automation, segmentation, and data analysis. It stands out with its customer data platform, which provides a centralized view of customer information, enabling highly targeted campaigns. Klaviyo promises to help you increase conversions and customer lifetime value.
Logo of Pipedrive
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool designed to make sales teams more efficient. It helps businesses of all sizes track leads, manage deals, and analyze sales data. Pipedrive stands out for its ease of use and intuitive interface, making it simple for teams to get started quickly. It offers features like pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting to streamline the sales process and improve performance. The software aims to help close more deals and make more informed decisions with real-time insights and AI-powered recommendations.
Logo of Mailchimp All-in-One Marketing Platform
Mailchimp All-in-One Marketing Platform
Mailchimp is a popular marketing platform designed to help growing businesses of all sizes. It enables you to create, send, and analyze email and advertising campaigns. With features like pre-designed templates, landing page creation, marketing automation, and data analytics, it provides a comprehensive toolkit to manage your marketing efforts. Mailchimp emphasizes data-driven insights to optimize campaigns and aims to drive sales through personalized customer interactions across multiple channels, including email, social media, and text messages.
Logo of EngageBay All-in-One Suite
EngageBay All-in-One Suite
EngageBay is an all-in-one customer relationship management (CRM) software designed for growing businesses. It combines marketing automation, sales tools, and customer support features within a single platform. With EngageBay, you can manage contacts, run marketing campaigns, automate sales processes, and provide customer support. It aims to be a cost-effective solution for businesses looking to streamline their operations and improve customer engagement.

How are we doing?

Is this information helpful to you? Is there anything we are missing?
Did this help you select your product?
Other issues? Vote & Let us know