ActiveCampaign vs Pipedrive

by Gralio Feb 01, 2025

ActiveCampaign and Pipedrive cater to different needs. ActiveCampaign is a better choice for businesses focused on email marketing and marketing automation, while Pipedrive is ideal for sales teams prioritizing pipeline management and deal tracking.

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 9217 reviews and 50 websites, saving 2 days, 3 hours, 37 minutes of reading.

ActiveCampaign

Pipedrive

About

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.

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.

Summary

Main difference

ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation platform with built-in CRM functionality, ideal for businesses prioritizing email marketing, marketing automation, and lead nurturing. Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM designed for managing sales pipelines, tracking deals, and improving sales team efficiency.

Relative strengths of ActiveCampaign (compared to Pipedrive)

Stronger marketing automation capabilities: ActiveCampaign offers advanced automation features, including email sequences, workflows, and personalized customer journeys.
Wider range of integrations: ActiveCampaign integrates with over 900 apps, providing more flexibility for connecting with various business tools.
Built-in email marketing: ActiveCampaign offers a robust email marketing platform, allowing users to create, send, and track email campaigns directly within the platform.

Relative weaknesses of ActiveCampaign (compared to Pipedrive)

Less intuitive sales pipeline management: While ActiveCampaign has CRM features, its sales pipeline management is not as intuitive and visually appealing as Pipedrive.
Steeper learning curve: ActiveCampaign's extensive features and functionalities can make it slightly more complex to learn and master compared to Pipedrive.
Can be more expensive: Depending on the chosen plan and features, ActiveCampaign can be more costly than Pipedrive, especially for smaller teams focused primarily on sales CRM.

Who should use ActiveCampaign VS. Pipedrive

ActiveCampaign is a user-friendly marketing automation platform ideal for businesses seeking streamlined campaign management and sales automation. Users praise its ease of use and comprehensive features, particularly for tracking campaign effectiveness and building automations. However, some users have noted occasional glitches and slow loading times. Perfect for automating email, SMS, and CRM tasks, ultimately boosting your marketing ROI.

Pipedrive is a user-friendly CRM platform designed to boost sales team efficiency. It's praised for its intuitive interface and ease of use, allowing for quick setup and streamlined sales processes. Users appreciate its straightforward approach to managing customer interactions and organizing opportunities. However, some users mention limitations with the mobile app and integrations.

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.

Best for small to medium-sized businesses seeking improved sales efficiency.
Suitable for a wide range of industries, including Healthcare, Finance, and E-commerce.

ActiveCampaign and Pipedrive features

Supported

Partially supported

Not supported

Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

Lead Management

Supported

ActiveCampaign offers lead tracking, sales process automation, and CRM features for managing deals.

Supported

Pipedrive supports lead and deal management and automates sales processes.
Pipeline Management

Supported

ActiveCampaign supports pipeline management, including deal tracking and visualizing sales processes. Bottleneck identification is supported via pipeline metrics analysis.

Supported

Pipedrive supports visualizing sales process, tracking deals, and identifying bottlenecks.
Sales Automation

Supported

ActiveCampaign automates sales tasks, tracks progress, and improves efficiency.

Supported

Pipedrive automates repetitive sales tasks, tracks progress, and improves sales efficiency.
Drip Campaigns

Supported

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

Supported

Pipedrive supports drip campaigns through its Campaigns feature, allowing users to automate and send pre-defined sequences of emails to nurture leads or onboard users with personalized content.
Workflow Automation

Supported

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

Supported

Pipedrive supports workflow automation to automate sales workflows and tasks, reducing manual effort and improving efficiency.

Qualities

Value and Pricing Transparency

-0.27

Neutral sentiment

-0.22

Neutral sentiment
Customer Service

+0.41

Rather positive sentiment

+0.21

Neutral sentiment
Ease of Use

+0.62

Rather positive sentiment

+0.83

Strongly positive sentiment
Reliability and Performance

+0.24

Neutral sentiment

+0.53

Rather positive sentiment
Ease of Implementation

+0.18

Neutral sentiment

+0.39

Rather positive sentiment
Scalability

+0.08

Neutral sentiment

-0.1

Neutral sentiment

ActiveCampaign and Pipedrive Pricing

No data

User sentiment

Neutral

-0.27

See full Pricing page

Pipedrive offers a tiered subscription model with four main pricing plans: Essential, Advanced, Professional, and Power. An Enterprise plan with custom pricing is also available. The platform offers various add-ons like LeadBooster, Web Visitors, Campaigns, Smart Docs, and Projects for enhanced functionality.

Plans

User sentiment

Neutral

-0.22

See full Pricing page

ActiveCampaign and Pipedrive review insights

9150 reviews analysed from and

Users love

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.

Easy to use and intuitive.
Great for managing customer email interactions.
Simple and straightforward to use.
Excellent way to keep opportunities organized and customization is a bonus!

Users dislike

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.

The custom tags for the leads don’t transfer to deals.
Limited integration with platforms other than Facebook
The mobile app is underwhelming with limited functionality
When having too many stages in Pipedrive, it seems to compromise the view and I cannot see the full title of each stage.

ActiveCampaign and Pipedrive Ratings

G2

4.5/5

(2477)
Capterra

4.6/5

(2388)
TrustPilot

3.6/5

(67)
Glassdoor

3.6/5

(444)

G2

4.3/5

(1867)
Capterra

4.5/5

(2418)
Glassdoor

3.6/5

(250)

Company health

Employee growth

4% increase in the last year

No change in the last year

Web traffic

11% decrease in the last quarter

7% decrease in the last quarter

Financing

January 2021 - $360M

July 2018 - $90M

How do ActiveCampaign's marketing automation features compare to Pipedrive's sales-focused automation?

ActiveCampaign's marketing automation is geared towards broader customer journeys across multiple channels like email, SMS, and ads, focusing on personalized marketing campaigns and lead nurturing. Pipedrive's automation is primarily sales-focused, streamlining the sales process within the pipeline, automating tasks like lead qualification and deal progression, and ultimately aiming to improve close rates and sales efficiency. While both offer automation, ActiveCampaign leans towards marketing engagement and Pipedrive emphasizes sales actions within the CRM.

Which product better integrates with existing CRM systems for a unified sales and marketing approach?

ActiveCampaign better integrates with existing CRM systems for a unified sales and marketing approach. While Pipedrive is primarily a sales-focused CRM, ActiveCampaign offers robust marketing automation features alongside its CRM capabilities, and explicitly states integration with over 900 business tools. This suggests a greater emphasis on broader integration, including existing CRM systems, facilitating a more unified sales and marketing strategy.

What are the advantages of ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign offers stronger marketing automation capabilities, including pre-built templates and automation recipes for various channels like email, SMS, and ads, making it better suited for businesses focused on personalized customer journeys and multi-channel marketing. It also boasts a wider range of integrations with over 900 business tools.

What are the disadvantages of ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign users have reported that the user interface can be glitchy and slow to load, sometimes requiring multiple browser tabs to avoid delays. Pricing can be considered expensive in some regions, lacking regional or student discounts. Finally, while it integrates with many tools, some users desire support in languages other than English.

Alternatives to ActiveCampaign and Pipedrive

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.

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.

HubSpot Sales Hub

HubSpot Sales Hub is a sales software platform designed to help mid-sized and growing businesses streamline and automate their sales processes. It offers tools for managing contacts, tracking deals, sending emails, and analyzing sales performance. Its focus is on providing a user-friendly interface and a suite of integrated tools that work together seamlessly. HubSpot Sales Hub aims to improve sales efficiency, increase productivity, and drive revenue growth by providing a centralized system for managing all aspects of the sales pipeline.

MailerLite

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.

Vtiger Sales

Vtiger Sales is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool that helps businesses streamline their sales processes and increase revenue. It offers a range of features, including lead management, sales automation, opportunity tracking, and performance reporting. Vtiger Sales is suitable for businesses of all sizes and aims to improve sales efficiency by automating tasks, centralizing customer data, and providing insights to close deals faster. Its user-friendly design and customizable features make it a popular choice for sales teams looking to improve productivity and drive growth.

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.

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