ActiveCampaign vs SendPulse

by Gralio Mar 01, 2025

ActiveCampaign and SendPulse are both powerful marketing platforms catering to mid-sized businesses. ActiveCampaign excels in email marketing and sales automation with extensive integrations, while SendPulse offers a broader suite of marketing tools in a single, potentially more cost-effective platform.

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 6184 reviews and 50 websites, saving 1 day, 10 hours, 46 minutes of reading.

ActiveCampaign

Website LinkedIn Twitter

SendPulse

Website LinkedIn Twitter

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.

SendPulse is an all-in-one marketing platform that helps mid-sized companies manage their sales and marketing activities from a single location. Its tools include email and SMS marketing, chatbots, CRM, landing page builder, and more. SendPulse offers a user-friendly interface, drag-and-drop builders, and automation features. The platform prides itself on providing comprehensive marketing solutions to optimize workflows and drive business growth. SendPulse offers a free plan with paid options starting at $9.85 per month.

Summary

Main difference

ActiveCampaign is a better choice for businesses heavily reliant on email marketing and sales automation, seeking seamless integrations with a wide range of business tools. SendPulse is a more suitable option for businesses prioritizing an all-in-one marketing platform with a broader range of functionalities like chatbots, CRM, and landing page builder, especially if cost-effectiveness is a primary concern.

Relative strengths of ActiveCampaign (compared to SendPulse)

Stronger email marketing and automation capabilities.
Extensive integrations with over 900 business tools.
Dedicated CRM and sales automation features.

Relative weaknesses of ActiveCampaign (compared to SendPulse)

Limited functionalities compared to SendPulse's all-in-one platform.
Potentially higher cost depending on usage and features.
Less emphasis on features like chatbots and landing page builder.

Who should use ActiveCampaign VS. SendPulse

ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation platform ideal for businesses looking to streamline sales and marketing through personalized customer journeys across various channels. Users praise its ease of use and automation capabilities, especially for email marketing. Some users mention occasional glitches and slow loading times. ActiveCampaign offers a wide range of integrations and pre-built templates to simplify marketing efforts.

SendPulse is an all-in-one marketing platform ideal for mid-sized companies. Users praise its user-friendly interface, drag-and-drop builders, and comprehensive marketing solutions. However, some find the mobile app lacking and desire more platform integrations. It offers a free plan with paid options starting at $9.85/month.

Ideal for businesses of all sizes seeking streamlined marketing and sales automation.
Suitable for various sectors, including Healthcare, Finance, E-commerce, and more.

Best for mid-sized companies needing streamlined sales and marketing.
Suitable for various sectors, including e-commerce, retail, and software.

ActiveCampaign and SendPulse features

Supported

Partially supported

Not supported

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

Drag and drop editor

Not supported

ActiveCampaign offers a drag-and-drop editor, but only for emails, not websites.

Not supported

SendPulse offers a drag-and-drop editor for emails, but not for websites.
Email marketing

Supported

ActiveCampaign supports targeted email campaigns, including automation, segmentation, A/B testing, and analytics.

Supported

SendPulse supports targeted campaigns, automated and A/B tested emails, analytics, and list-building features.
Marketing automation

Partially supported

ActiveCampaign supports automated workflows across email and CRM, but needs integrations for SMS, web push, and chatbots.

Supported

SendPulse supports automated workflows across multiple channels like email, SMS, web push, and chatbots.
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

SendPulse supports drip campaigns through its Automation 360 feature, enabling automated email sequences based on user behavior or events.
Workflow Automation

Supported

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

Not supported

SendPulse offers workflow automation for marketing, but not directly for sales.

Qualities

Value and Pricing Transparency

No data

No data
Customer Service

No data

No data
Ease of Use

No data

No data
Reliability and Performance

No data

No data
Ease of Implementation

No data

No data
Scalability

No data

No data

ActiveCampaign and SendPulse Pricing

No data

See full Pricing page

SendPulse offers monthly subscription and pay-as-you-go pricing plans. The monthly subscription includes Free, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise plans, with prices varying based on subscriber count. The pay-as-you-go plan pricing is determined by the number of emails sent and includes Standard, Pro, and Enterprise options.

Plans

See full Pricing page

ActiveCampaign and SendPulse review insights

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.

The Telegram bot builder is easy to set up and use.
Viber push: easy to set up and launch a push to your audience in Viber.
SendPulse offers a user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop builders.
The platform provides comprehensive marketing solutions in one place.

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 mobile app is underwhelming with limited functionality.
The "Standard Reply" templates clutter up the dashboard, and I can’t find an easy way to delete them.
Limited integration with platforms other than Facebook.
Their pricing plans could be a little more transparent.

ActiveCampaign and SendPulse Ratings

G2

4.5/5

(2486)
Capterra

4.6/5

(2388)
TrustPilot

3.6/5

(67)
Glassdoor

3.6/5

(444)

G2

4.6/5

(557)
Capterra

4.6/5

(664)
TrustPilot

3.7/5

(40)
Glassdoor

3.7/5

(11)

Company health

Employee growth

4% increase in the last year

19% decrease in the last year

Web traffic

11% decrease in the last quarter

17% decrease in the last quarter

Financing

January 2021 - $360M

July 2016 - $130K

How do ActiveCampaign's pre-built automation recipes compare to SendPulse's Automation 360?

Both ActiveCampaign and SendPulse offer pre-built automation recipes (or workflows) to streamline marketing efforts. ActiveCampaign emphasizes its wide range of recipes and templates. SendPulse highlights its Automation 360 feature for drip campaigns based on user behavior. While details on the specific pre-built automation options for each platform are limited, it can be inferred that both cater to automating common marketing tasks. Further investigation into the specific pre-built automation recipes offered by each would be needed to make a detailed comparison.

Which platform better integrates CRM with email and SMS marketing, SendPulse or ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign appears to be the better platform for integrating CRM with email and SMS marketing. While SendPulse offers these features, ActiveCampaign's tighter integration between its CRM and marketing automation functionalities allows for more personalized and targeted campaigns based on customer behavior and sales interactions. Additionally, ActiveCampaign's broader range of integrations with other business tools makes it a more adaptable solution for various workflows.

What are the advantages of ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign offers a wider range of integrations with over 900 business tools compared to SendPulse. ActiveCampaign seems to be better suited for businesses seeking a comprehensive marketing and sales automation platform, with features like CRM and advanced customer journey mapping. While both offer email and SMS marketing, ActiveCampaign emphasizes personalized customer journeys which may be advantageous for businesses focused on targeted campaigns.

What are the disadvantages of ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign users report occasional glitches and slow loading times in the UI. The pricing can be expensive in some regions, and multi-language support is limited, potentially creating barriers for international users.

Alternatives to ActiveCampaign and SendPulse

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.

Framework360

Framework360 is a cloud-based, all-in-one marketing platform designed for businesses of all sizes. It offers a wide range of features, including website and landing page builders, marketing automation, email and SMS marketing, CRM, sales management, and more. With its intuitive interface and comprehensive features, Framework360 aims to simplify your marketing efforts and help you achieve your business goals.

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.

Freshmarketer

Freshmarketer is a marketing automation platform designed for mid-sized businesses. It offers tools to understand customer behavior, automate marketing tasks, and personalize customer interactions. Features include email marketing, landing page creation, and AI-powered chatbots. Freshmarketer helps businesses improve lead generation, nurture customer relationships, and gain insights from marketing campaigns. It can be integrated with Freshsales, a sales automation platform, to improve collaboration between sales and marketing teams.

Overloop

Overloop is a sales engagement platform designed to automate and streamline outbound sales processes. It offers features like automated email sequencing, LinkedIn outreach, and phone call scheduling. The platform uses AI to identify potential customers based on your ideal customer profile, write personalized emails, and even book meetings. Overloop integrates with popular CRM systems and focuses on automating repetitive tasks, allowing sales teams to focus on building relationships and closing deals.

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.

Page co-authored by

Michal Kaczor

CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

Tymon Terlikiewicz

CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

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