E-mail marketing and automation ranks among the most effective tools for growing small businesses online and expanding the reach of entrepreneurs. With a captivating header, tight structure and reactive content, thousands of prospects would be a click away from purchasing your products or viewing your blog.
This is made possible by E-mail marketing tools like Aweber and ActiveCampaign, which are filled with features ready to help you draft great content, form direct communication with your customers and enable optimizations that will improve the performance of your campaigns.
Get to know which of these two ranks above the other in terms of functionality, bargain, efficiency, etc., so you can make an informed choice for your projects.
Aweber vs ActiveCampaign: Main Differences
Aweber and ActiveCampaign have a number of differences which are seen in their features, pricing, functionality and other departments. Below are the main differences between the two marketing giants.
| Aweber | ActiveCampaign |
| Offers over 750 built-in email templates | Offers 250 email templates |
| Do not have a design testing tool for email delivery | Comes with a designed testing tool that enables you to know if your emails are delivered in your subscriber’s inbox |
| Offers a free plan | Does not have free plan |
| Paid plan is determined by the number of subscribers you want | Offers four different paid plans |
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Aweber vs ActiveCampaign: Features & Capabilities
Aweber: Features & Capabilities
Aweber is an easy-to-use marketing software which offers an array of features aimed at helping you connect easily with your audience and customers by using simple and professional emails.
Aweber comes with an impressive subscriber engine that enables you to market effectively by identifying the needs of your customers and catering to them with the right products and content.
Aweber features almost all the email types, from which you can select the one suitable for driving valuable communication with an individual subscriber.
It also features a drag-and-drop editor which simplifies the process of creating your landing page, without a need of technical expertise. Your landing page is a very vital aspect of your brand, and Aweber provides the best tools for creating an appealing, professional page that will encourage prospects to close deals, buy your product or sign up for your content.
More features:
- A/B Testing
- Subscriber Management
- Email Management
- Triggered Actions
- Reports and Analytics
- Web-push Notifications
- Email automations
ActiveCampaign: Features & Capabilities
ActiveCampaign has top-notch features capable of running effective campaigns and collecting feedback that will help you to optimize your service and delivery.
The tool has an intuitive automation engine with a variety of options available for you to use. These options include automation goals(for marking goals), dynamic goals(for setting multiple unique marketing goals), automation map(for tracking automations and collecting data to enhance subsequent automation), etc.
ActiveCampaign offers registration forms which are very easy to use and modify. The advanced plans make it even more sophisticated with the inclusion of floating boxes, floating bars and modal pop-ups.
ActiveCampaign supports app integration. This means you can send campaigns to prospects and customers via an integrated business app to help you complete deals and grow revenue.
More features:
- Newsletters
- Smart autoresponders
- Contact location/traveling tracking
- Social media monitoring
- CRM & Sales automation
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Aweber vs ActiveCampaign: Pricing
Aweber: Pricing
Aweber offers a free plan, which allows you to have up to 500 subscribers and send up to 3,000 emails a month.
The Pro plans begin at $19.99 a month, with a subscriber limit of 500. You will have to pay more for an increased subscriber limit.
- 501-2500 — $29.99 a month
- 2501-5000 — $49.99 a month
- 5001-10000 — $69.99 a month
- 10001-25000 — $149.99 a month
The Pro plans enable all the available features on Aweber; meaning that, as a basic pro subscriber, you can access all the features available to a user subscribing for the $149.99 plan. The only difference is the subscriber limit.
ActiveCampaign: Pricing
Although ActiveCampaign does not have a free plan, you can test the app by running a 14-day free trial. Meanwhile, there are four Pro plans available on ActiveCampaign.
- Lite Plan
- Plus Plan
- Profession Plan
- Enterprises Plan
Lite Plan costs $9 a month(annual payment) and offers features like marketing automation, drag-and-drop editor, customer segmentation, lead imports, customer analytics, etc.
Plus Plan costs $49 a month(annual payment) and features everything in Lite plan with additions like automation map, landing pages, CRM, custom user permissions, etc.
Professional Plan costs $149 a month(annual payment) and includes everything in Plus plan with additions like split automations, site messages, conversion reporting, etc.
Enterprise Plan doesn’t have a fixed price. Your price is accumulated after you’ve customized a suitable plan by choosing from the collection of features.
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Reasons To Choose Aweber Over ActiveCampaign
The first motivation to pick Aweber over ActiveCampaign is Aweber’s free plan. It is not the only tool with such an offer in the market; however, its competition lacks a free plan, which is a plus for Aweber. So, if you can work with 3,000 emails a month and a limited number of 500 subscribers, then Aweber is the ideal tool to start with.
Aweber offers more email marketing templates than ActiveCampaign. With over 750 templates(against ActiveCampaign’s 250 templates), you have an array of options to choose for your campaign layouts, and they do not necessarily require customization.
Aweber is fully integrated with Canva, which gives you easier access to the design app and all the designs and templates it offers. This expands your options for fliers and other designs. Meanwhile, ActiveCampaign does not have full Canva integration.
Reasons To Choose ActiveCampaign Over Aweber
Powerful automation: ActiveCampaign’s automation features rank as one of the best(if not the best) in the market. The tool has over 300 button automation recipes, which, basically, are templates for starting simple automations that will drive traffic and increase revenue for you.
There are also advanced automations that are very intuitive and efficient in their various departments. Aweber falls short in this regard.
Deliverability: ActiveCampaign topples Aweber in deliverability rate, which is the process of measuring the amount of emails successfully delivered to your subscribers’ inbox. According to various statistics, ActiveCampaign scores between 90-94 while Aweber scores 72-75.
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Similarities between Aweber and ActiveCampaign
Aweber and ActiveCampaign are two of the best ranking email marketing tools in the world, so it is very easy to find similar features and functionality in both tools. Below are similarities between them.
- Unlimited storage
- Landing page builder
- Templates availability
- Authentication set up
- Bounce management
- Personalization
- Customer support
- E-commerce
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Alternatives for Aweber and ActiveCampaign
There are other marketing tools that offer the same value as Aweber and ActiveCampaign; some of them have cheaper pricing and more/unique features. Below are some great alternatives for Aweber and ActiveCampaign.
Constant Contact: It features almost everything in Aweber, including its own unique features as well. It also doesn’t do badly against ActiveCampaign. Its entry plan starts from $9.99 a month.
HubSpot Marketing Hub: In addition to having similar features with Aweber and ActiveCampaign, HubSpot Hub offers a free plan that includes ad management, live chat and reporting. It also allows you to send 2,000 emails per month. Its plan starts from $45 a month.
MailChimp: MailChimp is a fair alternative to ActiveCampaign. It provides as much functionality as ActiveCampaign does, plus it comes with a free plan. The entry plan for MailChimp starts from $11.10
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Final Verdict
Winner: ActiveCampaign
These two competitions obviously have areas of strength and also where they both come short. This doesn’t deny the fact that there is a winner between them.
Aweber has been in the market since the late 90s and has since been actively upgrading its features, yet it still lacks in the area of optimization through automation and reporting, which are today very important in driving traffic and implementing strategies that help you to retain customers and audience.
If you want to start out small and do not want to spend too much, Aweber is great for you, thanks to the free plan it offers.
But if you want to spend and get maximum value for your money, ActiveCampaign is recommended. Their pricing structure is more transparent and fair, especially when you consider what they have to offer.
Generally, ActiveCampaign offers more value to either your personal blog or business.
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Aweber and ActiveCampaign FAQs:
How many emails can you send with Aweber?
Except for the Aweber free plan, email sending on Aweber is unlimited. If you are using the Aweber free plan, you can send up to 3,000 emails a month. There is no limit for emails on paid plans.
Which templates are more preferable between Aweber and ActiveCampaign?
Both tools offer pre-designed templates that cover almost every category, so it’s up to you to pick a template and use. Aweber, however, has more templates than ActiveCampaign.
Can Aweber and ActiveCampaign create a template for me?
There are hundreds of pre-made templates available on both Aweber and ActiveCampaign. You can either choose from the templates or customize one for yourself. Meanwhile, Aweber went an extra mile to create a Template Team who can help you modify or create a new template.
Is ActiveCampaign user-friendly?
To easily navigate ActiveCampaign, you need to have a technical background because it is a very advanced tool. It also requires you to do regular maintenance, which is difficult for a beginner.
What is ActiveCampaign best known for?
ActiveCampaign is a prime email marketing tool, best known for its powerful automation features. It is used for driving successful email campaigns and ensuring deliverability.
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