How much does ActiveCampaign cost in 2026?
Four email plans, all quoted billed annually on ActiveCampaign’s pricing page: at 1,000 contacts, Starter $15/mo, Plus $49, Pro $79, Enterprise $145. No monthly rate is published anywhere on that page. Starter caps automations at 5 actions each, which is the limit that actually decides your plan. Plus gives you the same 1 user as Starter, so a second seat means Pro. And at the 25,000-contact step the calculator prices Starter at $391 against Plus at $389-the entry plan costs more than the tier above it.
What ActiveCampaign actually costs in 2026
ActiveCampaign prices on stored contacts across thirteen published steps. Every figure below is the USD price shown by their own calculator with the currency selector set to USD, and every one is a billed-annually monthly equivalent.
| Contacts | Starter | Plus | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $15 | $49 | $79 | $145 |
| 2,500 | $39 | $95 | $149 | $255 |
| 5,000 | $79 | $145 | $205 | $375 |
| 7,500 | $109 | $169 | $289 | $479 |
| 10,000 | $149 | $189 | $375 | $589 |
| 15,000 | $231 | $265 | $465 | $689 |
| 20,000 | $311 | $329 | $549 | $785 |
| 25,000 | $391 | $389 | $629 | $879 |
| 30,000 | $311 (see below) | $449 | $709 | $949 |
| 40,000 | $311 (see below) | $549 | $879 | $1,095 |
| 50,000 | $311 (see below) | $609 | $969 | $1,169 |
| 75,000 | $311 (see below) | $879 | $1,375 | $1,447 |
| 100,000 | $311 (see below) | $1,199 | $1,599 | $1,735 |
The calculator continues to 150,000, 200,000 and above 200,000 contacts, where pricing moves to a quote. ActiveCampaign offers a real currency selector. USD, BRL, CAD, AUD, EUR and GBP, which puts it ahead of Campaign Monitor and GetResponse, both of which serve one currency by geolocation with no way to switch.
Every figure on ActiveCampaign’s pricing page carries the label Billed annually. There is no monthly-versus-annual toggle and no monthly rate shown anywhere on the page. Monthly billing exists as a purchase option, but you cannot see what it costs before you start a checkout. Practically, this means the headline prices already assume a twelve-month commitment, and any comparison you make against a competitor’s monthly rate is comparing an annual price to a monthly one.
At 25,000 contacts, Starter costs more than Plus
This is not a typo on our side. We reproduced it on a fresh page load, and it is worth understanding because of what it says about the shape of the whole ladder.
Set the calculator to 25,000 contacts and it returns Starter at $391 and Plus at $389. The entry plan is $2 a month more expensive than the tier above it, which has unlimited automation actions, standard segmentation instead of limited, landing pages, and standard CRM and ecommerce integrations.
That inversion is the end point of a trend that runs the whole length of the ladder. Watch what the Plus premium does as your list grows:
| Contacts | Starter | Plus | Cost of upgrading to Plus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $15 | $49 | +227% |
| 2,500 | $39 | $95 | +144% |
| 5,000 | $79 | $145 | +84% |
| 7,500 | $109 | $169 | +55% |
| 10,000 | $149 | $189 | +27% |
| 15,000 | $231 | $265 | +15% |
| 20,000 | $311 | $329 | +6% |
| 25,000 | $391 | $389 | −0.5% |
Starter has no volume discount. That is the cause. Its cost per contact is roughly $0.015 at 1,000, at 5,000, at 10,000 and at 20,000, a flat line. Plus, Pro and Enterprise all discount as volume rises, so they converge on Starter from above and eventually cross it.
Above 20,000 contacts the Starter figure stops moving, and we do not trust it
From 30,000 contacts upward the calculator returns $311 for Starter at every step, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, 75,000 and 100,000 all show the same number, which is also the price it shows at 20,000. Combined with the 25,000 reading of $391, that makes the Starter curve non-monotonic: it rises, spikes, then flatlines. We reproduced all of it on a clean page load, so it is what ActiveCampaign publishes, but a price that goes down as your list grows is far more likely to be a gap in their calculator than a deliberate offer. Treat Starter pricing above 20,000 contacts as unverified and get it in writing from sales. We are reporting the readings rather than smoothing them into a curve that looks sensible.
The limit that actually decides your plan: 5 actions per automation
ActiveCampaign sells itself on multi-step automation. Starter caps every automation at five actions, and that single line does more to determine whether Starter works for you than any price on this page.
Plus, Pro and Enterprise all carry unlimited automation actions. Starter allows 5 actions per automation. To see what that buys, count a genuinely basic welcome sequence:
| Action 1 | Send the welcome email |
|---|---|
| Action 2 | Wait three days |
| Action 3 | Condition: did they open it? |
| Action 4 | Send follow-up A or follow-up B |
| Action 5 | Add a tag |
| Action 6 | -you have run out |
A welcome series with one branch and a tag is already at the ceiling. Anything with a second condition, a goal, a wait-until, or a hand-off to a sales pipeline does not fit. There is no way to buy more actions; the only route is Plus.
Read the rest of the Starter column and the same picture repeats: limited segmentation rather than standard, 15 active Business Goals against 25 on Plus and 200 on Pro, 1 AI brand kit against 5, limited rather than unlimited access to the Active Intelligence workspace, and cross-channel marketing restricted to email only. If you are choosing ActiveCampaign because of its automation, Starter is not the plan you are shopping for, and at 1,000 contacts, the plan you are shopping for costs 227% more.
Plus gives you one user, exactly like Starter
Seat allocation is where ActiveCampaign’s pricing gets expensive in a way the headline numbers hide.
| Starter | 1 user |
|---|---|
| Plus | 1 user |
| Pro | 3 users |
| Enterprise | 5 users |
Two people cannot share a Plus account without sharing a login. The supported answer is Pro, and Pro is not a small step:
| Contacts | Plus (1 user) | Pro (3 users) | Cost of getting a second seat |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $49 | $79 | +$30/mo |
| 5,000 | $145 | $205 | +$60/mo |
| 10,000 | $189 | $375 | +$186/mo |
| 25,000 | $389 | $629 | +$240/mo |
| 50,000 | $609 | $969 | +$360/mo |
At 10,000 contacts, hiring one marketing coordinator costs you $2,232 a year in software before their salary. Pro does bring real capability with it, advanced segmentation, predictive content, attribution tracking, premium ecommerce integrations, 200 Business Goals, but if the seat is the only thing you need, you are buying the rest of Pro to get it.
For contrast, GetResponse and Campaign Monitor both give unlimited users on every paid plan. Mailchimp meters seats at 1, 3, 5 and unlimited. ActiveCampaign is the strictest of the four at the tier most small teams actually buy.
Send multipliers, and what Plus does not buy
ActiveCampaign caps monthly sends as a multiple of your contact limit, in line with most of the category. The detail worth noticing is where the multiplier does not increase.
| Plan | Send multiplier | At 10,000 contacts | Change from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 10× | 100,000 sends | – |
| Plus | 10× | 100,000 sends | No increase |
| Pro | 12× | 120,000 sends | +20% |
| Enterprise | 15× | 150,000 sends | +25% |
Upgrading from Starter to Plus, the single most common upgrade on this platform, and a 227% price increase at 1,000 contacts, buys you zero additional sending capacity. You are paying purely for the automation engine, segmentation and landing pages. That is a defensible thing to pay for, but it is worth knowing that volume headroom is not part of the deal.
The 10× entry multiplier itself is mid-table: the same as Mailchimp Essentials and Constant Contact Lite, twice as generous as Campaign Monitor Lite at 5×, and no match for GetResponse, which puts unlimited sends on every paid plan.
Three add-ons, none of them priced
ActiveCampaign lists three paid add-ons on its pricing page and attaches a figure to none of them. Here is what they cover and which plans can buy them.
| Add-on | Price | Available on | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| SMS | Not published | Plus, Pro, Enterprise | Broadcast and automated SMS, two-way inbox, opt-in and consent tools, AI reply suggestions. US, UK and Australia only; MMS in the US and Australia only. |
| Transactional email | Not published | All four plans | Password resets, notifications, confirmations. |
| Enhanced CRM | Not published | Plus, Pro, Enterprise | Two components: Pipelines and sales engagement. |
Two constraints that matter more than the missing price. First, the SMS add-on cannot be attached to Starter at all, so an SMS requirement pushes you to Plus regardless of list size. Second, ActiveCampaign restricts SMS campaigns to the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, with MMS narrowed further to the US and Australia. If your audience is in continental Europe, Canada or anywhere else, the add-on does not solve your problem no matter what it costs.
Transactional email being available on all four plans is worth flagging positively: it means Starter can handle password resets and order confirmations, which GetResponse reserves for quote-only Enterprise.
WhatsApp is now a separate product with its own price list
ActiveCampaign’s pricing page has three tabs: Email, WhatsApp, and Email + WhatsApp. The WhatsApp product is priced independently and behaves differently from the email plans.
| WhatsApp plan | 1,000 to 5,000 contacts | 10,000 contacts | Message allowance | Users / lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core | $99 | $99 | 25× contact limit | 3 users, up to 2 lines |
| Advanced | $99 | $255 | 50× contact limit | 5 users, up to 5 lines |
| Premium | $218 | $692 | 100× contact limit | 8 users, up to 5 lines |
Two observations. Core and Advanced cost the same $99 from 1,000 through 5,000 contacts, so below 5,000 there is no reason to buy Core: Advanced doubles your message allowance, adds two users and three extra lines for the same money. Second, the WhatsApp product gives 3 users on its entry plan where the email product gives 1, and message allowances of 25× to 100× where email sits at 10× to 15×.
An Email + WhatsApp bundle exists at Plus, Pro and Enterprise level. Its pricing was not readable from the plan cards, so we do not quote it.
What real accounts pay
Five worked examples at published USD rates, billed annually.
| Profile | Monthly | Composition | The trap avoided |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo founder, 900 contacts, one simple welcome flow | $15 | Starter at 1,000 | A second branch in that flow breaks the 5-action cap |
| Consultant, 4,000 contacts, multi-branch nurture | $145 | Plus at 5,000 | Starter is $79 but cannot run the nurture at all |
| Two-person marketing team, 10,000 contacts | $375 | Pro at 10,000 | Plus is $189 but allows only one login |
| Store on Shopify Plus, 25,000 contacts | $629 | Pro, premium ecommerce integrations start here | Plus at $389 covers Shopify but not Shopify Plus |
| Anyone at exactly 25,000 contacts on Starter | $391 | Starter | Plus costs $389 and is strictly better. Switch. |
Where ActiveCampaign sits against the category
| Platform | Entry paid plan | Send cap | Users on entry plan | Automation on entry plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign Starter | $15 annual, 1,000 contacts | 10× | 1 | 5 actions per automation |
| GetResponse Starter | €16, 1,000 contacts | Unlimited | Not metered | 1 custom workflow |
| Campaign Monitor Lite | €12, 500 contacts | 5× | Unlimited | Drip and journeys included |
| Mailchimp Essentials | $13, 500 contacts | 10× | 3 | No Journey Builder |
| MailerLite | Free tier, then paid | 10× on Comfort | Metered | Included |
ActiveCampaign’s entry price is competitive and its entry plan is the most restricted in the comparison: one user and a five-action automation cap. The platform’s reputation rests on automation depth, and that depth begins at Plus. Judge ActiveCampaign on the Plus price, not the Starter price-$49 at 1,000 contacts and $189 at 10,000, because that is where the product people recommend actually starts.
The 30-day guarantee, and the plan-name history
Two things that come up constantly and are easy to get wrong.
The guarantee. ActiveCampaign leads its pricing page with “Guaranteed results in 30 days or your money back.” That is the full published wording. What counts as a result, how it is measured, and what the refund process involves are not defined on the pricing page, so treat it as a stated commitment whose terms you should read before relying on it.
Lite and Professional are old names, and search results are full of them
ActiveCampaign’s tiers were previously Lite, Plus, Professional and Enterprise. The current names are Starter, Plus, Pro and Enterprise. Only Plus survived unchanged. A great deal of comparison content still discusses “ActiveCampaign Lite” and quotes its old price, and the feature split moved during the rename, so an article about Lite is not a reliable guide to Starter. If you are reading a page that names a Lite plan, check its date before you trust its figures.
Who should pay for which plan
| One person, simple broadcast email, one short flow | Starter. Cheap and adequate. Count your automation actions first; five goes quickly. |
|---|---|
| Any real automation: branches, goals, conditions | Plus. This is where ActiveCampaign becomes ActiveCampaign. Below 5,000 contacts it more than doubles your bill, so be deliberate. |
| More than one person needs a login | Pro. There is no seat add-on. At 10,000 contacts that second seat costs +$186/mo over Plus. |
| Shopify Plus, BigCommerce or Magento | Pro. Premium ecommerce integrations start there; Plus covers Shopify, Square and WooCommerce only. |
| You need SSO or custom objects | Enterprise. Both are exclusive to it, along with 5 users and the 15× send multiplier. |
| You need SMS outside the US, UK or Australia | Look elsewhere. The add-on does not cover other markets. |
| Sitting at exactly 25,000 contacts on Starter | Move to Plus. The calculator prices it $2 below Starter with materially more product. |
What ActiveCampaign does not publish
- Monthly billing rates. Every price on the pricing page is labelled Billed annually, with no toggle and no monthly figure anywhere.
- All three add-on prices. SMS, transactional email and Enhanced CRM are named and described, never priced.
- Email + WhatsApp bundle pricing. The tab exists; the figures were not readable from the plan cards.
- Starter pricing above 20,000 contacts. The calculator returns a non-monotonic sequence there, including a value that falls as the list grows. We report the readings and recommend confirming with sales.
- Enterprise above 200,000 contacts. Quote-only.
- The terms of the 30-day results guarantee. The claim is on the page; the definition of a result and the refund mechanics are not.
Frequently asked questions
How much does ActiveCampaign cost per month in 2026?
At 1,000 contacts, billed annually: Starter $15/mo, Plus $49, Pro $79, Enterprise $145. At 10,000 contacts those become $149, $189, $375 and $589. Every published figure assumes annual billing. ActiveCampaign does not show a monthly rate anywhere on its pricing page, so the true month-to-month cost is only visible once you begin a checkout.
What is the difference between ActiveCampaign Starter and Plus?
Mainly automation depth. Starter caps every automation at 5 actions; Plus is unlimited. Starter also has limited rather than standard segmentation, 15 active Business Goals against 25, one AI brand kit against five, and no landing pages. Both give 1 user and both cap sends at 10× your contact limit, so the upgrade buys no extra seats and no extra sending.
Why is ActiveCampaign Starter more expensive than Plus at 25,000 contacts?
Because Starter has no volume discount while the higher tiers do, so they converge and eventually cross. At 25,000 contacts the calculator returns Starter at $391 and Plus at $389. We reproduced this on a fresh page load. If you are on Starter at that list size, Plus is cheaper and strictly better. Above 20,000 contacts the Starter figure also stops changing and at one step falls as the list grows, which suggests a gap in ActiveCampaign’s calculator rather than an intentional offer, confirm it with sales.
Is ActiveCampaign Lite still available?
Not under that name. The tiers used to be Lite, Plus, Professional and Enterprise; they are now Starter, Plus, Pro and Enterprise. Only Plus kept its name. The feature boundaries moved during the rename, so older comparisons that discuss Lite or Professional are not a reliable guide to what Starter and Pro include today. Check the date on any page that still uses the old names.
How many users does ActiveCampaign include?
Starter 1, Plus 1, Pro 3, Enterprise 5. There is no seat add-on, so a second person means moving to Pro. At 10,000 contacts that costs +$186 a month over Plus, or $2,232 a year. GetResponse and Campaign Monitor both give unlimited users on every paid plan by comparison.
How much does ActiveCampaign SMS cost?
Not published. SMS is a named add-on on ActiveCampaign’s pricing page with no price attached, so any figure you find elsewhere is unverified. Two constraints matter regardless of cost: the add-on is not available on Starter, and SMS campaigns are limited to the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, with MMS narrowed to the US and Australia.
How many emails can I send on ActiveCampaign?
Your contact limit multiplied by 10× on Starter and Plus, 12× on Pro, 15× on Enterprise. At 10,000 contacts that is 100,000, 100,000, 120,000 and 150,000 sends a month. Note that upgrading from Starter to Plus gives you no additional sending capacity-the multiplier is identical on both.
Does ActiveCampaign offer transactional email?
Yes, as a paid add-on, and unusually it is available on all four plans including Starter. The price is not published. This is more generous than GetResponse, which restricts transactional email to quote-only Enterprise. If transactional volume is your main requirement rather than a side need, dedicated providers such as Postmark, Mailgun or Amazon SES publish per-thousand rates you can actually budget against.
What is ActiveCampaign’s 30-day money-back guarantee?
The pricing page leads with “Guaranteed results in 30 days or your money back.” That is the complete published wording. What qualifies as a result, how it is measured and how a refund is claimed are not defined on the pricing page. It is a real stated commitment, but read the terms before treating it as a risk-free trial.
Can I see ActiveCampaign prices in my own currency?
Yes. The pricing page has a genuine currency selector offering USD, BRL, CAD, AUD, EUR and GBP. That puts ActiveCampaign ahead of Campaign Monitor and GetResponse, which both serve a single currency based on where you are browsing from with no way to switch. The figures on this page were read with the selector set to USD.
Changelog (recent)
This review follows our email infrastructure testing methodology. We disclose affiliate relationships in our editorial independence policy.
