ActiveCampaign Pricing 2026: Plans, Costs and Limits

ActiveCampaign currently starts at a public reference price of $15 per month for 1,000 contacts on Starter, with official comparison pages also listing Plus at $49 per month and Pro at $79 per month for the same 1,000-contact example. Enterprise is now presented on the main pricing experience as a tailored plan, so we treat it as Contact sales rather than forcing a public number into the guide. The biggest pricing caveat is that ActiveCampaign is contact-based: the monthly bill can rise as the database grows, and optional products such as SMS, enhanced CRM, custom reporting, and transactional email can add to the base subscription. We checked these sources on 2026-10-02 UTC.

For product capabilities and the current Toollers research score, see the ActiveCampaign profile. This guide focuses on what buyers can verify about pricing, limits, trials, add-ons, cancellation, and the questions that affect the real bill.

How ActiveCampaign pricing works

ActiveCampaign combines two pricing dimensions: the feature tier you choose and the number of contacts in the account. That structure is common in marketing automation because the platform has to serve larger databases and higher messaging volumes as a business grows. It also means a buyer cannot evaluate price from the plan name alone. A Starter account with a small list and a Pro account with a large list are solving very different problems and will not have the same economics.

The feature tier determines the depth of automation, segmentation, reporting, AI functionality, user seats, and enterprise controls. Contact volume then changes the amount charged within that tier. Optional products and add-ons can create another layer. ActiveCampaign's August 2026 plan overview specifically points to SMS, Custom Reporting, Transactional Email, and Enhanced CRM add-ons. Teams should therefore write down both their required features and their expected contact count before requesting a quote or going through checkout.

One further complication is presentation. The main pricing page is dynamic and currently asks visitors to select contact count and currency, while some official comparison pages publish concrete examples for 1,000 contacts. We use those official examples for the numeric references below, but buyers should treat checkout as the final authority for their region, contact tier, billing cadence, taxes, and promotions.

ActiveCampaign plans and current public pricing

The table is deliberately conservative about annual pricing. ActiveCampaign's FAQ confirms that annual plans are discounted and billed in a single yearly payment, but the exact annual totals were not reliably present in the current pages we could inspect for each 1,000-contact plan. Rather than convert or infer a discount, we leave those cells unresolved. Buyers should capture the annual total shown in checkout and divide it by 12 only if they need a monthly equivalent for budgeting; the contractual cash outflow is still the full annual payment.

Starter

Starter is the low-cost entry point. Current official comparison pages reference $15 per month for 1,000 contacts. The plan gives buyers access to the core email and marketing-automation platform, but the key restriction is the limit of five actions per automation. That is enough to test the product and run short workflows, yet it can become restrictive when a team wants long, branching customer journeys.

Starter is most sensible when the business is early in its automation maturity: welcome sequences, straightforward follow-ups, simple tagging, basic site tracking, and campaign reporting. It is a poor choice if the buying case already assumes complex lead scoring, long nurture flows, predictive features, or advanced segmentation. In that situation the lower headline price can be misleading because the team is likely to upgrade quickly.

Plus

Plus is the first plan we would model for teams that are serious about multi-step automation. ActiveCampaign's current official comparison content references $49 per month for 1,000 contacts. It removes the five-action automation cap and adds broader segmentation and marketing functionality, including landing pages and more capable journey design.

Plus still has only one included user in the current plan comparison, so teams with several marketers should confirm how additional access is handled in the selected configuration. Buyers should also determine whether the CRM features they need are included in the base subscription or require Enhanced CRM add-ons. That distinction can matter more to total cost than the difference between Starter and Plus.

Pro

Pro is referenced at $79 per month for 1,000 contacts on current official comparison pages. This tier is where advanced segmentation, predictive sending, conditional content, attribution-oriented capabilities, broader reporting, and more sophisticated orchestration become central to the value proposition. The current pricing comparison lists three users.

Pro makes sense for a marketing team that has enough campaign volume and data quality to benefit from advanced targeting and optimization. Paying for predictive or attribution features without a mature measurement process can create shelfware. Before upgrading, identify which Pro-only capabilities will be used in the first 90 days and which business decision they improve.

Enterprise

Enterprise is treated as custom priced in this guide. The main ActiveCampaign pricing experience currently emphasizes a tailored plan and request-pricing flow, while the Toollers profile also treats Enterprise as custom. Enterprise adds capabilities such as premium segmentation, SSO, custom reporting, more enterprise controls, and dedicated account support.

Enterprise buyers should request a written quote that identifies contact capacity, user seats, support scope, SLA commitments, onboarding, security documentation, any HIPAA-related requirements, add-on pricing, renewal rules, and overage handling. If multiple business units or brands will share the environment, confirm how permissions and account structure affect cost.

Monthly versus annual billing

ActiveCampaign's FAQ says annual plans are billed as a single yearly payment at a discounted rate. That has two implications. First, annual billing can reduce the effective monthly cost compared with paying month to month. Second, the cash commitment is larger and the general refund policy is restrictive, so the buyer should be confident about fit before prepaying.

We do not publish an invented annual discount percentage here because the current verified pages did not expose a stable annual total for each 1,000-contact tier. The right process is to take the exact annual amount shown for your contact count and plan, document the renewal date, and compare it with the monthly option. If the savings are modest relative to the uncertainty of implementation, monthly billing can be worth the flexibility during the first adoption phase.

There is no verified permanent free plan

ActiveCampaign currently promotes a free trial, not a permanent free production tier. That matters when comparing it with products such as Omnisend, Benchmark, AWeber, or Gist, which have published free plans in their current Toollers profiles. ActiveCampaign's trial is designed for evaluation, not indefinite low-volume sending.

The public trial signup says no credit card is required. That reduces the risk of an accidental paid conversion. ActiveCampaign's FAQ also says a trial account is not charged unless the user manually upgrades; otherwise the trial can simply expire.

What the 14-day trial actually gives you

ActiveCampaign's July 2026 trial-capabilities article says the trial lasts 14 days, is limited to one user, and allows up to 100 email sends. It says trial features match the Professional plan. One official FAQ still says the trial supports up to 100 contacts, while the newer help article says users can test with as many contacts as needed. Because those two official statements differ, we would confirm the contact allowance in the current signup flow rather than relying on one number.

The important practical constraint is the 100-send limit. That is enough to explore the editor and send controlled test campaigns, but it is not enough for a meaningful production-volume test. Use the trial to evaluate workflow design, segmentation, data fields, the automation builder, integration setup, approvals, and reporting—not to draw strong conclusions about large-scale deliverability.

Add-ons and variable costs to budget for

ActiveCampaign's plan overview explicitly names several optional products: SMS, Custom Reporting, Transactional Email, and Enhanced CRM. Those extras can be strategically useful, but they also make the base subscription an incomplete picture of total cost.

• Contact growth: the core email plans are contact based, so a larger database can move the account into a higher price band.
• SMS: buyers using text messaging should request the applicable message rates, country coverage, registration requirements, and any minimum spend.
• Enhanced CRM: teams expecting deeper sales-pipeline or sales-engagement workflows should separate those requirements from the base marketing subscription.
• Custom reporting: enterprise or analytics-heavy teams should confirm whether standard reports are sufficient before adding a custom-reporting package.
• Transactional email: application-generated or transactional messaging can have a separate cost model from marketing email.
• Taxes and regional pricing: the final checkout can vary by currency, tax treatment, and region.

We would not budget an ActiveCampaign implementation from the plan card alone. Build a one-page requirements sheet listing current contacts, expected contacts in 12 months, monthly email volume, required users, CRM needs, SMS volume, transactional messaging, reporting, SSO, security requirements, and support expectations. Then price that complete configuration.

True-cost scenarios: what we can and cannot calculate

A responsible pricing guide needs to distinguish arithmetic from assumptions. We can verify the $15, $49, and $79 1,000-contact references, but we cannot verify from the current public pages exactly how those amounts change at every contact tier, nor can we produce a stable annual discount for each plan. That makes broad “annual cost” scenarios potentially misleading.

Instead, use the following sales or checkout checklist. Ask for the price at your current contact count and at the contact count you expect after 12 months. Ask whether unsubscribed contacts count toward billing, how quickly a contact-tier change affects the invoice, whether the system automatically upgrades the account, and whether deleting or archiving records lowers the bill. Then add the required SMS, CRM, reporting, and transactional email components. For annual billing, request the exact prepaid total and renewal amount in writing.

This approach is more useful than multiplying the smallest headline price by 12 because most growing buyers do not remain at the smallest list size or feature set.

Which ActiveCampaign plan fits which buyer?

The best-value plan is not universal. Starter is only a bargain if its automation cap fits the workflow. Plus is easier to justify when the team needs real lifecycle journeys. Pro is valuable when advanced segmentation and optimization are actively used. Enterprise should be driven by governance, support, scale, and security requirements rather than by prestige.

Pricing strengths and limitations

Value improves when ActiveCampaign replaces several manual workflows or separate point tools. It weakens when the team pays for automation depth it does not use. Cost should therefore be measured against the number of recurring customer journeys the platform will automate and the operational effort saved—not only against another provider's base plan.

Cancellation and refund terms

ActiveCampaign's standard refund policy, last updated September 1, 2026, says the company does not provide partial or full refunds as a general policy. That is the baseline buyers should assume.

Separately, ActiveCampaign currently offers a 30-day money-back guarantee promotion for eligible first-time paid customers. The terms say qualifying customers must cancel within the specified 30-day period and submit a support request referencing the guarantee. ActiveCampaign reserves the right to end the promotion, and refunds under it are subject to the promotion terms. In other words, the 30-day guarantee is not the same thing as a permanent, unconditional refund policy.

Before an annual purchase, save the guarantee terms, confirm eligibility, note the cancellation deadline, and understand which charges are covered. If the account includes add-ons or usage-based services, ask whether those charges are refundable under the same promotion.

How ActiveCampaign pricing compares conceptually with alternatives

The current Toollers catalog includes several alternatives with different pricing philosophies. Omnisend, Benchmark, AWeber, and Gist have permanent free tiers for qualifying small accounts. GoHighLevel charges a higher flat platform fee but includes unlimited contacts and users in its core plans and is designed around agency sub-accounts. Those differences make headline-price comparisons dangerous.

If the business mainly sends newsletters, a simpler free or low-cost email platform can be economical. If it needs complex behavioral automation, ActiveCampaign's contact-based model may be worth paying for. If an agency wants CRM, websites, funnels, calling, scheduling, and many client accounts in one system, GoHighLevel's higher base price can represent a different kind of consolidation value. The right comparison is total workflow cost, not lowest monthly number.

Our pricing methodology and source limits

We checked ActiveCampaign's official pricing experience, FAQ, plan overview, trial documentation, automation documentation, refund policy, and money-back guarantee terms on 2026-10-02 UTC. We did not buy a subscription, enter payment details, negotiate an Enterprise quote, or receive a private sales proposal. We also did not mark Toollers' pricing verification workflow complete merely because we checked public sources.

The main unresolved pricing item is the exact annual equivalent for each 1,000-contact public plan on the current dynamic pricing page. ActiveCampaign confirms annual billing is discounted and charged as one yearly payment, but we did not find a stable public annual total for Starter, Plus, and Pro that we could responsibly hardcode. Buyers should confirm that figure at checkout.

More on ActiveCampaign

• Review
• Alternatives
• ActiveCampaign tool profile