We make Drry, one of the alternatives below, so read accordingly. The best ActiveCampaign alternatives in 2026 are Kit, MailerLite, Brevo, GoHighLevel and Systeme.io, with Drry as the option for coaches whose automations exist to move people through a course or a paid community. Most people who leave ActiveCampaign are not unhappy with what it can do. They are paying for a marketing-automation and CRM suite, priced by contact tier, to send a welcome sequence and a weekly email. The ActiveCampaign figures below are dated and sourced; other vendors are described by how they charge, because prices move, so check current terms before you commit, including ours.
Credit where it is due: ActiveCampaign's automation builder is one of the best ever made. Branching on almost anything, contact and lead scoring, site tracking, a sales CRM with pipelines, and integrations into most of the software a business runs on. If you have a sales team working deals, few tools match it. For the head-to-head against us specifically, see Drry vs ActiveCampaign.
Why do people leave ActiveCampaign?
The price and the weight, and the two are connected. The entry plan is $15/mo a month at 1,000 contacts billed annually, but it caps each automation at 5 actions, which is one short welcome sequence with a wait or two. The automations people actually buy it for start on Plus at $49/mo, and every plan steps up with your contact tier. SMS, WhatsApp and transactional email are add-ons on top. None of that is unfair for what it is; it is simply priced for a marketing team, and a lot of its customers are one person.
The other reason is time. An automation builder that can do anything asks you to decide everything, and a solo coach can spend a week building a nurture sequence that a simpler tool would have handed them as a template. If that sounds familiar, the question is not which tool has the most power, it is which one has enough.
Kit: automation for creators, minus the CRM
Kit, formerly ConvertKit, keeps the part of ActiveCampaign a creator uses (tags, sequences, visual automations) and drops the sales CRM. The automation builder is simpler, and for a newsletter-and-product business it is usually enough.
- Best for: creators and educators who automate around a newsletter and a few products.
- Pricing structure: a free plan with the full automation tools on the paid plans, which are priced by subscriber count, plus a per-transaction fee on its own commerce.
- What you give up: pipelines, deal tracking and lead scoring, and the depth of conditions ActiveCampaign can branch on. See Kit alternatives for where it stops.
MailerLite: the most for the least
MailerLite is the budget answer that does not feel like one: automations with conditions and delays, landing pages, forms, and a simple website builder, in an interface most people learn in an afternoon.
- Best for: small businesses that want real automation without a steep learning curve or a steep bill.
- Pricing structure: a free plan with a limited number of automations, then paid plans priced on subscribers and sending volume.
- What you give up: the CRM, the scoring, and advanced site tracking. Its automations cover the common journeys well and the unusual ones less so.
Brevo: automation, SMS and a CRM for less
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is the closest in shape to ActiveCampaign at a lower price: email, marketing automation, SMS and WhatsApp, and a sales CRM, under one login. The big structural difference is that its marketing plans are priced mainly on how many emails you send rather than on contact count.
- Best for: businesses that use the CRM and SMS side of ActiveCampaign and want to keep them, for less.
- Pricing structure: a free plan with a daily sending cap, then plans sized by monthly send volume, with features and channels priced on top.
- What you give up: some of the depth. The automation builder and reporting are good rather than ActiveCampaign-good, and a small list mailed often can cost more on a send-priced plan than on a contact-priced one.
GoHighLevel: more CRM, not less
If what you would miss is the CRM, and you run an agency or a team, GoHighLevel goes further than ActiveCampaign: pipelines, funnels, calendars, SMS and calls, and memberships, all resold to clients under your own brand. It is on this list for the minority who are leaving because ActiveCampaign is not enough.
- Best for: agencies and teams running marketing for several businesses or several offers.
- Pricing structure: agency-grade monthly plans with no free plan, and messages such as SMS and email billed as usage on top.
- What you give up: simplicity, entirely. It is a bigger system than the one you are leaving. Our GoHighLevel alternatives guide is the view from the other side.
Systeme.io: the whole funnel on one free plan
Systeme.io is for the ActiveCampaign customer who is also paying for a page builder, a course host and a checkout, and suspects the automations were only ever there to join those up. It puts funnels, email automation, online courses and communities in one place.
- Best for: solo businesses selling their own digital products through funnels.
- Pricing structure: a genuinely free plan, then flat monthly tiers, with 0% transaction fees stated on its own pricing page.
- What you give up: automation depth and the CRM. Its rules and workflows cover the funnel cases, not the branching logic ActiveCampaign is known for.
Drry: the automations a coach needs, where members live (ours)
Our product, so treat this as a pitch with numbers you can check. Drry is a paid-community platform for coaches with email and automations built in. It does not try to be a sales CRM. What it does differently is where a journey starts: from what people do inside your community, like joining, finishing a course, stalling halfway, going quiet or booking a call, because the community, the courses and the payments all live in the same place as the email. You start from ready-made journeys (welcome, lead-magnet delivery, win-back, event run-up) rather than a blank canvas. See Drry automations and email.
- Best for: coaches whose automations exist to onboard, nurture and keep members of a course or a paid community, and who are tired of wiring a checkout, a course host and an email tool together.
- Pricing structure: a free plan with no card (100 members, 500 contacts, 700 marketing sends a month, broadcasts but no automations), then Creator at $29 a month with automations (25,000 contacts, 60,000 sends) and Growth at $99 (no contact cap, 500,000 sends, email from your own domain). 0% of member payments on every plan, through your own Stripe account.
- What you give up: the CRM half of ActiveCampaign. No deal pipelines, no lead scoring, no SMS, no A/B testing, and no site tracking of pages outside Drry. If those run your business, stay where they are.
How do you choose an ActiveCampaign alternative?
When you move, export contacts with their tags and unsubscribe status, and rebuild automations by hand: no tool imports another's. Our guide to moving your email list to a new platform covers the export, and email automation for coaches covers which journeys to rebuild first. If the CRM is the part you would keep, our guide to a CRM for coaches is the better next read, and Mailchimp alternatives covers the simpler end of the market.
Questions coaches ask
What is a good alternative to ActiveCampaign?
For email automation without the CRM weight, Kit or MailerLite. For automation plus SMS and a simple sales pipeline at a lower price, Brevo. For an agency that genuinely needs the CRM, GoHighLevel. For a solo business that wants email, courses and checkout on one bill, Systeme.io. For a coach whose automations exist to move people through a course or a paid community, Drry (we make it, so weigh that). The right answer depends on which part of ActiveCampaign you actually use.
Is there a cheaper alternative to ActiveCampaign?
Yes, several, and the saving is usually real because most people leaving use a fraction of what they pay for. ActiveCampaign's Starter plan is $15/mo a month at 1,000 contacts billed annually, but it limits each automation to 5 actions, so real sequences need Plus at $49/mo, and both rise with your contact tier. Kit, MailerLite and Brevo all have free plans (MailerLite's includes a few automations), and Drry's free plan includes broadcasts with automations from $29 a month on Creator.
Does ActiveCampaign have a free plan?
No. It offers a 14-day trial with no credit card required, and then a paid plan. Every paid plan is priced by contact tier, so the bill steps up as your list grows past each tier.
What do I lose leaving ActiveCampaign?
Mostly the things a solo business rarely uses: deal pipelines and sales CRM, lead and contact scoring, site tracking, SMS and WhatsApp, and one of the deepest automation builders there is. If you run a sales team, those are the product and you should think hard before leaving. If you are one person emailing a list, they are what you are paying for and not touching.
Can Drry run the automations I built in ActiveCampaign?
Not by import: no tool imports another's automations, so every move means rebuilding them. Drry journeys start from things that happen in your own community (someone joins, finishes a course, goes quiet, books a call) or from a contact joining a list, then send emails with waits and branches. That covers welcome, lead-magnet delivery, nurture and win-back. It does not cover SMS, lead scoring or deal stages, and automations start on the $29 Creator plan.