Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover email marketing & automation. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| ActiveCampaign | EmailOctopus | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $15 | From $9 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Billing | Annual only | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Not stated | Web |
| Covers | Email Marketing & Automation | Email Marketing & Automation, Newsletter & Email |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Email automation with a CRM underneath it
ActiveCampaign is what people move to when the sequences outgrow a newsletter tool, and its conditional logic goes deeper than anything at this price. The CRM underneath means a sponsor conversation and a subscriber record are the same object. It takes a weekend to learn, and the cheapest plan caps automations at five actions, which is not enough to try the thing it is good at.
Our note
Budget for Plus rather than Starter. The five-action cap on the cheapest plan blocks exactly the branching logic that justifies choosing ActiveCampaign over a newsletter tool, and discovering that after migrating a list is a bad afternoon.
Email for lists that outgrew a free plan
EmailOctopus is deliberately plain: lists, campaigns, a drag-and-drop editor and simple automations, at a price that undercuts the platforms with more features than a newsletter needs. The free tier goes to 2,500 subscribers with the company's branding on every send. Reports only go back 30 days until you pay, which is the free plan's real limit rather than the subscriber count.
Our note
Against MailerLite this comes down to the free tier: 2,500 subscribers here against 1,000 there, with fewer features in return. Start here if the list is the thing growing and the automations can wait.
Only on this side
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.