ActiveCampaign vs Moosend Comparison 2026
ActiveCampaign gates automation behind a feature ladder: Starter is $15 a month with a five-action cap, and Plus at $49 is where branching opens up. Moosend puts automation, segmentation and landing pages on its single paid tier, Pro at $7 a month billed annually, and prices climb with subscriber count rather than features. Moosend has no permanent free plan, only a 30-day trial with no card. The trade is depth of CRM-linked branching against a flat, cheap tier that includes everything from day one.
Email automation with a CRM underneath it
Email marketing with automation on every plan
Why people weigh these two
- Moosend instead of ActiveCampaign
- Moosend puts automation on every plan rather than gating it above the entry tier, starting at $7 a month against ActiveCampaign's $15.
At a glance
- Moosend starts cheaper, at $7.
- Neither has a free tier.
- ActiveCampaign bills annually only, so there is no month to try it for.
Side by side
ActiveCampaign | Moosend | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $15 | From $7 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Paid subscription | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing (they differ) | Annual only | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | 30 days |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
ActiveCampaign
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.
Moosend
Email marketing with automation on every plan
Moosend puts automation, segmentation and landing pages on its single paid tier rather than staging them across four, so the price rises with list size instead of with features. Subscribers are the meter. A thirty-day trial runs without a card, which is longer than most of this category offers and long enough to migrate a list and actually send. There is no permanent free plan underneath it, so the trial is a deadline rather than a fallback.
Which one should you pick
Choose ActiveCampaign for a CRM-linked sequence that branches on a deal stage as well as a tag, and accept that Plus at $49 a month, not the $15 Starter, is where that branching actually opens up.
Choose Moosend if you want automation on the entry plan with no upgrade required, at Pro for $7 a month billed annually or $9 monthly. Take the 30-day trial seriously and migrate a real list during it, because there is no permanent free plan underneath Moosend once the trial ends.
Common questions
- Which is cheaper, ActiveCampaign or Moosend?
- Moosend, clearly. Pro starts at $7 a month billed annually with automation included, while ActiveCampaign's comparable tier is Plus at $49, since its $15 Starter caps automations at five actions.
- Does Moosend have a free plan?
- No, only a 30-day trial with no card required. ActiveCampaign has no free plan either; both are paid tools, though Moosend's trial gives 30 days to test before paying against ActiveCampaign's price from day one.
- Is Moosend's automation as deep as ActiveCampaign's?
- No. ActiveCampaign branches on behaviour, tags, custom fields or a deal stage several layers deep and keeps a CRM to back it. Moosend's case is that automation sits on the entry plan at all, not that it goes as deep.
- Which plan structure is simpler to understand?
- Moosend's, since one paid tier, Pro, carries every feature and the price moves only with subscriber count. ActiveCampaign spreads features across four tiers, Starter through Enterprise, and the automation you actually want sits behind Plus at $49 rather than the advertised $15.
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.