ActiveCampaign vs Omnisend Comparison 2026
ActiveCampaign builds branching automation deep enough to run a whole sales sequence, with a CRM attached, from $15 a month billed annually at 1,000 contacts, though the cheapest tier caps automations at five actions and Plus at $49 is the real starting point. Omnisend is built around a shop rather than a sequence: cart recovery, product blocks in the email and SMS on the same flow, free for 500 emails a month and $11.20 after that. The decision is whether the automation needs to branch on behavior and deals, or needs to know what is sitting in a cart.
Email automation with a CRM underneath it
Email and SMS for people selling products
At a glance
- Omnisend starts cheaper, at $11.20.
- Only Omnisend has a free tier.
- ActiveCampaign bills annually only, so there is no month to try it for.
Side by side
ActiveCampaign | Omnisend | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $15 | From $11.20 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing (they differ) | Annual only | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | None |
| API |
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.
Omnisend
Email and SMS for people selling products
Omnisend is built around a shop rather than a newsletter: abandoned-cart flows, product recommendations in the email, and SMS on the same automation. For a creator selling merch or digital products through Shopify it does the job that a general email tool leaves to plugins. The free plan is 500 emails a month, which is a test rather than a starting point.
Why people weigh these two
- Omnisend instead of ActiveCampaign
- Omnisend pairs email with SMS from $11 and a free tier, built for people selling products rather than for a CRM underneath the automation.
- ActiveCampaign instead of Omnisend
- ActiveCampaign adds a CRM underneath the automation, tracking a contact as a person rather than an order, though it carries no free tier at all.
Which one should you pick
Pick ActiveCampaign if a sequence has to branch on tags, behavior or a deal stage, and having a subscriber record double as a CRM entry is useful to you. Budget for Plus at $49 a month rather than the $15 Starter tier: five actions per automation is not enough to use the branching logic that is the reason to choose this over a newsletter tool.
Pick Omnisend if what you are automating is a store: abandoned carts, product recommendations and SMS on one flow. The free plan covers 500 emails and 250 contacts at no cost, and paid plans start at $11.20 a month, a fraction of what ActiveCampaign's usable tier costs. None of that fires without a connected store, so a newsletter with nothing to sell gets little from it.
Common questions
- Is ActiveCampaign's cheapest plan actually usable?
- Not for what it is bought for. Starter is $15 a month at 1,000 contacts but caps automations at five actions, too few for real branching logic, so Plus at $49 a month is the tier worth budgeting for. Omnisend has no equivalent trap: its $11.20 entry tier runs its ecommerce flows in full.
- Does Omnisend work without an online store?
- Its automations are built around one: abandoned cart, browse abandonment and post-purchase flows all assume a connected shop. A creator writing a newsletter with nothing to sell will not trigger most of what the plan pays for, and ActiveCampaign's behavior-based automation fits that case better.
- Which one is cheaper to start?
- Omnisend, clearly. Its free plan covers 500 emails and 250 contacts at no cost, and paid plans start at $11.20 a month. ActiveCampaign's real entry point, Plus, is $49 a month billed annually, since the $15 Starter tier cannot run the automations ActiveCampaign is chosen for.
- Does Omnisend send SMS as well as email?
- Yes, on the same automation as the email flow, with SMS credits priced separately from $0.007 a message. That is a channel built specifically for a store; ActiveCampaign's strength is branching email and on-site behavior tracking rather than texting.
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.