HubSpot vs ActiveCampaign

Choosing the right CRM platform is crucial for any business aiming to enhance customer relationships and streamline operations. HubSpot and ActiveCampaign are two popular options. Each offering distinct features and benefits tailored to different business needs. In this blog post, we'll explore both these platforms, focusing on their key functionalities, pricing structures, and overall value. Whether you're a small business looking for basic CRM capabilities or a larger enterprise in need of advanced features, this guide will help you make an informed decision. Additionally, we'll explore folk as a popular alternative.

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot CRM is a user-friendly, scalable platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations efficiently.

Key features of HubSpot

• Marketing hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools.
• Sales hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting.
• Service hub: Offers customer service tools like ticketing, live chat, and knowledge bases.
• Operations hub: Syncs and automates business processes across different systems.
• Lead scoring: Prioritize leads with predictive scoring to improve sales efficiency.

What is ActiveCampaign?

Active Campaign is a marketing automation platform designed to help businesses of all sizes manage customer interactions and drive growth through personalized and automated communication.

Key features of ActiveCampaign

• Email marketing: Create personalized email campaigns with drag-and-drop templates, advanced segmentation, and automated sequences to engage your audience effectively.
• Marketing automation: Automate workflows for email, SMS, and site messages, based on user behavior and custom triggers, enhancing customer engagement and retention.
• Sales automation: Integrates a CRM with automation tools to streamline the sales process, track leads, manage deals, and automate follow-ups.
• CRM feature: Sales focused CRM to track and manage processes using automation.

HubSpot vs. ActiveCampaign: Feature Comparison

Let's break down the key features of two CRM software solutions and take a closer look at their sales automation, email marketing tools, and contact management.

1. Sales pipeline management

HubSpot's pipeline management feature provides a visual overview of deals, allowing users to track the progress of sales opportunities, customize stages, and automate tasks for a more efficient sales process. ActiveCampaign's sales pipeline management feature is integrated with its CRM, enabling businesses to streamline their sales processes. It allows users to visually manage deals through customizable pipelines, automate tasks like follow-ups, and track every stage of the sales journey.

2. Easy of use

HubSpot is renowned for its intuitive interface, making it easy for users to navigate and manage their CRM tasks efficiently. ActiveCampaign, while user-friendly, may require a steeper learning curve for those unfamiliar with its robust features.

3. Contact enrichment

HubSpot's Breeze Intelligence streamlines data collection by automatically populating known information, enhancing the contact enrichment process. This feature simplifies form submissions and ensures that user data is consistently updated and accurate. ActiveCampaign does not appear to have a contact enrichment feature.

4. Outreach

HubSpot's email marketing tool offers a drag-and-drop method for building campaigns, A/B testing, and personalization. ActiveCampaign supports multi-channel communication with email, SMS, and social media tools, allowing audience segmentation and personalized messaging, though its SMS functionality is basic.

5. Automation

HubSpot provides robust automation for marketing, sales, and customer service, automating tasks like lead nurturing and follow-ups. ActiveCampaign's visual drag-and-drop builder allows users to create workflows for automating tasks based on triggers such as contact behavior and sales pipeline changes.

6. Integration

HubSpot's App Marketplace offers over 1,500 integrations, ensuring a wide range of tools can seamlessly connect with its CRM platform, enhancing its functionality and adaptability. ActiveCampaign offers a wide range of integrations with over 900 third-party applications, allowing users to connect the platform with tools like Shopify, WordPress, Salesforce, and Google Analytics.

7. Artificial Intelligence

HubSpot uses AI to optimize sales and marketing by automating data entry, lead scoring, and email personalization. ActiveCampaign's AI features, like predictive sending and content optimization, enhance email marketing and automation, suggesting optimal times and messaging for engagement.

Price and plans comparison

Let's take a closer look at the price and plans of both HubSpot and ActiveCampaign.

HubSpot prices

Prices and plans on the CRM suite for an annual subscription are as follows.

• Starter: $20 per user, per month.
• Professional: $100 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $150 per user, per month.

ActiveCampaign prices

ActiveCampaign's price plans are based on the number of contacts you have. The following is based on a plan for 1,000 contacts.

• Starter: Starting from $15/month.
• Plus: Starting from $49/month.
• Pro: Starting from $79/month.
• Enterprise: Starting from $145/month.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to HubSpot and ActiveCampaign

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. A multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system.

Key features

• Ease of use and customization: Easily customize the pipelines, dashboards, automation, email sequences, so that you can use it across your sales cycle and pipeline management – and other business functions such as recruitment, marketing, and more.
• Social media integration: Import people and companies from LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Instagram, and X within a click thanks to folk’s Google Chrome extension.
• Contact sync from Gmail and Outlook: Full email sync enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Find email addresses in a click: Contact enrichment powered by Apollo, and Dropcontact so you can fill in missing data points with 1-click.
• Email sequences: Send email sequences with reminders if your leads don’t reply to your first emails. It includes an AI integration allowing you to personalize email at scale.
• Notes and reminders: Attach notes directly to a contact's profile in folk, and access them on the go. And assign reminders so you know exactly when to follow-up.

Price and plans

folk has a 14-day free trial. After that, there are affordable monthly or annual subscription plans. The annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $80 per user, per month.

HubSpot vs. ActiveCampaign: What's the verdict?

Between HubSpot and ActiveCampaign, it's clear that both platforms offer robust CRM solutions with unique strengths. HubSpot excels in its comprehensive suite of integrated tools across marketing, sales, and service, making it ideal for businesses seeking an all-in-one approach. ActiveCampaign stands out with its powerful automation capabilities, perfect for companies focusing on personalized customer engagement. However, for companies that need a more personalized approach to relationship management, folk provides a flexible alternative to these traditional CRM options, blending ease of use with customization. Try folk today, free