Pipedrive vs ActiveCampaign

When it comes to choosing a CRM, Pipedrive and ActiveCampaign are two popular options. Each offering distinct features tailored to different business needs. Both platforms aim to enhance customer engagement and streamline operations, yet they serve varied priorities. In this blog post, we will explore the key features, pricing, and benefits of Pipedrive and ActiveCampaign, guiding you to determine which CRM aligns best with your organization’s goals. Additionally, we'll introduce folk. A popular alternative

What is Pipedrive?

Pipedrive is a web-based CRM for small businesses, offering lead management, automation, email integration, and customizable pipelines to optimize sales.

Key features of Pipedrive

• Lead and deal management: Centralized tools to manage customer data, interactions, and sales pipelines, helping teams act quickly on opportunities.
• Sales automation: Workflow automation to handle repetitive tasks, such as lead routing, follow-ups, and email sequences, allowing sales teams to focus on closing deals.
• Email integration: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Advanced reporting and analytics: Real-time data analytics and custom reporting tools to track sales performance, forecast revenue, and gain actionable insights.
• Customization and security: Options to customize pipelines, fields, and user permissions, with robust security measures to protect data.
  

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.

Pipedrive 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

Pipedrive offers a user-friendly Kanban-board interface that aligns closely with the traditional sales pipeline management process, making it intuitive for sales teams to visualize and manage their deals. This approach simplifies the tracking of sales activities and helps users focus on the most critical tasks at each stage. On the other hand, ActiveCampaign's sales pipeline management feature is seamlessly integrated with its CRM, allowing businesses to streamline their sales processes comprehensively. It provides users with the ability to visually manage deals through customizable pipelines, automate routine tasks such as follow-ups, and track every stage of the sales journey efficiently. This integration with the broader CRM system ensures that sales teams have a holistic view of their customer interactions, enhancing the ability to close deals faster. Both platforms offer robust solutions, but the choice between them may hinge on whether a business prioritizes a standalone pipeline tool or an integrated CRM approach.

2. Ease of use

Pipedrive is known for its intuitive interface, making it easy for users to navigate and manage their sales processes efficiently. ActiveCampaign, while offering robust features, may require a steeper learning curve due to its comprehensive suite of tools, particularly for those new to CRM systems.

3. Contact enrichment

Pipedrive's contact enrichment feature works by integrating with tools like Clay.com to pull additional information from external sources, automatically populating fields with relevant data such as job titles, company information, and social media profiles. ActiveCampaign does not appear to have a contact enrichment feature.

4. Outreach

Pipedrive's email builder is more geared towards campaigns such as newsletters, and more responsive email marketing campaigns. ActiveCampaign’s outreach capabilities are functional, offering email, SMS, and some social media tools for multi-channel communication. It allows businesses to segment their audiences and send personalized messages, while automations help manage follow-ups across different channels. However, the SMS functionality is quite basic.

5. Automation

Pipedrive's automation feature streamlines sales processes by automating repetitive tasks, such as data entry, follow-ups, and lead assignment. ActiveCampaign's automation features allow users to create workflows that automate tasks like sending emails, updating contact records, and triggering follow-up actions based on predefined conditions. These workflows can be set up using a visual drag-and-drop builder, and they support a range of triggers, such as contact behavior, form submissions, or sales pipeline changes.

6. Integration

Pipedrive offers over 300 integrations, allowing users to connect the CRM with various third-party tools across different categories, including marketing automation and email platforms. 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

Pipedrive integrates AI primarily through its Sales Assistant, which provides actionable insights and recommendations to optimize sales activities. ActiveCampaign integrates AI features to enhance various aspects of its platform, such as email marketing and automation. The AI-powered tools include predictive sending, which analyzes contact behavior to suggest the best time to send emails, and predictive content, which helps in optimizing subject lines and messaging.

Price and plans comparison

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

Pipedrive prices

Pipedrive offers two types of plans, both for their CRM product. It comes as either a monthly or an annual subscription basis. Their annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month.
• Advanced plan: Starts from $44 per user, per month.
• Professional plan: Starts from $64 per user, per month.
• Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month.

ActiveCampaign prices

ActiveCampaign's price plans are based on the number of contacts you have. The following plan  is based on 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 Pipedrive 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.

Pipedrive vs. ActiveCampaign: What's the verdict?

Both Pipedrive and ActiveCampaign offer robust CRM solutions with unique strengths. Pipedrive excels in lead management and sales automation, making it ideal for sales-driven teams. On the other hand, ActiveCampaign shines with its advanced email marketing and automation capabilities, catering well to marketing-focused businesses. However, for companies seeking a more personalized approach, folk emerges as a compelling alternative, offering flexibility and customization that traditional CRMs may lack. Experience the ease of use and tailored features with folk by trying it today for free.