Email marketing service platforms serve the purpose of helping you organize your mailing list of subscribers and send timely emails when necessary. Each email marketing service provider has different features to help its users.
Small businesses and freelancers benefit a lot from email marketing tools as they help them automate the process of mass mailing. They hence save on the cost of salaries of employees who would be needed otherwise.
In this article, we shall review two very popular email marketing tools. One is AWeber and the other is ActiveCampaign. Both these email marketing services are quite different from each other and serve purposes that are different.
We shall compare the features of email templates and autoresponders. These are the core of any email marketing system. We shall compare the pricing as well.
Active Campaign vs AWeber – Email Templates
ActiveCampaign features 40 modern looking and responsive templates. They let you modify layouts too. This adds to the template’s flexibility. There are also customization options. You can type in HTML if you’re good at it too.
ActiveCampaign has a neat and fast backend. They provide a great user experience. This email marketing services tool has a ton of different features yet it is simple. It has an excellent user interface when creating campaigns. You can check the previous steps and the next steps. This makes the process easy to review and fast.
AWeber provides you with a lot more template options. It comes with 700 templates. Out of these 150 templates are available in varying color schemes. The templates though are old-fashioned and impractical to use. Their design is outdated.
The editor lacks flexibility and feels clunky. For example, it is not possible to alter the number of columns to modify particular layouts. HTML is available.
Using AWeber can be a bit confusing. They lack a work-flow based visual navigation menu as ActiveCampaign.
Based on the template count offered by the email marketing platform alone, AWeber should win here. But it would be better if we can have less choice with a sleeker editor and better-looking templates. So ActiveCampaign wins in this area.
The templates of Activecampaign may not be as many as AWeber but they serve their purpose in a better manner. AWeber has to work on updating its template design and layout.
Active Campaign vs AWeber – Autoresponders
Autoresponders are the heart of any email marketing services platform. They enable users to send targeted emails automatically based on certain triggers in a pre-defined manner. You can set up an autoresponder to send emails to clients based on various criteria.
Say if you want to send an email to those who have just signed up to your website to welcome them you can do it using autoresponders. You can also send newsletters, information on the latest products, and news regarding discounts.
You can set up the autoresponder to send emails at a particular time to specific clients or after a certain number of days too based on the time, he/she has been active.
You can create a subscriber list and target a certain type of subscribers as well. Based on subscriber activity and interests you can send emails too.
Technically autoresponders are a type of marketing automation. Not all of the marketing automation software are equal in power, strength, and difficulty for setting them up. When you select a list, an autoresponder sends you a series of emails.
An autoresponder is excellent for managing subscribers and emails they receive. Every autoresponder can produce diverse email segments and trigger responses that are specific to certain actions.
Activecampaign controls the access of clients to various memberships or products they purchase. They also manage email subscribers and emails of the subscribers. Active campaign email marketing platform is one of the most cost-effective and flexible solutions for marketing automation available today.
Their system permits you to monitor registered visitors on the website. They adapt email marketing solutions based on the visitor’s interest and behavior. For example, say a registered user visits a recipe of how to make a curry on your cooking blog. You can send him an automated email of different recipes.
You could ask him/her to rate the recipes 3 days later. There are endless possibilities. Activecampaign has workflows that are visual which are easy to use and intuitive.
AWeber on the other hand has a bulletproof autoresponder system. AWeber’s automation is called campaigns. They are a new addition. AWeber is great for drip campaigns. Its autoresponder functions basically on subscriber lists created by the users.
You can apply tags to the users that subscribe to a list of yours. For example: “interested in mobile phones”. You can then segment your list for mailing accordingly. However, it is not an advanced system like ActiveCampaign.
Among the two in this area of functionality Activecampaign is the clear winner as it is the best automation system. AWeber has automation too, but they’re not as powerful as ActiveCampaign in any way.
Active Campaign vs AWeber – Pricing
AWeber’s pricing plans are better if you want it for the long term. AWeber’s pricing begins with a free trial of 30 days. After the first free month, AWeber’s price is $19 per month till you reach the 500 subscribers level.
ActiveCampaign does not have a free trial. It is $15 per month till you reach 500 subscribers. It appears as if ActiveCampaign cheaper at the start, but it is not so. AWeber gives a free month trial, so if your list grows to more than 500 contacts in four months, AWeber is cheaper.
The next plan for both ActiveCampaign and AWeber costs $29 per month but while AWeber keeps you on the same price until 2500 contacts, ActiveCampaign increases the cost of their next plan at 1000 contacts.
When you reach 1001 contacts, then you are still paying only $29 a month with AWeber but are paying $49 a month using ActiveCampaign.
It looks as if ActiveCampaign is being deceptive with their price offering to make it look like they are cheaper when they are not. The gap is a lot wider as the contact list that you have grows because then you’re paying for not an autoresponder only but a full-fledged marketing automation services solution.
- For 5000 contacts, ActiveCampaign is $89 a month. AWeber is $49 a month
- For 10,000 contacts, ActiveCampaign is $139 a month. AWeber is $69 a month.
- For 25,000 contacts, ActiveCampaign is $225 a month. AWeber is $149 a month and.
Here is another note about pricing: AWeber automatically makes an upgrade to your account after you reach the next threshold level. They begin charging you extra at that point.
ActiveCampaign makes use of some notifications when you hit 80% of your capacity at the dashboard telling you to upgrade your subscription plan to a higher-priced one.
However, in the case of AWeber, the number of subscribers can be a bloated number in most cases. AWeber is based on mailing subscribers based on an emailing list. Sometimes a subscriber may be present in one or more lists.
AWeber counts each subscriber in every list as a separate contract, irrespective of the fact if it is the same person. You will be charged for each contact in every list regardless of duplicates.
Even if a person unsubscribes from a list AWeber will continue charging you for the contact. This way of counting subscribers may seem unfair and pushes up the total number of subscribers. This makes you purchase a plan priced higher due to more subscriber count.
AWeber’s beginner’s plan is twice as costly as Active campaigns. But moving up tiers ActiveCamapign’s plans are not as lowly priced as AWeber’s.
What is Better – Active Campaign vs AWeber
The reasons for opting for AWeber and not ActiveCampaign are few. These include special registration forms that have videos or audio files and customer support. Comparing it with Activecampaign, AWeber is difficult to recommend. Their price is nearly or more expensive than the competition.
ActiveCamaign has one of the topmost solutions in reporting and automation. This makes them an extremely sophisticated solution to be considered for email marketing for your business.
As far as templates are concerned except for the factor of the total number of templates, Active campaign is the clear winner. Their templates are easy to use, intuitive, responsive, and modern. This is unlike the outdated templates of AWeber.
The autoresponder of AWeber is robust but ActiveCampaign features a full-fledged marketing automation system. Here too ActiveCampaign come on top.
Lastly, as far as pricing is concerned AWeber looks to be cheaper. But though ActiveCampaign is expensive, it comes with a ton of features too and is worth the price. You can check our detailed article on Sendlane vs AWeber.