Updated March 2026

AWeber vs ActiveCampaign

AWeber is simple. ActiveCampaign is powerful. If you're comparing them, you're probably outgrowing AWeber's basic feature set and wondering whether ActiveCampaign's complexity is worth it. ActiveCampaign has 135+ automation triggers, a built-in CRM with deal pipelines, lead scoring, and 900+ integrations. AWeber has a solid email editor, landing pages, and 24/7 live support. At 1,000 contacts: AWeber costs $15/month, ActiveCampaign Starter costs $19/month — the gap is small. But ActiveCampaign's real power lives in the Plus ($49/month) and Professional ($79/month) plans. If you need automation and CRM, the upgrade is justified. If you send basic campaigns, AWeber costs less and is easier to manage.

Our pick: ActiveCampaign (7.4/10 vs 6.2/10)

ActiveCampaign wins 3 out of 6 categories. AWeber is better for: non-technical beginners who value phone support and simplicity above all else, and digital product sellers who want built-in payment processing on landing pages.

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AWeber

6.2/10

ActiveCampaign

7.4/10

2/5

Automation

5/5

3/5

Deliverability

4/5

Ease of Use

2/5

3/5

Templates & Design

2/5

Analytics

4/5

5/5

Customer Support

2/5

Pricing Comparison

AWeber

Free Plan

Paid plans from $15/mo

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ActiveCampaign

Paid plans from $19/mo

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Pros & Cons

AWeber

Customer support is consistently rated 4.5/5 on Capterra — 24/7 live chat and phone support (8AM-8PM EST). Phone support is rare in this space and genuinely valuable for non-technical users

Smart Designer auto-generates branded email templates from your website URL — enter your domain and it pulls your colours, fonts, and logo. Clever and genuinely time-saving for small businesses

Web push notifications built in — send browser notifications to re-engage visitors. Most email marketing competitors don't offer this at all

December 2024 price hike eliminated ALL grandfathered pricing and hit users with 50-150% increases. Real examples: users paying $29/month saw bills jump to $70+. One user with fewer than 1,000 subscribers went from legacy rate to $55/month overnight

Trustpilot rating of 2.5/5 with 33% one-star reviews — dominated by the price hike backlash and reports of list deletions in January 2025 shortly after the increase

Deliverability is mediocre — EmailToolTester ranked it 11th of 15 platforms at 83.1%. The claim of 'great deliverability' is outdated. MailerLite (94.41%) and ActiveCampaign (94.2%) significantly outperform it

Full AWeber review →

ActiveCampaign

Best-in-class automation builder with 135+ triggers and 750+ pre-built recipes — no other platform matches this depth (G2: 4.5/5 from 14,000+ reviews)

900+ integrations including 40+ new ones added in 2025 alone (Wix, Webflow, SOCi) — plays nicely with almost anything

Deep segmentation with new AI Segments Agent that lets you describe audiences in natural language

Aggressive price hikes documented at 20-100% for existing customers. Real examples: $588/yr to $1,800/yr; $1,400/mo to $2,800/mo; $2,000/yr to $7,800/yr

As of November 2025, now charges for ALL contacts including unsubscribed, bounced, and unconfirmed — same controversial practice as Mailchimp

Trustpilot rating of 2.8/5 from 1,358 reviews — billing complaints, cancellation horror stories, and users charged after cancelling

Full ActiveCampaign review →

The Bottom Line

Choose AWeber if: you want a tool that is best for non-technical beginners who value phone support and simplicity above all else, and digital product sellers who want built-in payment processing on landing pages. It scores highest in ease of use, customer support.

Choose ActiveCampaign if: you want a tool that is best for mid-sized businesses (1k-25k contacts) that actively use complex automation daily. It scores highest in automation, deliverability, analytics.

Transparency note: We earn affiliate commissions from some tools on this page. This never influences our scores. Our methodology