If you’re looking to expand your growing business, CRM (customer relationship management) tools are perfect option. 

They offload most of the management tasks to automated tools that quickly sort and display ongoing processes and work demands in a straightforward manner. 

The marketing automation and customer retention figures that a single CRM tool can achieve often outcompete a human manager and become a worthwhile investment.

Among popular CRM tools, ActiveCampaign has proven time and time again to be one of the best software solutions on the market. It offers a solid pricing point for both small businesses and enterprises and has easy-to-learn automation tool suites that work well for most industries.

However, it can be challenging to find information on whether or not ActiveCampaign is the correct choice for you, or whether you should keep looking elsewhere.

We’ve compiled a list of features this CRM tool offers and some possible ActiveCampaing alternatives to investigate.

Introduction to ActiveCampaign

“ActiveCampaign gives you the email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM tools you need to create incredible customer experiences.”

ActiveCampaign Basics

ActiveCampaign promises to automate your email list and help improve the entire customer management experience from the start of client interaction to finish. It also helps to keep recurring customers happy and notify your teams of specific requests.

With powerful marketing automation at its disposal and a slew of additional options to choose from, it’s no wonder ActiveCampaign alternatives are hard to come by. It’s an all-in-one marketing platform that keeps on giving.

What’s Offered by ActiveCampaign?

• Email automation and design: ActiveCampaign offers unlimited emails and customization options to suit a variety of industries and commercial types.
• Some of the best marketing automation tools in the industry: pre-built workflows, customized workflows, over 22 contact triggers, campaign creator helper, auto-responder options including email and SMS.
• Customized website design, including landing page optimization and forms.
• Customizable features based on B2B, ecommerce, or digital business demands.
• Extensive integration: Connect CRM with some of the most popular online marketing tools as well as contact lists and calendar apps, including Google Analytics, Shopify, Facebook, WordPress, Pipedrive, and Unbounce. Over 300 possible integration options.

How Much Does ActiveCampaign Cost?

ActiveCampaign pricing depends on how many subscribers you (want to) have. The price of their packs will scale, starting at 1000 contacts. All plans include unlimited emails, and new businesses can easily upgrade their plan as their company grows and reaches new heights.

ActiveCampaign also offers a free 14-day trial for a prospective company to learn the dashboards’ ins and outs and decide to commit to a purchase or keep looking. However, users that lack experience with CRM tools might need more than that to keep going.

Alternative #1: monday.com

“Work OS: the visual platform that manages everything.“

Introduction to monday.com

Formerly known as dapulse, monday.com is a visually-guided CRM platform that aims to improve productivity, work organization, and collaboration between teams. Its modern design is straightforward and pays attention to the details while providing a broad overview of current tasks your departments are struggling to keep up with.

What’s Offered by monday.com?

• Sleek UI: monday.com is one of the most innovative CRM tool designs, with a focus on collaborative spreadsheets and colorful reports in eight different viewing modes. This includes calendar modes, map views, charts, and timelines.
• Collaboration: Team members can discuss any task that is in the spreadsheets, with a thorough conversational design.
• Marketing automation: You can customize tasks and set up automated tasks every time you need them.
• Scalability: monday.com works beautifully with both a small startup crew and an enterprise spanning dozens or hundreds of team members.
• Good integration: The Standard plan allows 250 actions with two integrated apps (out of over 50 available), and this limit increases for Pro and Enterprise plans.

How Much Does monday.com Cost?

This CRM tool scales its price based on how many seats, or team members, you have in the company. The smallest tier starts at three seats, so a solo entrepreneur might want to look elsewhere before he has a more established crew to use monday.com to the fullest and not pay a premium.

It’s also worth noting that the seat sizes are fixed (i.e. There is a 20 and a 25 sear category, but not 22), so businesses that don’t have exactly the number of workers required are essentially paying more per user.

Monday.com has a free 14-day trial to get acquainted with its marketing platform.

Alternative #2: Salesforce

“Bring your CRM to the future.”

Introduction to Salesforce

As one of the first major CRM platforms, Salesforce remains one of the most trusted companies to deliver efficient marketing automation tools with a vast array of options and integrations. With a constantly evolving design, Salesforce can sometimes be too overbearing for new users, owing to its extensive list of available products and services.

What’s Offered by Salesforce?

• CRM tools include live chat options, email feedback, email automation, and data-driven marketing tools.
• Separate sales, marketing, and service tools to tailor the CRM according to your company needs.
• Works for both small businesses and enterprises.
• Contact management and customer relation tools.
• Task management, creation, and automation.
• Social media and email integration and management.

How Much Does Salesforce Cost?

Salesforce can be an expensive piece of software for a small business, and its somewhat convoluted dashboard may require a significant effort to learn.

Salesforce offers a 30 day trial on some of their CRM software tools, so feel free to contact them and get a quote.

Alternative #3: Mailchimp

“Mailchimp helps small businesses do big things, with the right tools and guidance every step of the way.”

Introduction to Mailchimp

While it started purely as an email automation and campaign management tool, Mailchimp has since evolved into a full-fledged CRM software. It’s consistently ranked as one of the best marketing automation tools and can be considered one of the more affordable ActiveCampaign alternatives.

What’s Offered by Mailchimp?

• Has a free plan for small businesses.
• Fully customizable email campaigns and an extensive overview of email lists.
• Social media integration with a Facebook and Instagram ad-builder.
• Autoresponder notes for sales teams.
• Many email templates, increasing with advanced plans.
• CRM dashboard with easy-to-use reports
• A/B testing of website templates and designs
• Domain buying and hosting
• Website builder tools, including brand recognition guidance and landing page optimization
• Straightforward analytics and campaign management tools

How Much Does Mailchimp Cost?

Mailchimp scales its price based on your subscriber list. The most attractive inclusion is definitely the free plan, giving startups a chance to grow with various templates and basic CRM functionality. 

While Mailchimp is primarily a campaign manager, its expanded features make it well-versed in marketing automation and design.

Conclusion

While CRM software can be an essential part of any business, it’s important to find just the right one that will work for you. Our short list of ActiveCampaign alternatives can’t hope to cover the hundreds of possible options on the market.

If you want an excellent tool that has stood the test of time and is constantly evolving, Salesforce has some of the best marketing automation software suites you can dream of but, they come at a price.

On the other hand, Mailchimp has improved from a mere campaign manager to a self-contained CRM tool worthy of praise.

If you want a true CRM platform to help you with day-to-day work management, monday.com is the straightforward choice, trusted by many.