Are you a business trying to find an email marketing service that will allow you to send personalized newsletters? Do you need to keep track of statistics for your clients and the messages you send out? If you are in the market for an email marketing service that offers these features, you’re in the right place!
ActiveCampaign (visit website) and Aweber (Visit Website) are both email marketing services that stand out in their field for how helpful they are. Instead of just being an email platform, these services allow you to create emails and newsletters, keep an eye on statistics, and even segment your customers for different marketing techniques.
Both these platforms have a wide variety of users. From companies using them for marketing and advertising and even freelancers keeping track of their work and clients, these services both cater to a wide audience. In fact nearly 90% of Aweber and ActiveCampaign users are small businesses.
Both ActiveCampaign and Aweber are made to work for small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and even professional bloggers. However, when we look at the statistics, at least 11% of ActiveCampaign users were companies with 51-200 members. Aweber served even more and even larger companies with as many as 15% of users being companies of over 1,000 employees.
Specs | ActiveCampaign | Aweber |
---|---|---|
Designed For | Bloggers, business owners and email marketers in need of a user-friendly email marketing and marketing automation system. | Bloggers, business owners and email marketers in need of a reliable email marketing and marketing automation platform. |
Email Marketing Automation | ||
Contacts | Plans start from 500 contacts, with pricing available on request for users with lists of 100,000+ contacts. | Up to 500 contacts on basic $19/month plan. Plans available for up to 25,000 subscribers per month, with custom quotes available for higher volume senders. |
Email Volume | Unlimited emails on all plans. | Unlimited emails on all plans. |
Users | Up to three users on Lite plan, 25 users on Small Business and unlimited users on Enterprise plan. | Not provided on AWeber website |
Email Courses | Unlimited autoresponder series on all plans. | Unlimited autoresponder series on all plans. |
Automation Rules | Unlimited automation funnels on all plans. | Unlimited automation features on all plans. |
Responsive Email Templates | A huge selection of responsive email templates are included, with a free design customization service for Plus and Enterprise level customers. | More than 700 responsive, customizable email templates are included. |
Email Split Testing | A/B email split testing is possible. | A/B email split testing is possible. |
Lead Scoring | Dynamic, customized lead scoring. | None |
SMS Marketing Automation | Automated SMS and subscription via SMS are available. | Automated SMS and voice messaging is available via the Call Loop integration. |
Direct Mail Automation | ActiveCampaign does not support direct mail automation, although integration with direct mail tools is possible using Zapier. | AWeber does not support direct mail automation. |
UI and Usability | Designed for non-technical users, with a clean UI and simple email/automation interface. | Simple but powerful UI designed for users with little or no technical expertise. |
Automation Workflow Builder | Automation workflow builder uses simple yes/no conditions and rules that users with no programmming experience can understand. | Simple automation workflow builder with drag-and-drop user interface. |
Email Course Builder | Drag-and-drop email builder with data-driven segmentation and useful campaign insights. | Creating autoresponders and email newsletters is quick and simple. |
Forms & Landing Pages | ||
Form Builder | Form builder with inline, floating box, modal pop-up and floating bar display modes. | Web form builder with 700+ responsive templates, custom color and A/B testing. |
Landing Page Builder | No landing page builder, although integrations are available for software like Instapage and LeadPages. | No landing page editor, however AWeber does integrate with landing page software such as Instapage and Leadpages. |
Landing Page Templates | No landing page templates, although templates are available for third-party software. | No landing page templates. |
WordPress Plugin | ActiveCampaign WordPress plugin lets you add contact forms to pages, posts and sidebars and add tracking to your WordPress website. | Several in-house and third party WordPress plugins for opt-in form creation. |
Integrations | More than 150 apps and integrations, ranging from scheduling tools to landing page software. | 100+ integrations with contest, data and analytics, landing page, membership, SMS, support and e-commerce software. |
Zapier Integration | Supported. | Supported. |
Pricing | Monthly fee, starting from $9 per month for up to 500 contacts. Pricing available on request for high-volume email marketers. Free 14 day trial available. | Monthly fee, starting from $19 per month for up to 500 subscribers. Free 30 day trial available. |
Minimum Contract Term | No minimum contract. Plans start from one month. | No minimum contract. All plans are month to month with cancellation at any time. |
Joining/Training Fee | No joining fee. | No joining fee. |
Refund/Guarantee | No full or partial refunds. | 30 day money-back guarantee. |
Support | Personalized support via phone, email and chat, as well as video walkthroughs, user community and one-on-one training. | Personalized support via email, phone and live chat, plus online knowledge base, free webinars and video tutorials. Live support available from 8AM-8PM ET Monday to Friday. |
ActiveCampaign vs. Aweber: Which of These Options Offer More Features?
The Winner: When it comes to features that will help you keep track of your business and clients, ActiveCampaign is the clear winner. ActiveCampaign offers a wider range of features regarding keeping track of statistics, customer history, and data than Aweber, totalling out to over 2 dozen extra features.
Both options offer a variety of choices when it comes to e-mail services. However, ActiveCampaign wins out by offering different notification services, keeping track of customer history, data importing and exporting options and more!
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign has a long list of features that it offers users. Features such as event tracking help you to keep track of when you need to send special newsletters out and customizable fields help you personalize forms and emails.
You can also use this service to keep track of your contacts and client. The basic plan offers you up to 500 contacts but larger plans can be purchased if you need more. You can also create unique and memorable emails with the templates that they offer.
In addition to this, you can send newsletters out to your contacts and even add ecommerce data and videos to your emails. This email service will also offer you social media monitoring as well as email monitoring. This allows you to be on top of everything you use.
Further features are available when you upgrade from their basic Lite plan to one of their higher level plans.
Aweber
Aweber also offers a wide variety of features. Although, there are less features than ActiveCampaign, you will still find that you can run your email marketing from it.
The main focus of Aweber is, of course, emailing and email marketing. You can use a drag and drop editor as well as HTML templates. This service also allows for email analytics as well as email marketing and campaigns analytic although, between the two options, ActiveCampaign does pull ahead in these analytical features.
Your newsletters and campaigns are bound to be more successful thanks to subscriber segmenting. This means that you can send bulk emails to the subscribers that it pertains to instead of blindly sending it to everyone.
Pros and Cons of ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is one of the top choices on the market for handling email marketing and automation in the workplace. Despite a few flaws, it is fantastically designed and even novice users have reported the ease of use they experienced.
Pros:
- ActiveCampaign is easy to use, even for new users without any sort of training. This is mostly due to the intuitive design of the website, pulling it ahead of competitors such as Salesforce Padot. It isn’t hard to locate what you need and commonly used tools are easy to find in a glance.
- The pricing of this tool is unintimidating as well. Since small businesses and large corporations have different needs, you can buy them accordingly. For a simple plan, you can pay as little as $9 a month but if you need a larger plan you can expand as you need.
- ActiveCampaign is also compatible with Zapier tools as well as a few of its own free extensions. Some of these extensions will even help you keep your workday in order without any extra cost.
Cons:
- Unfortunately, ActiveCampaign doesn’t have many extensions that are available for free with it, although it does have many different apps that work well with it. In other words, there isn’t any native integration available. So, if you extra features, you have to be willing to spend a little more on ActiveCampaign.
- The email builder in ActiveCampaign is functional and available, however, it isn’t as up-to-date as we would like, keeping a dated look that we would expect more out of a site designed in the early 2000s. While the site as a whole is rather intuitive, this particular aspect seems as though it has missed out on the updates that ActiveCampaign has run on the rest of the site.
Overall
Despite a few flaws, ActiveCampaign is an excellent choice. It is made for small businesses and solitary professionals such as bloggers and freelancers. As it happens, this target audience is exactly who it is best for although it can also cater to corporations’ needs for an extra fee.
This fee, of course, depends on how many other features you would like. A sliding scale on the website will help you determine exactly what you need and the cost of this.
Pros and Cons of Aweber
Pros:
- Aweber is easy to use even for new members. The layout of the software is rather straightforward, making it simple to locate the tools you need and to navigate your way around.
- In addition, it is easy to keep track of clients and subscribers. This is an absolutely crucial feature for any emailing service. You have to be able to see what is going on with your company. Luckily, with Aweber you can manage your contacts as well as market tracking and segmentation.
- In addition to functionality, there is also the matter of If anything will completely and immediately dissuade subscribers and companies from use of an email service it’s if the service doesn’t deliver the emails they need. Luckily, though, Aweber is dependable thanks to over 18 years devoted to improving their site.
- You can always access Aweber’s customer support. They are open for online and over-the-phone support 365 days a year, 4 PM – 8 PM EST Mondays through Fridays and from 9 AM to 5 PM EST on the weekends. Customers noted that Aweber was responsive and helpful to their questions when they called or emailed.
Cons:
- If there is one thing that is lacking with Aweber, it is the pricing options. Some platforms offer their services for free or – like ActiveCampaign – offer a sliding scale depending on what you need. However, in an industry that has a lot of different faces with a lot of different needs, they only offer one fixed price and plan of $19 a month for their services.
- In addition, you are limited to words and pictures. You can’t send any videos through Aweber in communication with your subscribers and clients.
Overall
Aweber is a good choice for email marketing and automation. Most of its downfalls begin with its features and plans. You get one-size-fits-all, therefore, it won’t fit everyone looking for an email marketing platform. Only if you are a light user or just need a very basic program, Aweber might be just what you need.
Aweber vs. ActiveCampaign: Compatibility
In today’s world, it is important to check the compatibility of the system you are using. This entails more than just the devices you can use these softwares with but the countries you can use it in as well.
Both Aweber and ActiveCampaign allow for use with the following devices.
- Windows
- Mac
- Web-based
- iPhone/iPad
- Android
However, Aweber goes a little further in what they are compatible with. Below are the extra compatibility features that Aweber allows use with.
- Windows mobile
- Linux
There is also a difference in the language compatibility that each system allows. Below, we have listed the languages that ActiveCampaign works with.
- USA
- UK
- Canada
- International use
Notice that ActiveCampaign in their guidelines allows for international use. Aweber, unfortunately doesn’t allow for international use but their compatible languages are listed below.
- USA
- UK
- Canada
- China
- Germany
- India
- Japan
Aweber or ActiveCampaign: Who Offers What You Need For What You Can Afford?
Both Aweber and ActiveCampaign offer a 30-day free trial for their services. In this time, you will be able to test their services and see if they are offering what you need. However, you do have to enter your credit card information, so remember to cancel this if you decide you don’t want to use one of these services after a month.
Aweber offers their services for around $19 a month. However, this can be broken up into quarterly or annual payments to meet your convenience.
This subscription offers you up to 500 subscribers and unlimited emails to them. In addition, you will have 24/7 access to their tech support and tools that will help you create emails, sign-up forms, and more important documents. You can even depend on their email automation to get emails sent out on time even if you forget.
The pricing for ActiveCampaign changes depends on how many contents you would like. For 500 contacts – to provide a direct comparison to Aweber – you will pay $9 a month. This basic, Lite plan includes unlimited sending, email marketing, sending newsletters, marketing automation, and chat & email support for up to 3 users.
For the same number of contacts, you can pay extra for Plus ($49) , Professional ($99), and Enterprise ($149) plans. These add the number of users you can use, site messaging, attribution, access to social data, custom mailserver domains, free design services, and more!
Between the two, you can save hundreds by choosing ActiveCampaign’s basic plan over Aweber. In addition, you will still get to use features you wouldn’t get with Aweber to track your customers and keep up with sales and e-commerce.
ActiveCampaign vs. Aweber: Whose Tech Support Can You Trust?
No matter what type of software you are using, you are probably going to need help from tech support eventually. So, it is important that you consider it in your purchase which service will help you more.
Luckily, both ActiveCampaign and Aweber offer users a variety of helpful options from training webinars to video guides and more!
- ActiveCampaign offers in-depth training and support as well as migration services to help you move data over to their service. There is also a Facebook page as well as a Slack group to connect users and create a community for them to share their experiences and advice, all of which appear to be well-moderated and reserved as helpful places for users to connect and get answers to their questions.
- Aweber also offers a knowledge base, webinars, and video tutorials to help users. The knowledge base helps to answer frequently asked questions by the Aweber community. Their video tutorials offer step-by-step guides to use different aspects this service while webinars are used to share expert tips with users.
ActiveCampaign vs. Aweber: The Verdict
Aweber and ActiveCampaign are both fantastic email marketing systems. However, as we have gone over, they aren’t equal in their creation and function. But which one is better?
From our analysis, most users will like ActiveCampaign more. Whether you are a small blogger or a business, you can adjust an ActiveCampaign plan to fit your needs and offers you an intuitive interface that is easy to understand at a glance. Unfortunately, these are features that Aweber lacks, making it fall slightly behind as a marketing tool.
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If you are a business owner or even the author of a small blog, you’ll find more value in using ActiveCampaign than from Aweber. It offers far more features to keep you organized and up to date on your subscribers as well as different marketing features to make sure your newsletters, emails, and messages are getting through and working effectively with your subscribers.
If you are new to using an email marketing campaign, you are going to get more use out of ActiveCampaign as well. This is thanks to its simple interface that is easy to learn your way around.
What Email Marketing System Do You Use?
Do you use Aweber or ActiveCampaign? Did we miss one of your favorite tools in this review?
Let us know which system you use, whether it is the above or something else and what you love so much about it! Leave a message in the comments and we’ll be sure to add them to our “to review” list so we can look at them in a future product guide.
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