Starter
For your first email program.
$16USD / month
$192 billed yearly.
20,000 emails / month
Choose Starter- 5 brands · 3 seats
- 5 custom sending domains
- 500 email verifications/month
- $1.50 / 1,000 extra emails
Nitrosend is the best ActiveCampaign alternative for teams that run their email from AI, with the top score of 76.5 out of 100 and 9 out of 10 on the heaviest test, working from your AI assistant. Contacts are unlimited on every plan, so unsubscribed, bounced and rarely emailed contacts never reach the bill, which is exactly where ActiveCampaign's pricing now bites. To run it from AI, add Nitrosend's MCP server (api.nitrosend.com/mcp) to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex and sign in with OAuth. The assistant can then write a campaign in your brand's colors, fonts and voice, build the automated flow behind it, and send it once you approve it, without anyone opening a dashboard. It also costs the least here: $20 a month for 20,000 emails and $650 for a million emails on Scale including overage. Brevo comes next at 74, then Klaviyo at 64.
The ranking
Rank 1Nitrosend
76.5 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Emails sent
- Free plan
- 5,000 emails, then 500 a month
- Entry plan
- $20 a month, 20,000 emails
- Works from your AI assistant9 out of 10Official MCP server runs campaigns, flows and sends from the chat; campaigns and flows stay drafts until approved (MCP registry).
- Emails in your brand, no designer9 out of 10Brand Kit scans the site for colors, fonts and voice, and applies them to every draft on every plan (docs).
- Price8.5 out of 10Unlimited contacts on every plan. $20 a month for 20,000 emails and $650 for a million emails on Scale including overage (pricing).
- Free plan7 out of 105,000 emails to start, then 500 a month, unlimited contacts. New accounts start at 100 recipients per rolling 24 hours (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan9 out of 10Transactional and marketing email share one allowance and one API on every plan, Free included (pricing).
- Editor for building by hand6 out of 10A block builder exists for editing by hand, but it is plainer, because the agent is the main way in.
- Integrations, support and track record5 out of 10Shopify, Stripe, HubSpot, Attio and Mailchimp, five bring-your-own sending providers, a Node SDK, a CLI and signed webhooks for transactional email, but a young product from a small team (docs).
Nitrosend
Ask your agent for the next campaign
Connect Nitrosend to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex, point Brand Kit at your site, and describe the email. Contacts are unlimited on every plan.
Free: 5,000 emails to start, then 500 a month. No credit card.
Start free
Rank 2Brevo
74 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Emails sent
- Free plan
- 300 emails a day, 100,000 contacts
- Entry plan
- $9 a month, 5,000 emails
- Works from your AI assistant7 out of 10Official MCP server manages campaigns, contacts and templates, but lists no module for automations (Brevo developers).
- Emails in your brand, no designer7 out of 10Brand library fetches logo, colors, fonts and links from your site into the editor, not voice (Brevo help).
- Price6 out of 10Priced by emails sent. $69 a month for 20,000 on Standard, $32 on Starter without automation, and $999 for a million on Professional (pricing).
- Free plan8 out of 10300 emails a day, up to 100,000 contacts, transactional email included, free forever (Brevo help).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan9 out of 10Every plan, Free included, has transactional email by API and SMTP in the same volume (pricing FAQ).
- Editor for building by hand8 out of 10Drag-and-drop editor and templates, 4.5 of 5 across 2,722 reviews, Ease of Use the top tag (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record8 out of 10150+ integrations, SMS, WhatsApp and a CRM in one account, phone support on Professional (pricing).
Rank 3Klaviyo
64 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Active profiles
- Free plan
- 250 profiles, 500 emails a month
- Entry plan
- $20 a month, 500 profiles
- Works from your AI assistant8 out of 10Official remote MCP server with more than 300 tools, including
send_campaignandcreate_flow(Klaviyo developers). - Emails in your brand, no designer7 out of 10Brand library detects logos, colors, buttons and fonts from your site, but not voice (Klaviyo help).
- Price2 out of 10Billed by active profiles. $150 a month at 10,000, and 500,000 is by quote (pricing).
- Free plan4 out of 10250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, with email support for 60 days (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan6 out of 10Transactional runs as approved flow messages on the same plan, with each message reviewed by Klaviyo first (help).
- Editor for building by hand9 out of 10Mature editor and flow builder, 4.6 of 5 across 1,362 reviews, Ease of Use the top tag (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record9 out of 10400+ pre-built integrations, deep Shopify data, and SMS, WhatsApp and reviews in one account (Klaviyo).
Rank 4MailerLite
61.5 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Subscribers
- Free plan
- 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month
- Entry plan
- $12 a month, 500 subscribers
- Works from your AI assistant8 out of 10Official MCP server with
create_campaign,schedule_campaignandcreate_automationtools (MailerLite help). - Emails in your brand, no designer7 out of 10Brand styles pull logo, colors, fonts and links from your site's URL, but not voice (MailerLite help).
- Price3 out of 10Priced by subscribers. $89 a month at 10,000 on Comfort, and a quote above 200,000, where Comfort is $819 (pricing).
- Free plan5 out of 10250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, with 3 automations and knowledge base support (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan5 out of 10Transactional email is MailerSend, a separate product the pricing table links out to (pricing).
- Editor for building by hand8 out of 10Three editors on every plan, drag-and-drop included, and 4.6 of 5 across 1,113 reviews (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record7 out of 10100+ integrations, sites and landing pages built in, and 24/7 live chat on Power (pricing).
Rank 5HubSpot
55.5 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Marketing contacts
- Free plan
- 1,000 contacts and 2,000 sends a month, with HubSpot branding
- Entry plan
- Starter, $20 a month per seat with 1,000 marketing contacts
- Works from your AI assistant5 out of 10HubSpot's own remote MCP server can create and update marketing email drafts but cannot send or schedule them (HubSpot docs).
- Emails in your brand, no designer6 out of 10The brand kit holds logo, colors and fonts set by hand, and brand identity context crawls your domain for voice and tone (HubSpot help).
- Price2 out of 10Billed by marketing contacts in packs. About $410 a month at 10,000 on Starter, about $7,350 at 500,000 on Enterprise (catalog).
- Free plan5 out of 10Free tools hold up to 1,000 contacts and 2,000 email sends a month, with HubSpot branding and 2 users (catalog).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan5 out of 10Transactional email is a $600 a month add-on, sold only with Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise (catalog).
- Editor for building by hand8 out of 10Drag-and-drop email editor on every edition, with a template library that grows with the plan (catalog).
- Integrations, support and track record9 out of 10Over 2,000 apps and web services integrate, on a platform that also covers CRM, sales and service (pricing).
Rank 6Zoho Campaigns
54.5 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Contacts
- Free plan
- 2,000 contacts, 6,000 emails a month
- Entry plan
- Standard, $4 a month, 500 contacts
- Works from your AI assistant2 out of 10Zoho MCP now lists Campaigns as a live service but publishes no tool list for it, so sending a campaign from an agent is not documented (Zoho MCP).
- Emails in your brand, no designer4 out of 10Templates, drag-and-drop, HTML import and generative AI. No brand import from your website is described (pricing).
- Price6 out of 10Priced by contacts with unlimited emails. $49 a month at 10,000 on Standard, $1,380 at 500,000 on Professional (pricing).
- Free plan7 out of 10Forever free for 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan5 out of 10Transactional email is ZeptoMail, a separate Zoho product with its own account (ZeptoMail).
- Editor for building by hand7 out of 10Drag-and-drop editor and 120+ templates, 4.3 of 5 across 1,042 reviews (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record8 out of 10Native Zoho suite integrations, from CRM to Desk, and telephone support (pricing).
Rank 7Kit
52 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Subscribers
- Free plan
- Up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts
- Entry plan
- Creator, $39 a month at 1,000 subscribers
- Works from your AI assistant5 out of 10Official Kit MCP drafts broadcasts, but a send only fires when someone clicks Confirm inside the Kit app (Kit help).
- Emails in your brand, no designer4 out of 10Brand settings for name, colors, font, favicon and links are entered by hand, with no import from a website (Kit help).
- Price3 out of 10Priced by subscribers. Creator is $139 a month at 10,000, and the published slider stops at 400,000 subscribers, $2,299, with a demo request above that (pricing).
- Free plan9 out of 10Free for up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, but no automations, sequences or MCP (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan2 out of 10The pricing page lists no transactional email on any plan (pricing).
- Editor for building by hand7 out of 10A block-based editor with starting point, classic and HTML templates, and 4.4 of 5 across 236 reviews (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record7 out of 10100+ direct app integrations, a Kit App Store, and 24/7 email and chat support on paid plans (pricing).
How they compare
How each one scores
Scores out of 10, November 10, 2026| What we compared | Nitrosend | Brevo | Klaviyo | MailerLite | HubSpot | Zoho Campaigns | Kit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works from your AI assistant20 points | 9 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 2 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 |
| Emails in your brand, no designer10 points | 9 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 6 out of 10 | 4 out of 10 | 4 out of 10 |
| Price20 points | 8.5 out of 10 | 6 out of 10 | 2 out of 10 | 3 out of 10 | 2 out of 10 | 6 out of 10 | 3 out of 10 |
| Free plan10 points | 7 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 4 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 9 out of 10 |
| Receipts and newsletters on one plan10 points | 9 out of 10 | 9 out of 10 | 6 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 2 out of 10 |
| Editor for building by hand15 points | 6 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 9 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 |
| Integrations, support and track record15 points | 5 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 9 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 9 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 |
| Total scoreout of 100 | 76.5 out of 100,1st | 74 out of 100,2nd | 64 out of 100,3rd | 61.5 out of 100,4th | 55.5 out of 100,5th | 54.5 out of 100,6th | 52 out of 100,7th |
Here are the seven yes-or-no questions people usually ask before they move off ActiveCampaign. A tick means the platform does it, as described on its own pages today. A dash means the answer is not a clean yes or no.
7 services, side by side
Checked November 10, 2026QuestionNitrosendBrevoKlaviyoMailerLiteHubSpotZoho CampaignsKit
NitrosendBrevoKlaviyoMailerLiteHubSpotZoho CampaignsKitSend a campaign from the chatCan an agent send a marketing campaign without anyone opening the web app?Nitrosend: Yes.Brevo: Not a yes or no.Klaviyo: Yes.MailerLite: Yes.HubSpot: No.Zoho Campaigns: Not a yes or no.Kit: No.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes, through the MCP server. Campaigns stay drafts until approved. |
| Brevo | Not a yes or no. Its MCP server creates and manages email campaigns. Its docs list no module for automations. |
| Klaviyo | Yes. Yes. The official MCP server has a send_campaign tool. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes. Its MCP server can create and schedule campaigns. |
| HubSpot | No. No. The MCP server drafts marketing emails but HubSpot says sending is not supported. |
| Zoho Campaigns | Not a yes or no. Campaigns is live on Zoho MCP, with no published tool list. |
| Kit | No. No. The MCP drafts and schedules, but the send fires only after a Confirm click inside the Kit app. |
Official MCP serverIs there a first-party MCP server an AI assistant can connect to?Nitrosend: Yes.Brevo: Yes.Klaviyo: Yes.MailerLite: Yes.HubSpot: Yes.Zoho Campaigns: Yes.Kit: Yes.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes. Listed as com.nitrosend/nitrosend on the official MCP registry. |
| Brevo | Yes. Yes, remote-hosted, with 27 modules. |
| Klaviyo | Yes. Yes, remote-hosted, with more than 300 tools. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes. It can also build automations, with create_automation. |
| HubSpot | Yes. Yes. HubSpot runs its own remote MCP server, though it is not on the official MCP registry. |
| Zoho Campaigns | Yes. Yes. Campaigns is now a live service on Zoho MCP. |
| Kit | Yes. Yes. Kit hosts its own server at app.kit.com/mcp, on paid plans. It is not on the official MCP registry. |
Brand kit from your siteDoes it pick up your logo, colors and fonts from your website?Nitrosend: Yes.Brevo: Yes.Klaviyo: Yes.MailerLite: Yes.HubSpot: Not a yes or no.Zoho Campaigns: No.Kit: No.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes. Brand Kit reads colors, fonts and voice from your site. |
| Brevo | Yes. Yes. The brand library fetches logo, colors, fonts and links. |
| Klaviyo | Yes. Yes. The brand library detects logos, colors, buttons and fonts. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes. Brand styles pull logo, colors, fonts and links. |
| HubSpot | Not a yes or no. Voice and tone come from a site crawl. Logo, colors and fonts are entered by hand. |
| Zoho Campaigns | No. Not described. |
| Kit | No. No. Brand settings are entered by hand. |
Rarely emailed contacts are freeDo contacts you rarely email stop counting toward the bill?Nitrosend: Yes.Brevo: Yes.Klaviyo: No.MailerLite: No.HubSpot: Yes.Zoho Campaigns: No.Kit: No.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes. Contacts are unlimited on every plan. |
| Brevo | Yes. Yes. The bill follows emails sent. |
| Klaviyo | No. No. Every active profile counts toward the plan. |
| MailerLite | No. No. The plan is set by subscriber count. |
| HubSpot | Yes. Yes. Non-marketing contacts are free, up to 15 million total. |
| Zoho Campaigns | No. No. The plan is set by contact tier. |
| Kit | No. No. Paid plans are set by subscriber count. |
Transactional includedAre receipts and resets in the same plan as newsletters?Nitrosend: Yes.Brevo: Yes.Klaviyo: Not a yes or no.MailerLite: No.HubSpot: No.Zoho Campaigns: No.Kit: No.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes, on every plan including Free. |
| Brevo | Yes. Yes, on every plan including Free. |
| Klaviyo | Not a yes or no. Through approved, metric-triggered flows rather than a send call. |
| MailerLite | No. No. Transactional is MailerSend, a separate product. |
| HubSpot | No. No. It is a $600 a month add-on on Professional or Enterprise. |
| Zoho Campaigns | No. No. Transactional is ZeptoMail, a separate product. |
| Kit | No. No. No transactional email is listed on any plan. |
Free planIs there a free plan with no time limit?Nitrosend: Yes.Brevo: Yes.Klaviyo: Yes.MailerLite: Yes.HubSpot: Yes.Zoho Campaigns: Yes.Kit: Yes.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes. 5,000 emails to start, then 500 a month. |
| Brevo | Yes. Yes, 300 emails a day. |
| Klaviyo | Yes. Yes, up to 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes, with a cap on subscribers and on emails a month. |
| HubSpot | Yes. Yes. 1,000 contacts and 2,000 sends a month, with HubSpot branding. |
| Zoho Campaigns | Yes. Yes, up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month. |
| Kit | Yes. Yes. Up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts. |
Mature drag-and-drop editorIs there a polished visual editor for a person building by hand?Nitrosend: Not a yes or no.Brevo: Yes.Klaviyo: Yes.MailerLite: Yes.HubSpot: Yes.Zoho Campaigns: Yes.Kit: Not a yes or no.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Not a yes or no. A block builder exists. The agent is the main way in. |
| Brevo | Yes. Yes, with templates and a brand library. |
| Klaviyo | Yes. Yes, and reviewers rate it highly. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes, plus custom HTML and simple editors. |
| HubSpot | Yes. Yes, on every edition, with more templates on paid plans. |
| Zoho Campaigns | Yes. Yes, with 120+ templates on paid plans. |
| Kit | Not a yes or no. A block-based editor with templates, not free drag-and-drop. |
Yes answersOut of the questions that have a yes or no for that service6 of 6 yes for Nitrosend6 of 6 yes for Brevo5 of 6 yes for Klaviyo5 of 7 yes for MailerLite4 of 6 yes for HubSpot3 of 6 yes for Zoho Campaigns2 of 6 yes for Kit
At a glance
7 services, the same 7 tests, 100 points in all. In order: Nitrosend 76.5, Brevo 74, Klaviyo 64, MailerLite 61.5, HubSpot 55.5, Zoho Campaigns 54.5, Kit 52. Nitrosend has the best score on Works from your AI assistant, Emails in your brand, no designer, Price and Receipts and newsletters on one plan. Every price and feature was read on each company's own pages on November 10, 2026.
When another platform is the better pick
Nitrosend does not win every test. Read these before you choose it. And if you are on ActiveCampaign for multi-step branching against a real CRM record, nothing here matches that one thing, so negotiate the renewal before you move.
- Pick Brevo if you want most of ActiveCampaign's scope for less. Email, SMS, WhatsApp and a CRM sit in one account billed on emails sent, as Brevo's plan guide lays out. It scores higher on free plan, 8 to 7, and beats Nitrosend on editor and track record. Standard, with automation, is $69 a month for 20,000 emails.
- Pick Klaviyo if you run an online store. Store-triggered flows are deeper there than on ActiveCampaign, and it scores 9 on the editor and 9 on track record. It bills on active profiles, $150 a month at 10,000 on Klaviyo's pricing page.
- Pick HubSpot if the CRM was the reason you stayed. It has the full sales and marketing CRM, more than 2,000 connected apps and a 9 on track record. It is the most expensive here, about $410 a month at 10,000 marketing contacts on Starter.
- Pick MailerLite if you were only sending newsletters and a welcome sequence. Paying for a behavioral automation engine to do a simple job is the most expensive way to do it. MailerLite's editor scores 8 and Comfort is $89 a month at 10,000.
- Pick Zoho Campaigns if the decision is purely the invoice. It is $49 a month at 10,000 contacts with unlimited emails on Standard, and its free plan scores 7, level with Nitrosend.
- Pick Kit if you run a creator business. Its free plan holds 10,000 subscribers, a free plan score of 9, and it is built around publishing rather than pipelines.
Why people leave ActiveCampaign
Two changes, two years apart.
In mid-2024 a plan overhaul moved every existing customer onto new plans. The increase was said to be capped at 30%, customers widely reported bills 30 to 40% higher once add-ons were counted, and analysts put the total rise since June 2024 at roughly 40%, as Audienceful's account of the ActiveCampaign price increase sets out.
Then, from November 2025, new accounts began being charged for all contacts. ActiveCampaign's help center says that for accounts created on or after November 3, 2025, all contacts count toward the contact limit whatever their list status, while older accounts still count only active ones. So two businesses on the same plan with the same list can be billed on different definitions, and on a new account every unsubscribe and every bounce moves the list closer to its limit.
The limit matters more than the invoice suggests. Once an account reaches it, ActiveCampaign says campaigns will not send until you upgrade, and automations keep running but skip their "Send an email" steps, so a welcome series can go quiet without anyone touching it. Auto-upgrade avoids that by raising the plan for you. The other way out is to remove dead contacts, and the only way to stop paying for them without deleting them is to archive them: archived contacts are read-only, are deleted after a year, and the monthly archive limit sits around your contact limit, with anything beyond it reviewed by ActiveCampaign's compliance team. Contacts that have not opened or bought in a year drag on deliverability on any platform, which is why ActiveCampaign itself recommends an Expedited List Cleanup automation to remove unengaged contacts. On a per-contact plan they also cost money every month until you do.
The prices show the shape. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. On November 10, 2026 ActiveCampaign's pricing page showed Starter at $149 a month for 10,000 contacts, billed yearly, with automations capped at five actions each. No monthly price is published. Plus, with unlimited automation actions, is $189 billed yearly. Above 50,000 contacts every plan goes to sales.
In fairness to the product, the automation engine is good, and the reason people tolerate the price is that the flow logic does real work. That engine is also the part an AI assistant cannot reach. ActiveCampaign has its own MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT, and its published tool list covers contacts, lists, tags, deals and campaign messages, and it sends a prepared campaign once you approve its summary in the chat. Its automation tools, though, only list automations, check where a contact is in one, and add or remove a contact. None of them builds or edits an automation, so every flow is still drawn by hand in the app. The connection also needs ActiveCampaign branding switched on: with branding off, the Remote MCP Server section disappears from the Developer settings, which matters to agencies running white-labeled accounts. On Nitrosend the assistant builds the flow itself, with its trigger, waits and branches, and the flow waits for your approval before it goes live. The Nitrosend and ActiveCampaign head to head goes through the two line by line.
What each one costs in 2026
The platforms here charge in two ways. Nitrosend and Brevo charge by emails sent. The rest charge by the size of your list, the way ActiveCampaign does, and HubSpot bills marketing contacts in packs on top of seats. To compare them fairly, the table prices the same two lists on every platform: 10,000 contacts emailed twice a month, which is 20,000 emails, and 500,000 contacts emailed twice a month, which is a million.
What sending costs
List prices, USD, monthly, November 10, 2026| Service | 20,000 emails a month | 1,000,000 emails a month |
|---|---|---|
| Nitrosend (pricing page) | $20Starter, contacts unlimited | $650Scale, contacts unlimited, including overage |
| Brevo (pricing page) | $69Standard, the first plan with automation. Starter is $32 without it | $999Professional. Standard stops at 500,000 emails |
| Klaviyo (pricing page) | $150Email, 10,000 active profiles | Ask salesBy quote. The published slider stops at 150,000 profiles, $1,955 |
| MailerLite (pricing page) | $89Comfort, 10,000 subscribers | Ask salesEnterprise, by quote. Published tiers stop at 200,000, $819 on Comfort |
| HubSpot (pricing page) | $410Marketing Hub Starter, one seat plus 9,000 extra marketing contacts | $7,350Enterprise, billed annually, plus $7,000 onboarding |
| Zoho Campaigns (pricing page) | $49Standard, 10,000 contacts, unlimited emails | $1,380Professional. Standard stops at 100,000 contacts |
| Kit (pricing page) | $139Creator, the first plan with automations. Free covers 10,000 without them | Ask salesBy quote. The published slider stops at 400,000 subscribers, $2,299 |
At 20,000 emails a month Nitrosend is $20. Zoho Campaigns is $49, Brevo $69, MailerLite $89, Kit $139, Klaviyo $150 and HubSpot about $410. ActiveCampaign itself is $149 for the same list on Starter, billed yearly. ActiveCampaign publishes yearly billing only, so its price is the yearly rate per month.
At a million emails a month Nitrosend is $650. Brevo is $999, Zoho Campaigns $1,380 and HubSpot about $7,350 on Enterprise, billed annually. Klaviyo, MailerLite and Kit publish no price at that size, and neither does ActiveCampaign. What email marketing really costs has the wider math.
The bigger difference is what the $20 buys. Contacts are unlimited on every Nitrosend plan, receipts and password resets go out on the same allowance as your campaigns rather than through a second product, and your AI assistant builds and runs the flows. Count your real monthly sends before you compare, because on a per-send platform that number is the bill and on a per-contact platform it barely matters.
How we scored
Every platform gets a score out of 10 on the same seven tests. Each test is worth a set number of points, 100 in all. Working from your AI assistant and price are worth the most, 20 points each, because they decide what running email costs you in time and money. The editor and track record, where the older platforms are strongest, share 30 points, so a platform that is better there gets full credit for it.
Each test is a question with one answer per service, checked against the service's own pages on November 10, 2026. A 10 means it does the job fully on its normal plans. A 5 means it does part of it, or only on a higher plan or in a second product.
Works from your AI assistant, 20 points. Can an agent inside Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex compose a marketing campaign, test it, and send it, with no person opening the web app between the prompt and the send? An approval step the person answers in the chat counts as inside the agent. Moving into the web app to finish does not. Scored on one written rule for every vendor: a first-party server the vendor runs and that can send counts fully; a third-party wrapper (Zapier, Composio, Kanopi, community servers) counts for less; a server that only drafts or reads counts for less than one that sends.
Emails in your brand, no designer, 10 points. Does the product learn your logo, colors, fonts and voice from your own site and apply them to every email it drafts, on the plan most small teams start on?
Price, 20 points. What does email cost each month at 20,000 emails, a 10,000-contact list emailed twice, and at 1,000,000, a 500,000-contact list emailed twice? Scored on list prices in US dollars, paid monthly, at the cheapest plan that holds the contacts, covers the sends and includes automated emails such as a welcome series. Every ranking on this site uses the same fixed scale. At 20,000 emails, $20 or less scores 10, then $25 scores 9, $32 scores 8, $40 scores 7, $50 scores 6, $70 scores 5, $100 scores 4 and $140 scores 3. At 1,000,000, $500 or less scores 10, then $625, $800, $1,000, $1,250, $1,750, $2,500 and $3,500 step down the same way. Anything dearer, or a price given only by quote, scores 2. A free product scores 10. The score is the average of the two.
Free plan, 10 points. How far can a team get on the free plan before it has to pay: contacts, total sends, and the daily ceiling.
Receipts and newsletters on one plan, 10 points. Can receipts, password resets and newsletters go out from one account, on one bill, through one API?
Editor for building by hand, 15 points. For a person who wants to build the email themselves: how mature are the visual editor and the template library?
Integrations, support and track record, 15 points. How many tools does it plug into, what support comes with the plan, and how long has it been doing this at scale?
One thing is not scored: inbox placement. None of these platforms publishes a comparable deliverability number, so a score there would be a guess dressed up as a measurement.
Which ActiveCampaign alternative is cheapest for 10,000 contacts?
Nitrosend, at $20 a month if you send 20,000 emails, because it charges on emails rather than contacts. Of the platforms that bill by list size, Zoho Campaigns is cheapest at $49 a month against ActiveCampaign Starter's $149, billed yearly. Work out your real monthly send volume before you compare, because a 10,000-contact list emailed twice a month costs far less on a per-send platform than the same list emailed daily.
What happens to my automations when I leave ActiveCampaign?
They do not transfer. Every platform models triggers, conditions and waits differently, so flows are rebuilt rather than imported, and complex ActiveCampaign automations are the hardest thing in this category to rebuild anywhere else. ActiveCampaign's own automation share links only import into another ActiveCampaign account, and they carry the automation and its messages but not the lists, campaigns or deals it refers to. They never expire, so make one for each automation before you close the account: it is a free backup if you ever go back. Then export contacts and engagement history together, list the flows that earn money, and rebuild those first. On Nitrosend you can describe each one to your assistant, trigger, waits, conditions and emails, and it builds the flow for you to check and approve. Email automation workflows covers how to map one out before you rebuild it. If you already send through Mailgun or Amazon SES and want to keep that sending reputation or pricing, Nitrosend supports bring-your-own sending keys.
Rebuilding is also the moment to ask whether your automations should be rebuilt by you at all. George Hartley, Nitrosend's co-founder, described the job on SaaS Stories in September 2026 as one most existing marketing systems cannot hand to an agent: "look at our last two years of kind of how we've nurtured trial through to paid uh are our flows correct you know recut them all based on our kind of all the stuff you've learned from from looking at our sort of customer behavior ... you can't do that". If you are moving anyway, pick the platform where your agent can read the old flows' results and draft the new ones, and keep a person on the approve step.
Am I paying for unsubscribed contacts?
It depends when you opened the account. ActiveCampaign counts every contact toward the limit on accounts created on or after November 3, 2025, including unsubscribed, bounced and unconfirmed ones. Accounts opened before that date still count only active contacts. Archiving takes a contact out of the count, but an archived contact cannot be emailed or edited and is deleted after a year. Check which side of the line you are on before you compare quotes, because a quote built on the older definition will understate what a new account costs.
How to move off ActiveCampaign without hurting deliverability
- Export contacts, tags and engagement history together while the account is live. Tags carry your segments, and they are the part people forget. Make a share link for each automation at the same time, so the logic is on record once the account closes.
- Check the list before you import it anywhere. Old automation-heavy lists carry more dead addresses than people expect, and the email blacklist checker tells you what you have. Watch your email bounce rate on the first sends.
- Authenticate the new sender. Keep both senders in one SPF record during the overlap. The email authentication guide covers the records.
- Rebuild the two or three flows that earn money. Leave the rest until your sending reputation is established.
- Warm up rather than switching in one send. How to warm up an email domain has the ramp, and run an inbox placement test before the first large campaign.
The same method applies on Brevo's alternatives, Klaviyo's and MailerLite's.
ActiveCampaign alternatives FAQ
Nitrosend, with the top score in this review, 76.5 out of 100. Contacts are unlimited on every plan, it is $20 a month for 20,000 emails, and your AI assistant can write campaigns and build flows in your brand. Pick Brevo for multichannel marketing billed on emails sent, Klaviyo for a store, HubSpot if the CRM was the point, MailerLite if you only sent newsletters, Zoho Campaigns if the decision is purely price and Kit for creators.
Two changes. A mid-2024 plan overhaul moved existing customers onto new plans, with increases said to be capped at 30% and bills widely reported 30 to 40% higher once add-ons were counted. Then from November 2025 new accounts began being billed on all contacts, including unsubscribed, bounced and unconfirmed ones, which widens what counts toward the bill without changing the headline price.
Yes. ActiveCampaign itself has no free plan, only a 14-day trial. Kit is free to 10,000 subscribers without automations. Zoho Campaigns is free to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month. Brevo is free at 300 emails a day. HubSpot's free tools cover 1,000 contacts and 2,000 sends a month. MailerLite is free to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails. Nitrosend gives 5,000 emails to start, then 500 a month, with unlimited contacts and full API, MCP and CLI access.
None of them match it on multi-step branching against a CRM record. Brevo gets closest for general marketing automation, Klaviyo is deeper for store-triggered flows, and HubSpot is stronger on the CRM side. If that branching is the reason you are on ActiveCampaign, stay and negotiate the renewal.
For the email half, yes: campaigns, flows, segments, templates, contacts and transactional sending in one account, with unlimited contacts and an AI assistant able to run all of it. For the sales CRM, no. Nitrosend also does not do cold outreach yet: its Outreach feature is coming soon, and until it launches Nitrosend sends only to people who opted in. Plan for those separately if you need them.
Nitrosend, with 9 out of 10 on working from your AI assistant, the test worth the most points. Its official MCP server covers campaigns, flows, contacts, templates and domains, and campaigns and flows stay drafts until approved. Klaviyo and MailerLite score 8, because design still starts in their own editors. Brevo scores 7, as its MCP server lists no module for automations. Kit and HubSpot score 5, since both finish the send inside their web app. Zoho Campaigns scores 2, because Zoho MCP now lists Campaigns but publishes no tool list for it, so sending from an agent is not documented. ActiveCampaign's own MCP server manages contacts, lists, tags and deals, sends a campaign once you approve its summary in the chat, adds people to an automation, and, per its tool list, builds or edits one from a plain-language description.
Add Nitrosend as a connector in Claude, or run claude mcp add --transport http nitrosend https://api.nitrosend.com/mcp in Claude Code, and sign in with OAuth, so no API key is pasted anywhere. Point Brand Kit at your website so emails come out in your colors, fonts and voice. Then ask for what you want: import the contacts you exported from ActiveCampaign, write this month's newsletter, or rebuild the welcome series with a three-day wait. Campaigns and flows stay as drafts until you approve them, and the Nitrosend MCP docs list every tool the assistant can call.
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