ActiveCampaign Vs HubSpot: Comparing the Features, Support & More

Introduction

The customer relationship management (CRM) software market has expanded rapidly in recent years, projected to reach over $128 billion by 2028. As businesses aim to better track sales opportunities and optimize interactions across every customer touchpoint, CRM platforms provide mission-critical support.

Among the leading CRM solutions, ActiveCampaign and HubSpot stand out for their versatility and user-friendly workflows suited to businesses of all sizes. Both integrate sales, marketing and automation capabilities into unified hubs to align teams around managing the complete customer lifecycle.

But between these two highly capable options, which CRM platform is best for your needs? By comparing their features across key areas and evaluating relative pros and cons, this guide will help you decide.

Methodology

To contrast ActiveCampaign and HubSpot‘s capabilities, I conducted hands-on trials using their core products – ActiveCampaign‘s Marketing Automation + CRM plan and HubSpot Sales Hub. Over several weeks, I evaluated the platforms across typical usage scenarios:

• Importing contacts and customer data
• Building customer segments and email lists
• Designing multi-channel marketing campaigns
• Creating sales reports and dashboards
• Setting up sales pipelines and forecasts
• Automating post-sale customer onboarding processes
• Tracking ROI and customer analytics

My analysis aims to provide an unbiased and comprehensive view of how the two platforms compare. Keep reading as I break down my key findings across crucial capability areas:

Automation: HubSpot Offers More Customization

When it comes to building automated workflows like drip campaigns, user onboarding sequences or transactional notifications, both ActiveCampaign and HubSpot give you an intuitive drag-and-drop workflow builder.

<div class="pros">
  <ul>
    <li>Intuitive workflow recipes</li>
    <li>Flexible drag and drop editor</li>  
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
  <ul>  
    <li>Fewer app integrations</li>
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="pros">
 <ul>
    <li>More advanced configuration</li>
    <li>Natively integrates more apps</li>
    <li>Supports HTML, JavaScript</li>
 </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
  <ul>
    <li>Slight learning curve</li>  
  </ul>
</div>

ActiveCampaign makes it particularly easy to get started for beginners, with helpful workflow recipes and sequences ready for you to customize. Their workflow editor is flexible too – allowing you to drag and drop actions to assemble complex automation logic.

Meanwhile, HubSpot takes a more structured approach to workflow creation. Although not quite as flexible, their editor gives advanced users more fine-grained control over details within each step. And HubSpot integrates with more third-party apps too – like Zoom, Salesforce and Microsoft Teams.

Both platforms also let you create segments and triggers based on user behavior. For example, you could target customers that abandoned their shopping cart or site visitors that clicked on certain pages. HubSpot also supports HTML and webhook triggers in its Operations Hub for developers that need to build custom functionality.

For most use-cases, ActiveCampaign should have you covered. But if you need maximum flexibility or app integrations, HubSpot edges ahead.

The Verdict

Automation Winner: Tie

ActiveCampaign – simpler and more intuitive for beginners.

HubSpot – advanced configuration for developers.

Reporting: Custom Reports Give HubSpot the Edge

<div class="pros">
  <ul>
    <li>In-depth standard reports </li>
    <li>Marketing revenue reporting</li>
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
  <ul>
    <li>Less customizable </li>  
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="pros">
  <ul>
    <li>Powerful custom report builder</li> 
    <li>Calculate lifetime value </li>
    <li>Share reports externally</li>
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
  <ul>
    <li>Steeper learning curve</li> 
  </ul>
</div>

When it comes to reporting and analytics, HubSpot pulls ahead thanks to its powerful custom report builder. Although ActiveCampaign also provides comprehensive reporting on all aspects of your data, HubSpot makes it simple to dive deeper.

With a few clicks, you can create pivot tables, charts and custom dashboards filtered by specific parameters (e.g client location, deal size, completion date etc). These custom reports can then be shared across your organization or embedded live into other apps.

HubSpot also calculates lifetime customer value and tracks the ROI of individual campaigns. So you can clearly see which efforts deliver the highest returns. While a marketer‘s dream, HubSpot‘s advanced reporting capabilities do add some initial complexity. ActiveCampaign is simpler for users just needing standard reports.

The Verdict

Reporting Winner: HubSpot

HubSpot has best-in-class custom reporting. ActiveCampaign provides all the essentials.

Pipeline Management: ActiveCampaign is More Flexible

<div class="pros">
 <ul>
    <li>Unlimited pipelines </li> 
    <li>Flexible layouts</li>
    <li>Custom fields and roles</li>   
 </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
  <ul>
    <li>Slightly steeper learning curve</li>  
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="pros">
  <ul>
    <li>Easier to initially set up</li>  
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
 <ul>
    <li>Limits pipeline number</li> 
    <li>Less flexible interface</li>
 </ul>
</div>

To track your team‘s sales processes, both ActiveCampaign and HubSpot offer sales pipeline management with customizable stages to visualize deals progressing towards closure.

However, ActiveCampaign gives you unlimited pipelines with more flexibility over layouts. You can freely drag and drop stages, tweak colors or make bulk changes from an intuitive kanban-style interface. HubSpot limits you to 1-2 pipelines on entry-level plans.

As your processes get more advanced, ActiveCampaign also makes it easier to define custom roles (e.g decision makers, influencers) and activity types (e.g requirements gathering, contract negotiation etc). Although HubSpot catches up at higher pricing tiers.

For sales teams that rely heavily on visual pipeline management, ActiveCampaign is the preferable choice.

The Verdict

Pipeline Management Winner: ActiveCampaign

More flexible interface with no limits on pipelines or views.

CMS Capabilities: HubSpot Rules

<div class="pros">
  <ul>
    <li>Intuitive landing page editor </li>
    <li>Great form builder </li>
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
  <ul>
    <li>Limited content types</li>  
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="pros">
 <ul>
    <li>Robust website hosting</li> 
    <li>Social media management </li>
    <li>SEO and blogging</li>
    <li>Webinars</li>  
 </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
  <ul>
    <li>CMS learning curve</li>
  </ul>
</div>

Both platforms provide built-in content management system (CMS) functionality – helping you create landing pages, forms and basic websites without any coding.

However, HubSpot‘s CMS completely outpaces ActiveCampaign here. Expanding far beyond simple page and form builders, HubSpot gives you an integrated solution to:

• Design professional websites and blogs
• Manage social media post schedules
• Create gated content offers
• Build popups, banners and calls-to-action
• Run ad campaigns and host webinars

While perfect for simple capture forms, ActiveCampaign can‘t compete with the breadth of marketing content you can produce using HubSpot‘s CMS.

The Verdict

CMS Winner: HubSpot

HubSpot provides an all-in-one digital experience platform.

Support & Onboarding: ActiveCampaign Takes The Cake

<div class="pros">
  <ul>
    <li>Free data migration</li> 
    <li>Onboarding specialists</li>
    <li>Email design services </li> 
    <li>1-on-1 expert training</li>  
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
</div>

<div class="pros">
  <ul>
    <li>Wealth of online resources</li>
    <li>24/7 live chat support</li>
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
  <ul>  
    <li>Add-on costs for data migration and design</li>
  </ul>
</div>

When investing in premium software, superior support service and onboarding should be a given. And ActiveCampaign pulls ahead of HubSpot by baking training, data migration and expert design help into all its paid plans.

For starters, even mid-tier ActiveCampaign accounts get access to:

• Free 1-on-1 data migration from existing CRM platforms during onboarding
• Email template design services to polish your campaigns
• Access to in-person product workshops and training events

With HubSpot, extras like data migration, custom email template design and live product training all require additional payments starting at several hundred dollars per service.

For growing businesses without big budgets, ActiveCampaign delivers premium software and premium support.

The Verdict

Support & Onboarding Winner: ActiveCampaign

Bakes training and expert services into plans at no added cost.

Evaluating CRM Market Trends

As businesses aim to unify sales and marketing systems into end-to-end customer experience platforms, larger technology shifts are also impacting the CRM software landscape – including:

• Accelerating adoption of cloud-based SaaS delivery models
• Rising demand for mobile optimization and access
• Emergence of AI-powered predictive analytics
• Expectations for embedded business intelligence
• Ongoing CRM and email deliverability challenges

As relative newcomers compared to enterprise incumbents like Salesforce, both ActiveCampaign and HubSpot are well positioned in the market. With cloud-native infrastructure, mobile optimization and AI/analytics capabilities baked in.

However, scaling CRM user bases from thousands to millions of customers surface new demands. In response, consolidation trends see independent vendors acquired by larger platforms – evidenced by ActiveCampaign‘s 2022 purchases of video platform Collage and email delivery provider Postmark.

So while both vendors seem focused on retainingCRM solution independence today, future buy-out pressures can‘t be ignored when investing in platforms long-term.

Final Recommendation

As capable, user-friendly CRM platforms serving growing businesses across all industries, ActiveCampaign and HubSpot each have clear strengths:

<div class="pros">
  <ul>
    <li>Lower cost of ownership </li>
    <li>Intuitive interface</li>
    <li>Great bundled support</li>  
  </ul>
</div> 

<div class="cons">
  <ul>
    <li>Less configurable</li>
    <li>Fewer ecosystem integrations </li>    
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="pros">
 <ul>
    <li>Deeper analytics and reporting</li> 
    <li>More marketing tools</li>
    <li>Developer-friendly</li>
 </ul>
</div>

<div class="cons">
  <ul>
    <li>Steeper learning curve</li> 
    <li>More complex pricing</li>  
  </ul>
</div> 

Weighing up their relative pros and cons, HubSpot carries an advantage for established businesses ready to invest in unlocking custom integrations, maximizing marketing ROI and building their perfect CRM ecosystem.

ActiveCampaign hits the sweet spot for growing companies focused on intuitive workflows, flexible sales management and integrated expert training without the premium price tag.

Ultimately both platforms make it easier for modern businesses to manage customer relationships amid rapidly accelerating demands. We encourage evaluating your specific needs today – and reassessing regularly amid an ever-evolving CRM landscape sure to see new leaders enter and exit over the coming years.