ActiveCampaign vs HubSpot for Email Marketing 2026: The $875/Month Question

ActiveCampaign wins for email marketing. Here’s why, with the numbers to prove it.

If your primary need is sending emails, building automated sequences, and growing a subscriber list, ActiveCampaign delivers at $15-79/month what HubSpot charges $890/month for. The automation builders are comparable, and ActiveCampaign’s is arguably better for email-specific workflows. The price gap is not.

This isn’t a close call. It’s a $875/month difference for overlapping capability. The rest of this article explains exactly where that gap comes from, the one scenario where HubSpot earns its premium, and why HubSpot’s free tier is a legitimate option for a very specific use case.

The price gap, visualized

Capability	ActiveCampaign	HubSpot
Basic email sends	Starter: $15/mo	Free: $0
Email automation	Starter: $15/mo	Professional: $890/mo
A/B testing	Starter: $15/mo	Professional: $890/mo
Advanced automation + CRM	Plus: $49/mo	Professional: $890/mo
Predictive sending	Pro: $79/mo	Professional: $890/mo
Mandatory onboarding fee	$0	$3,000

Read that table again. ActiveCampaign includes email automation and A/B testing on its cheapest paid plan. HubSpot locks those behind a plan that costs 59x more.

ActiveCampaign pricing for email

ActiveCampaign prices by contacts and feature tier. All plans include unlimited email sends.

Plan	1K contacts	5K contacts	10K contacts	25K contacts
Starter	$15/mo	$49/mo	$139/mo	$259/mo
Plus	$49/mo	$99/mo	$189/mo	$389/mo
Pro	$79/mo	$149/mo	$289/mo	$489/mo

Starter ($15/mo) includes: email marketing, marketing automation with visual builder, inline forms, site tracking, segmentation, A/B testing for emails, 900+ integrations, and API access.

Plus ($49/mo) adds: CRM with sales automation, landing pages, lead scoring, SMS marketing, and custom branded forms.

Pro ($79/mo) adds: predictive sending (AI-timed delivery), split automations, attribution reporting, and site messages.

The Starter plan alone covers what most businesses need for email marketing. The automation builder isn’t a stripped-down version; it’s the same visual workflow editor across all tiers.

HubSpot pricing for email

HubSpot’s email marketing lives inside Marketing Hub. The pricing structure is built around the full marketing platform, not email alone.

Plan	Price	Email sends	Automation	A/B testing
Free	$0	2,000/mo	No	No
Starter	$20/seat/mo	5x contacts	Simple only	No
Professional	$890/mo + $3K onboarding	10x contacts	Full workflows	Yes
Enterprise	$3,600/mo + $6K onboarding	20x contacts	Full + custom events	Yes

The cliff between Starter and Professional is the story here. HubSpot Starter ($20/seat/month) gives you email with basic automation, meaning single-action triggers like “send email when form is submitted.” Multi-step workflows, branching logic, A/B testing, and behavioral triggers require Professional at $890/month.

That means the jump from “basic email” to “real automation” on HubSpot costs an extra $870/month. On ActiveCampaign, the same jump costs $0, because automation is included on Starter.

Automation compared head to head

Both tools offer visual automation builders. Here’s how they stack up for email-specific workflows:

ActiveCampaign’s automation builder

• Available on all paid plans (starting $15/mo)
• Visual drag-and-drop workflow editor
• Conditional branching (if/else logic based on behavior, tags, fields)
• Wait steps with time-based or condition-based triggers
• Goal tracking within automations (track when subscribers reach a target)
• Split testing within automation paths
• Site tracking triggers (automate based on page visits)
• 900+ pre-built automation recipes

ActiveCampaign was built as an automation platform first. The email builder exists to serve the automation engine, not the other way around. This shows in the depth of triggers and conditions available. You can build workflows based on email opens, link clicks, site visits, purchase behavior, custom field changes, date-based conditions, and dozens of other events.

HubSpot’s workflow builder

• Available on Professional and above ($890/mo)
• Visual workflow editor
• Branching logic with if/then conditions
• Enrollment triggers from forms, lists, properties, events
• Cross-object workflows (contacts, companies, deals, tickets)
• Delay steps and scheduling
• Internal notification workflows

HubSpot’s workflow builder is powerful, but it’s designed for the broader marketing and sales platform, not specifically for email. Its strength is cross-object automation: triggering workflows based on deal stage changes, company properties, or ticket status. For pure email automation (subscriber behavior, engagement-based flows, drip campaigns), ActiveCampaign’s builder is more focused and more flexible.

Practical example: abandoned cart recovery

On ActiveCampaign (Starter, $15/mo):

1. Trigger: Contact visits product page but doesn’t purchase within 1 hour
2. Send email #1: “Still thinking about it?”
3. Wait 24 hours
4. Check: Did they purchase? If yes, exit. If no, continue.
5. Send email #2: “Here’s 10% off”
6. Wait 48 hours
7. Check: Did they purchase? If yes, tag as “converted from abandonment.” If no, send email #3.

On HubSpot (Professional, $890/mo): Same workflow. Same capability. Same result. Fifty-nine times the price.

Where HubSpot’s free tier actually works

Here’s the honest counterpoint: HubSpot Free is a better choice than ActiveCampaign for one specific scenario.

If you need basic email sends with no automation, HubSpot Free gives you:

• 2,000 email sends per month
• Email templates with drag-and-drop builder
• Contact database (up to 1M contacts on free CRM)
• Basic forms and pop-ups
• Email tracking and notifications

The catch is HubSpot branding on every email and no automation beyond manual sends. But for a business that sends a monthly newsletter to 500 people and doesn’t need automated sequences, this is genuinely free and genuinely functional.

ActiveCampaign has no free plan. Its cheapest option is $15/month. If automation isn’t in your workflow today, HubSpot Free saves you $180/year.

The problem: most businesses that start with “we just need basic email” eventually need automation. And on HubSpot, the jump from free to automated is $890/month. On ActiveCampaign, it’s $15/month. That migration decision gets harder the longer you wait.

The total cost over 12 months

For a business with 5,000 contacts that needs email automation:

	ActiveCampaign Starter	ActiveCampaign Plus	HubSpot Professional
Monthly cost	$49/mo	$99/mo	$890/mo
Annual cost	$588	$1,188	$10,680
Onboarding fee	$0	$0	$3,000
First-year total	$588	$1,188	$13,680

ActiveCampaign Starter saves $13,092 in year one compared to HubSpot Professional. Even ActiveCampaign Plus, which adds CRM, landing pages, and lead scoring, saves $12,492.

At 10,000 contacts, ActiveCampaign Starter is $139/month ($1,668/year). HubSpot Professional is still $890/month ($10,680/year) plus the onboarding fee. The gap doesn’t close; it’s structural.

When HubSpot earns its price

HubSpot’s $890/month isn’t irrational. It’s overpriced for email marketing, but email marketing isn’t what you’re buying.

HubSpot Professional makes sense if you need:

• Full CRM integrated with email (contact properties, deal stages, company records)
• Multi-channel marketing automation (email + ads + social + web pages)
• Content management and blogging platform built into the marketing tool
• Attribution reporting across marketing channels
• Sales and marketing alignment in one platform
• Teams with shared contacts, deals, and reporting dashboards

If your marketing team runs paid ads, manages a blog, handles lead scoring for a sales team, and needs attribution reporting across all channels, HubSpot Professional is a platform purchase, not an email purchase. The $890 covers a marketing operating system.

But if your question is “which tool should I use for email marketing and automation?”, the answer is ActiveCampaign. It’s not a compromise. It’s the better tool for email, at a fraction of the cost.

Making the switch

If you’re currently on HubSpot and considering ActiveCampaign for email:

What migrates easily: Contact lists, custom fields, email templates (with some reformatting), and tag/segment structures.

What doesn’t migrate: HubSpot workflow automations need to be rebuilt in ActiveCampaign. The logic transfers (triggers, conditions, actions), but you’ll build them fresh in ActiveCampaign’s editor.

Timeline: For a list under 10,000 contacts with 5-10 automations, budget a weekend for the full migration.

What you lose: HubSpot’s CRM integration, multi-channel attribution, and content management. If you only use HubSpot for email, you lose nothing meaningful.

The verdict

For email marketing, ActiveCampaign is the better product at a dramatically lower price. The automation builder is more email-focused, the pricing scales with your contact list instead of jumping to $890/month, and there are no $3,000 onboarding fees.

HubSpot’s value is in the platform: the CRM, the content tools, the multi-channel attribution, the sales handoff workflows. If you use all of that, the $890/month is a business investment with measurable ROI. If you use 20% of it because you just need email, you’re paying a 500% markup for features gathering dust.

Start with ActiveCampaign’s Starter plan. Build your automations. Grow your list. If you eventually need a full marketing platform with CRM integration, evaluate HubSpot at that point. You’ll know exactly what capabilities you’re paying the premium for.

Related: Freshworks vs HubSpot for a CRM-focused comparison.

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Pricing sourced from ActiveCampaign’s pricing page and HubSpot’s Marketing Hub pricing page. Onboarding fees from HubSpot’s onboarding page. Last checked February 2026.