⚡ Quick Verdict:
- Pricing: Keap is $299/month billed annually. ActiveCampaign starts at $15/month on Starter.
- Best for: Keap for sales and marketing automation with invoicing and payment processing built in. ActiveCampaign for email marketing at a lower monthly fee.
- Key difference: Keap bundles CRM, checkout forms and a business line in one dashboard. ActiveCampaign splits extras into add ons.
- Our pick: Keap, rated 4.2 against 4.0, because one platform replaces three tools for most small teams.
Keap and ActiveCampaign both promise sales and marketing automation.
They charge very different money for it.
Keap is a customer relationship management tool that also sends email.
ActiveCampaign is an email marketing platform that also stores contacts.
That single distinction decides most of this comparison.
Overview
This Keap vs ActiveCampaign comparison covers pricing, key features, automation and support.
We reviewed documentation, pricing pages and user reviews for both.
Our writers also spent hands-on time inside each account.
Those notes appear in the “What Our Team Noticed” sections below.
By the end you will know which fits your business strategy.
What is Keap?
Keap is a customer relationship management platform for small business owners.
It was called Infusionsoft before the rebrand to Keap.
The Keap app combines CRM, email, e commerce and automation in one dashboard.
You get a sales pipeline, lead management and built-in invoicing.
Keap says automation users save 10 hours per week on average.
Here is a walkthrough of the platform before we get into pricing.
🏆 Winner: Keap
One system for leads, follow up email, invoicing and payment processing. Setup takes about 20 minutes with a coach.
Keap Pricing
Keap sells one bundled package rather than a ladder of tiers.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Keap (all-in-one) | $299/month (Annually Billed) | Small businesses replacing three or four tools |
Pricing verified September 2026.
Free trial: 14 days with access to all features.
Money-back guarantee: Keap does not advertise a blanket refund window. Cancel before renewal instead.
📌 Note: Keap plans include the CRM, automation, email, landing pages and payments. Expert Coaching onboarding is a separate one-time $499 fee, and extra seats add $30 per user each month.
⚠️ Pricing conflict: Our CSV records a single $299/month annual price, while Keap’s public pages have listed Lite at $79, Pro at $169 and Max at $199 for 500 contacts. We use the $299 figure everywhere in this article. Confirm your quote at checkout, since the monthly fee climbs with your contact list size.
Key Benefits of Keap
Here is what makes Keap worth the higher price:
- One dashboard: CRM, marketing, sales and project work sit together. That cuts the number of third party tools you pay for.
- Invoicing and payment processing: Quotes, invoices and checkout forms are built in. Most CRM platforms make you bolt this on.
- Free migration: Keap moves your contact list and email campaigns over at no cost. A dedicated account team handles the transfer.
- Business line: A separate number for calls and text messages keeps work and personal chat apart.
- Lead scoring: Keap can score leads by engagement so your sales team calls the warmest new lead first.
- 2,500+ third party integrations: Payment processing, e commerce tools and webinar apps connect without custom code.
- Real onboarding: Checklists, training webinars and a knowledge base cover setup when you need assistance.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer signed up for Keap and spent several days building campaigns, forms and a test pipeline. Here is what stood out from that hands-on time:
Keap Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- CRM, automation, invoicing and payments live in one platform
- Campaign Builder uses drag and drop tools instead of code
- Free migration and a dedicated customer success manager on every plan
- 24/7 chat plus phone support on weekdays for US customers
- Keap reports a 99.5% email deliverability rate
❌ Cons
- The monthly fee is steep for a brand new small business
- The $499 Expert Coaching fee lands on top of your subscription
- Costs jump once your contact list crosses each threshold
- The user community is quiet compared to bigger CRM platforms
What is ActiveCampaign?
ActiveCampaign is an email marketing and marketing automation platform.
The company calls it customer experience automation.
It pairs email campaigns with a built in CRM for sales teams.
Over 900 automation templates cover welcome series and cart recovery.
ActiveCampaign says users save around 20 hours per month with automation.
This walkthrough shows the editor and reporting screens in action.
🥈 Runner Up: ActiveCampaign
Deep email marketing automation at a low entry price. Best when email is your main digital marketing channel.
ActiveCampaign Pricing
Four tiers scale with your contact list and feature needs.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $15/month | Solo owners using it as a newsletter tool |
| Plus | $49/month | Small teams adding CRM and landing pages |
| Pro | $79/month | A more advanced user who needs custom reports |
| Enterprise | $145/month | Big businesses needing single sign-on and custom objects |
Pricing verified September 2026.
Free trial: 14 days, no credit card, with most Professional-tier features unlocked.
Money-back guarantee: None advertised. There is no free plan either, so the trial is your only test window.
📌 Note: Every tier includes the CRM. Transactional email, SMS add ons, CRM add ons and HIPAA support are priced separately, so the sticker price is rarely the final price. Yearly billing cuts about 20%.
⚠️ Pricing conflict: Our CSV lists Starter at $15/month, while some published sources quote $19/month for the same plan. We use the CSV figures in every table, card and schema field here. Prices also rise as your contact count grows, so check the calculator before you buy.
Key Benefits of ActiveCampaign
Here is where ActiveCampaign earns its reputation:
- Deliverability: ActiveCampaign’s deliverability scores well in independent inbox tests. That matters more than any feature list.
- Advanced automation: Multi-step workflows use conditional logic, not just linear drip mail. You can even A/B test whole automation paths.
- Advanced segmentation: Group contacts by website visits, location, purchase history or past interaction.
- Omnichannel reach: Email, SMS, WhatsApp and social campaigns run from one screen.
- 950+ integrations: Shopify, Salesforce, WordPress, Microsoft Dynamics and Zapier all connect.
- Intelligent marketing automation: Predictive sending picks delivery times from past behaviour, and Active Intelligence agents suggest audience segments.
- Free migration: ActiveCampaign moves your lists over from another provider at no charge.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer built a two-branch automation and a signup form inside a trial account. Here is what stood out:
ActiveCampaign Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Entry price of $15/month undercuts most rivals
- Over 900 pre built templates for common automations
- Strong inbox placement in deliverability testing
- Easily navigable menus and a clean email builder
❌ Cons
- Overkill if you only want to send simple newsletters
- No invoicing, quotes or payment processing built in
- Useful extras sit behind paid add ons
- Phone support is reserved for higher tiers
Feature Comparison
Here are the ten areas that decide this matchup. The summary table first, then the detail.
| Feature | Keap | ActiveCampaign |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $299/month (annual) | $15/month |
| Free Plan | ❌ | ❌ |
| Built In CRM | ✅ | ✅ |
| Invoicing and Payment Processing | ✅ | ❌ |
| Landing Page Builder | ✅ | ✅ |
| Text Messages / SMS | ✅ Included | ✅ Add on |
| Dedicated Business Line | ✅ | ❌ |
| Automation Templates | ✅ | ✅ 900+ |
| Third Party Integrations | 2,500+ | 950+ |
| Best For | Sales process automation | Email marketing automation |
1. Automation Builder
Keap: The Campaign Builder is a visual flowchart for building campaigns around when-then rules. You drag a trigger, drop an action, and Keap runs the automated tasks. Templates cover the common sales campaigns, and you can build advanced automations on top.
ActiveCampaign: The drag and drop builder handles conditional logic, split paths and end-to-end automation across channels. Active Intelligence agents can draft a campaign and suggest segments from live data. It is the stronger engine if you plan to build automations weekly.
2. Built In CRM and Contact Management
Keap: Contact management is the spine of the product, not a side feature. Every contact record holds tasks, quotes, payments and call logs, and you can add notes from the mobile apps. Custom fields let you track whatever your sales process needs.
ActiveCampaign: The ActiveCampaign CRM tracks deals and tasks well enough for small teams. Custom objects on the Enterprise plan let you model products or bookings. It feels lighter than a dedicated CRM platform, which suits marketers more than closers.
3. Email Marketing and Email Builder
Keap: Email marketing campaigns pull from CRM tags, so a follow up email can react to a paid invoice. Keap claims a 99.5% deliverability rate. The email templates are fine but plainer than what ActiveCampaign offers.
ActiveCampaign: This is the stronger newsletter tool and the better email builder. You get pre built templates, AI copy help, RSS triggered sends and transactional email through a paid add on. Email marketing services rarely beat it on inbox placement.
4. Dynamic Content and Text Messages
Keap: Email and text sit in the same builder, and the dedicated business line handles both calls and texts. You can send SMS reminders from an automation without a third party app.
ActiveCampaign: Conditional content shows or hides blocks based on subscriber data, and dynamic content swaps entire sections per recipient. SMS add ons cover text messages, WhatsApp is included on higher tiers.
⚠️ Warning: SMS costs extra on both platforms. Budget for message credits before you promise your sales team a text sequence.
5. Landing Pages and Web Forms
Keap: The landing page builder covers lead capture, checkout forms and appointment booking. You can connect multiple landing pages to the same campaign, and a web form submission can start automation instantly.
ActiveCampaign: Landing pages arrive from the Plus tier upward. Form submissions trigger automations the same way, though you cannot take payment on one landing page without an external checkout tool.
6. Sales Pipeline and Custom Reports
Keap: Sales pipelines are visual and built for daily use by a sales team. Deals move by drag and drop, and pipeline management reporting shows where revenue stalls. This is where Keap pulls ahead for anyone chasing repeat business and cross sells.
ActiveCampaign: Reporting leans toward marketing metrics: opens, clicks, attribution and automation performance. Custom reports arrive on Pro. The sales pipeline exists but does less than Keap’s.
7. Lead Scoring and Advanced Segmentation
Keap: Lead scoring rates each prospect by engagement, so a rising lead score pushes the record to the top of the queue. Lead management and tracking then route that new lead to the right owner automatically.
ActiveCampaign: Advanced segmentation is the headline here. Score leads on email engagement, site visits or purchase history, then split a campaign by those scores. Sales engagement data feeds straight back into the next send.
8. AI Features and Content Creation
Keap: Keap AI drafts email copy and suggests automated actions from plain language prompts. It is helpful for a first draft, less so for a full customer journey.
ActiveCampaign: AI runs deeper here. Content creation tools write subject lines and body copy, while predictive sending times each delivery. The result is more advanced features for anyone treating email as a growth channel.
9. Integrations and Third Party Tools
Keap: More than 2,500 third party tools connect, with strong coverage of payment processing and e commerce tools. Numerous payment gateways plug in directly, which matters for e commerce businesses taking orders daily.
ActiveCampaign: Over 950 integrations, including Shopify, Salesforce and WordPress, plus Zapier for the rest. Premium options cover CRM and ecommerce platforms, and that data sharpens segmentation.
10. Pricing & Cost
Side by side, the gap is wide at entry level.
| Plan Level | Keap | ActiveCampaign |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | — | Starter: $15/month |
| Mid | — | Plus: $49/month |
| Advanced | — | Pro: $79/month |
| Top tier | $299/month (Annually Billed) | Enterprise: $145/month |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days, no card |
Keap: At $299/month you are buying a CRM, an email tool, a checkout and a phone line together. Add the $499 onboarding and $30 per extra user. It only pays off if you actually retire other subscriptions.
ActiveCampaign: $15/month buys real email marketing automation, which is hard to beat. But add ons and contact growth push the bill up quietly. Price the plan at your twelve-month contact count, not today’s.
Different Scenarios
| If You Need… | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The lowest monthly fee | ActiveCampaign | Starts at $15/month |
| Invoicing and payments in the CRM | Keap | Checkout forms are built in |
| Best in class email campaigns | ActiveCampaign | Stronger builder and deliverability |
| A visual sales pipeline | Keap | Deals move by drag and drop |
| Advanced segmentation | ActiveCampaign | Segments by purchase history and behaviour |
| Fewer tools to manage | Keap | One dashboard replaces three apps |
| Hand-held onboarding | Keap | Free migration plus a success manager |
💰 Your Budget
Keap costs $299/month billed annually, which is a real commitment for a young small business. ActiveCampaign starts at $15/month, so it wins on cash flow unless you are already paying for a separate CRM, invoicing tool and phone line.
🔌 Your Tech Stack
Keap connects to more than 2,500 platforms and covers e commerce features like payment processing natively. ActiveCampaign offers 950+ integrations and leans on Zapier for the long tail, which is fine for most digital marketing stacks.
📝 Your Sales Process
If a human closes the deal by phone, Keap features like the business line and pipeline view will earn their keep. If the funnel closes on your website, ActiveCampaign marketing automation does more to increase conversions.
🎓 Your Experience Level
Both are user friendly, but they reward different skills. Keap suits an owner who wants marketing automations set up once, while ActiveCampaign rewards a marketer who enjoys testing new features.
🆓 Free Trials and Demos
Both give you 14 days, and ActiveCampaign asks for no card. Import a real contact list and run one campaign end to end rather than clicking around the demo data.
🛟 Support Options
Keap offers 24/7 chat, email and weekday phone support for US customers, plus a success manager on every plan. If you have needed assistance from a real person before, that difference matters more than any feature.
🔒 Data Privacy and Security
ActiveCampaign is GDPR compliant and stores data on US servers, so EU teams should check how the Data Privacy Framework applies to them. Non profits and regulated firms should also ask both vendors about discounts and compliance paperwork before signing.
Switching Guide
Already on one of them? Here is what changes.
🔄 Switching from Keap to ActiveCampaign?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- A much lower monthly bill at the same contact count
- Better email templates, split testing and conditional content
- Predictive send times and deeper reporting
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Native invoicing, quotes and checkout
- The dedicated business line for calls and texts
- A success manager assigned to your account
📋 How to switch:
- Export contacts, tags and notes from Keap as CSV
- Start the 14-day ActiveCampaign trial and request free migration
- Rebuild your top three automations, then move billing to a payment tool
🔄 Switching from ActiveCampaign to Keap?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- Invoicing, checkout forms and payments inside the CRM
- A pipeline your sales team will actually open daily
- Onboarding coaching and 2,500+ integrations
❌ What you’ll lose:
- The $15/month entry price
- 900+ automation templates and richer segmentation
- WhatsApp campaigns and transactional emails
📋 How to switch:
- Export your lists, tags and automation map from ActiveCampaign
- Book Keap’s free migration and the onboarding session
- Rebuild forms and pipeline stages before you point traffic across
What Our Review Didn’t Cover
This comparison focused on small businesses and small teams. We did not test high-volume sending above 100,000 contacts, agency multi-account setups, or custom API work. Deliverability figures come from vendor claims and published tests, not our own inbox trials. If you run a 50-seat sales floor, your priorities will differ from what we covered here.
Final Verdict
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| 💰 Pricing | ActiveCampaign |
| 🚀 Automation Builder | Keap |
| 📧 Email Marketing | ActiveCampaign |
| 🎯 CRM and Sales Pipeline | Keap |
| 🧠 Segmentation and AI | ActiveCampaign |
| 💳 E Commerce and Payments | Keap |
| 🔌 Integrations | Keap |
| 🛟 Support and Onboarding | Keap |
| 🏆 Overall Winner | Keap |
🏆 WINNER: KEAP
Keap wins 5 of 8 categories and rates 4.2 against 4.0.
Best for: service businesses, e commerce sellers, and owners consolidating tools into one system
These two are not really the same product. Keap CRM is a customer relationship management system with marketing and sales automation attached. ActiveCampaign is email marketing automation with a CRM attached.
We recommend Keap CRM if your growth goals depend on following up with people by phone, quote and invoice. The key features that justify the price are the pipeline, payments and the coaching you get on day one.
We recommend ActiveCampaign if email is the engine and budget is tight. The ActiveCampaign features list runs deeper on segmentation, testing and content, and $15/month buys more leads per dollar than anything Keap sells.
Pick the one that matches how you actually earn money, not the one with the longer feature page. Either way, better conversion rates come from the follow-up you build, not the logo on the login screen.
More of Keap Compared
Our full Keap review covers these matchups in more depth:
Keap wins on: flat all-in pricing, native invoicing and checkout, onboarding coaching included
HubSpot wins on: a genuinely free starting tier, reporting depth, and a far larger app marketplace
Keap wins on: a simpler learning curve, cleaner support, steadier product for non-agency owners
GoHighLevel wins on: white labelling, unlimited sub-accounts, and lower cost per client for agencies
Keap wins on: marketing automation depth, built-in payments, and email plus text in one place
Pipedrive wins on: price per seat, faster pipeline data entry, and a lighter interface for pure selling
More of ActiveCampaign Compared
If you are shortlisting ActiveCampaign alternatives, start with our ActiveCampaign review and these three:
ActiveCampaign wins on: cost at the same contact volume, automation branching, and email-first workflows
HubSpot wins on: sales team tooling, native meeting scheduling, and unified reporting across departments
ActiveCampaign wins on: inbox placement, template quality, and stability for in-house marketing teams
GoHighLevel wins on: client management, funnel building, and bundled call and SMS tooling
ActiveCampaign wins on: lifecycle marketing, segmentation, and campaigns aimed at existing customers
Instantly wins on: cold outreach at volume, inbox rotation, and deliverability warm-up tooling
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Keap used for?
Small businesses use it to organise leads and run marketing and sales automation from one place. It handles the CRM, follow-up, quotes, invoices and payments together.
Is ActiveCampaign a CRM?
Yes, a CRM is included on every tier. It tracks deals, tasks and pipelines, but it is lighter than a sales-first system like Keap or Pipedrive.
What is the difference between Infusionsoft and Keap?
None, in practice. Infusionsoft rebranded as Keap to signal its focus on small business automation. The platform kept the same CRM and campaign engine underneath.
Is ActiveCampaign expensive?
Not at entry. Starter costs $15/month, but the price climbs with your contact count, and extras like SMS or transactional sending are billed separately.
Which is the best CRM for a small business?
Keap, if you sell services and need payments plus pipeline in one system. Choose ActiveCampaign when email drives revenue and you want the lower monthly cost.
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