ActiveCampaign vs. beehiiv

Last verified 28 days ago · 21 sources · Updated automatically

ActiveCampaign and beehiiv compared across Company facts, Pricing, Campaigns & content, Automation & audience, Channels & deliverability and Platform & integrations — every fact sourced and re-verified from each vendor's public material.

ActiveCampaign

Marketing automation and email with deep branching workflows, advanced segmentation, and a built-in CRM.

HQ Chicago, IL

Visit ActiveCampaign Full profile

beehiiv

Modern newsletter platform with built-in growth tools, a referral program, paid subscriptions, and an ad network.

HQ New York, NY

Visit beehiiv Full profile

Attribute

ActiveCampaign

beehiiv

Company facts

Headquarters

Chicago, IL

New York, NY Headquartered in New York; company is 100% remote and globally distributed

Employees

800 800+ global team members (vendor-stated)

129 129 full-time employees (company-stated)

Pricing

Free Plan

Launch plan: free up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends

Free Plan Contacts

—

2.5k Launch free plan caps at 2,500 active subscribers

Starting Monthly Price (USD)

$15 Starter plan, 1,000 contacts (billed annually)

$43 Scale plan, entry tier; $43/mo (billed annually $517/yr)

Pricing Basis

contacts

contacts Priced by active subscriber count; email sends are unlimited on all plans

Campaigns & content

Drag-and-Drop Builder

Yes

Block-based drag-and-drop editor with column layouts and content blocks

Prebuilt Templates

Yes

Library of prebuilt newsletter and website templates

A/B Testing

Yes

Subject-line A/B testing (paid plans)

Landing Pages

Yes

Built-in website/web builder for hosted pages

AI Content Assistance

Active Intelligence

Native AI tools: AI Writer, subject-line ideas, image generation, translation

Automation & audience

Automation Workflows

Yes

Visual workflow builder with branching and conditions (Scale plan and above)

Advanced Segmentation

Yes

Behavior-, tag-, and field-based segmentation

Signup Forms & Popups

Yes

Embeddable subscribe forms plus pop-ups

Built-in CRM

Yes

Newsletter platform with subscriber lists; no sales-pipeline CRM

Channels & deliverability

SMS Marketing

Yes

No native SMS channel (email-focused)

Transactional Email

Yes

No transactional email API/SMTP relay for receipts/resets

Ecommerce Integration

Native Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix

Native Shopify integration exists, but no store-aware commerce flows (abandoned cart, product recs)

Platform & integrations

Native Integrations

1,000+ apps

Native integrations incl. WordPress, Webflow, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, Typeform; plus Zapier/Make

Public API

REST API (v3)

Public REST developer API (subscribers, posts, segments); basic API on free plan, Send API on Enterprise

The verdict

ActiveCampaign

Best for multi-channel marketing with a built-in CRM

ActiveCampaign covers channels beehiiv does not: a built-in CRM, SMS, and transactional email, plus native ecommerce flows for Shopify, WooCommerce, and Wix. Its $15 Starter entry tier undercuts beehiiv's $43, though there is no free plan. The pick when email is one piece of a broader sales-and-marketing stack.

Full profile

beehiiv

Best for newsletters starting free with unlimited sends

beehiiv has a free Launch plan up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, where ActiveCampaign offers no free tier and starts at $15. It is newsletter-focused, with no CRM, SMS, or transactional email. The pick for publishers who want to start at zero cost and scale a newsletter without per-send caps.

Full profile

Sources · 21 verified references

activecampaign.com beehiiv.com developers.activecampaign.com developers.beehiiv.com

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