⚡ Quick Verdict:
- Pricing: ActiveCampaign starts at $15/month. Insightly starts at $29/user/month.
- Best for: ActiveCampaign for email marketing automation. Insightly for CRM and project management in one system.
- Key difference: ActiveCampaign bills per contact. Insightly bills per user, billed annually.
- Our pick: Insightly, at 4.1 versus 4.0, for teams that run projects alongside sales.
💡 How we picked: Our winner is the tool with the higher aggregate rating. The gap here is 0.1 points, which is thin. Read the scenario section before you decide.
ActiveCampaign and Insightly both promise marketing and sales automation.
They are not really fighting over the same buyer.
ActiveCampaign is an email marketing engine with a built in CRM attached.
Insightly is customer relationship management software with project management attached.
Pick the wrong one and you pay for features your team never opens.
Overview
This ActiveCampaign vs Insightly comparison covers pricing, key features, ease of use, and support.
Our writer spent hands-on time inside ActiveCampaign directly.
Notes on Insightly come from its documentation, pricing page, and G2 reviews.
We also flag where each platform stops being a good fit.
What is ActiveCampaign?
ActiveCampaign is a customer experience automation platform for email marketing and sales.
It sends automated emails, text messages, and notifications to leads.
The automation builder uses drag and drop, so no coding is needed.
Every plan includes a built in CRM for tracking deals and lead scoring.
It suits businesses that want more than a plain newsletter tool.
Here is a walkthrough of how the platform works in practice.
ActiveCampaign
Over 900 automation templates and 950 integrations. Free migration if you are switching from another email tool.
ActiveCampaign Pricing
Four tiers, and the cost climbs with your contact count.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $15/month | Small teams sending basic email campaigns |
| Plus | $49/month | Advanced automation and sales pipeline tracking |
| Pro | $79/month | Predictive sending and custom reports |
| Enterprise | $145/month | Big businesses needing custom objects and single sign-on |
Pricing verified September 2026.
Free trial: 14 days, no credit card required, with most Professional-tier features unlocked.
Money-back guarantee: None advertised. Test the trial before you commit.
📌 Note: Yearly billing cuts roughly 20% off. Transactional email, SMS add ons, and extra CRM add ons are priced separately, so budget for them.
⚠️ Pricing conflict: Some sources list the Starter plan at $19/month. Our CSV records $15/month, and that is the figure used everywhere in this article. Check the live pricing page before you buy.
Key Benefits of ActiveCampaign
Here is where ActiveCampaign earns its keep:
- Automation depth: Over 900 pre built templates for welcome series, follow up email chains, and cart abandonment. You can A/B test whole automation paths, not just subject lines.
- Advanced segmentation: Group contacts by website visits, location, purchase history, or past interaction. Conditional content then shows or hides blocks per recipient.
- Multi-channel reach: Run email campaigns, send SMS, and post ads from one dashboard. WhatsApp and social are included in the same flows.
- Deliverability: ActiveCampaign’s deliverability scores well in independent inbox tests. That matters more than any feature list.
- Integrations: Over 950 apps including Shopify, Salesforce, WordPress, and Zapier. Premium connectors cover ecommerce and CRM platform data.
- AI assistance: Predictive sending picks delivery times. The email builder can draft copy for you, and Active Intelligence agents suggest audience segments from live data.
- Free migration: The team moves your lists and templates over from other email marketing services at no charge.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer set up an account and built a few automations from scratch. Here is what stood out during that hands-on time:
ActiveCampaign Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Over 900 automation templates and a drag and drop builder
- Built in CRM with lead scoring on every plan
- Email, SMS, WhatsApp, and ads from one dashboard
- Free migration from other email marketing platforms
- GDPR compliant with data stored on US servers
❌ Cons
- No free plan, only a 14-day trial
- Starter caps automations at five actions each
- Overkill if you only send simple newsletters
- Costs rise as your contact list grows
What is Insightly?
Insightly is customer relationship management software with project management built in.
It keeps contacts, companies, leads, and sales opportunities in one record system.
Once a deal closes, the same record becomes a project with milestones.
Sales teams get customizable pipelines and Kanban views for every stage.
PC Magazine, Entrepreneur, G2 Crowd, and TrustRadius all recommend the platform.
This video walks through the main screens and daily workflow.
🏆 Winner: Insightly
CRM, projects, and reporting in one account. SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA support included.
Insightly Pricing
Three tiers, priced per seat rather than per contact.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Plus | $29/user/month | Small teams tracking contacts and projects |
| Professional | $49/user/month | Custom reports and third-party app access |
| Enterprise | $99/user/month | Full functionality and advanced features |
Pricing verified September 2026.
Free trial: Yes. Start it from the Insightly website and confirm the current length at signup.
Money-back guarantee: None published. Seats are billed annually, so test before you commit.
📌 Note: Insightly Service and Insightly Marketing are sold separately at the same tiers. Adding those other Insightly products multiplies your per-seat cost.
⚠️ Warning: The Enterprise plan at $99/user/month runs close to double what some other CRMs charge for the same tier. Price a five-seat team before you sign.
Key Benefits of Insightly
What you get for the higher entry price:
- CRM and projects together: Won deals convert straight into projects with milestones. You assign tasks to any team member without leaving the record.
- Task management: Reminders, to-do lists, and call logs sit beside each contact. Nothing lives in a separate app.
- Reporting: Custom reports and dashboards, including an opportunities dashboard, show progress at a glance. Gantt charts arrived in 2025 for timelines and dependencies.
- AppConnect: A low-code engine with over 2,000 pre-built connectors, covering Google Workspace and most business apps.
- Copilot AI: Summarises long email threads and pulls records on request, cutting the time spent digging for details.
- Compliance: SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA support out of the box. That matters for healthcare, finance, and non profits.
- Mobile app: Add notes, log calls, scan a business card, or create a project from your phone.
What Our Team Noticed
Note: we have not had extended hands-on time with Insightly yet. Everything above comes from published documentation, the pricing page, and third-party reviews on G2 and TrustRadius. We will update this section once our writers spend real time in the system.
Insightly Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- CRM and project management in one system
- Short learning curve and fast setup
- SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA compliant
- Over 2,000 AppConnect connectors
- Customizable pipelines and Kanban views
❌ Cons
- Not as feature-deep as Zoho CRM
- Enterprise tier costs nearly double rival CRMs
- Custom workflow options trail bigger competitors
- Email marketing needs a separate product
Feature Comparison
Here are the ten areas where these two platforms actually diverge. The summary table gives you the shape of it. The sections below explain why each gap exists.
| Feature | ActiveCampaign | Insightly |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $15/month | $29/user/month |
| Free plan | ❌ | ❌ |
| Email campaigns | ✅ | ✅ Basic |
| Marketing automation | ✅ | ❌ Separate product |
| Project management | ❌ | ✅ |
| Built in CRM | ✅ | ✅ |
| Landing pages | ✅ | ❌ |
| SMS and WhatsApp | ✅ | ❌ |
| HIPAA support | ❌ | ✅ |
| Integrations | 950+ | 2,000+ connectors |
| Best For | Digital marketing teams | Sales teams running client projects |
1. Email Marketing and Campaigns
ActiveCampaign: This is the core product. The email builder is drag and drop, with a library of email templates and AI copy generation inside the editor. You can schedule emails, run A/B tests, and send transactional emails through a paid add on.
Insightly: Email here is transactional in spirit, not campaign-driven. You can send and schedule emails from a contact record and save reusable email templates. Full campaign work needs Insightly Marketing as a separate purchase.
2. Contact Management and CRM
ActiveCampaign: The ActiveCampaign CRM ships on every plan and handles deals, lead scoring, and custom fields. It is built to feed automations rather than to run a long sales cycle. Custom objects only unlock on the Enterprise plan.
Insightly: Contact management is the whole point. Every contact, company, and opportunity links to related records, and the sales pipeline is fully customizable. Insightly CRM keeps current and prospective customer data in a single place.
3. Automation and Workflow Automation
ActiveCampaign: Advanced automation is the reason most people buy it. Multi-step workflows with conditional logic go well past basic drip campaigns, and you build automations visually. Users save an average of 20 hours a month, according to ActiveCampaign.
Insightly: Workflow automation covers record updates, task creation, and alerts. It is dependable for internal process work. G2 reviews note that custom workflow options trail deeper CRM tools.
⚠️ Warning: The ActiveCampaign Starter plan allows only five actions per automation. Anything past a welcome series means upgrading to Plus.
4. Segmentation and Organization
ActiveCampaign: Segments update themselves from behaviour: pages viewed, location, purchase history, or email interaction. Tags get applied automatically as subscribers act. This is what intelligent marketing automation looks like day to day.
Insightly: Organization records group contacts by company, so you see every person attached to an account. Filters and saved views handle the rest. It is structural sorting, not behavioural targeting.
5. Landing Pages and Project Management
ActiveCampaign: You can build landing pages inside the platform and trigger an automation the moment a form is submitted. That closes the loop between a campaign and a new contact. There is no project tracking of any kind.
Insightly: Projects carry milestones, pipelines, and task assignments. A closed deal becomes delivery work without re-entering data. Gantt charts added in 2025 show timelines and dependencies.
6. Dynamic Content and Record Views
ActiveCampaign: Dynamic content swaps blocks inside an email based on custom fields or recent behaviour. One send can look different to twelve segments. Conditional content rules are set visually in the editor.
Insightly: The 2025 interface refresh is what modern CRM teams love about it: clean record pages, Kanban boards, and quick filters. Data entry is not convoluted, which is half the battle with any CRM software.
7. Content Creation and Support
ActiveCampaign: AI drafts subject lines and body copy inside the editor, and an onboarding checklist walks new accounts through setup. Support runs through a knowledge base and chat. Phone support and a dedicated account team come with higher tiers.
Insightly: Support and ticketing is its own product, Insightly Service, sold at the same per-seat tiers. Inside the CRM you get help articles and email support. Managers can monitor ticket volume through the same dashboards.
8. Reporting and Custom Reports
ActiveCampaign: Reporting is campaign-shaped: opens, clicks, revenue attribution, and automation performance. Custom reports arrive on the Pro tier. There is no view of project profitability, because there are no projects.
Insightly: Dashboards cover pipeline value, activity, and delivery progress in one place. Third-party app reporting opens up on Professional. Enterprise unlocks the full set.
9. Integrations and AI Assistants
ActiveCampaign: Over 950 integrations, including Shopify, Salesforce, WordPress, and Zapier. Premium connectors cover ecommerce and CRM data sync. Active Intelligence agents build campaigns and suggest high-value segments from live data.
Insightly: AppConnect is a low-code engine with over 2,000 pre-built connectors, so you wire up apps without a developer. Google Workspace sync is native. Copilot handles email summaries and record lookups.
10. Pricing & Cost
The two pricing models are not directly comparable, which is exactly why buyers get this wrong.
| Tier | ActiveCampaign | Insightly |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Starter: $15/month | Plus: $29/user/month |
| Mid | Plus: $49/month | Professional: $49/user/month |
| Upper | Pro: $79/month | Enterprise: $99/user/month |
| Top | Enterprise: $145/month | — |
ActiveCampaign: One price covers the whole team, so seat count never bites. The bill grows with your contact list instead. Yearly billing trims about 20%.
Insightly: Insightly starts at $29 per user, billed annually, so a five-person team pays $145 a month at the entry tier. Contact volume does not change the price. Adding Marketing or Service repeats the per-seat cost.
Different Scenarios
| If You Need… | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Email marketing automation | ActiveCampaign | 900+ templates, multi-step logic |
| Project delivery after the sale | Insightly | Milestones and Gantt charts |
| A big list, a small team | ActiveCampaign | No per-seat charge |
| A big team, few contacts | Insightly | Contact volume is free |
| HIPAA or SOC 2 coverage | Insightly | Certified out of the box |
| SMS and WhatsApp reach | ActiveCampaign | Built into the same flows |
💰 Your Budget
Count seats first, then contacts. Five users on Insightly Plus costs the same as ActiveCampaign Enterprise.
🔌 Your Tech Stack
Shopify and WordPress shops lean ActiveCampaign. Google Workspace teams and anyone migrating off Microsoft Dynamics will find Insightly’s connectors easier to wire up.
📝 Your Working Style
If your revenue comes from nurture sequences, pick the marketing tool. If it comes from named accounts and delivery work, pick the CRM.
🎓 Your Experience Level
Insightly has the shorter learning curve and a user friendly layout. ActiveCampaign rewards a more advanced user who will actually use the branching logic.
🆓 Free Trials and Demos
ActiveCampaign offers 14 days with no card. Insightly offers a trial through its website. Load real contacts into both.
🛟 Support Options
Both run a knowledge base plus email help. Phone support and a dedicated account team sit on the top ActiveCampaign tier.
Switching Guide
Already running one of them? Here is what changes.
🔄 Switching from ActiveCampaign to Insightly?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- Projects, milestones, and task management beside every deal
- HIPAA and SOC 2 Type II coverage
- Flat cost as your contact database grows
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Behaviour-triggered email campaigns and landing pages
- SMS, WhatsApp, and ad channels in one flow
- Deliverability tuning built for high-volume sending
📋 How to switch:
- Export contacts, deals, and custom fields to CSV
- Create your Insightly account and map fields during import
- Rebuild pipelines, then keep an email tool for campaigns
🔄 Switching from Insightly to ActiveCampaign?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- Advanced automation with conditional branching
- Landing pages, forms, and dynamic content
- Unlimited seats on a single subscription
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Project tracking, milestones, and Gantt views
- HIPAA support and the AppConnect connector library
- Copilot summaries across long email threads
📋 How to switch:
- Export contacts, organizations, and open opportunities
- Ask ActiveCampaign for a free migration during signup
- Rebuild your pipeline stages as deal stages, then tag by source
What Our Review Didn’t Cover
We focused on small businesses and mid-sized teams buying directly. We did not test bulk seat licensing, agency reseller terms, or custom Enterprise contracts. Our writers spent hands-on time with ActiveCampaign only, so the Insightly notes lean on documentation and third-party reviews. Anyone running 100+ seats or regulated healthcare data should book a demo and ask about new features on the roadmap.
Final Verdict
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| 💰 Entry Pricing | ActiveCampaign |
| 📧 Email Marketing | ActiveCampaign |
| ⚙️ Automation Depth | ActiveCampaign |
| 📁 Project Management | Insightly |
| 🔌 Integrations | Insightly |
| 📊 Reporting | Insightly |
| 🔒 Compliance | Insightly |
| 👶 Ease of Use | Insightly |
| 🏆 Overall Winner | Insightly |
🏆 WINNER: INSIGHTLY
Insightly wins 5 of 8 categories and rates 4.1 against 4.0.
Best for: Consultancies, agencies, and sales teams that deliver projects after the deal closes.
The margin is narrow and the two products barely overlap. Insightly takes it because it does two jobs well, with compliance coverage most rivals charge extra for.
We would still recommend ActiveCampaign if email is how you make money. Nothing in Insightly comes close to its automation builder or deliverability record.
Plenty of teams end up running both: ActiveCampaign for the funnel, Insightly for everything after the handshake.
More of ActiveCampaign Compared
If you are still shortlisting ActiveCampaign alternatives, these three come up most often:
ActiveCampaign wins on: cheaper entry tier, deeper branching logic, no forced bundle of unused hubs
HubSpot wins on: free starter tier, tighter sales engagement tooling, better reporting for large marketing teams
ActiveCampaign wins on: lower monthly floor, wider integration count, stronger inbox placement record
Keap wins on: built-in invoicing and payments, appointment booking, hands-on onboarding for solo operators
ActiveCampaign vs GoHighLevel
ActiveCampaign wins on: email deliverability, cleaner interface, mature template library
GoHighLevel wins on: unlimited sub-accounts, white-label resale for agencies, call tracking included
More of Insightly Compared
Insightly gets shortlisted against these CRM tools:
Insightly wins on: easier to pick up, native project management, cheaper Plus and Professional tiers
Zoho CRM wins on: deeper feature set, far cheaper enterprise seats, wider first-party app family
Insightly wins on: post-sale delivery tracking, HIPAA and SOC 2 coverage, AppConnect connector library
Pipedrive wins on: lower entry price, faster pipeline data entry, simpler setup for pure sales work
Insightly wins on: shorter setup time, no admin headcount required, predictable per-seat cost
Salesforce wins on: customization ceiling, partner app marketplace, forecasting for large sales organisations
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ActiveCampaign used for?
It runs email campaigns, SMS, and automated follow-ups from one account. The built in CRM tracks deals and scores leads alongside those campaigns.
Is ActiveCampaign a CRM?
Yes, a CRM ships on every plan. It handles deals, pipelines, and lead scoring, though it is lighter than a dedicated CRM platform like Insightly.
Is ActiveCampaign free?
No. There is a 14-day free trial with no credit card, then paid tiers start at $15 per month and rise with your contact count.
What is Insightly used for?
Managing customer relationships and the projects that follow. Teams track leads, sales opportunities, tasks, and delivery milestones in one system, then report on all of it.
Is Insightly easy to use?
Reviewers consistently call the interface quick to learn and the data import process simple. It trades some depth for that speed compared with heavier CRM software.
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