ActiveCampaign vs ClickFunnels: Online Tools Success in 2025?

Winner

4.5

• Email Marketing
• Dynamic Content
• Custom Landing Pages
• Integrated AI
• Segmentation
• Free Plan Available
• Paid Plan Starts at $15

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Runner Up

3.0

• Landing pages
• A/B Testing
• EMAIL Marketing
• Workflows
• CRM
• Free trial available
• Paid Plan Starts at $81

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Running an online business can feel like navigating a maze blindfolded.

You know you need the right tools, but which ones are actually going to guide you to success?

Two popular options you’ve probably heard of are ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels.

They both promise to help you grow your business, but they go about it in different ways.

In this post, we’ll break down the strengths of each platform, ActiveCampaign vs ClickFunnels, so you can decide which one (or both!) might be the right fit.

Overview

We’ve spent weeks testing both ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels, building marketing campaigns, creating landing pages, and managing customer relationships.

This hands-on experience gives us the insights to help you understand which platform might be the best fit for your business.

4.5out of 5

Unlock the power of an all-in-one marketing platform. So, check it out now!

Pricing: It has a 7-day free Trial. Paid plan starts at $15/month

Key Features:

• Email Marketing
• Marketing Automation
• CRM

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3out of 5

It’s great for building sales funnels quickly. It has many templates to get you started fast.

Pricing: It has a free trial. The premium plan starts at $81/month.

Key Features:

• Visual sales pipelines
• Customizable reports
• Mobile app

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What is ActiveCampaign?

Ever wish you could clone yourself to handle all your marketing tasks?

ActiveCampaign is like that. It’s a platform that helps you connect with your audience on a deeper level.

Think of automated emails that go out at the perfect time and personalized messages that make people feel special.

It’s basically your all-in-one marketing sidekick.

Also, explore our favorite ActiveCampaign alternatives…

Our Take

ActiveCampaign is an excellent choice for businesses that want to leverage the true power of email marketing and automation. However, it may not be the best fit for beginners due to its complexity.

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Key Benefits

• Advanced automation: Create complex workflows to nurture leads and automate tasks.
• Email marketing powerhouse: Send beautiful and effective email campaigns.
• Built-in CRM: Manage contacts and track interactions.
• Segmentation and personalization: Target specific groups of contacts with personalized messages.

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Pricing

• Starter: $15/month.
• Plus: $49/month.
• Pro: $79/month.
• Enterprise: $145/month.

Pros

• Robust automation capabilities.
• Excellent email deliverability.
• Detailed reporting and analytics.
• Great for growing businesses.

Cons

• It can be complex to learn.
• Pricing can increase quickly.
• It’s not as user-friendly as some options.

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What is ClickFunnels?

Want to build a sales machine that practically runs itself?

That’s where ClickFunnels comes in. It helps you create those slick sales funnels you see online.

You know, the ones that guide you step-by-step towards buying something?

With ClickFunnels, you can build your own landing pages, sales pages, and even membership sites.

It’s all about turning visitors into customers.

Also, explore our favorite ClickFunnels alternatives…

Our Take

It’s great for building sales funnels quickly. It has many templates to get you started fast.

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Key Benefits

• Streamlined funnel creation.
• Provides a 14-day trial period.
• Extensive third-party integrations.
• Access to a diverse template library.
• Built-in A/B testing capabilities.

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Pricing

• Launch: $81/month, 2 Team Members.
• Scale: $164/month, 5 Team Members.
• Optimize: $248/month, 10 team members.
• Dominate: $5,997/yr, 20 team members.

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Pros

• Easy funnel creation.
• All-in-one platform.
• Pre-built templates.
• Integrated email marketing.
• Strong community support.

Cons

• Higher monthly cost.
• Steep learning curve.
• Limited customization.

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Feature Comparison

ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels are two leading platforms that empower businesses to drive online sales, but their core specializations lead to clear strategic differences.

Clickfunnels and activecampaign are powerful, but ActiveCampaign is a highly robust marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) marketing platform.

Clickfunnels focuses on optimizing sales and marketing funnels for rapid conversion of website visitors.

This comparison reveals how these tools enable businesses to maximize their marketing efforts.

1. Primary Focus and Core Features

• ActiveCampaign: Primarily excels as a sophisticated marketing automation tool, with robust email marketing features that allow users to build deep customer relationships.
• ClickFunnels: Designed as a dedicated sales and marketing funnels builder. Its core features are page creation, conversion optimization, and simplifying the process of attracting website visitors and driving online sales.

2. Automation Depth and Templates

• ActiveCampaign: Provides powerful automation tools and hundreds of pre-built automation templates (recipes), enabling users to design complex, behavioral-based sequences and lifecycle workflows.
• ClickFunnels: Automation is primarily centered on the funnel sequence (e.g., triggering a follow-up after a purchase). It relies less on automation templates, requiring users to build workflows from scratch, but offers crucial drag and drop editor simplicity.

3. CRM and Sales Capabilities

• ActiveCampaign: Includes integrated crm features, allowing users to track customer relationship management, deals, and sales pipelines directly within the marketing platform.
• ClickFunnels: Lacks native crm features. While it collects lead data, users typically integrate a third-party CRM to manage detailed customer relationship management and sales workflows.

4. Landing Page Builder and Design

• ActiveCampaign: Offers a native landing page builder to create simple opt-in pages, but its design functionality is basic and mainly intended to support the email marketing campaigns.
• ClickFunnels: Provides a dedicated, high-converting landing page builder with extensive landing page templates. Its visual drag and drop editor is optimized for quick creation of sales and marketing funnels pages.

5. Email Marketing Tools

• ActiveCampaign: Is a leader in email marketing services, offering sophisticated email marketing tools for personalization, testing, and deliverability. Users can create targeted email campaigns based on deep behavioral segmentation.
• ClickFunnels: Includes email marketing features but as a secondary function. Users primarily utilize it to send basic follow-up email marketing campaigns within the marketing funnels.

6. Advanced Features and Personalization

• ActiveCampaign: Boasts advanced features like lead scoring, conditional content, and multi-channel automation, which tools enable businesses to run highly effective targeted campaigns across multiple channels.
• ClickFunnels: Its advanced features focus on conversion elements like one-click upsells/downsells and membership areas, which tools enable businesses to maximize the value of each transaction in the funnel.

7. Multi-Channel Messaging

• ActiveCampaign: Offers sms marketing capabilities, along with site messaging and conditional pop-ups, giving users tools to engage website visitors beyond just email marketing campaigns.
• ClickFunnels: Focuses heavily on the sales page experience. SMS marketing often requires integration with external email marketing services or third-party platforms to reach website visitors.

8. Campaign Creation and Speed

• ActiveCampaign: Provides robust automation templates to instantly create targeted email campaigns. This speeds up the workflow for marketing efforts focused on lead nurturing.
• ClickFunnels: Allows users to launch high-converting marketing funnels instantly using their optimized landing page templates, simplifying the sales setup for rapid conversions.

9. Platform Comparison Summary

• Clickfunnels and activecampaign are necessary for modern marketing, but for holistic customer engagement and detailed targeted campaigns, ActiveCampaign provides the more versatile marketing platform.
• Both clickfunnels and ActiveCampaign offer email marketing features and automation tools. ClickFunnels focuses on converting online sales, while ActiveCampaign focuses on nurturing the relationship over time.

What to Look for in a CRM Tool?

• Your budget: ActiveCampaign offers more affordable plans, while ClickFunnels is a bigger investment.
• Your technical skills: ClickFunnels is very user-friendly, while ActiveCampaign might require a bit more of a learning curve.
• Your marketing priorities: If email marketing is your main focus, ActiveCampaign is the clear winner. If you’re all about building high-converting sales funnels, ClickFunnels is the better choice.
• Your need for a CRM: ActiveCampaign has a built-in CRM, while ClickFunnels requires an integration.
• Your desired level of support: Both platforms offer support, but ClickFunnels is known for its strong community and resources.
• The size of your business: ActiveCampaign scales well from small businesses to large enterprises, while ClickFunnels is generally better suited for solopreneurs and small to medium-sized companies.
• Your need for advanced automation: ActiveCampaign offers more complex automation features, while ClickFunnels focuses on automating the sales funnel.
• Your preference for design flexibility: ClickFunnels provides more pre-designed templates and a simpler drag-and-drop builder, while ActiveCampaign offers more customization options but might require more design effort.

Final Verdict

Choosing between ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels depends on what you need.

Both are strong tools, but ActiveCampaign is our top pick for most businesses.

Why? It’s like a Swiss Army knifing for marketing.

You get awesome email tools, powerful automation, and a built-in CRM, all for a good price.

ClickFunnels is great for sales funnels, but it’s more expensive and needs a CRM.

If you need a sales automation platform and have the budget, ClickFunnels is a solid choice.

We’ve tested both platforms inside and out, so you can trust our recommendation. Now, go out there and grow your business!

Still trying to figure it out? Try them both! ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels offer free trials, so you can test drive before you commit. Happy marketing!

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More of ActiveCampaign

More of ClickFunnels

Here’s a brief comparison of ClickFunnels with these software solutions:

• ClickFunnels vs GoHighLevel: While ClickFunnels excels at funnel building for entrepreneurs, GoHighLevel offers a broader, all-in-one marketing suite with advanced agency and CRM features, often including white-label solutions.
• ClickFunnels vs Pipedrive: ClickFunnels prioritizes high-converting sales funnels, whereas Pipedrive focuses on comprehensive sales pipeline management and CRM functionalities for various business needs.
• ClickFunnels vs Keap: ClickFunnels is a specialized sales funnel builder that offers templates and drag-and-drop tools. Keap, formerly Infusionsoft, provides a robust CRM with marketing and sales automation for small businesses.
• ClickFunnels vs ActiveCampaign: ClickFunnels focuses on sales funnels and landing pages, while ActiveCampaign is a powerful marketing automation platform with advanced email marketing and CRM capabilities.
• ClickFunnels vs HubSpot: ClickFunnels is ideal for creating sales funnels and is easy to use. HubSpot offers an extensive all-in-one marketing, sales, and CRM platform, catering to broader business operations.
• ClickFunnels vs Folk: ClickFunnels is a sales funnel platform for conversions. Folk is primarily a CRM tool for managing contacts and relationships, distinct from sales funnel automation.
• ClickFunnels vs Instantly: ClickFunnels builds sales funnels for conversions. Instantly focuses on cold email outreach and lead management, and is often integrated with other platforms like ClickFunnels.
• ClickFunnels vs ClickUp: ClickFunnels is designed for sales funnels and online marketing. ClickUp is a project management and work operating system that offers task management and team collaboration.
• ClickFunnels vs Monday CRM: ClickFunnels helps build sales funnels. Monday CRM, part of Monday.com’s Work OS, is a flexible CRM for managing sales pipelines and team collaboration, with strong project management roots.
• ClickFunnels vs Capsule CRM: ClickFunnels is for creating sales funnels. Capsule CRM is a simpler, contact-centric CRM for managing customer relationships and sales opportunities.
• ClickFunnels vs Insightly: ClickFunnels focuses on sales funnels. Insightly is a comprehensive CRM with project management capabilities, helping businesses track leads and projects.
• ClickFunnels vs Freshsales CRM: ClickFunnels specializes in sales funnel creation. Freshsales CRM is a sales automation platform with lead management, email, and phone integration features.
• ClickFunnels vs Salesforce: ClickFunnels is a tool for building automated sales funnels. Salesforce is a vast, enterprise-level CRM platform offering extensive sales, service, and marketing solutions.
• ClickFunnels vs Zendesk: ClickFunnels helps create conversion-focused sales funnels. Zendesk is primarily a customer service and support platform, focusing on ticketing and customer engagement.

Frequently Asked Questions