You want email to bring in customers, but a paid tool is hard to justify before you know how much automation you will use. If you are comparing these two, you are probably a small business or creator choosing between plain newsletters and emails that react to what subscribers do. Both bills climb as your list grows, so the choice also decides what you pay at 10,000 contacts.
Both tools are affiliate partners of ours: we may earn a commission if you sign up through a button on this page, at no extra cost to you. That is why we also say when to pick neither.
| AWeber | ActiveCampaign | |
|---|---|---|
| Price we read | Free plan (500 subscribers, separate signup page); Lite $12.50/mo billed annually ($15 monthly) at 0-500 subscribers, Plus $20.00/mo ($30 monthly); both scale by subscriber count (read 9 Oct 2026) | Starter from $15/mo billed annually (1 user); Plus from $49, Pro from $79, Enterprise from $145 (read 9 Oct 2026) |
| Entry price | Free plan to 500 subscribers; Lite $12.50/mo billed yearly, $15 monthly, at 500 (read 9 Oct 2026) | Starter $15/mo billed yearly at 1,000 contacts; Plus from $49 (read 9 Oct 2026) |
| How you pay | By subscriber count, monthly or yearly billing | By contact count, yearly billing only on the page; CRM, SMS and extra users are add-ons |
| Free plan or trial | Free plan via a separate signup page; the Lite trial asked for a card first in our test | No free plan; 14-day trial without a card, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Best for | Small businesses and creators who want simple, dependable email | Teams that will really use deep automation and lifecycle email with a light CRM |
| Main catch | Lite caps you at 3 automations and excludes behavioural automation | Starter allows 5 actions per automation, and add-ons stack up fast |
Your list is large and mostly inactive, or growing faster than your budget. Both bills track list size, and buyers report that on ActiveCampaign accounts opened since 3 Nov 2025, unsubscribed and bounced contacts count toward the bill too.
Look at Brevo instead. Both of our dossiers name Brevo as the alternative for fast-growing and mostly inactive lists, and ActiveCampaign's lists it among simpler, cheaper email tools. Read our Brevo review.
A list of 10,000 on yearly billing, read 9 Oct 2026. AWeber: Lite $83.33 a month, Plus $112.50. ActiveCampaign: Starter $149 a month, Plus $189. Plus against Plus: $189 minus $112.50 = $76.50 a month more for ActiveCampaign, or $76.50 × 12 = $918 a year. Paid monthly, AWeber Plus at that size is $135; ActiveCampaign's page offers no monthly option.
Free plan (up to 500 subscribers, 3,000 emails a month). Then Lite at $12.50 a month billed yearly, or $15 monthly, at 500 subscribers (read 9 Oct 2026); Plus ($20 yearly, $30 monthly) once you need more than 3 automations.
Start with AWeber →Plus, from $49 a month billed yearly at 1,000 contacts (read 9 Oct 2026). It lifts Starter's cap of 5 actions per automation to unlimited.
Start with ActiveCampaign →Yes, but through its separate free signup page, not the pricing page: up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails a month. Both limits were still there on 1 Oct 2026.
SendX and buyer reports say that on accounts created on or after 3 November 2025, unsubscribed, unconfirmed and bounced contacts count toward the billed limit. The pricing page does not state it, so check your own invoice.
Reviewers say crossing a contact tier re-prices the whole plan, not just the extra contacts. Ask about it before you import a list.
AWeber (29 Oct 2026): the free account opened, but our made-up example.com addresses were rejected on import, and the Lite trial checkout asked for a card first. ActiveCampaign (30 Sep 2026): the trial AI built a clean welcome automation, but image generation returned nothing in eight tries.
AWeber: aweber.com/pricing.htm read 9 Oct 2026, the free signup page checked 1 Oct 2026, and our test of 29 Oct 2026. ActiveCampaign: activecampaign.com/pricing read 9 Oct 2026 in a browser, and our trial test of 30 Sep 2026; buyer reports from G2, GetApp, TrustRadius, Software Advice and Trustpilot, Aug 2026. Prices change: each one carries the date we read it, and our reviews are re-checked against the vendor pages. How we review.