Campaign Monitor by Marigold vs. ActiveCampaign:
Key Features, Pricing & Top Pick

1. User sentiment

While ActiveCampaign has strong reviews, particularly among technical users, Campaign Monitor consistently receives praise from users who value its intuitive interface and exceptional support.

"LOVE Campaign Monitor... it's very user friendly. The support is exceptional. It helps us reach a large audience in a personal way and a format which drives results above industry benchmarks.”

— Verified User in Leisure, Travel & Tourism

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2. Design & user experience

Both Campaign Monitor and ActiveCampaign offer a drag-and-drop email builder, mobile-optimized templates, and auto-branding features to support your marketing strategy. ActiveCampaign also offers a landing page designer. However, ActiveCampaign leans more toward technical users, while Campaign Monitor is ideal for marketers who want a streamlined, intuitive experience that delivers professional results with minimal effort.

"Campaign Monitor's email builder, recipes, and pre-built copy is the best I've seen. I had several others in the past and this one blows them out of the water."

— Best Vitamin Supplements team

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3. Automation & journeys

Both platforms offer advanced automation capabilities. ActiveCampaign offers 950+ prebuilt templates, advanced conditional logic, and an AI-powered automation builder (ideal for complex, multi-channel journeys). Campaign Monitor simple branching and prebuilt journeys (welcome series, abandoned cart, anniversaries), makes advanced automation easier to implement without sacrificing capability.

"Wonderful Union saved 40 hours weekly using Campaign Monitor's automated email marketing campaigns and saw a 13% increase in CTR on automated sequences, generating a 700% ROI from email marketing campaigns."

Read the case study here ➔

4. Deliverability & performance

Both ActiveCampaign and Campaign Monitor offer strong deliverability and consistent performance. Campaign Monitor provides real-time delivery metrics (e.g., sends, opens, bounces), inbox previews, spam testing, and access to deliverability experts. ActiveCampaign offers domain authentication, spam checks, and campaign previews. Campaign Monitor also includes these capabilities, with a focus on optimizing inbox placement in a streamlined, user-friendly way.

"We use Campaign Monitor because it is quite easy to use. It is also very reasonably priced. We haven't had any problems with deliverability or in creating the emails."

— verified user in Marketing and Advertising

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5. Segmentation & personalization

Campaign Monitor excels with powerful segmentation tools, including custom fields and behavioral data (location, purchase history, etc), dynamic content, and a fully customizable preference center (frequency, topics). It supports up to 50 custom fields and personalization tags (name, birthday, country). ActiveCampaign supports advanced personalization through custom fields, dynamic content blocks, personalization tags, and AI-suggested segments with field types (e.g., dropdowns, checkboxes, hidden fields). While ActiveCampaign is best suited for technical users, Campaign Monitor provides similar features through an intuitive, accessible interface built for marketers.

The Australian Red Cross used Campaign Monitor's preference center and smart segmentation to achieve a 68% increase in open rates, a 201% increase in click-through rates, and a 75% increase in conversions from a single personalized email campaign.

Read the case study here →

6. Integration ecosystem

Campaign Monitor integrates with platforms like Salesforce, Shopify, WooCommerce, and HubSpot. It also provides flexible API access (RESTful API v3.3), allowing seamless integration with third-party tools. ActiveCampaign supports integrations across categories like e commerce platforms, CRM, and scheduling (Shopify, Slack, Calendly, WordPress). While ActiveCampaign offers broader integration volume, Campaign Monitor delivers a focused, marketer-friendly experience—ideal for teams that want dependable, easy-to-deploy email marketing tools.

Girls Who Code leveraged Campaign Monitor's Salesforce integration with custom fields for deeper list precision, helping them achieve a 40% email open rate, 22% click-to-open rate, and a 150% increase in student applications.

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7. AI-powered features

Campaign Monitor offers focused AI tools for marketers—like AI writer to create content and refine copy, send time optimization (sending emails when a subscriber is most likely to engage), and a time zone sending feature that adjusts delivery times to match each subscriber’s local time. ActiveCampaign adds a campaign builder and expanded generative capabilities. While it offers more AI features, Campaign Monitor's approach provides practical assistance that integrates seamlessly into the workflow without requiring extensive setup or configuration.

8. Pricing & scalability

Both email marketing software offer flexible pricing based on contact count. Campaign Monitor includes a 30-day free trial (up to 500 contacts), while ActiveCampaign offers a 14-day trial (100 contacts/emails).

9. Support & resources

Campaign Monitor provides 24/5 global support, including email support across plans and phone support on the premier tier, along with access to deliverability specialists. ActiveCampaign offers chat and ticket support, with guidance delivered through its resource center and training tools.

"Been working with Campaign Monitor for 10+ years… Not only does the platform make sending highly-customized emails easy and fun, their support team is phenomenal… Highly recommend."

JoAnn H., Creative Account Manager (G2)

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