# ActiveCampaign Pricing 2026: Plans, Send Caps and the Starter Limit That Breaks Automations **By Justin McKelvey** · Published November 03, 2026 · Updated November 03, 2026 · 6 min read > As of November 3, 2026, ActiveCampaign costs $15, $49, $79 or $145 a month billed yearly for 1,000 contacts. What each plan caps, a worked month for a 3-person team, and when Starter breaks a follow-up. **Category:** Pricing **Tags:** Buyer's Guide, Pricing, Email Marketing **Canonical URL:** https://superdupr.com/blog/activecampaign-pricing --- ## How much does ActiveCampaign cost? The short answer **As of November 3, 2026, ActiveCampaign starts at $15 a month for Starter, $49 for Plus, $79 for Pro and $145 for Enterprise, each billed yearly for 1,000 contacts.** That's $180, $588, $948 and $1,740 a year. The price goes up with your contact count. Plan choice usually comes down to three limits, not the headline price: Starter caps each automation at 5 actions, Starter and Plus include one user, and every plan caps email sends at 10 to 15 times your contact limit each month. All prices and limits here come from ActiveCampaign's pricing page and its full feature comparison, read November 3, 2026. The page only prints the 1,000-contact price, so for a bigger list, enter your count in the page's contact box before you budget. ## ActiveCampaign plans side by side | Plan | Billed yearly, 1,000 contacts | Email sends a month | Users | Automation actions | What it adds | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Starter | $15/mo | 10,000 (10x contacts) | 1 | 5 per automation | Multi-step automation, AI automation builder, 15 active goals, up to 5 lists | | Plus | $49/mo | 10,000 (10x) | 1 | Unlimited | Landing pages, generative AI, sales automation, SMS and WhatsApp add-ons, Calendly, Stripe and Slack integrations | | Pro | $79/mo | 12,000 (12x) | 3 | Unlimited | Predictive sending, conditional content, attribution, 200 active goals | | Enterprise | $145/mo | 15,000 (15x) | 5 | Unlimited | SSO, HIPAA support, custom objects, Salesforce integration, uptime SLA | Every plan includes 500 AI credits, API access and webhooks, Zapier, 1,000+ integrations, and a connection to Claude and ChatGPT through MCP. SMS, WhatsApp, transactional email and the Pipelines CRM add-ons cost extra. Their prices aren't on the main pricing page. ## The Starter limit that breaks a follow-up sequence Starter's automation row reads "5 actions per automation." Count the steps in a basic lead follow-up: three emails, a tag that marks the lead as nurtured, and an alert to the owner. That's five, before any branch for people who reply. A fourth email, a CRM update or an if/else split won't fit in one automation. You'd have to split the flow into chained automations or move to Plus, which jumps from $15 to $49 a month at 1,000 contacts. Starter also leaves out landing pages, the SMS add-on, the Calendly and Stripe integrations, and cross-channel automation (its automations are email only). If your follow-up needs to text a lead or react to a booking, Starter isn't the plan to price. ## A worked month: 1,000 contacts, three people Take a home-services company with 1,000 contacts. The owner, an office manager and a salesperson all need logins. In a typical month it sends: - A weekly newsletter to the whole list: 1,000 × 52 ÷ 12 ≈ 4,330 sends. - A four-email follow-up to 120 new leads: 480 sends. - A reminder and a thank-you email for 250 jobs: 500 sends. That's about 5,310 sends, well inside the 10,000 cap on every plan. Switch the newsletter to twice a week and it's about 8,670 plus 980, or 9,650. That's 350 short of the cap on Starter and Plus, so one extra promotion goes over. Pro's 12,000 gives you room. The seats settle it before the sends do. Starter and Plus include one user, and ActiveCampaign's main page doesn't price extra seats. Pro includes 3, so this company's real price is $79 a month, or $948 a year, at 1,000 contacts. Add a contact tier as the list grows, plus any SMS add-on. ## ActiveCampaign vs Brevo and HubSpot on price Brevo is the cheaper sender. At our October 20, 2026 read, Brevo Standard was $18 a month on monthly billing, with unlimited automations, but inbound webhooks only on its $499 Professional plan. ActiveCampaign is the reverse: API access and webhooks are on every plan, but automations are capped on Starter and seats are tight below Pro. Our [Brevo pricing](/blog/brevo-pricing) page has the full tier math. If you also need a CRM with sales seats, [HubSpot pricing](/blog/hubspot-pricing) covers HubSpot's per-seat jump from Starter to Professional, the number to set against ActiveCampaign Pro's three included users. ## Is ActiveCampaign worth it? For a small business whose follow-up is mostly email and needs branching logic, Plus or Pro is fair value. You get unlimited automation actions, webhooks to connect your other systems, and 950+ automation recipes to start from. It's poor value if you only send a newsletter, since Starter's price buys little that a cheaper sender doesn't. It's also poor value if your follow-up depends on data ActiveCampaign doesn't hold, like a rescheduled job in your field-service software or a quote status in your accounting tool. Then you're paying for the plan and for a connector. Zapier's task meter adds to the bill on every run, as our [how much Zapier costs](/blog/how-much-does-zapier-cost) breakdown shows. ## Who can build email and SMS automation on ActiveCampaign for my business? Set up the newsletter and a simple welcome sequence yourself. Bring in a builder when the follow-up has to react to other systems, such as a booking, a payment or a job status, or when an AI step writes the message from your own records. SuperDupr, the AI ops shop Justin McKelvey runs, builds that as an [AI email and SMS marketing](/solutions/ai-email-marketing) project. The published price is $8,000 to $15,000, with $200 to $2,000 a month ongoing depending on volume, and most AI builds go live in 2 to 4 weeks. We build on ActiveCampaign when your team already lives in it, and we don't resell it. The first step is a free 30-minute strategy session, and the full price ranges are in our [AI automation pricing](/blog/ai-automation-pricing) guide. ## Sources - ActiveCampaign, pricing page and "Compare every feature" table, activecampaign.com/pricing, read November 3, 2026: plan prices billed yearly at 1,000 contacts, email sends per plan, users, AI credits, automation actions, lists, integrations, add-ons, SSO and HIPAA. - Brevo pricing, read October 20, 2026, via our Brevo pricing page: Standard $18 a month on monthly billing, inbound webhooks on Professional. - Worked example: SuperDupr's arithmetic on the published prices above for an assumed 3-user company with 1,000 contacts. - SuperDupr published solution pricing, superdupr.com/solutions/ai-email-marketing, read November 3, 2026. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How much does ActiveCampaign cost? As of November 3, 2026, ActiveCampaign lists Starter at $15 a month, Plus at $49, Pro at $79 and Enterprise at $145, each billed yearly for 1,000 contacts. The price rises with your contact count; enter yours on the pricing page. ### What is the limit on ActiveCampaign Starter? Starter allows 5 actions per automation, 1 user, up to 5 lists and 10,000 email sends a month at 1,000 contacts, and its automations are email only. Plus removes the action cap and adds landing pages and the SMS add-on. ### How many emails can I send with ActiveCampaign? Monthly sends are a multiple of your contact limit: 10 times on Starter and Plus, 12 times on Pro and 15 times on Enterprise. At 1,000 contacts that's 10,000, 12,000 or 15,000 sends a month. ### How many users does ActiveCampaign include? Starter and Plus include 1 user, Pro includes 3 and Enterprise includes 5. ActiveCampaign's main pricing page doesn't list a price for extra seats. ### Does ActiveCampaign have an API on every plan? Yes. ActiveCampaign's comparison table lists API access and webhooks, Zapier, 1,000+ integrations and a Claude and ChatGPT connection through MCP on every plan, including Starter. --- *Originally published at [https://superdupr.com/blog/activecampaign-pricing](https://superdupr.com/blog/activecampaign-pricing) by SuperDupr.*