ActiveCampaign vs Make

ActiveCampaign is an email marketing and marketing automation platform headquartered in Chicago. Jason VandeBoom founded it in 2003 as on-premises software before it moved to SaaS. Its core job is to send the right email, SMS or WhatsApp message at the right time based on what a contact does, using a visual automation builder with branching logic.

The automation builder handles multi-step journeys with waits, conditions, goals and split tests, triggered by site visits, purchases, form fills, tags or CRM events. Campaigns use 250+ templates and, on Pro, predictive sending, conditional content and attribution. Since 2025 the Active Intelligence layer adds AI agents that build segments, automations and brand kits, a conversational workspace, and a remote MCP server; every plan includes 500 AI credits a month. Plans are priced by contacts: Starter ($19/month for 1,000 contacts billed monthly) covers email and automation, Plus adds landing pages, generative AI and SMS, Pro adds advanced segmentation and three seats, and Enterprise adds SSO, HIPAA support and custom objects. CRM pipelines, WhatsApp and transactional email are add-ons.

ActiveCampaign suits SMBs, ecommerce stores and agencies that need deep automation without HubSpot pricing. Mailchimp is easier for simple newsletters, Brevo and MailerLite are cheaper at large lists, and HubSpot is stronger as an all-in-one CRM.

Buying tip: prices rise steeply with contact count, so clean inactive contacts before upgrading. The 14-day trial needs no card, and annual billing saves roughly 17 to 21%.

Make, formerly Integromat, is a visual automation platform founded in Prague in the Czech Republic. Celonis acquired Integromat in 2020 and relaunched it as Make in 2022. Its core job is connecting apps and automating multi-step processes, with a visual canvas that handles complex logic better than linear automation tools.

Scenarios are built as flowcharts: modules for each app action are connected by routes, with routers for branching, iterators and aggregators for working with lists, filters, data transformation functions and error handlers for retries and fallbacks. Make supports more than 2,000 apps plus generic HTTP, webhooks and JSON tools for anything with an API, along with AI modules for OpenAI, Anthropic Claude and other providers. Make AI Agents, introduced in 2025, add goal-driven agents that decide which tools to use. Since August 2025 pricing is based on credits instead of operations: most module runs use one credit, AI modules can use more. Plans from the free tier up to Enterprise add more credits, shorter scheduling intervals, team roles and security features.

Make fits operations teams, agencies and technical marketers who build complex, high-volume automations and want them to cost less than on Zapier. The visual approach has a steeper learning curve, and credit consumption needs monitoring as scenarios grow, especially with AI modules. Zapier is easier for simple automations and has more app integrations, n8n is open source and self-hostable for developers, and Power Automate suits Microsoft-centric organizations.