ActiveCampaign vs Trigger.dev
ActiveCampaign and Trigger.dev are both workflow automation tools. ActiveCampaign is aimed at small businesses and E-commerce, while Trigger.dev is aimed at developers and small businesses. Trigger.dev costs less, from $10/mo versus $19/mo for ActiveCampaign. Only Trigger.dev has a free plan.
Email marketing and automation platform for SMBs and ecommerce
Open-source platform for durable background jobs and AI agents
| Pricing | Paid · $19 | Open source · $10 |
| Starting price | $19/mo | $10/mo |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Free trial | 14 days | — |
| Built for | Small businesses, E-commerce, Agencies | Developers, Small businesses, Enterprise |
| Platforms | web, ios, android | web |
| Country | US · 2003 | GB · 2022 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose ActiveCampaign if
Small and mid-sized businesses and ecommerce brands that want sophisticated, behaviour-based email and SMS automation at a mid-range price.
- One of the most powerful automation builders in its price range
- Strong ecommerce triggers and deep integrations
- AI agents included on every plan
Look elsewhere if: Teams sending simple newsletters to large lists on a tight budget, or wanting a full CRM suite (MailerLite, Brevo, HubSpot).
Choose Trigger.dev if
TypeScript teams that need reliable long-running jobs and AI agents with retries, queues and observability built in.
- Apache-2.0 open source with a self-hosting option
- Waiting time on waitpoints is not billed
- Generous observability for each run
Look elsewhere if: Non-developers or teams working mainly in Python or other languages (Windmill, Pipedream).
ActiveCampaign vs Trigger.dev pricing
ActiveCampaign
- Starter$19/mo$15/mo billed annually; 1,000 contacts, 1 seat
- Plus$59/mo$49/mo annually; landing pages, SMS add-on, 1 seat
- Pro$99/mo$79/mo annually; predictive sending, attribution, 3 seats
- Enterprise$179/mo$145/mo annually; SSO, HIPAA support, 5 seats
Trigger.dev
- Free$0$5 usage included, 20 concurrent runs, 1-day log retention
- Hobby$10/mo$10 usage included, 50 concurrent runs, 7-day logs
- Pro$50/mo$50 usage included, 200+ concurrent runs, 25+ seats
- EnterpriseCustomRBAC, SSO, SOC 2 report, priority support
ActiveCampaign · Key features
- Visual automation builder with branching, goals and split tests
- Triggers from site visits, purchases, forms, tags and CRM events
- Email, SMS and WhatsApp messaging from one platform
- Active Intelligence AI agents for segments, automations and brand kits
- Predictive sending and conditional content on Pro
- Landing pages and site messages from the Plus plan
Cons
- Costs climb quickly as contact lists grow
- CRM pipelines and transactional email are extra
- Starter and Plus include only one seat
Trigger.dev · Key features
- Durable TypeScript tasks with no timeouts, retries and checkpointing
- Queues and concurrency controls with per-key overrides
- Cron schedules and waitpoints for human approval up to 90 days
- Realtime run updates and LLM streaming to the frontend
- Verified, deduplicated webhooks that trigger up to 25 agents
- Slack and Linear integrations for chat-driven agents
Cons
- TypeScript and JavaScript SDK only
- Webhooks are still in public beta
- Usage-based compute makes bills harder to predict
ActiveCampaign vs Trigger.dev: FAQ
Which is cheaper, ActiveCampaign or Trigger.dev?
Trigger.dev starts at $10/mo and ActiveCampaign at $19/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Do ActiveCampaign and Trigger.dev have a free plan?
ActiveCampaign has no free plan, a 14-day free trial. Trigger.dev has a free plan.