ActiveCampaign vs Windmill
ActiveCampaign and Windmill are both workflow automation tools. ActiveCampaign is aimed at small businesses and E-commerce, while Windmill is aimed at developers. Windmill costs less, from $10/mo versus $19/mo for ActiveCampaign. Only Windmill has a free plan.
Email marketing and automation platform for SMBs and ecommerce
Open-source developer platform for scripts, flows and apps
| 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 |
| Platforms | web, ios, android | web |
| Country | US · 2003 | FR · 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 Windmill if
Developers wanting code-first automation.
- Very fast engine
- Code-first
- Open source
Look elsewhere if: No-code users.
ActiveCampaign vs Windmill 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
Windmill
- Community Edition$0Self-hosted, unlimited executions, max 10 users with SSO
- Cloud Team$10/seat/moManaged cloud; per seat (from page structured data)
- Enterprise (self-hosted)from $120/mo$20/dev/mo + $50/worker/mo compute; audit logs, SAML
- Enterprise (cloud)CustomBased on seats and compute units
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
Windmill · Key features
- Scripts to workflows
- Schedules and triggers
- Auto-generated UIs
- App builder
- Multi-language
- Self-hosting
Cons
- Developer-oriented
- Smaller community
- Learning curve
ActiveCampaign vs Windmill: FAQ
Which is cheaper, ActiveCampaign or Windmill?
Windmill starts at $10/mo and ActiveCampaign at $19/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Do ActiveCampaign and Windmill have a free plan?
ActiveCampaign has no free plan, a 14-day free trial. Windmill has a free plan.
Which is better for small businesses, ActiveCampaign or Windmill?
ActiveCampaign lists small businesses as a core audience, while Windmill is aimed more at developers.