Happy Valley

AXL vs Keap

AXL and Keap are both CRM tools. AXL is aimed at small businesses and creators, while Keap is aimed at small businesses and freelancers. AXL costs less, from $49/mo versus $299/mo for Keap. Only AXL has a free plan.

AXL

Sales and marketing all-in-one you can run from Claude or ChatGPT

Keap

All-in-one CRM, email automation and payments for small businesses

PricingFreemium · $49Paid · $299
Starting price$49/mo$299/mo
Free planYesNo
Free trial—14 days
Built forSmall businesses, Creators, FreelancersSmall businesses, Freelancers
Platformswebweb, ios, android
Country—US · 2001
Rating——

Choose AXL if

Founders, coaches and course sellers who want funnels, CRM, webinars and checkout in one place and like working through an AI assistant.

  • Replaces several funnel, CRM, webinar and course tools with one bill
  • Free plan never bills overage; extra contacts are saved but skipped by campaigns
  • AXL takes 0% of your sales

Look elsewhere if: Teams that need a deep integration marketplace or enterprise CRM controls (Keap, HubSpot).

Choose Keap if

Established US small businesses that sell services or digital products and want CRM, automation and payments in one tool.

  • Deep automation that replaces several separate small-business tools
  • Payments, invoicing and funnels built into the CRM
  • Dedicated customer success manager and US phone support included

Look elsewhere if: Solo founders on a budget or teams outside North America (HubSpot, ActiveCampaign or Pipedrive are cheaper and more flexible).

AXL vs Keap pricing

AXL

  • Free$0500 contacts, 5,000 emails, 1 admin; capped usage, no overage
  • Starter$49/mo5,000 contacts, 15,000 emails, 25,000 messages, 1 admin
  • Growth$149/mo20,000 contacts, 50,000 emails, 2 admins, 1,000 AI credits
  • Scale$349/mo50,000 contacts, 120,000 emails, 3 admins, 1,500 AI credits
  • Pro$699/mo150,000 contacts, 300,000 emails, 5 admins, 3,000 AI credits

Keap

  • Keap$299/mo$2,988/year billed annually; 2 users, CRM, automation, payments
  • Additional user$39/user/moOn top of the 2 included user licenses
  • Text marketing tiers$24/moTier 2 add-on; Tier 1 (500 texts) included; US only

AXL · Key features

  • MCP server exposing 1,200+ actions to ChatGPT, Claude, Codex and Cursor
  • Landing page and funnel builder with forms, quizzes and A/B tests
  • CRM with deal pipelines, contact history and lead scoring
  • Email and messaging automation for follow-up campaigns
  • Live and evergreen webinars plus protected video hosting
  • Courses with AI-assisted homework review and certificates

Cons

  • No free trial of paid plans; you start on the capped Free tier
  • Few named integrations beyond payments, Meta and AI assistants
  • Payment processing fees from Stripe or PayPal come on top

Keap · Key features

  • Visual campaign builder for email, text, task and tag automations
  • Contact management with tags, lead scoring and custom fields
  • Sales pipeline with automated stage-based follow-ups
  • Landing pages, multi-page funnels and checkout forms with order bumps
  • Quotes, invoices, recurring billing and native US payments
  • Appointment scheduler synced with Google and Outlook calendars

Cons

  • $299 a month plus an implementation fee is steep for solo users
  • Texting, phone line and native payments are mostly US-only
  • Contact tier pricing is not shown without entering a contact count

AXL vs Keap: FAQ

Which is cheaper, AXL or Keap?

AXL starts at $49/mo and Keap at $299/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.

Do AXL and Keap have a free plan?

AXL has a free plan. Keap has no free plan, a 14-day free trial.

Not sure yet?