MailerLite vs ActiveCampaign — which should you choose?

This is the clearest pair in the comparison: cheap and straightforward against expensive and versatile. The price table shows the gap as smaller than it is, because it compares each one’s cheapest plan — and ActiveCampaign’s cheapest plan lacks exactly the feature it is usually considered for.

The short answer

Choose MailerLite if your need is a newsletter and straightforward automation. It is cheaper at every list size, the data stays in the EU, and on deliverability these two are level.

Choose ActiveCampaign if you need conditional content or lead scoring. Then the right price is not €39 but €95 a month at 2,500 contacts — and it is still the right choice if the pipeline earns more than it costs.

Comparison table

← scroll →

Prices exclude VAT, billed monthly unless stated otherwise.

• The price is the monthly price of the cheapest paid plan at that list size. The Free plan column shows when you do not have to pay.
• ActiveCampaign: the price list only shows the monthly price on annual billing. Monthly billing costs more.
• ActiveCampaign: the smallest list sold is 1,000 contacts, so the 500-contact column shows that price.

Prices side by side

Both price by contact count and both in euros, so the figures are directly comparable. The gap grows with the list and never flips.

← scroll →

Cheapest paid plans (MailerLite Comfort, ActiveCampaign Starter) read from the price lists (MailerLite, ActiveCampaign) on 3 September 2026, monthly prices excluding VAT. ActiveCampaign’s figures are monthly prices on annual billing — the monthly-billing price is not shown on the price list at all — and its smallest list sold is 1,000 contacts, so the 500-contact row shows the price for a thousand contacts.

At a large list the gap is more than double: €79 and €149 a month, i.e. €840 a year. That has to pay for itself with something, and the next section says with what.

The real price of automation

The table above compares each one’s cheapest plan. That is the right figure for comparing price but misleading for comparing features, and this section corrects it.

ActiveCampaign’s Starter plan limits automation to five actions per automation, and it has no conditional content. Conditional content starts on the Plus plan and lead scoring on the Pro plan. At a 2,500-contact list the plans cost €39, €95 and €149 a month.

MailerLite has no equivalent gating. The Comfort plan costs €29 at 2,500 contacts and the Power plan €45, and forms and landing pages are included in the price. The automation is thinner than at ActiveCampaign, but what there is, is on the cheapest plan.

The comparison therefore turns into a question of what you mean by automation. If you mean a welcome series and a segmented newsletter, you are comparing €29 and €39. If you mean an email chosen by the recipient’s score, you are comparing €29 and €95 — and then the difference is €792 a year.

Deliverability: practically level

We do not test deliverability ourselves. Below are two things: Tooltester’s 2017–2024 series as history — it ended in January 2024, and the source no longer stands behind its method — and eight points from the services’ own help pages, which are the current basis of this comparison.

← scroll →

Tooltester ended the series with the January 2024 round and explained why in August 2026: seed lists proved unreliable and providers started optimising for them. The figures are therefore history, not a measurement of current deliverability.

Source: Tooltester deliverability test, 12 rounds 8/2017–1/2024. About 80 seed addresses, 28 providers, shared IP addresses. Average across all platforms in the latest round 83.1%. Average and range calculated from the published rounds.

Deliverability features from the help docs

Eight points read from each provider’s own help pages on 13 September 2026. This replaces percentages as a buying basis: a feature can be checked and dated, a seed-list result no longer can. Every cell links to the article it was read from.

← scroll →

Yes = the help page describes the feature. No = the help page says it is absent or points to an external tool. — = not found in the help pages; that does not mean the feature is absent.

As history: in Tooltester’s series the averages were 90.9% and 90.8% — a difference of a tenth of a percentage point. The series ended in January 2024.

Read from the help pages, the pair is equally level. Both have authentication from the app, automatic removal, a built-in cleaning tool for inactive subscribers and a dedicated IP for large senders — MailerLite from 50,000 weekly emails, ActiveCampaign from 100,000 contacts. Two nuances: ActiveCampaign handles DMARC as part of setting up the sending domain, MailerLite shows an example and points to a consultant; MailerLite names a deliverability team, ActiveCampaign’s help pages describe no per-customer support.

Most of deliverability is still the sender’s own responsibility — authentication, list quality and sending pace: what Gmail and Yahoo require of senders.

Data location: the EU against five countries

MailerLite’s contracting party for EEA customers is Irish MailerLite Limited and the data is stored in the EU. ActiveCampaign’s own privacy policy lists transfers to the United States, Australia, Ireland, Brazil and Costa Rica. Both read from the services’ own privacy policies on 3 September 2026.

The transfer is not prohibited and using ActiveCampaign is not unlawful. The difference is in what you have to record in your own privacy policy and what you answer a customer who asks. What to check and what to record: email marketing and GDPR.

Contact counting — a trap at both, in different places

The price list says what a thousand contacts cost. It does not say what counts as a contact.

← scroll →

The rules are read from the providers’ own help pages. “Not read” means the rule could not be opened in the original source — we do not guess it in either direction.

• MailerLite. The limit counts subscribers in Active status; unsubscribed and bounced do not count. One trap in the billing period: the period is counted cumulatively, so an address that was active at any point in the period counts toward the limit until the end of the period, even if you delete it immediately. Cleaning the list shows on the bill only in the next period.
• ActiveCampaign. The rule depends on the account creation date. ActiveCampaign’s own help article gives two answers: on accounts created on or after 3 November 2025, all contacts count toward the limit regardless of status, i.e. unsubscribed, unconfirmed and bounced too; on accounts created on or before 2 November 2025, only active ones. A new account is therefore in the same group as Mailchimp in this comparison. The help page opens only in a browser (HTTP 403); the text was read through the help centre’s own API on 5 September 2026.

At MailerLite the unsubscribed do not count toward the limit, but the billing period is cumulative: an address that was active during the period counts toward the limit until the end of the period, even if you delete it immediately. Cleaning the list shows on the bill only in the next period.

At ActiveCampaign the rule depends on the account creation date: on accounts created on or after 3 November 2025 all contacts count toward the limit regardless of status, on accounts created before that only active ones. A new account is therefore in the less favourable position here. All seven rules side by side: how contacts are counted.

Free plans: only one has one

MailerLite’s free plan holds 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, and the emails show MailerLite’s logo until you move to a paid plan. ActiveCampaign has no free plan at all, only a 14-day trial.

Neither, then, carries a growing list far for free. If that is the criterion, EmailOctopus gives 2,500 subscribers and Systeme.io 2,000 contacts with unlimited sending. All seven side by side: free email marketing.

A third option if price decides

If you landed on this page because of price, neither is the cheapest. At a 10,000-contact list Brevo asks €28 a month, while MailerLite asks €79 and ActiveCampaign €149. Brevo’s flip side is that the price follows sending volume rather than list size, so for a frequent writer it is not as cheap. The whole field’s prices side by side: best email marketing software.

Which one for you