ActiveCampaign vs ClickFunnels (2025): Which Should You Use?

Paul Newham 19 November 2024

Looking for a new marketing automation platform? You probably came across 2 popular platforms ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels. Yes, they’re both marketing platforms with automation. But they come at it from different angles.

This is where things get interesting. Because when you dig into them, they turn out to be very different.

Our team signed up for both ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels with fresh accounts like you would starting out and tested them side by side for the first time. Here’s my review of which marketing software is the best for you.

ActiveCampaign vs ClickFunnels: The Quick Overview

ActiveCampaign is a specialised email marketing and marketing automation software service. It’s popular with all types of business, from SMEs up to enterprises. Ambitious, growing companies can get a lot from its advanced automation features. And it has CRM tools to connect sales and marketing.

ClickFunnels is a sales funnel software platform. It offers email marketing and automation as supporting features. Its main focus is lead capture and quick conversions. You can build things like online courses, webinars and digital products. And then link them to sign-up offers and follow-up campaigns. It’s popular with consultants and coaches. 

	ActiveCampaign	ClickFunnels
Pricing	Plans start at $15 a month. Email send and contact limits vary by plan.	Starts at $81 a month for up to 3 users and unlimited funnels. This doesn’t include extra costs for email sending and validation, integrations, and videos.
Email Design & Sending	240 templates and advanced campaign options.	Great email builder but only a few email templates.
Marketing Automation	Powerful automation with 900+ pre-built ‘recipes’ and a user-friendly workflow builder.	Great workflow builder but no automation templates.
Ease of Use	Supports advanced features with great interface design and lots of on-screen tips.	Attractive interface design and excellent content builders.
Advanced Features	Sophisticated automation, AI and analytics features that are accessible to all users.	Course builder, membership sites, digital product and smart checkout features provide plenty of choice.
AI Features	Many AI tools including generative content, automation tools, and advanced analytics.	Generative AI for content creation across funnels, emails and web pages.
Analytics	Detailed sales and marketing performance metrics.	ROI-focused metrics available across the platform.
Integrations	900+ third-party integrations.	20 third-party integrations.
	Try ActiveCampaign	Try Clickfunnels

The Core Differences Between ActiveCampaign vs ClickFunnels

Detailed ActiveCampaign vs ClickFunnels Comparison

Drawing on my experience reviewing 30+ marketing automation platforms, I picked the most important areas to focus on in this review:

• Creating and sending emails
• Automations
• Lead generation
• CRM Contact management
• Analytics
• Integrations
• Pricing

Creating and sending emails

From the moment you sign up for ActiveCampaign, the focus on email marketing campaigns is obvious. The screen grab above shows the dashboard of a new account. It’s all about helping you get started creating emails.

I found ClickFunnels noticeably different when I signed up. At first, there aren’t even any email marketing options on screen. You have to go into Apps and add the Email option. There are several steps to go through before you can get started building emails.

ActiveCampaign also offers more features for creating and sending emails. And it’s easier to use.

Both ClickFunnels and ActiveCampaign have templates to get started with. But there’s a big difference in the choice available.

ActiveCampaign has a huge selection of more than 240 ready-designed templates alone. There are also 30+ ‘basic’ and layout templates. These have the content building blocks set out but no design. 

ClickFunnels has 37 templates in total. Some are very basic text-only templates. And I noticed quite a lot of repetition. Overall, I found the choice in ClickFunnels pretty limited.

All templates in both ClickFunnels and ActiveCampaign are fully customisable. Both platforms feature typical drag-and-drop HTML builders. They’re both user-friendly and easy to pick up from scratch. The ClickFunnels editor’s interface and navigation are a bit easier to learn if you’re a beginner. I like the layout of the right sidebar. Icons for tools and options are big and bolder.

I found more features in ActiveCampaign’s editor. That’s great for design flexibility and detail, but it takes a bit more time to find where everything is. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll create templates in 10 minutes.

There’s a whole set of options for mobile formatting, which ClickFunnels doesn’t have. ActiveCampaign also lets you preview templates and emails on mobile.

Both platforms let you personalize emails using contact fields. This lets you drop things like a customer’s name into the subject line or body of an email. Again, ActiveCampaign has more options. It has a whole section under its Campaigns page dedicated to ‘Message Variables’. ActiveCampaign also lets you change content for different contacts. This advanced form of personalization is called conditional content.

Automating workflows

Comparing automation options, I got the same impression I got with email. Yes, building automated workflows is something you can do on both platforms. But ActiveCampaign is just more upfront about it. Its automation tools are front and centre.

With ClickFunnels, you have to add the Automation app. I find this odd for a tool that’s all about building sales and marketing funnels. For me, automation and funnel-building go hand-in-hand.

ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels offer similar automation tools. The visual workflow editors on both platforms are very alike. You start with a trigger event to launch the automation.

A menu of actions is displayed on the right of the window in both editors. Both platforms let you add as many actions/steps as you need to build sophisticated automations.

 The main actions available are also similar. For example, on both you can automate:

• Sending emails
• Tagging contacts
• Adding webhooks
• Adding notes 
• Subscribing and unsubscribing contacts to lists
• Setting goals
• Triggering other automated workflows

Both programs also feature conditional ‘splits’ to create alternative workflow paths. You can have different paths if an event does or doesn’t happen.

I find ActiveCampaign’s workflow editor more visually appealing and intuitive. It also has more trigger and action options. For example, there’s not just one ‘send an email’ action. You can pick a broadcast email, a 1-to-1 email, or a transactional email.

The biggest difference is ClickFunnels’ lack of workflow templates. In contrast, templates are ActiveCampaign’s automation superpower. It calls them ‘recipes’ and there are more than 900 to choose from. I’ve not come across a marketing automation platform with such a good selection. 

Recipes save you time and are a great help if you are new to building automations. There are certain types of workflow you will come back to again and again. ActiveCampaign’s attention to detail is impressive. There are 20+ different welcome automation recipes. All tailored for different industries, and also for integration with different tools.

Below you’ll find a pre-made abandoned cart workflow. Even if it’s not an exact match for what you want, all recipes are fully customisable. 

I’m a big fan of all the prompts in the ActiveCampaign workflow editor. The beige boxes tell you when something is missing from each step. The smaller numbered boxes open notes. You can add your own. But ActiveCampaign uses them to offer prompts and tips. There’s further help from the AI Builder. Instead of choosing actions yourself, you can give the AI Builder a prompt for the outcome you want. It will build out the sequence for you. This is a great time saver for more complex, multi-step workflows. Check out our full ActiveCampaign review for more details about automation, email building, and lead generation.

Start building automations in ActiveCampaign

Generating leads with landing pages and forms

I’ve talked about how email and automation are at the very core of ActiveCampaign’s product. When it comes to forms and website features, the roles are reversed. ClickFunnels is all about generating and nurturing leads. It’s what the whole concept of funnels is based on. They’re designed to structure how to attract, engage and convert new customers. And data capture and sign-ups through forms are key to that.

When you sign up for ClickFunnels, one of the first things you are asked to do is pick a type of funnel to work with. Its opt-in or ‘squeeze’ funnel is the classic lead capture example. It starts by offering leads something in return for their contact information. You can build digital products like webinars, videos or ebooks to share. You can use captured contact details for marketing campaigns and sales pipelines.

It all starts with what’s known as a ‘squeeze page’. Or, a dedicated landing page with a lead capture form. ClickFunnels’ sales funnel templates are basically a series of landing page templates.

I’m a fan of ClickFunnels’ landing page editor. It’s got a very modern feel about it. Two things stand out for me. One is usability. I like how every element on the page is colour-coded when you hover over it. This means you always know exactly what you’re working with. There’s also a lot of design flexibility. You can drag and drop elements where you like.

The second is the range of features. Standard email marketing form builders are pretty simple. They focus on data capture with minimal design options. The ClickFunnels page builder offers loads of design flexibility.

ActiveCampaign goes about forms and lead capture in a more traditional way. For one thing, you can build standalone forms to embed in existing pages. With ClickFunnels, it’s a whole two-page funnel or bust.

ActiveCampaign’s Forms and Landing Page tools are found in the Website section. This is also where you set up Site Tracking. ActiveCampaign puts a lot of emphasis on launching automations from forms. You can set them up so anyone who subscribes goes straight into a workflow. To receive a sequence of welcome emails.

ClickFunnels is all about big, bold statements baked into its squeeze funnels. ActiveCampaign is about simplicity. For example, you can display forms in 4 different ways. And there are 4 actions you can trigger from a form. Add subscribers to a list. Tag them. Add them to a deal or send them an email. I like how all these set up options are on a simple page. But there’s more options than you get with ClickFunnels forms. You can add these forms anywhere on your website. Clickfunnels only let you have forms on its landing pages.

Similarly, ActiveCampaign’s form builder is very stripped back. It’s got a very different look and feel to ClickFunnels. But the menu on the right lists all the different types of data you can capture in an ActiveCampaign form. In ClickFunnels, you can capture email addresses, or else checkboxes or text inputs. Only email addresses get added to a contact database. With ActiveCampaign, you can create custom fields. You can capture almost any kind of data and use that to personalise and target emails.

You can build landing pages in both ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels. Again, in ClickFunnels you have to add the Landing Page app separately.

ActiveCampaign offers 60+ landing page templates. In Clickfunnels, there are 80+ templates for sales, order confirmation and upsell/cross-sell. For me, ClickFunnels has the edge on the quality of its landing page template designs. There’s more colour and variety in layouts.

ClickFunnels’ landing page builder wins out over ActiveCampaign’s.

Find out where we rank Clickfunnels in our review of the best landing page builders.

CRM and Managing contacts

ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels are both marketing and sales platforms. So you’d expect them to be rich in the CRM and contact management department. 

I found ClickFunnels’ contact management options disappointing. It’s in the Customers menu, the contact features boil down to 2 pages. A simple contact list view where you can filter by attributes and tags. And a segments page where you can break your list into smaller groups for targeted campaigns. And that’s it. The rest of the Customers section is given over to transactional data management. Orders, subscriptions, payments, and invoices. 

Like a lot of ClickFunnels features, its CRM tools aren’t easy to find and come with a learning curve. To build pipelines and manage deals, you have to add the Opportunities app. Then things like messaging leads, booking appointments and automating how deals progress have to be handled elsewhere. I found it a little confusing.

ClickFunnels lets you set up pipelines with as many stages as you like to suit your sales funnel. You can also set opportunity values and close probabilities to forecast revenues from each stage. Each stage has a list of automated Quick Actions you can add. Things like tagging contacts, adding notes or notifying team members as deals move in or out of a stage. 

You can also use Quick Actions to trigger full automation workflows. You have to do this to move opportunities from one stage to another automatically. It’s good that you can automate deals moving through a pipeline. But it feels a long way around to do it for me. I’d prefer to have the option right there in the pipeline window.

To set up meetings and communicate with contacts from pipelines, you have to add the Appointments and MessageHub apps. Appointments syncs to Google, iCloud, Office365, Exchange and Outlook calendars. MessageHub combines email, SMS, WhatsApp and live chat in a single ‘inbox’. You can set up messages to send automatically. And link these to progress of deals in your pipelines. Or set up prompts to contact leads at different stages. 

ActiveCampaign’s contact management tools are far more impressive. ActiveCampaign organises contacts by lists and tags. But you can go further and use filters, segmentation and more tags to exactly pin down the groups you are looking for. Set up the data fields and tags once and they get filled automatically. 

ActiveCampaign also wins hands down as a CRM platform. It has more features, they’re better quality but they’re also much more intuitive to use. ActiveCampaign marketing CRM is included in all plans. We ranked ActiveCampaign as one of the best CRM tools with email marketing. And if you want to go deeper, there’s a whole separate sales CRM suite available as an add-on. Find out more about contact management in our ActiveCampaign CRM review.

One of the things I like best about ActiveCampaign as a CRM platform is its automation options. You don’t just build pipelines in ActiveCampaign. You can automate virtually every aspect of managing and progressing deals. That includes building workflows. And as with marketing automation, there are dozens of ‘recipes’ to help get you started.

I also like the way ActiveCampaign links marketing to sales activity. Its sales engagement workflows create complete journeys from initial lead capture to closing deals. You can do this in ClickFunnels. And its funnels are a kind of shortcut that work well in certain situations. But compared to ActiveCampaign, ClickFunnels feels disjointed and messy. You have to jump around different windows and tools. ActiveCampaign puts it all together for you.

ActiveCampaign’s CRM lead scoring is another feature I really like. You can score leads based on website visits and clicks and opens of email campaigns. Basically any field or interaction. The lead score shows who are the best prospects to reach out to with your sales funnels. 

Try the ActiveCampaign CRM here

Analytics

Analytics sum up the different emphasis these 2 place on sales and marketing. For ClickFunnels, the focus is on conversions and revenue. ActiveCampaign tracks these, too. But it has much broader coverage of marketing metrics.

One thing both share in common is making analytics available throughout the site. On email and automations pages, for example, you get a full breakdown of all relevant current data.

I like the way ClickFunnels displays data in line on every page, not on a separate tab. Financial metrics are more prominent. On email campaign pages, it lists revenue metrics above open and click rates. On Automation workflows, there’s a handy breakdown of data for every action. But off to the left, there’s a large box with cart value for the workflow and earnings per click. 

ActiveCampaign has these sales-focused analytics as well. It has Conversion Attribution for all marketing activities. If you connect a web store, it will calculate marketing revenue based on the attribution of sales. But there’s much more besides.

ActiveCampaign doesn’t have one analytics dashboard. It goes into more detail. From the Reports menu you can go to 20+ analytics pages. There are performance charts for automations, campaigns and forms. Track trends over time for tags, and open and click rates. Even email performance in different email clients. There’s also the option to build your own custom reports.

Integrations

This category is a real mismatch. ActiveCampaign goes all-in on third-party integrations. ClickFunnels offers less than you would expect for a major platform.

ActiveCampaign has 900+ integrations. The list covers most business software tools. Ecommerce, CRM, payments, CMS, lead generation and much more. Major names include Slack, Unbounce, Twilio, Stripe, PayPal, Salesforce, WordPress and WooCommerce. If you want to add marketing automation to your existing stack, ActiveCampaign makes it easy.

By contrast, ClickFunnels has just 20. It’s also noticeable that a good chunk of those are email marketing services, including ActiveCampaign.

ClickFunnels does offer a lot of native tools. But for modern business software, I want to plug into my own apps without having to know how to configure APIs.

Customer Support

One thing ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels both do well is on-page support. And not just a Help button buried in a corner of a screen. Prominent, contextually relevant advice, hints and tips as you work.

I’m a big fan of this. ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels are both pretty big platforms. There are lots of tools, lots of things to learn. Tips on how to ace a new task lift the whole user experience.

There are slight differences in how they go about it. As I mentioned with Automations, ActiveCampaign goes for pop-up windows with brief suggestions. You don’t have to click through to another page to get help right away. But you can if you want more information. In ActiveCampaign, you can also switch off recommendations as you get more comfortable.

On ClickFunnels, you get ‘Learn more’ buttons on most pages. These open a window of recommended Help articles. Useful still, but not quite as well presented. You’re still left searching for the answer you want. 

As for help desk support, ActiveCampaign offers live chat, email, and call-back options. These are available 20 hours a day Monday to Thursday (3am to 11am American Central Time). And 13.5 hours Fridays (3am to 4.30pm CT). ClickFunnels has an AI support bot. If you want help from a person, it’s email tickets only Monday to Friday.

ActiveCampaign vs ClickFunnels Price Comparison

*Clickfunnels charges $0.675 per 1000 emails sent. We calculated the costs of sending 4 emails per month to the full contact list.

ClickFunnels starts at $81 a month. On that Startup plan, you get an account for 3 team members. And workspaces for 3 different brands. You can build unlimited funnels, pages, automations, and courses. And you get unlimited contacts.

However, ClickFunnels charges top-up costs for several features. This includes sending emails. It charges $0.675 per 1000 emails sent. This isn’t made very clear in the advertised pricing.

ActiveCampaign has a lower starting price. You can get on its Starter plan for $19 a month. You’ll get 1 user, 1000 contacts, and 10,000 emails a month. For a closer comparison to ClickFunnels, you have to go up to the Pro plan to get 3 user accounts. That starts at $79, so very little difference. ActiveCampaign also has add-on for SMS marketing, CRM, transactional emails, and custom reporting. Check out our full ActiveCampaign pricing guide for all the plans and details.

Both platforms offer a 14-day free trial. Get started with ActiveCampaign for free here or try Clickfunnels.

The winner of this round: ActiveCampaign is more scalable with its lower starting prices. And it’s slightly cheaper for much better features. So ActiveCampaigns wins out on value for money for me.
ActiveCampaign 7 – ClickFunnels 1

If you’re on a tighter budget and you don’t need advanced automation, check out our review of the best free and cheap email marketing tools.

ActiveCampaign vs ClickFunnels, which should you choose?

As a marketing automation platform, ActiveCampaign is my winner. The 7-2 score on features reflects its superiority across most key areas. Especially automation and email marketing.

That’s not to say ClickFunnels won’t make a better choice for some people. It’s good if you’re looking to build high-converting lead capture pages.

But for building, automating and tracking campaigns, ActiveCampaign is hard to beat. It has some of the best automation tools I’ve worked with. They’re easy enough to use to get started with. But there’s plenty of room to grow to advanced levels of automation. It also has pricing options to suit all sizes of business.

Try ActiveCampaign for free

ActiveCampaign vs ClickFunnels FAQ

About Paul Newham

Paul Newham is a content writer specialising in business blogging, report writing, software reviews, and online copywriting. He has 5+ years of email marketing, marketing automation and software review experience. He tested over 60 business software including email marketing tools, CRMs, outreach services, SMTP providers, email verification, and AI writing tools.
With a background in journalism and PR, he understands business content from both sides. And knows what makes for great, engaging copy, but also understands that for businesses, the written word is all about driving value.

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