GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign — Ultimate Comparison (2023)

Both GoHighLevel and ActiveCampaign promise the best in CRM, sales, and marketing tools. But which one is better?

This comparison reveals which platform you should choose.

9.5

★★★★★ 4.7/5

5.9

★★★★★ 3/5

Key Takeaways:

GoHighLevel is our top choice because it provides unbeatable value
ActiveCampaign is a considerable alternative for an easy-to-use marketing tool for small campaigns

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign at a Glance

Feature	GoHighLevel	Active Campaign
Current Promotion	30-day free trial	14-day free trial
Smart Contact Lists	✅	✅
Pipelines	✅	✅
Automated Calendars	✅	❌
Funnels	✅	❌
Websites	✅	❌
Landing Pages	✅	✅
Email Campaigns	✅	✅
Blogs	✅	❌
Split A/B Testing	✅	✅
Courses	✅	❌
Automation	✅	✅
Analytics	✅	✅
CRM	✅	✅
Integrations	✅	✅
SMS Marketing	✅	✅
Phone Marketing	✅	❌

What Is GoHighLevel?

GoHighLevel is an all-in-one sales, marketing, CRM, and digital product creation platform aimed at marketing professionals and agencies.

The feature-rich software is mostly unlimited and has sophisticated automation, allowing you to build multi-channel marketing campaigns for just about any industry.

What Is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign is a platform dedicated to CRM and marketing campaign creation for businesses of all sizes. The platform features extensive automation capabilities and has direct integrations with the major e-commerce platforms.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign Pros and Cons

GoHighLevel Pros

Both plans give you unlimited features
Affordable plans
Has full funnel and website builder tools
Highly sophisticated automation capabilities
Uses AI for automated booking
Course building and digital product creation included
Can white-label the platform and sell as SaaS

GoHighLevel Cons

The platform requires a large learning curve
Its training material is frequently out of date
Templates could be better

ActiveCampaign Pros

Easy-to-use platform with helpful guides
Excellent email campaign-building tool
Has basic plans that are limited but very affordable
Templates are modern and good-looking
Excellent help and resource center

ActiveCampaign Cons

Very expensive to add on extra contacts
No digital product creation tools
Web page builder is limited to landing pages
Easy to outgrow the platform once your business scales

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Affordability

ActiveCampaign and GoHighLevel have very different pricing structures. With GoHighLevel, there are two plans to choose from, and you get all features included.

With ActiveCampaign, the pricing is more complicated. You can choose to have CRM only or email and automation only, or you can choose a bundle plan that includes both. Furthermore, ActiveCampaign offers enterprise-level plans for bespoke pricing.

Platform	Cheapest Plan	Top-Tier Plan	Discount for Paying Annually	Free Trial?
GoHighLevel	$97/month or $80.83/month billed annually	$297/month or $247.50/month billed annually	17%	14-day free trial
Active Campaign	$23/month or $19/month billed annually	$482/month or $386/month billed annually	22%	14-day free trial

Winner Is GoHighLevel

It’s true that ActiveCampaign has cheaper plans available than GoHighLevel. However, if you pay the lower prices, you only get access to certain features, and there are plan limits in place.

On the other hand, GoHighLevel gives you access to the entire platform on both its plans, and it doesn’t place any limits on its features.

To get as close to like-for-like as possible with Active Campaign, you would have to subscribe to its top-tier bundle plan, which is way more expensive than GoHighLevel and still has limits in place.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Funnels, Websites, and Landing Pages

GoHighLevel Funnels, Websites, and Landing Pages

GoHighLevel has separate features for building sales funnels, websites, and landing pages.

The funnel builder boasts several hundred templates, and the advantage here is that they are prebuilt funnels for different purposes, so you don’t have to worry about trying to create a funnel from scratch.

The same goes for website templates and blogs. Everything is fully set up, and all you have to do is overwrite it using your own information and add additional elements to customize.

The platform uses a drag-and-drop editing tool and has extensive customization options. There’s also an editing screen for arranging your funnel steps into the desired order.

Add in interactive elements such as pop-ups, surveys, forms, two-step checkout, video, and more for a truly unique look.

ActiveCampaign Funnels, Websites, and Landing Pages

ActiveCampaign provides you with two options – create an online form or create a web page. Essentially, there’s no option for creating full websites or funnels; instead, the platform allows you to build single landing pages and embed a form if you wish.

There are ready-made templates for various web pages, and the editing tool is drag-and-drop which makes it easy to change up things to your liking. You can create landing pages for different purposes, such as product sales, data capture, or sign-up.

Overall, it’s quite a basic tool and not the best option if you’re looking for a tool to build full websites or multi-step sales funnels.

Winner Is GoHighLevel

The sheer range of functionality you get with GoHighLevel is unmatched. Having separate tools for funnel, website, blog, and landing page building makes the whole process straightforward and easier to grasp.

The high level of customization also allows you to create truly bespoke web pages for just about any purpose, while the editing tool is suitable for beginner and advanced users alike.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Templates

GoHighLevel Templates

Here’s where we feel GoHighLevel lets itself down somewhat. The sheer number of templates (there are hundreds) sounds appealing, but a lot of them are very similar.

Compared with other platforms, GoHighLevel’s templates look a little outdated and often feature spelling errors. This isn’t a big problem because you’re going to overwrite text with your own words anyway. However, it makes it look and feel like a lot of these templates were designed in a rush.

A big plus, though, is that there are templates available for entire sales funnels and websites. This takes the pain out of trying to piece everything together, particularly for sales funnels which can be complicated things to master when you first start out.

ActiveCampaign Templates

You’ve got just over 60 landing page templates to pick from in ActiveCampaign. They look just fine, but they’re not going to set your world on fire. They’re also basic, one-page templates, so if you’re looking to build entire websites, you’re in the wrong place.

Each template is for a different purpose (thank you page, sign-up pages, announcements, etc.), so it’s likely the platform has one for your needs.

Overall, these are great for beginners or if you only have the need for a single web page.

Winner Is GoHighLevel

While the GoHighLevel template aesthetics leave a lot to be desired, the basic structure is there, so we can forgive the shoddy design, especially since you have a ridiculous amount of templates to choose from.

Plus, we love that the templates are for full sales funnels and websites, so we don’t have to spend hours trying to piece everything together or figure out which order the pages should go in.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Email Marketing

GoHighLevel Email Marketing

GoHighLevel has a comprehensive email campaign builder with flexible options. First, you can choose from a wide range of templates for different purposes although like the web page templates, some of these can be a little lackluster.

The tool then lets you send out a single email or schedule a chain of emails to be sent at specific times. Additionally, you can incorporate automation into your email campaigns and have them sent automatically when other actions are performed.

For example, emails can be automatically sent when someone completes a form, signs up for something, or completes a purchase.

Emails can be brought to life with embedded images, call-to-action buttons, videos, and more.

Overall, the building tool doesn’t take long to master and works smoothly. Creating automated campaigns (more on this below) is more complex, so expect a learning curve here.

ActiveCampaign Email Marketing

The ActiveCampaign email marketing feature is extremely user-friendly. You can choose from sending out a standard single email, creating an automated sequence, automatic responses, split testing, and more.

When you pick which type of email campaign you want to build, the system guides you through the process step-by-step. This is great because it means you don’t accidentally leave something out of the process.

There are templates available for different purposes, such as subscription sign-ups and purchase confirmations. Each template is entirely customizable, and you can add elements such as interactive buttons, videos, countdown timers, and more.

Winner Is ActiveCampaign

Both platforms feature good ease of use. However, ActiveCampaign has the edge here thanks to its more modern-looking interface and guidance. Since the platform takes you through the email-building process step by step, it makes the entire experience smooth and less likely for you to make a mistake.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Phone and SMS Marketing

GoHighLevel Phone and SMS Marketing

GoHighLevel has its own phone provision service, or you can integrate with third-party provider Twilio. Once you have a phone service set up, you can use it for phone and SMS marketing in standalone campaigns or for multi-channel campaigns (a mixture of email and SMS).

Its SMS campaign creator is particularly advantageous. For starters, you can create entirely automated sequences of SMS conversations. For example, you can use SMS as a way for people to contact a business out of hours and make a booking, resulting in fewer dropped leads.

The system also makes use of an AI-powered booking bot that can detect the mood of responses and send out an appropriate reply. It has the capability to take a user through to making and confirming a booking.

Along with SMS marketing, you can also create voicemail drops, plus you can individually call and SMS contacts from within the GoHighLevel platform. SMS conversations will display as a chat conversation thread, so it’s super easy to see and refer back to previous messages.

ActiveCampaign Phone and SMS Marketing

ActiveCampaign has a native tool for sending out SMS messages, or you can connect with a third-party such as Twilio or BulkSMS.

The platform lets you incorporate SMS messages into automated workflows, but it is not as sophisticated as GoHighLevel’s offering. You can use the service for tasks like letting people know they have subscribed to something, sending out purchase reminders, event reminders, and coupons and discounts.

While you can send out sequences of SMS messages, there is no AI built into this feature, so the sequences will be quite basic.

At present, it is not possible to use phone calls or voicemail with ActiveCampaign.

Winner Is GoHighLevel

GoHighLevel has made SMS a must-have for marketing campaigns thanks to the sophisticated AI and automation it uses. It provides you with a completely hands-off approach yet ensures you don’t drop any hot leads.

Now you don’t have to be present to reply to each and every text that comes in: you simply set up the automation process and let it do its thing.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Automation

GoHighLevel Automation

Automation is one of GoHighLevel’s winning features, and it’s a massive tool with almost endless capabilities. You can create highly detailed and multi-channel automated campaigns, build an automated booking bot, and set boring admin tasks to autopilot.

The workflow builder is a little tough to use at first, mostly because of the vast number of options. However, there are prebuilt campaign templates that you can use, which makes things quicker.

When you do master the tool, the amount of convenience it provides is unmatched, and it allows you to simultaneously run a large number of campaigns, which just wouldn’t be possible if you had to do everything manually.

ActiveCampaign Automation

ActiveCampaign’s automation is largely centered around email campaigns and organizing contacts. You can create detailed workflows that hand off admin tasks and send out emails without you having to lift a finger.

What we like here is that ActiveCampaign has a large number of “recipes” for you to use. These are prebuilt workflows for common tasks that you simply plug in and use. We also like that there is plenty of guidance to help you through the automation-building process.

Winner Is GoHighLevel

Both platforms have top-notch automation capabilities, but GoHighLevel wins because you can do so much more with it. While it does take a larger learning curve to grasp, you can use it for just about any purpose.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Courses and Memberships

GoHighLevel Courses and Memberships

The GoHighLevel platform allows you to create paid or free membership sites and courses.

The course-building feature isn’t as advanced as a dedicated platform like Kajabi is, but it still provides you with enough tools to make engaging courses filled with lessons and modules.

You can upload a variety of files, such as PDFs, documents, and more, plus add video and audio files to bring your content to life.

Courses can be offered individually, as bundles, or you can include them within a membership site that members pay for on a subscription basis. And for the final flourish, GoHighLevel lets you build and sell unlimited courses and membership sites.

ActiveCampaign Courses and Memberships

Unfortunately, ActiveCampaign does not have any course-building or membership site-creation tools. If you want to offer things like this through ActiveCampaign, you would first have to create them on a different platform and link them via Zapier or an integration.

Winner Is GoHighLevel

Even though it’s definitely not the most sophisticated course creation tool we’ve ever seen, it’s still highly convenient to be able to create, market, and sell your digital products from the GoHighLevel platform. And since ActiveCampaign offers nothing in this department, the win for GoHighLevel is obvious.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: CRM Tools

GoHighLevel CRM Tools

GoHighLevel is definitely a platform to consider for conducting CRM. There are bundles of features to make this aspect of your business easy, smooth, and in most cases, automated.

One massive highlight is that you can create unlimited numbers of contacts. There are no restrictions to this whatsoever. Then, you also have access to the following:

Smart contact lists (arrange your contacts into lists for different campaigns).
Automatic pipelines that show you exactly where contact is within the customer journey.
Unlimited calendars and smart calendar management (avoid those double bookings).
Automatic calendar bookings.
Send emails, SMS, WhatsApp, social media, and voicemail messages directly from GoHighLevel.
Call contacts directly from GoHighLevel.
Integrate with PayPal or Stripe and directly take payments for bookings.
View all your contact analytics and reports from the GoHighLevel dashboard.
Create automated flows that move your contacts through the customer journey.

ActiveCampaign CRM Tools

ActiveCampaign touts itself as primarily a CRM platform, but we find it’s quite limited in this department. One major drawback is that the platform limits the number of contacts you can have on the system, and the number is pretty low.

If we look at the bundle plans, you can only have 1,000 contacts on the Plus plan and 2,500 on the Professional plan. When signing up, you can choose to increase this limit, but it’s going to cost you.

For example, if you want over 50,000 contacts on the Professional plan, this is going to cost an eye-watering $1,306/month, making it completely unaffordable for many.

What can you do with your contacts? The platform offers the following CRM features:

Contact list management and segmentation tools
Customized pipelines
Deal pipeline management with automatic lead scoring
Team user permissions and management
Tasks and customer journey automation
Recent activity threads and lead engagement reminders
Task management, reporting, and analytics
Email and inbox syncing

Winner Is GoHighLevel

There’s no doubt that the contact limitations on ActiveCampaign will be a sticking point for many. No one wants to pay through the nose just to have the ability to add more contacts.

GoHighLevel, on the other hand, offers unlimited contacts on both its plans and allows you to do so much more with them.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Integrations

GoHighLevel Integrations

Since GoHighLevel is an “all-in-one” platform, it doesn’t have a huge number of direct integrations because they’re simply not necessary.

The platform is compatible with the things you do need, such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for social media messaging; PayPal and Stripe for payment processing; and Google Analytics for looking at stats.

There are also a number of other integrations, such as Shopify, Quickbooks, Zoom, and more. For everything else, you can use Zapier to connect.

ActiveCampaign Integrations

ActiveCampaign was built for integrations and, as such, has the ability to connect directly with over 920 different apps.

This includes apps for just about anything, from payment gateways such as PayPal, Square, Revolut, and more to analytics tools like Zoho, Google, Sumo, and more. In the unlikely event you cannot find the right app for your needs, ActiveCampaign also connects with Zapier.

Its biggest integrations are in e-commerce and can directly connect with Shopify, WooCommerce, and more so you can seamlessly set up and run all your online store campaigns with ActiveCampaign.

Winner Is ActiveCampaign

There’s no doubt that ActiveCampaign has a huge selection of direct app integrations that dwarf GoHighLevel’s offering. This makes it incredibly easy for you to increase ActiveCampaigns functionality.

And its e-commerce functionality is great, making it a good choice if your business is in this niche.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: User Experience

GoHighLevel User Experience

It’s safe to say you can perform an incredible amount of tasks in GoHighLevel because it has an incredible number of features. The downer here is that not all of them are straightforward to use, and the platform as a whole requires a significant learning curve.

When you sign up for the free trial, you’re probably going to spend most of it getting to grips with the platform, particularly if you plan to make use of the automation tools.

The other issue we often encounter is that GoHighLevel’s learning portal – while comprehensive – is frequently out of date. The team regularly updates the platform, which is great, but they fail to release updated training material at the same time.

That said, when you do get acquainted with the platform, it does run smoothly and doesn’t glitch very often. But as we said, things get updated often, so it may mean you have to relearn features on a fairly regular basis.

ActiveCampaign User Experience

ActiveCampaign definitely has a more modern-looking interface than GoHighLevel, and we particularly like that you are guided through the setup of many of its features.

There’s a bit of a learning curve, but not as extreme as GoHighLevel, so the platform’s features can be mastered in a relatively short space of time.

Additionally, the learning center is comprehensive and well organized so you can quickly find a guide to help you. There is also a live chat box always available, so help is never far away.

Winner Is ActiveCampaign

If you’re choosing a platform purely based on ease of use, then ActiveCampaign wins. Its interface is clean and modern with plenty of resources to help you navigate its features.

Using the platform provides a great experience and all its tools function seamlessly. We couldn’t fault ActiveCampaign in this respect.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Customer Service

GoHighLevel Customer Service

GoHighLevel has a “live chat” and email ticketing service. The issue is that the live chat isn’t really live. Once you activate the chat box, the conversation is moved onto SMS. And in our experience, waiting for replies can take several hours.

As we’ve already mentioned, GoHighLevel’s help portal is frequently out of date, so finding on-the-spot help can sometimes be a frustrating experience.

Its saving grace is that GoHighLevel team members are always willing to jump on a Zoom call with you. If you need guidance on how to use the platform’s tools and features, this is often the best and quickest way to get it.

ActiveCampaign Customer Service

ActiveCampaign has live chat available but it’s not actually always available. Often, the conversation gets moved to email if there are no agents on hand to respond. Once we did get a response, our query was handled quickly and efficiently.

ActiveCampign’s help resources stand out as being particularly excellent. There’s plenty in there to guide you through most things and we found the material was more or less up to date.

Winner Is: It’s a Draw

GoHighLevel’s help portal isn’t great, but the team’s willingness to help you via Zoom more than makes up for it.

ActiveCampaign doesn’t have live video support, but it doesn’t really need it thanks to its excellent online help guides.

Overall, the two platforms balance out in terms of the support they offer.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Final Verdict

We feel that GoHighLevel is one of the most current comprehensive platforms. And while it could do better in the looks and usability department, the sheer number of tasks you can perform on the platform is incredible. Furthermore, what you get for the monthly cost (unlimited features) is unbeatable.

ActiveCampaign is a good substitute, and the platform is certainly easier to use. However, once you scale your business, you’re going to resent paying all that extra money for increased contacts.

Use GoHighLevel if you are a marketing professional or agency, don’t mind the learning curve, and want a sales and marketing platform with unlimited earning potential.
Use ActiveCampaign if you are a small business that wants an easy-to-use marketing and CRM platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is GoHighLevel or ActiveCampaign Cheaper?

ActiveCampaign has cheaper plans, but the features you get are restrictive. If you look at the ActiveCampaign plans that are similar to GoHighLevel’s, GoHighLevel is the more affordable option.

What Is the Difference Between GoHighLevel and ActiveCampaign?

GoHighLevel is an all-in-one platform for digital product creation, sales, marketing, and CRM tools. ActiveCampaign is also a CRM, sales, and marketing platform but lacks any digital product creation capabilities.

Is GoHighLevel or ActiveCampaign Better?

GoHighLevel is better than ActiveCampaign since it provides many features that ActiveCampaign doesn’t: for example, the ability to create sales funnels and online courses. Furthermore, GoHighLevel lets you have unlimited contacts, while ActiveCampaign restricts this unless you pay more.

Can I Use GoHighLevel or ActiveCampaign for Free?

Neither GoHighLevel nor ActiveCampaign has free plans available. However, both platforms have 14-day free trials available where you can use each of them fully during this period.

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