ActiveCampaign vs tinyEmail: Unbiased & Honest Review

ActiveCampaign vs tinyEmail: Pricing

When comparing prices, ActiveCampaign generally costs more than tinyEmail. However, if you send a large number of emails monthly, like 500,000 or more, ActiveCampaign might become more cost-effective, depending on the specific plans you compare.

Beyond price, the main reason to choose ActiveCampaign is if you need advanced automation capabilities. It’s particularly useful if you’re looking for a tool that combines marketing and sales features, helping your teams close more deals. In contrast, tinyEmail primarily focuses on sending newsletters and doesn’t offer much else.

So, in this article, I will detail and compare the pricing of both. However, the choice largely depends on your needs. If you don’t need automation features, skip ActiveCampaign. If you do need them, rule out tinyEmail. For those interested, I’ve included a detailed price comparison and an informative graph below.

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Click here to visit tinyEmail’s website (+forever free plan).

Pricing structure

Comparing the costs of ActiveCampaign and tinyEmail for email marketing can be challenging. ActiveCampaign’s pricing is based on the number of subscribers you have, whereas tinyEmail’s fees depend on the volume of emails you send.

As you’ll see in the graphs later in this review, choosing tinyEmail, which charges based on the number of emails, is more cost-effective if you send fewer emails. However, the value decreases if you send a large number of emails compared to your subscriber count. I’ve included graphs later in this article to illustrate this point.

Different plans tinyEmail

Free
Standard (starting from $15/mo)
Pro (starting from $65/mo)

TinyEmail Standard prices (tier 1)

This table lists the prices for tinyEmail’s Standard plan, their most basic option. It shows the monthly cost when you choose the yearly plan, which gives you a 20% discount. In the fourth column of the table, you’ll find the maximum number of emails you can send under this plan.

Contacts	Price/mo	Annual billing	Max emails/mo
Unlimited	$15	$12	15,000
Unlimited	$25	$20	25,000
Unlimited	$50	$40	50,000
Unlimited	$100	$80	100,000
Unlimited	$250	$200	250,000
Unlimited	$500	$400	500,000
Unlimited	$750	$600	750,000
Unlimited	$1,000	$800	1,000,000
Unlimited	$1,250	$1,000	1,250,000
Unlimited	$1,500	$1,200	1,500,000
	Custom Pricing	Custom Pricing	1,500,000+

TinyEmail Pro prices (tier 2)

Here’s a table with the prices for tinyEmail’s Pro plan, which is their second-tier package. It includes the monthly prices and the cost for an annual plan, where you get a 20% discount. The last column, column 4, shows the maximum number of emails you can send with this plan.

Contacts	Price/mo	Annual billing	Max emails/mo
Unlimited	$65	$52	15,000
Unlimited	$75	$60	25,000
Unlimited	$100	$80	50,000
Unlimited	$200	$160	100,000
Unlimited	$450	$360	250,000
Unlimited	$900	$720	500,000
Unlimited	$1,200	$960	750,000
Unlimited	$1,500	$1,200	1,000,000
Unlimited	$1,875	$1,500	1,250,000
Unlimited	$2,100	$1,680	1,500,000
	Custom Pricing	Custom Pricing	1,500,000+

Different plans ActiveCampaign

Below, you’ll see that ActiveCampaign offers 10 different plans. However, we’re not discussing the ‘Sales’ plans in this article because they focus on sales features, not email marketing. In the list, you’ll notice some plans has a ’10X contact limit.’ This means the number of emails you can send in that tier is ten times your number of subscribers. For example, if you have 10,000 subscribers in ActiveCampaign on the Marketing Lite plan, you can send up to 100,000 emails monthly (10,000 subscribers x 10).

For most businesses, a 10 times multiplier is enough for their email marketing needs. This assumes you send about one email per week, plus some automated emails. However, if you plan to send multiple emails to your entire list each week (or many automated emails), this limit might not be enough, and you may need to move up to a higher tier.

Marketing Lite (10X contact limit)
Marketing Plus (10X contact limit)
Marketing Professional (12X contact limit)
Marketing Enterprise (15X contact limit)
Sales Plus
Sales Professional
Sales Enterprise
Plus (Marketing & Sales bundle) (12X contact limit)
Professional (Marketing & Sales bundle) (15X contact limit)
Enterprise (Marketing & Sales bundle) (20X contact limit)

The prices listed in the table below are monthly rates. ActiveCampaign does offer a 20% discount for annual purchases, but these discounted prices are not shown in the table.

	0	1,000	2,500	5,000	10,000	25,000	50,000	50,000+
Marketing Lite	$39	$39	$61	$99	$174	$286	$486	50,000+: Custom Pricing
Marketing Plus	$70	$70	$125	$186	$287	$474	$699	50,000+: Custom Pricing
Marketing Professional	$187	$187	$187	$262	$424	$686	$1,011	50,000+: Custom Pricing
Bundles Plus	$116	$116	$171	$232	$333	$520	$745	50,000+: Custom Pricing
Bundles Professional	$482	$482	$482	$557	$719	$981	$1,306	50,000+: Custom Pricing

Comparing prices

Before we start, here are some key points: ActiveCampaign’s pricing is based on the number of subscribers, while tinyEmail charges based on the number of emails sent.

In the table above, you’ll see that ActiveCampaign has five marketing plans. We’re excluding the enterprise tiers here because they don’t display set prices, making comparison difficult. From my review of ActiveCampaign, you may recall that I’m not keen on their Lite plan. It’s a pared-down version of their full toolset, and there are cheaper email marketing tools with more features. The ActiveCampaign tiers worth considering, in my opinion, are the Marketing Professional and Bundles Professional (which combines marketing and sales features, like CRM).

For this price comparison, we’ll focus on these two ActiveCampaign tiers (Marketing Professional and Bundles Professional). For details on the Plus tier, which is slightly cheaper than the Professional tier, please refer to our review or ActiveCampaign’s pricing plan. The Plus tier is valuable but lacks some features of the Professional tier.

The graph below shows the prices for the following tiers:

tinyEmail Standard
tinyEmail Pro
ActiveCampaign Marketing Professional
ActiveCampaign Professional (Marketing & Sales bundle)

Remember, email marketing is typically a long-term strategy. The prices discussed here are based on a year’s use, including annual payment discounts. Both ActiveCampaign and tinyEmail offer a 20% discount for this.

In the graph, you’ll find 3 example scenarios:

2,500 subscribers and 30,000 emails per month
10,000 subscribers and 120,000 emails per month
50,000 subscribers and 500,000 emails per month

The graph above shows that the price difference between ActiveCampaign and tinyEmail is more noticeable at lower subscriber and email levels. However, at higher levels (like 50,000 subscribers and 600,000 monthly emails), this difference is less obvious. tinyEmail Pro is even more expensive than ActiveCampaign Marketing Professional.

Keep in mind: Comparing email tools like tinyEmail, which charge based on emails sent, with those like ActiveCampaign, which use a subscriber-based pricing, requires careful consideration. The example graph assumes you’re sending the maximum number of emails allowed by ActiveCampaign, which permits 10X to 20X the number of your subscribers, depending on your plan. Tools like tinyEmail become more cost-effective if you send fewer emails. For instance, if you have 50,000 subscribers but only send one newsletter per month, you’ll only need a plan that covers 50,000 emails per month.

The next graph shows the same subscriber levels but with a 1:1 ratio for emails sent monthly. So, for 10,000 subscribers, it shows the cost for sending 10,000 emails monthly. Here, you’ll notice a significant change: tinyEmail becomes much more affordable compared to ActiveCampaign. This is why it’s worth exploring email tools with a pricing structure based on the number of emails sent, especially if you’re only sending a single newsletter each month.

ActiveCampaign vs tinyEmail: Similarities & Differences

Similarities

After reviewing both ActiveCampaign and tinyEmail, it’s clear there aren’t many similarities. The main common feature is that both offer a newsletter editor, allowing you to send newsletters.

However, the level of similarity depends on which ActiveCampaign tier you compare with tinyEmail. For instance, ActiveCampaign’s Lite plan, their basic entry-level tier, is somewhat similar to tinyEmail as it’s a more basic version of ActiveCampaign’s full suite. But, as I mentioned in my ActiveCampaign review, there are other email marketing tools with more features and lower costs than ActiveCampaign’s Lite plan.

Differences

Apart from the newsletter editor, everything else is quite different. ActiveCampaign offers much more advanced features. Initially, I considered including opt-in forms as a similarity, but ActiveCampaign’s forms are far more advanced and feature-rich, leading me to exclude them from the similarities.

Conclusion

I recommend reading both my ActiveCampaign and tinyEmail reviews and comparing the sections, which are consistent across my reviews. You’ll likely reach the same conclusion I did: the primary similarity is their ability to send newsletters, but beyond that, the tools are entirely different.

ActiveCampaign vs tinyEmail