ActiveCampaign vs Nutshell

Overview: ActiveCampaign vs. Nutshell

ActiveCampaign and Nutshell are two CRM platforms designed to enhance customer relationships and streamline outreach, each with a unique focus. ActiveCampaign combines CRM with powerful marketing automation, enabling teams to manage customer interactions across email, SMS, and more, making it ideal for businesses focused on multi-channel engagement. Nutshell, by contrast, integrates CRM with built-in email marketing and sales automation, providing a straightforward solution for managing contacts, sales pipelines, and campaigns. In this blog post, we'll compare their key features to help you decide which CRM best fits your needs.

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Or, if folk might be a more flexible alternative with user-friendly contact management and customization options, especially for sales teams of 20-50 people.

What is ActiveCampaign?

Active Campaign is a marketing automation platform designed to help businesses of all sizes manage customer interactions and drive growth through personalized and automated communication. While it isn't a traditional CRM, it has a CRM and sales automation feature alongside its main marketing focussed product.

Key features of ActiveCampaign

• Email marketing: Create personalized email campaigns with drag-and-drop templates, advanced segmentation, and automated sequences to engage your audience effectively.
• Marketing automation: Automate workflows for email, SMS, and site messages, based on user behavior and custom triggers, enhancing customer engagement and retention.
• Sales automation: Integrates a CRM with automation tools to streamline the sales process, track leads, manage deals, and automate follow-ups.
• Minor CRM feature: Sales focused CRM to track and manage processes using sales automation.
  

What is Nutshell?

Nutshell is an all-in-one CRM specifically designed to help B2B teams close more deals. It combines contact management, pipeline tracking, and email marketing tools to support every stage of the sales process, from lead generation to deal closure. With features like customizable pipelines, activity tracking, and seamless integration options, Nutshell also enables sales teams to stay organized, collaborate, and drive results—all within a user-friendly platform tailored for B2B needs.

Key features of Nutshell

• Contact management: Centralizes customer information and tracks communication history to keep teams organized and informed.
• Pipeline management: Customizable sales pipelines to track leads and deals through every stage of the sales process.
• Email marketing: Built-in email campaign tools that enable targeted outreach and engagement with prospects and customers.
• Activity tracking: Logs all interactions, including calls, emails, and meetings, allowing teams to stay on top of follow-ups and engagement.
• Reporting and analytics: Provides insights into sales performance, forecasting, and team activity, helping to make data-driven decisions.

ActiveCampaign vs. Nutshell: Feature Comparison

Let's break down the key features of two CRM software solutions and take a closer look at their sales automation, email marketing tools, and contact management capabilities that matter most for medium-sized sales teams.

1. 销售渠道管理

ActiveCampaign's sales pipeline management feature is integrated with its CRM, enabling businesses to streamline their sales processes. It allows users to visually manage deals through customizable pipelines, automate tasks like follow-ups, and track every stage of the sales journey. Nutshell's pipeline management feature provides tools for tracking leads and deals through different stages using various views, including board, list, map, and chart views. The pipeline is customizable, allowing users to organize and prioritize leads according to their workflow needs.

2. 易用性

ActiveCampaign features a user-friendly interface with a strong focus on marketing, offering intuitive navigation and a straightforward setup process. However, its CRM functionality is secondary, which can lead to a steep learning curve for users. In contrast, Nutshell centers on its all-in-one CRM, providing a streamlined experience tailored for sales teams to manage leads and track sales activities efficiently while remaining user-friendly.

3. 接触强化

ActiveCampaign does not appear to have a contact enrichment feature, which may limit its ability to automatically gather additional contact information from external sources. Nutshell's contact enrichment feature is focused on minimizing manual data entry by allowing users to import contacts, emails, and calendar events from various sources.

4. 外展

ActiveCampaign's outreach capabilities are functional, offering email, SMS, and some social media tools for multi-channel communication. It allows businesses to segment their audiences and send personalized messages, while automations help manage follow-ups across different channels. However, the SMS functionality is quite basic. Nutshell's outreach feature includes built-in email marketing and automation capabilities, allowing users to create and send email campaigns directly within the platform. This feature enables teams to manage targeted outreach and follow-up sequences as part of their sales process, providing basic email tracking and engagement metrics to assess campaign effectiveness.

5. 自动化

ActiveCampaign's automation features are marketing focussed. Allowing users to create workflows that automate tasks like sending emails, updating contact records, and triggering follow-up actions based on predefined conditions. These workflows can be set up using a visual drag-and-drop builder, and they support a range of triggers, such as contact behavior, form submissions, or sales pipeline changes. Nutshell's automation features are focused on streamlining basic sales and marketing tasks. Its automation tools support activities like sending follow-up emails, managing task reminders, and progressing deals through pipeline stages. Nutshell also offers email marketing automation, allowing users to set up drip campaigns and manage customer engagement within the platform.

6. 集成

ActiveCampaign offers a wide range of integrations with over 900 third-party applications, allowing users to connect the platform with tools like Shopify, WordPress, Salesforce, and Google Analytics. Similarly, Nutshell offers integrations with a range of popular tools to enhance its functionality and streamline workflows. It connects with major productivity platforms like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack, allowing users to manage emails, calendars, and team communication within their existing tools.

7. 人工智能

ActiveCampaign integrates AI features to enhance various aspects of its platform, such as email marketing and automation. The AI-powered tools include predictive sending, which analyzes contact behavior to suggest the best time to send emails, and predictive content, which helps in optimizing subject lines and messaging. Nutshell's AI integration offers several tools to enhance team productivity and streamline workflows. Key AI-driven features include timeline summarization, which helps users quickly sort through historical records by summarizing past interactions and activities.

价格与套餐对比

Let's take a closer look at the price and plans of both ActiveCampaign and Nutshell.

ActiveCampaign prices

ActiveCampaign's price plans are based on the number of contacts you have. The following is based on a plan for 1,000 contacts.

• Starter: Starting from $15/month.
• Plus: Starting from $49/month.
• Pro: Starting from $79/month.
• Enterprise: Starting from $145/month.

Nutshell prices

Nutshell offers several feature-rich plans tailored to different goals and team sizes.

• Foundation: $16 per user, per month.
• Pro: $42 per user, per month.
• Power AI: $52 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $67 per user, per month.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to ActiveCampaign and Nutshell

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. A multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system. What makes folk unique is its ability to scale with you as an all-in-one CRM that can be used by solopreneurs, small to mid-sized teams and large enterprises. folk also supports multiple business functions including sales, marketing, recruitment, investment relations and more. For sales teams of 20-50 people, folk CRM offers the perfect balance of functionality and ease of use without the complexity of enterprise solutions.

主要特点

• 联系人管理：将所有联系人无缝整合至同一平台，涵盖LinkedIn、Instagram和X等社交媒体平台，以及Gmail和Outlook等多重收件箱。
• 备注与提醒： 在folk中直接将 备注附加 到联系人档案，随时随地查看。设置提醒功能，确保您精准掌握跟进时机。
• 销售流程仪表盘：通过高度可定制的销售流程仪表盘管理整个销售周期和潜在客户，支持看板视图或列表视图。
• 易用性与定制化：轻松定制销售流程、仪表盘、自动化流程及邮件序列，使其适用于整个销售周期与销售流程管理——以及招聘、营销等其他业务职能。
• 社交媒体整合：借助folk的Google Chrome扩展程序，一键导入来自LinkedIn、Sales Navigator、Instagram和X的人员及企业信息。
• Gmail与Outlook联系人同步：实现完整的邮件同步功能，让用户能够直接在CRM系统中管理所有通信内容。
• 一键查找电子邮箱：借助Apollo和Dropcontact驱动的联系人信息增强功能，您只需单击一下即可填补缺失的数据点。
• 邮件序列：若潜在客户未回复首封邮件，系统将自动发送带提醒功能的邮件序列。该功能集成人工智能技术，支持大规模个性化邮件定制。

价格与套餐

folk提供14天免费试用。试用期结束后，可选择经济实惠的月度或年度订阅方案。年度订阅方案如下：

• 标准版：每位用户每月20美元。
• 高级版：每月每位用户40美元。
• 定制方案：每位用户每月80美元起。

ActiveCampaign vs. Nutshell: What's the Verdict?

From the comparison between ActiveCampaign and Nutshell, it's apparent that both platforms offer robust CRM solutions tailored to different business needs. ActiveCampaign excels in marketing automation, making it ideal for businesses focused on personalized communication. Nutshell, on the other hand, is a comprehensive CRM designed for B2B sales teams, offering strong pipeline management and collaboration tools. However, for medium-sized sales organizations of 20-50 people that need a more personalized approach to relationship management, folk CRM provides the best alternative to these traditional CRM options, blending ease of use with powerful customization capabilities specifically designed for growing sales teams.

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常见问题解答

Does ActiveCampaign include a CRM?

Yes. ActiveCampaign offers a built-in sales CRM with deal pipelines, tasks, and automation. Its core strength is marketing automation across email and SMS, so CRM depth may feel lighter than dedicated sales CRMs.

Is Nutshell a good choice for B2B sales teams?

Yes. Nutshell is an all-in-one CRM for B2B sales, combining contact management, customizable pipelines, activity tracking, reporting, and built-in email marketing in an easy-to-use interface.

Which is better for a 20–50 person sales team: ActiveCampaign or Nutshell?

For marketing-led outreach, choose ActiveCampaign. For a straightforward B2B sales process, choose Nutshell. Teams wanting flexible pipelines, enrichment, and email sequences should consider folk.

How do ActiveCampaign and Nutshell pricing models differ?

ActiveCampaign pricing scales by contact count (e.g., from $15/month for 1,000 contacts). Nutshell charges per user ($16–$67/user/month). Final costs depend on team size, contacts, and features selected.