Next year marks our 10th year in business. Quite an achievement for a small digital consultancy – but we’re not resting on our laurels. Quite the opposite: the market is changing fast and we need to adapt like everyone else.
Why we ditched ActiveCampaign
I first stumbled across ActiveCampaign in 2015, at a time when I was deeply involved with enterprise-level marketing automation platforms, working for a marketing agency. I was blown away by its features – and even more by its pricing. For less than $20 a month, I had access to powerful automations and sales pipelines that were nicely integrated.
Over the years, however, their pricing increased dramatically. They repositioned their platform for the mid-market as an alternative to HubSpot. We serve smaller businesses, and the new pricing was simply too much of a stretch.
The other major shift has been the effectiveness of marketing automation itself. Everyone is doing it. It’s become very hard to cut through the noise – and when you do, it’s rarely because of the tech. AI is about to 10x that noise; we’re already seeing it, and it’s only going to get worse.
My bet is that real human connections will be the next superpower for businesses. A more “traditional” sales platform serves that better. ActiveCampaign is an email marketing/marketing automation platform with sales functionality on the side. We needed the opposite.
Why we didn’t become Salesforce partners
Last year – or perhaps the year before – Salesforce introduced small-business plans bundling their sales, marketing, service, and commerce suites. These had many limitations compared to the enterprise editions, of course, but they were very affordable, starting from AUD $35 a month.
I attended their event in Melbourne earlier this year and was impressed by how far they’ve come with their Agentic AI solutions.
However, it was incredibly hard to learn more about these in the context of their small-business offerings. I eventually found someone who confirmed that the agentic layer isn’t available for SMEs. Pricing and limitations were equally difficult to pin down.
Next, I enquired about becoming a partner. After a couple of generic conversations via their chatbot, I wasn’t getting any real answers – and then I was ghosted.
I tried for a couple of weeks to have a meaningful conversation but eventually gave up. If onboarding into their ecosystem is this hard, working with them would be harder still. Salesforce is the ultimate CRM – but it’s an enterprise play.
Pipedrive to the rescue
I first tried Pipedrive back in 2022 or 2023, so I already knew its strengths: it’s easy to use, with a big focus on sales. Today, it offers even more – including campaigns and automations.
I’d say Pipedrive is comparable to Salesforce in terms of functionality, but it differs from ActiveCampaign in a way that suits us: it’s a sales platform at its core, with email marketing and automation tools on the side.
Pricing-wise, it’s perfect for the types of customers we serve. The Lite plan is very affordable, starting from USD $14 a month, and scaling up remains accessible too – check out the upgrade path on our Pipedrive Pricing page.
To conclude: Pipedrive is a joy to use. Its UI is simple yet fast, the data architecture makes sense, and integration with third-party tools is very straightforward.
You should try it out.