ActiveCampaign vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (aka Pardot)

What is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign somewhat complicatedly describes itself as a "Customer Experience Automation Platform", which enables small and medium-sized businesses to segment contacts and customers and to address them personally across different channels. ActiveCampaign combines email marketing and marketing automation with elements of CRM. The smallest package starts at 9 US dollars per user and month and includes all elements of classic email marketing and automation for up to 500 contacts. For more contacts, more complex automations and additional features, such as the CRM function, one has to dig significantly deeper into their pockets.