Why we switched from Sendinblue to ActiveCampaign

Sendinblue is not powerful enough anymore. It no longer has enough capabilities and there are other reasons why we switched.

And those reasons, I'm going to explain to you now.

Reason 1: Sendinblue has been working very slowly lately

Reason 1 is really something from the last few months. For six months now, Sendinblue has sometimes been unable to move forward, which I really find extremely annoying.

Especially if you want to do something quickly in between. Of course, I understand that you're dealing with links, databases and a lot of information, but a loading time of 2-3 minutes or sometimes no loading at all is really not convenient.

Reason 2: Sendinblue sometimes stops counting.

Uh... What do you mean by stops counting? Well, every few weeks Sendinblue has a problem adding up your contacts (within a workflow). The contacts do show up in the contact list and the emails are just sent.

However, the numbers are then not updated in the automations overview. This is very irritating, because you quickly think that something is not working.

And what's really annoying is when something doesn't work right. You don't find that out.

Reason 3: The options within Sendinblue are too limited

Don't get me wrong, but Sendinblue is a fantastic first marketing automation tool. You can create automations, you can add all kinds of conditions, and SSM marketing is also a possibility.

Only if you use it a lot and often and you want certain automations to also be linked or start working with advanced conditions, then you find out that Sendinblue falls short.

If you're just starting out with email automation, you won't have that problem. But as you want to get more out of it and put together elaborate flows, you'll run into it naturally.

Reason 4: Sendinblue's payment model is not ideal

The revenue model between Sendinblue and ActiveCampaign is vastly different. With Sendinblue, you choose a particular plan of options and then you have to choose the number of emails you want to send.

With ActiveCampaign, you choose a particular plan and then the number of contacts you have.

The difference may not seem huge.But if you are reasonably active, you will soon run into limits at Sendinblue. And you don't want that.

In addition, the limit of 2,000 marketing automation contacts is not in Sendinblue's overview. I only found that out afterwards. Not convenient.

Now that we've switched to ActiveCampaign with our software, we haven't even started paying more. The price is still about the same.

Reason 5: With Sendinblue, up to a certain account, you always have a logo at the bottom of your mail

When you take the smallest paid plan at Sendinblue, you can't remove Sendinblue's logo at the bottom of your mail. When I started with Sendinblue 2 years ago, you could only remove the logo with a Premium plan.

Meanwhile, Sendinblue's smallest plan also lets you pay extra for a few individual features, and then you can also remove Sendinblue's logo.

Still, this costs another $9 per month. And that also makes Sendinblue just a bit more expensive than ActiveCampaign.

Reason 6: ActiveCampaign interface is more user-friendly

Sendinblue's interface is really straightforward. It's clean, flat and contains little fuss. I loved that 2 years ago, but now I want more.

I want feeling. It has to look slick, it has to be easy, give tips where they are needed, and above all, work fast and nice.

Besides the fact that the design works and looks more pleasant, I also find that ActiveCampaign's layout is more logical. With Sendinblue, the focus is on the bar at the top and with ActiveCampaign, the bar is on the left.

In that bar you then have all kinds of levels within which you can work. That works less user-friendly with Sendinblue.

Reason 7: ActiveCampaign's capabilities are much more extensive

Under reason 3, I mentioned that the options at Sendinblue are too limited for us right now. I deliberately didn't mention ActiveCampagin that heading, because that's reason 7.

In fact, ActiveCampaign has a lot of conditions and features. That's fantastic. You can create your opt-ins with it, the reporting tool is incredibly comprehensive, it has a CRM feature and there are many more templates to choose from.

ActiveCampaign is not only a better generalist than Sendinblue (because it has more features), but is also a better specialist (because they have even more features within the functions).

Reason 8: ActiveCampagin is more than email automation software

Reason 8 I actually mentioned earlier in this article as well. Sendinblue is really an email automation tool and ActiveCampaign is much more than that.

ActiveCampaign is really a marketing automation tool and doesn't just focus on email. It also focuses on the pre-email part and the post-email part.

Reason 9: ActiveCampagin makes duplicating and modifying content much easier

If you've just switched from Sendinblue to ActiveCampagin, sometimes certain elements feel clunky. But once you get into it, you find that ActiveCampagin works much faster and easier.

What I especially noticed is that duplicating and modifying content is much faster and easier. You don't have to edit a mail first and then load it in.

No, you can very easily duplicate an entire automation and then within that automation partially modify the mail to fit the automation you are working in again.

And so there are more of those actions that work better with ActiveCampaign.

In short, we are fans. We would definitely recommend ActiveCampaign if you plan to do more with email marketing and automation. And of course, we would be happy to help you with that as well.