Act-On
Marketing automation for your entire customer lifecycle
By Act-On Software · HQ Portland, US · 4.0/5 Value-Position score (estimate)
Positioning guardrails
Best for
- Midsize and enterprise marketing teams that need lifecycle engagement beyond lead generation, from acquisition through retention and advocacy
- Relationship-driven industries such as financial services, manufacturing and professional services with long post-sale customer journeys
- Teams that want CRM independence: Act-On plugs into Salesforce, Dynamics, Sugar or NetSuite rather than locking buyers into one suite
- Distributed marketing models where corporate pushes ready-made campaigns to franchises, branches, agents and partners
- Non-technical marketers who need to build and launch multi-channel journeys without developer support
Ideal size: 10-100 marketing users people · Scale-up to enterprise with an existing CRM and a lifecycle revenue mandate
Not for
- Very small teams or solo marketers shopping for a low-cost, email-only tool
- Companies that want a single all-in-one CRM plus marketing suite instead of a standalone engagement layer
- High-volume consumer ecommerce teams needing deep transactional or merchandising capabilities
- Buyers who require a published, transparent price list before speaking with sales
Value metrics scorecard
Time-to-Value
6-8 weeks
~45 days to first production value
Total Cost of Ownership
$10,800/yr
Starts at $10,800 · Annual contract; priced on monthly active contacts emailed rather than total database size
Implementation Friction
3/5
Engineering + admin effort required
Value-Position score
out of 5 · model estimate
Full cost breakdown
Mandatory implementation fee
None
Seat tiers
No per-seat pricing published; Enterprise adds Account-Based Marketing with 2x user accounts versus Professional
Add-on costs
- CRM integration (add-on on the Professional plan)
- Data Studio for advanced reporting and BI integration
- Account-Based Marketing
- Automated SMS marketing
- Transactional email
- InSite AI Web Agent
- AI-Powered Advanced Analytics
Company & support
Who is behind Act-On, and how your team gets help once it is live.
Company
- Founded
- Not recorded
- Headquarters
- Portland, US
How you get support
- PhoneNot listed
- EmailAll plans
- Live chatNot listed
- Support portal / ticketsNot listed
- Community forumNot listed
- Help centre / docsPlan not stated
- Dedicated account managerNot listed
- In person / on-siteNot listed
- Hours
- Not recorded
- Response time
- Not stated
Professional and Enterprise both include a standard support package with email-based support; a premium support package is recommended for Enterprise. Self-serve knowledge base, training paths and product updates are available to customers.
“Not listed” means the vendor’s public pages don’t mention that channel, not that it is unavailable. Ask about it during evaluation.
Market position
Where Act-On sits against its closest alternatives. Pick any two of cost, speed, friction and buyer score, and up to 9 companies to compare.
Quadrant view
Typical annual cost × Time-to-value
The lines cross at the median of the solutions shown, so about half sit on each side of each line.
Companies on the chart 6 / 10
- Act-On
- Revenue Grid
- GoCardless
- Demandbase
- Showpad
- ZoomInfo
Add or change companies
Up to 10 companies including Act-On. Listed closest first.
Stack fit signal
Compatibility with standard B2B ecosystems.
No supported MCP path today, so it cannot be driven from an AI client.
AI & MCP readiness
What Act-On ships in AI, and what it asks of your ecosystem.
AI features shipped
Vendor FAQ describes predictive lead scoring, an AI web agent answering visitors, natural-language data analysis, adaptive send-time optimization, AI copy creation and subject-line optimization, plus True Open bot filtering. AI is positioned as augmentative to the marketer, not the product's core.
Your data & models
- Trains on your data
- Not recorded — ask the vendor
- Runs on
- Not recorded
- AI pricing
- Paid add-on
In your ecosystem
- AI connection
- Not supported
- Model key
- Not recorded
- AI usage audit
- Not recorded
Compliance attestations
* IAPP AIGP certifies individuals, not products. It means named staff hold the credential — not that the platform does.
Bottom line
Act-On is a lifecycle marketing automation platform for midsize and enterprise teams whose revenue depends on long-term customer relationships. It orchestrates personalized journeys across email, web, SMS and social, adds AI for predictive lead scoring and content generation, and stays CRM-independent with integrations into Salesforce, Dynamics, Sugar and NetSuite. Pricing is based on monthly active contacts, not database size, starts near $900/month, and requires an annual contract; many capabilities are paid add-ons.
Frequently asked questions
How is Act-On priced, and is an annual contract required?
Pricing is based on Active Contacts, the number of contacts you email in a month, rather than the total size of your database, and the vendor claims this saves 30-50% versus database-based models. The Professional plan is quoted from $900 per month at roughly 2,500 active contacts, and the page states actual pricing varies with add-ons, configuration and implementation. Annual contracts are required; non-profits can request a discount.
Which CRMs and systems does Act-On integrate with?
Act-On lists integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Sugar, NetSuite and Zendesk, embedding its interface in the CRM and syncing data bidirectionally. A Data Bridge connector sends and receives data from any API- or webhook-enabled system, including ERP and financial services platforms, and iPaaS integrations with Zapier and Integrately cover more complex data workflows. An open API is available.
What AI capabilities are included, and do they cost extra?
The vendor describes predictive lead scoring, AI audience insights, an InSite AI web agent that answers site visitors, conversational data analysis, adaptive send-time optimization, AI copy creation and subject-line optimization, plus True Open to filter bot-generated opens and clicks. Predictive lead scoring and AI audience insights appear as plan features, while InSite AI Web Agent and AI-Powered Advanced Analytics are listed as add-ons on both published plans.
How long does it take to get live?
Act-On offers dedicated Implementation Services to get customers onboarded and seeing value quickly, and the vendor positions the product as easy for non-technical marketers to build and launch campaigns without extensive training or developers. No published implementation timeline or typical go-live duration appears in the sources reviewed.
Can Act-On handle distributed or franchise marketing?
Yes. Act-On supports distributed marketing models: corporate teams create and distribute pre-built content templates and automated programs that franchisees, branch offices, agents and partners can launch locally without deep marketing expertise, preserving brand consistency while allowing local customization.