# ActiveCampaign vs CleverTap

> ActiveCampaign scores 50.5 (D) to CleverTap's 48.8 (D) for marketing audiences. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-clevertap
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-clevertap.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-clevertap.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-clevertap.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

ActiveCampaign scores 50.5 (D) on agent readiness against CleverTap's 48.8 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. CleverTap leads on security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do marketing audiences.

- ActiveCampaign: grade D, 50.5/100, rank #768 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/activecampaign.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/activecampaign.json
- CleverTap: grade D, 48.8/100, rank #806 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/clevertap.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/clevertap.json
- Best lifecycle marketing and customer engagement platforms for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/lifecycle-marketing/index.md
- All 36 lifecycle marketing comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lifecycle-marketing/index.md

## Which one, for what

### ActiveCampaign (D)

Good for: Small and mid-sized teams already on ActiveCampaign that want an agent to maintain contacts, segments and campaign drafts and enrol contacts in automations.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 67 against 30
- Schema & documentation, 68 against 57
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 25

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Three critical incidents on status.activecampaign.com between 27 July and 28 September 2026, one of about 24 hours 41 minutes on EU segmented campaigns

### CleverTap (D)

Good for: A team already on CleverTap that wants an agent to load profiles and events, read them back, create or stop API campaigns and pull campaign reports.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 56 against 33
- Maintenance & community, 73 against 35
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 57

Watch for: No OpenAPI file was found. The contract is prose tables plus a Postman collection published as a zip on GitHub


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ActiveCampaign | CleverTap | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 30 | ActiveCampaign +37 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 57 | ActiveCampaign +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 53 | CleverTap +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 33 | 56 | CleverTap +23 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 25 | ActiveCampaign +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 35 | 73 | CleverTap +38 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 64 | CleverTap +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **50.5 · D** | **48.8 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ActiveCampaign | CleverTap |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | ActiveCampaign, LLC | WizRocket Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under ActiveCampaign's terms of service and API licence agreement | Proprietary service under CleverTap's Terms of Service. The Node.js API library on GitHub is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 50 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-02 | 2026-10-01 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-12-23 | 2021-04-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2026-04-09 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 3k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**ActiveCampaign.** The v3 REST API covers contacts, segments, campaign scheduling and bulk import, with OpenAPI 3.1 definitions inside public Markdown reference pages and documented Retry-After on 429s. Each user has one unscoped API key, the limit is 5 requests a second, and no changelog was found. The status page shows three critical incidents between 27 July and 28 September 2026.

**CleverTap.** CleverTap's REST API uploads and reads profiles and events, creates and stops campaigns and reports results, with Markdown docs, numeric concurrency limits and a 30-day Core trial. No OpenAPI file or public status page was found, passcodes carry no scopes, and the docs say campaigns created through the API are not restricted by role-based access control.

## Before you call either

### ActiveCampaign

1. Take the base URL from Settings, Developer in the account. Do not build it from the account name, because non-US accounts may not sit on api-us1.com
2. Use POST /contact/sync to upsert by email, and POST /import/bulk_import for up to 250 contacts, then read each row's outcome from GET /import/info
3. Page large contact sets with `orders[id]=ASC` and `id_greater`, not `offset`. Unsupported filter and order keys are silently ignored
4. Check `succeeded` in the body after scheduling, pausing or stopping a campaign. Business-rule failures return 200 with `succeeded` set to 0
5. Stay under 5 requests a second per account and wait for the Retry-After value on a 429

### CleverTap

1. Call the host for the account's region, such as `in1.api.clevertap.com` or `us1.api.clevertap.com`. `api.clevertap.com` is the Europe region
2. Send `X-CleverTap-Account-Id` and `X-CleverTap-Passcode` headers on every call, and ask for a named passcode with an expiry date
3. Check `status` in the body as well as the HTTP code. Get User Profiles can answer 200 with `"status":"fail"` when throttled
4. Add `dryRun=1` to an upload URL to validate up to 1,000 records without storing them
5. Set `estimate_only` or `draft` to true on Create Campaign before a real send. API campaigns bypass dashboard role restrictions

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, ActiveCampaign or CleverTap?

ActiveCampaign scores 50.5 (D) on agent readiness against CleverTap's 48.8 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. CleverTap leads on security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Do ActiveCampaign and CleverTap need an API key?

ActiveCampaign takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. CleverTap needs an API key.

### Can an agent call ActiveCampaign and CleverTap without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for ActiveCampaign. No hosted endpoint is listed for CleverTap.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-clevertap.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-clevertap.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "activecampaign", "b": "clevertap"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare activecampaign clevertap`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/activecampaign.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/clevertap.json

## Other comparisons with ActiveCampaign or CleverTap

- [ActiveCampaign vs Braze](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-braze.md)
- [ActiveCampaign vs Customer.io](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-customer-io.md)
- [ActiveCampaign vs Iterable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-iterable.md)
- [ActiveCampaign vs Klaviyo API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-klaviyo.md)
- [ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp Marketing API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-mailchimp-marketing.md)
- [ActiveCampaign vs MoEngage](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-moengage.md)
- [ActiveCampaign vs Omnisend](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-omnisend.md)
- [Braze vs CleverTap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/braze-vs-clevertap.md)
- [CleverTap vs Customer.io](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clevertap-vs-customer-io.md)
- [CleverTap vs Iterable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clevertap-vs-iterable.md)
- [CleverTap vs Klaviyo API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clevertap-vs-klaviyo.md)
- [CleverTap vs Mailchimp Marketing API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clevertap-vs-mailchimp-marketing.md)
- [CleverTap vs MoEngage](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clevertap-vs-moengage.md)
- [CleverTap vs Omnisend](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clevertap-vs-omnisend.md)