# ActiveCampaign vs Iterable

> Iterable scores 55.2 (C) on agent readiness against ActiveCampaign's 50.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. ActiveCampaign leads on payments & pricing. Both do marketing profiles. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-iterable
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-iterable.md (~2,100 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-iterable.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-iterable.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: 2026-10-08

Iterable scores 55.2 (C) on agent readiness against ActiveCampaign's 50.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. ActiveCampaign leads on payments & pricing. Both do marketing profiles.

- ActiveCampaign: grade D, 50.5/100, rank #516 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/activecampaign.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/activecampaign.json
- Iterable: grade C, 55.2/100, rank #457 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/iterable.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/iterable.json

## 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:
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 0

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

### Iterable (C)

Good for: A team already on Iterable that wants an agent to read campaigns, templates and metrics, or to update profiles, track events and trigger sends under review.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 57 against 52
- Security & auth, 55 against 33
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 35
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 57

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No public price, trial or self-serve signup. iterable.com/pricing redirects to the home page, which asks for a demo


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ActiveCampaign | Iterable | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 66 | ActiveCampaign +1 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 65 | ActiveCampaign +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 57 | Iterable +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 33 | 55 | Iterable +22 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 0 | ActiveCampaign +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 35 | 75 | Iterable +40 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 68 | Iterable +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **50.5 · D** | **55.2 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ActiveCampaign | Iterable |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | ActiveCampaign, LLC | Iterable, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.iterable.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| 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 Iterable's Master Services Agreement. The MCP server (@iterable/mcp) and the TypeScript API client (@iterable/api) are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 50 | 118 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-02 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-12-23 | 2021-05-06 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2023-01-01 |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | none | 15 stars, 4.2k 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.

**Iterable.** The REST API publishes a Swagger 2.0 contract with 159 operations, typed API keys including a read-only type, and per-endpoint rate limits. The MCP server starts read-only, with PII, writes and sends each switched on separately. No price, trial or self-serve signup is published, and the support centre, which holds the API guides, refused automated readers.

## 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

### Iterable

1. Send the key in the `Api-Key` header, and use api.eu.iterable.com for projects in the EU data centre
2. Wait at least 60 seconds after `POST /api/users/update` before a dependent call such as `POST /api/email/target`, as the specification advises
3. Keep the MCP server on its default read-only setup unless a person reviews each call. Writes and sends act on real users and can't be undone
4. Pass `suppressionListIds` to `POST /api/campaigns/create`. Global suppression lists aren't added automatically
5. Read `rateLimitReset` in the 429 `params` on user update calls for the seconds to wait. List member reads allow 5 requests a minute per project

## Questions

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

Iterable scores 55.2 (C) on agent readiness against ActiveCampaign's 50.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. ActiveCampaign leads on payments & pricing.

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

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

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

No hosted endpoint is listed for ActiveCampaign. Iterable has a hosted endpoint at https://api.iterable.com.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with ActiveCampaign or Iterable

- [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 Klaviyo API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/activecampaign-vs-klaviyo.md)
- [Braze vs Iterable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/braze-vs-iterable.md)
- [Customer.io vs Iterable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/customer-io-vs-iterable.md)
- [Iterable vs Klaviyo API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/iterable-vs-klaviyo.md)