ActiveCampaign

# Fix list: ActiveCampaign

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/activecampaign, the October 2026 research run, assessed 8 October 2026. Grade D, 50.5 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on ActiveCampaign: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Security & auth, 33 out of 100, up to 11.7 more on the total

Why it scored 33: One API key per user in an `Api-Token` header, with no scopes. The MCP server is authorised by signing in and approving, with no scopes documented. Key rotation was not found in the reviewed documentation (15 of 30). No read-only key or mode. The listed MCP tools include no delete tool and none that schedules a campaign, though `add_contact_to_automation` can start messages, and the definitions name a permission resource for each operation (8 of 20). The API returns contact data, notes and message content written by outsiders, and no prompt-injection guidance was found (0 of 15). No audit log or per-call visibility was found in the developer docs. The help centre refused our reader, so this is unchecked (0 of 15). The security page states SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR compliance, a red team and a trust centre with the SOC 2 report. No security.txt, bug bounty or disclosure policy was found (10 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 2. Payments & pricing, 30 out of 100, up to 8.8 more on the total

Why it scored 30: No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public and vary with contact count, for example $19 a month for Starter and $179 for Enterprise at 1,000 contacts billed monthly, read from the pricing page's own data file. API calls are not priced (10). A 14-day trial with no card, and a free developer sandbox on request (20). A person signs up in a browser and copies the key from account settings (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 3. Agent ergonomics, 52 out of 100, up to 7.8 more on the total

Why it scored 52: List endpoints take `limit` up to 100 and contacts take `meta=only` for a count, but there is no field selection. The MCP server lists 50 tools with no documented toolsets (12 of 25). `limit`, `offset`, `orders`, `filters` and `id_greater` on contacts, less 4 because unsupported filter and order keys are silently ignored (16 of 20). Five documented status codes and a 422 `errors` array of titles without codes. Campaign state changes report failures as 200 with `succeeded` 0 and a localised message (10 of 20). No idempotency keys. Upsert by email and bulk import with per-row status give safe retries for contacts, and no MCP tool annotations are documented (8 of 20). Few required parameters. The official PHP and Node.js clients wrap the v1 API and last changed in 2017 and 2018, so no current official SDK was found (6 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 4. Reliability, 67 out of 100, up to 6.6 more on the total

Why it scored 67: Graded on the v3 REST API with the hosted lines. Statuspage site with 55 components across three regions, API Availability among them (20). In the 90 days to 8 October 2026 it lists three critical incidents, platform instability naming API Availability on 27 July (1 hour 22 minutes), segmented campaigns in the EU on 5 August (about 24 hours 41 minutes) and transactional email failures on 28 September (3 hours 50 minutes), plus a login incident of 2 hours 45 minutes on 10 August. That is several majors (0). 5 requests a second per account (15). 429 with Retry-After and RateLimit headers. No idempotency keys were found, though upsert by email makes contact writes repeatable (12 of 15). SLA of 99.5 per cent for enterprise subscriptions (10). The v3 API is generally available and the MCP pages carry no beta label (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 5. Maintenance & community, 35 out of 100, up to 5.7 more on the total

Why it scored 35: There is no changelog, so we read the `updatedAt` stamp on 46 of the 185 reference pages. The newest was 2 September 2026, 36 days before this check (20 of 30). Stamps fall on 12, 13, 17 and 31 August and 2 September 2026. These are page revisions, not changelog entries, so half credit (10 of 20). No public changelog. A community site and a developer relations email address are published, and we did not see reply times (5 of 15). No official server in the MCP registry, where two third-party servers are listed, and the official PHP and Node.js clients are v1 wrappers last changed in December 2017 and March 2018 (0 of 15). No current package to assess (0 of 10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 6. Schema & documentation, 68 out of 100, up to 5.2 more on the total

Why it scored 68: Each reference page is public Markdown with an OpenAPI 3.1 definition for its operation. No single downloadable specification was found (20 of 25). llms.txt and Markdown pages (10). Pages revised in August 2026, such as contact upsert and contact search, say when to use each endpoint and when not to. Older pages are short, and the MCP page gives one line a tool with no input schemas (14 of 20). Query parameters are typed with enums on status and sort order, but the segment body is described as flexible JSON to be checked against the segment builder (10 of 15). Request examples on most pages. The errors page lists five status codes and one 422 body, and 400 responses in the definitions are empty objects (9 of 15). The version is in the path (v3, Segments 2.0.0). No changelog was found, and developers.activecampaign.com/changelog returns 404 (5 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 7. Transparency & trust, 57 out of 100, up to 3.8 more on the total

Made of editorial 55, provenance 58.

Why it scored 57: Closed service with terms of service dated 23 December 2025 and a separate API licence agreement, which lets ActiveCampaign revoke the licence at any time for any reason (15). Privacy policy updated 1 October 2026 and a DPA template that binds only once signed in the account. Retention is stated as the lifetime of the account or as long as necessary, with no period. The terms say Contact Data is used to supply the services and "to train, detect issues with our Services", which is not explained further (16 of 30). No deprecation policy. The overview says v1 has no sunset planned and promises advance notice, and deprecated contact fields are flagged without dates (6 of 20). Sub-processor list updated 25 September 2026 with locations in the United States, European Union and Australia (18 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Endpoint on the vendor's domain:  is not on activecampaign.com (0 of 15)
- Terms of service: read, states 6 of the 7 things a reader expects, and has 3 clauses that cost points (3.1 of 10)
- Changelog: not found (0 of 10)
- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- unchecked: the help centre (help.activecampaign.com) answered 403 to our reader, so MCP permissions, audit logs, API key reset and user permission settings described there were not read
- unchecked: the trust centre (trust.activecampaign.com) renders by script, so the SOC 2 type and any ISO 27001 certificate were not confirmed
- unchecked: the MCP server's tool schemas and annotations, which need an account-specific URL and a sign-in
- Prices come from the fallback data file the pricing page loads (dist/pricing/USD.json). The live catalogue the page queries first may differ
- Whether an API key carries its user's permission group limits, not stated on the authentication page
- What "to train" means in the Contact Data clause of the terms of service
- Only 46 of 185 reference pages were sampled for update dates, so a later API change than 2 September 2026 may exist
- The 9 July 2026 APAC outage (1 hour 12 minutes) falls one day outside the 90-day window and was not counted

## Weaknesses

- 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
- One API key per user with no scopes or read-only keys in the reviewed documentation
- The limit is 5 requests a second per account on every plan
- No public API changelog or deprecation policy was found, and developers.activecampaign.com/changelog returns 404
- The official PHP and Node.js clients wrap the v1 API and last changed in December 2017 and March 2018

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- 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
- 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
- Page large contact sets with `orders[id]=ASC` and `id_greater`, not `offset`. Unsupported filter and order keys are silently ignored
- Check `succeeded` in the body after scheduling, pausing or stopping a campaign. Business-rule failures return 200 with `succeeded` set to 0
- Stay under 5 requests a second per account and wait for the Retry-After value on a 429

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.