Selva Mail vs
ActiveCampaign
Billed per contact across four tiers, with automation as the headline feature.
What ActiveCampaign does well
The automation builder is one of the genuinely best in the category — deep conditional logic, a CRM sharing the same contact record, and an integration library that covers almost anything. If lifecycle automation is the centre of how you work, it is mature in a way little else is.
Where the pricing model hurts
It is priced per contact on a tool you are explicitly meant to grow into. A list going from 1,000 to 50,000 takes the Plus plan from roughly $59 to $759 a month for the same software doing the same job.
What it costs at 5k, 10k and 25k
Assumes four emails per contact per month. Selva Mail is a one-time $497 license, then AWS bills you for what you actually send.
| Contacts | ActiveCampaign | Selva Mail (AWS) | Annual saving | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | $129/mo | ≈$2/mo | $1,524 | ~3.9 months |
| 10,000 | $239/mo | ≈$5/mo | $2,808 | ~2.1 months |
| 25,000 | $759/mo | ≈$12/mo | $8,964 | ~3 weeks |
Public list prices, 2026. Where a competitor is free software, the saving column is blank on purpose — the cost you are comparing is your own server and your own hours, not a license fee.
Selva Mail costs $497 once, then AWS at cost — about $6/mo at 50,000 emails. It is priced per email sent, not per contact, so it does not grow with your list.
Migrating from ActiveCampaign
Export contacts, tags and custom fields to CSV. Automations rebuild in the visual builder — no platform in this category imports another platform automations, so budget real time for that step if you have many.
Stop paying for the same contacts
every month.
$497 once. Runs on your infrastructure, sends through your own AWS SES account. Launch buyers get agency rights permanently — unlimited client workspaces. First 100 licenses.