Constant Contact vs Mailchimp

Trying to choose between Constant Contact vs Mailchimp as your email marketing software? Here's when to choose each tool – and the pros and cons to know about.

Constant Contact vs Mailchimp comparison
  • 2.2 TrustPilot
  • 4.3 Capterra
  • 4 G2

Average 3.5 / 5

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Constant Contact

Online marketing platform offering a range of features from email marketing and automation to SMS marketing and CRM.

Pricing

Starts at $12/month for up to 500 contacts and 5,000 email sends

Key features

  • Drag-and-drop email templates
  • AI Content Generator
  • Event management
  • CRM
  • Automation
  • Reporting
  • Web sign-up forms
  • SMS and social media marketing
  • Polls & surveys
  • Landing page builder
  • 5,000+ integrations

Support

Live chat and phone for all the plans during the office hours. Self-service and community support.

  • 1.4 TrustPilot
  • 4.5 Capterra
  • 4.3 G2

Average 3.4 / 5

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Mailchimp

An email marketing software with automations and integrations. Plus, a hosting and website and landing pages builder.

Pricing

Starts at $13 a month for 500 contacts

Key features

  • Email automation
  • Hosting, websites, and online stores
  • Landing page builder
  • Marketing CRM
  • Integrations with various services
  • Drag-and-drop email builder

Support

24/7 support via email and chat on paid plans, phone support on Premium. Email support for the first 30 days on the Free plan.

General info about company

Constant Contact

The company was founded in 1995 by Randy Parker and was later sold to Endurance International in 2015. In 2021, it was acquired by ClearLake Investments. Headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp was founded in Atlanta in 2001 by Ben Chestnut, Mark Armstrong, and Dan Kurzius. Headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Was acquired by Intuit in 2021.

Difficulty

Constant Contact

Beginner-friendly. Basic tutorials are built into the interface.

Mailchimp

Creating emails doesn’t require design or coding skills. However, the interface can be confusing to novices.

Best for

Constant Contact

Small businesses, nonprofits, and event organizers. Some features are aimed at sales and marketing directors.

Mailchimp

Small to medium e-commerce companies that want email marketing together with their website hosting.

Free plan

Constant Contact

No free plan. Depending on the location, users can get a 14 or 60 day free trial with access to the core features and send up to 100 emails. No credit card required.

Mailchimp

Has a free plan for up to 500 subscribers and 1,000 emails a month and a daily send limit of 500. It has a lot fewer features than paid plans, fewer available templates, and customer support for 30 days only.

Pricing

Constant Contact

Based on number of contacts and email sends. Overage fees of $0.002 per email apply.

For up to 500 contacts, billed monthly:

Lite $12

  • 1 user
  • 1 GB storage
  • Monthly email sends: 10x your number of contacts.

Standard $35

  • 3 users
  • 10 GB storage
  • Monthly email sends: 12x your number of contacts.

Premium $80

  • Unlimited users
  • 25 GB storage
  • Monthly email sends: 24x your number of contacts

 

Other pricing features:

  • Everyone: 15% off for 12-month prepay
  • Nonprofits: 20% off for 6-month prepay and 30% off for 12-month prepay
  • Full refund for closing account within 30 days of signing up. Conditions apply.
  • Free trial
  • Customized solutions for agencies, organizations in need of 5+ accounts, franchises, and member-based associations.
  • Lead Gen & CRM starting at $449/month
  • SMS Marketing, starting at $10/mo USD for 0-500 messages with any paid plan. Available only for US customers.

Mailchimp

For up to 500 contacts, billed monthly:

  • Essentials $13
  • Standard $20
  • Premium $350

Other pricing features:

  • 1-month free trial for Essentials and Standard
  • A Pay As You Go plan
  • Two possible pauses of the account’s billing every 12 months
  • 15% discount for nonprofit organizations

Support

Constant Contact

  • Live chat and phone for all the plans during the office hours.
  • Live chat: Mon-Fri 3 am-8pm ET
  • Phone: Mon-Fri 8am-8pm ET, Sat 10 am-6pm ET
  • Knowledge Base
  • Product Help Center
  • Community Forums

Mailchimp

  • Email support on paid plans and 30-day only on a Free plan
  • 24/7 chat support on paid plans
  • Support phone line for the Premium plan: Mon-Fri 6:30 am — 6:00 pm ET (UTC-5)

Features

Constant Contact

  • Drag-and-drop email templates
  • Dynamic content in email
  • Reporting (engagement, campaign comparison, open rate by device, heatmap*, revenue*)
  • Automations (pre-built and custom templates)
  • AI Content Generator
  • Marketing CRM
  • Web sign-up forms
  • Polls & surveys
  • Landing page builder
  • Social media posting
  • Event management, including selling services and merch with the tickets and accepting payments
  • Scheduled email sends
  • Contact segmentation
  • Social media ads manager
  • Facebook retargeting ads*
  • Google Ads Manager*
  • SEO recommendations*
  • 5,000+ integrations
  • SMS marketing (US only)**
  • Subject line A/B testing

_____________________
*Available only with Premium
**Charged separately

Mailchimp

  • Email automation with pre-made customer journeys
  • Hosting, websites, and landing pages builder
  • Online store creator
  • Marketing CRM
  • Integrations with popular services
  • Drag-and-drop email builder and pre-made templates
  • A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.

Templates

Constant Contact

  • Over 200 mobile-responsive templates
  • Drag-and-drop editing

Popular templates:

  • Newsletter
  • Holiday-themed
  • Retail
  • Industry-specific
  • Customizable Standard template to any occasion

Mailchimp

100+ templates for emails and landing pages
AI assistant for designing
The free plan has a limited number of pre-built templates

Templates for:

  • Welcome messages
  • Sales
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Announcements
  • Win-back

Integrations

Constant Contact

Over 5,000 integrations, including Google and Facebook Ads, WordPress, Canva, Vimeo, SalesForce, Eventbrite, Shopify, Stripe, WooCommerce, social media

Mailchimp

315 integrations including WordPress, Shopify, Facebook, Stripe, LiveChat, Canva, Unsplash, and more.

Devices

Constant Contact

  • iOS
  • Android
  • Web

Mailchimp

  • Website
  • A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.

No installable solution.

Languages

Constant Contact

Danish Danish Dutch Dutch English English French French German German Italian Italian Portuguese Portuguese Castilian Spanish Castilian Spanish Latin American Spanish Latin American Spanish Swedish Swedish

Mailchimp

English English Spanish Spanish Portuguese Portuguese

Automation

Constant Contact

  • Automated email and SMS messages.
  • Automation Path Builder with a library of plug-and-play path templates and ability to create a custom path.

Some path templates are compatible with Shopify and WooCommerce, including:

  • Welcome email series
  • Abandoned cart messages
  • Win-back series
  • Thank you series
  • Request a review

Mailchimp

Many pre-built automations (called customer journeys):

  • Welcome series
  • Abandoned cart
  • Product retargeting
  • Lead generation
  • Order notifications, and more

Pros

Constant Contact

  • Ease of use
  • Diverse template library — more than 200 mobile-ready email templates categorized by tag
  • Over 5,000 Integrations with filters by category
  • Sharing newsletter content on social media in one-click
  • Niche features for event organizers
  • Automated contact list segmentation based on engagement

Mailchimp

  • Essential features for small businesses
  • 315 integrations
  • Website hosting
  • A mobile app
  • Stylish design and built reputation
  • Landing page builder

Cons

Constant Contact

  • Steep price tag for the users who have more than a couple hundred subscribers and going beyond basic functionality. Some features are not included in the plans and cost extra, like SMS
  • Automation can’t include multiple channels, actions and conditions. Selection of triggers is also limited
  • A/B testing is limited to subject lines
  • No customization options for sign up forms
  • Only five templates for landing pages
  • No geographical breakdown of the regions that are engaging more, or the time that subscribers open emails
  • No RTL language support
  • Account can be canceled only by phone

Mailchimp

  • Relatively high prices
  • Free and Standard plans are very limited
  • Limited customization
  • Customer support is hard to reach and isn’t very helpful
  • Many people find the interface not user-friendly
  • Unsubscribed and inactive accounts are still included in sending limits

Reviews from experts

Constant Contact

Pros: The email templates are easy to use, and I've been able to train multiple users in our organization to use it, who don't have a background with tools like this. As an email tool, I'm very happy.
Cons: As a social tool, I'm disappointed. Right now you can't post to Twitter (X) at all. You can't upload videos to share as Reels, and if you want to edit copy for each social media platform you have to make separate posts.

Lauren K.

Lauren K.

Director of Marketing in the company with 51-1000 employees

Pros: Constant Contact is very intuitive and user-friendly. People with no email experience can easily jump in and create nice-looking emails. <...>
Cons: Since I started using Constant Contact in 2019, the platform is virtually the same. <...> Unfortunately, we have used Constant Contact to its capacity. Our emails cannot improve or change with the features that are currently available. It would be nice to see more customization in emails and better analytics reporting!

Erica F

Erica F

Marketing Specialist at a non-profit, with a team of 11-50 employees

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a perfectly good tool for most English-speaking users, with its ease of use and range of features, as well as their free and pay-as-you-go plans.

Keep in mind, though, that their subscription plans are relatively expensive compared to similar newsletter tools.

Perhaps if you’re a business with specific needs, like multilingual software, or use of your own tracking domain, then you may need to look further afield for the correct newsletter tool. But there really is a lot to like from Mailchimp.

Robert Brandl

Robert Brandl

founder and CEO, Inka Wibowo, Senior Content Manager at EmailToolTester

The interface is simple and intuitive, and you don't need to be technically savvy to get up and running with email campaigns. I have easily trained non-technical colleagues and elderly clients on how to use Mailchimp to send newsletters. It's easy to add contacts on the go using the Mailchimp mobile app.

Cons: The biggest downside is that the free plan is very limited now compared to when I first started. The free option is really only good for very small lists and basic emails. To do anything more sophisticated with segmentation, automations, or larger lists, you need to pay for one of the monthly subscription plans.

Jessica Kay M

Jessica Kay M

Marketing Consultant

*This information is current as of 02/13/2024. While we regularly update our articles, it`s possible that this article may not contain some of the latest information.