For small- and medium-sized business owners, email marketing offers one of the best returns on investment (ROI)— but not all email marketing platforms are built the same. In this comparison, we’ll look at Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact in terms of features, customer service, and customer reviews.
When you’re searching for the right platform to use for email marketing, the process of understanding the differences between Intuit Mailchimp and Constant Contact may feel overwhelming. From email and digital marketing integrations to automation to email templates, there’s a lot to unpack.
Constant Contact has been in business for 30 years, and since the beginning, it’s been a powerful tool to make email marketing accessible and straightforward for both marketing professionals and entrepreneurs just learning the tricks of the trade. It’s ideal for business owners who:
- Are tired of their emails going to their recipient’s spam folder
- Can’t handle one more useless chatbot conversation
- Want a marketing system that can integrate email, social media, SMS text messaging, and more
Constant Contact, for a fraction of the price of Mailchimp’s premium service, provides live customer support, video tutorials, and helpful marketing blogs written by experts. Best of all, it boasts a 97% email deliverability rate — meaning your message arrives safely in the inboxes of everyone on your email list.
And that’s just the start! Let’s get into what you need to look for as you compare Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact.
Understanding email marketing platforms
You’re probably asking: “What makes a great email marketing tool?” On the outside, they all seem to be the same — but they’re definitely not. Key features you should be looking for when you sign up include:
- Excellent customer service: You know you’ll have questions along the way, and the last thing you want is a chatbot wasting your time.
- Intuitive design: Unless you’ve got a graphic designer on staff, you need a range of professional email templates that are easily customized to reflect your brand and messaging.
- Unmatched deliverability: No one wants their emails landing in the spam folder. That’s just embarrassing!
- Robust analytics: The only way you’ll know if your email marketing campaigns are effective is with the data to prove it. The best platforms have an email reporting backend that’s easy to navigate and understand.
- Integrations with other tech: Pick a platform with social media tools, artificial intelligence capabilities, and integrations with top business tools, like eCommerce and design platforms.
When you choose the best email marketing automation software service, you have the tools you need to get the word out so you can get back to your business.
Many entrepreneurs think they are saving money by using a free program with limited capabilities, but free platforms can end up costing you time, and therefore money. When you’re creating campaigns with limitations or that end up in spam folders, you’re wasting your time.
Get to know Constant Contact
As you consider Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact, compare the overall platform features, customer service, and support for small- and medium-sized businesses like yours. Get to know Constant Contact below.
Digital marketing platform overview
While Constant Contact is known for its email marketing tools, it’s much more than that. It provides everything you need for email, social media marketing, and even SMS marketing.
This modern, multi-channel approach to increasing revenue streams is based on the reality that your customers aren’t just monitoring their inboxes all day. You can meet them wherever they are — even in person. Constant Contact has features purpose-built for in-person event planning, as well.
Constant Contact works mostly with small- to medium-sized businesses in nearly all industries. A quick search of your company type in their marketing advice blog will likely unveil many articles with expert advice that you can use right away.
In fact, their core philosophy is based on helping entrepreneurs create loyal relationships with customers in a way that doesn’t require an entire marketing staff or too much of your valuable time. That’s why they have so many plug-and-play design features that allow you to pull branding elements straight from your website.
There’s also an AI tool to assist you in crafting your emails as well as simple email list sign-up forms to help you build your contact list. You can group your subscribers by interests or actions, making it easier to personalize and send the right message at the right time.
If you already use tools like Shopify, Etsy, Salesforce, Wix, and Canva, you’ll appreciate the many integrations Constant Contact offers its users. It’s a simple, time-saving hack to get all your tools working together. You can also set up automation triggers beyond welcome and birthday messages.
The pricing structure is accessible for all businesses, and you can even get a free trial to send up to 100 emails. Even the Premium plan offers substantial savings from the premium package of Mailchimp — with many more features.
Constant Contact is focused on helping you
Even with all these features, what makes Constant Contact stand out over Mailchimp is the robust customer service. There are live people — yes, humans and not robots! — who are on the other side of chats and phone calls, ready to help you get over a technological snag or confusion that may happen in the midst of your important marketing campaign.
There’s also an incredibly helpful Knowledge Base of step-by-step guides and video tutorials that you have access to when you sign up for Constant Contact. Small business owners don’t have a lot of time to figure out systems. You learn along the way!
That’s why Constant Contact also has a Be a Marketer podcast, so you can listen while doing other tasks. Prefer to learn via video? Constant Contact is here for all kinds of entrepreneurs and agencies, with an On-Demand Library that makes the email creation and sending process as easy as possible.
What’s more, the intuitive design of the system also speaks to how much Constant Contact is focused on helping small business owners. From the event marketing tools to the surprisingly easy-to-understand analytics, you’ll find your learning curve is short and pain-free.
When you’re ready to take it to the next level in your multi-channel marketing campaigns, you can use Constant Contact to create and manage ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google. There are also advanced list management tools and tools for enhancing your SEO, or search engine optimization.
Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact
Here is a breakdown of the differences between Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact:
| Feature Category | Mailchimp | Constant Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Base Pricing | Starting at $0 | Starting at $12.00* *Free 100 email trial |
| Email Templates | 100+ | 200+ |
| Marketing Automation | Yes | Yes |
| Integration Options | Yes | Yes |
| A/B Testing | Available on paid plans | Yes |
| Landing Page Creation | Yes | Yes |
| Sign-up Forms | Pop-ups only | Pop-up, inline, flyout, and banners |
| Social Media Tools | Yes | Yes |
| Reporting & Analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Digital Ad Management & Reporting | – | Yes |
| SEO Optimization Recommendations | Yes | Yes |
| Phone support | Premium subscribers only | Yes |
| SMS Campaigns, reporting | Yes | Yes |
| AI content generation | Standard subscribers and up | Yes |
| Event management | – | Yes |
| Custom pricing for large list size | – | Yes |
| Prepay discount | – | 10% |
| Nonprofit discount | 15% discount | Up to 30% |
| Access to Premium features | $350/month | $80/month |
Constant Contact supports your business
The bottom line is important for any small- or medium-sized business, but no one wants to be pennywise and pound-foolish, as they say. When you come up against a problem or need the advice of an expert marketing professional as you expand and refine your campaigns, chatbots simply won’t cut it. To receive live support with Mailchimp, you’ll need to spend $350 a month to access their premium features.
Constant Contact has always supported small businesses with excellent customer support. Both traditional brick-and-mortar businesses and modern ecommerce platforms have used this email marketing platform to grow and thrive. From event-driven organizations like nonprofits or museums to local service providers, this system has templates and tools ready to go.
Creatives and design-focused companies especially appreciate the professional templates that save time and still look great. Businesses that seek straightforward solutions and extensive integrations also find success with Constant Contact.
Budget-conscious marketers frequently use Constant Contact because it’s simply the top-tier offering for email marketing. It’s accessible to small businesses and startups yet sophisticated enough for marketing pros.
Customer reviews
Constant Contact offers list-building tools, AI marketing, and robust reporting — but all that won’t matter if customers aren’t satisfied. Check out what Pets Want Newton, a company that produces and delivers slow-cooked, healthy, and balanced pet food and treats made from all-natural ingredients, says about Constant Contact. They at first signed up for Mailchimp but soon realized that Constant Contact was the better solution.
“Doing monthly newsletters has been great because it’s part of how I like to have a personal touch on my business and how I reach my clients and potential clients,” says Pets Want Newton owner Roz Hansen. “[The newsletter] includes important things like our new holiday home at Snowport and a product spotlight. And I always include a personal piece or a small blog piece on something important happening seasonally in pet care.”
After switching over from Mailchimp, Roz says, “My actual open rate and my clicks are way, way better than they were.” In addition to designing newsletters with Constant Contact, she also builds landing pages for her website. “I find the program extremely easy to use. It takes me no time whatsoever.”
Then there’s the House of Guitars, a music shop in Rochester, New York. They have been using Constant Contact for almost 10 years. They grew their email list by 12% in just one year, and they use the email marketing platform to showcase their brand as a small business.
“We’re able to get that information out there about what we do and what we provide, that we’re more than just a sales store. We go above and beyond as a small business to make our customers feel appreciated,” said Michael, the manager.
Choose your digital marketing campaign platform
As you consider the differences between Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact, you’ll see that Constant Contact has excellent customer service, intuitive email creation tools, a robust backend to help you analyze your success, and integrations that save time. Additionally, Constant Contact offers long-term scalability, with plans that match your needs, capabilities, and audience.
While Constant Contact supports your unique needs and scaling needs, they also offer learning opportunities to help you master new channels and optimize the ones you’re already using and provide the resources you need to exceed your business goals with a full digital marketing platform.
If you already started with another email marketing tool, rest assured that you can switch to Constant Contact with minimal disruption to your marketing plans. Trained associates can answer questions about migrating email lists and transferring data so you can feel comfortable about taking your business to the next level. Best of all, entrepreneurs can try it all for free. Constant Contact offers a 30-day trial to check out the process, tools, and features.
