Email marketing is a critical channel for businesses to acquire and engage customers. As such, choosing the right email marketing platform is an important decision. Two of the most well-known services are Constant Contact and Mailchimp – Constant Contact vs Mailchimp.
Constant Contact has been around since 1995. They have a smaller market share of around 9% compared to Mailchimp’s dominant position with over 60% market share.
In this comprehensive comparison, I will analyze the key differences between these two leading providers across crucial criteria like features, deliverability, integrations, pricing, and more.
My goal is to provide an unbiased, data-driven assessment to help you determine which solution may be the better fit for your business depending on your needs and budget.
By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of Constant Contact and Mailchimp’s respective strengths and weaknesses. I also provide actionable recommendations on which platform I would recommend over the other based on different use cases and requirements.
Let’s dive in.
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Summary of Pricing: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
Pricing is often a major factor when choosing between Constant Contact and Mailchimp. Here is an overview of each platform’s pricing models:
Constant Contact pricing: The pricing is primarily based on your number of contacts. Plans start at $12/month for up to 500 contacts and go up to $430/month for up to 50,000 contacts.
Some key things to note about Constant Contact’s pricing:
- They do not offer a free plan
- You can try Constant Contact for 30 days with their free trial
- Their prices tend to be slightly higher than Mailchimp at each tier
- There is no pay-as-you-go or unlimited sending option
Mailchimp takes a different approach with tiered plans based on features as well as a number of contacts. Here is an overview:
- Free Forever Plan: Up to 2,000 contacts and 10,000 emails per month
- Essentials Plan: Starts at $9.99/month for up to 500 contacts
- Standard Plan: Starts at $14.99/month for up to 2,500 contacts
- Premium Plan: Starts at $299/month for up to 100,000 contacts
Additionally, Mailchimp offers pay-as-you-go pricing, allowing you to pay based on how many emails you send per month. This provides more flexibility for businesses with fluctuating email volume.
Some key things to note about Mailchimp’s pricing:
- They offer a generous free plan for up to 2,000 contacts
- Their paid plans unlock additional features beyond just more contacts
- Pay-as-you-go options offer flexibility and likely cost savings
Overall, Mailchimp wins when it comes to pricing for most use cases with their free plan and flexible pay-as-you-go options. However, businesses that need to manage large contact lists may find Constant Contact’s straight-per-contact pricing more affordable at higher tiers.
Ease of Use: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
For small businesses especially, ease of use in an email marketing platform is critical for adoption and getting started quickly.
Both Constant Contact and Mailchimp are designed to be user-friendly, even for beginners. However, there are some differences in their interfaces and workflows:
- Constant Contact’s interface is simpler and has fewer available features. This makes their platform easier for novices to get started with basic email campaigns.
- Mailchimp offers a more modern-feeling editor, additional features like drag-and-drop blocks, and handy workflow tools like campaign preview. However, the expansive feature set can seem overwhelming for brand-new users.
- Constant Contact’s navigation menu is not as intuitive – some options are buried compared to Mailchimp’s well-organized menus.
- Mailchimp’s WYSIWYG editor is more flexible for customizing campaign design and content layouts. Constant Contact is more template-driven.
- Both platforms offer easy signup forms, but Mailchimp provides greater customization options for tailoring opt-in forms.
- Mailchimp’s automation and reporting features offer more advanced capabilities but can have a learning curve. Constant Contact reporting is more basic.
For a brand new user just looking to create and send simple email newsletters, Constant Contact’s pared-down interface may allow you to get started faster.
However, most users will likely outgrow Constant Contact’s limitations fairly quickly.
Mailchimp’s much wider feature set, modern editor, and customizable forms provide greater long-term usability. The added complexity is worth it for the expanded functionality.
If you’re willing to invest some time upfront learning, Mailchimp offers superior usability for creating professional, customized email campaigns. But those wanting extreme simplicity may prefer Constant Contact.
Design and Customization: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
Creating an email newsletter design that aligns with your brand and engages subscribers is key. Both Mailchimp and Constant Contact provide templates and customization options, but Mailchimp offers greater flexibility.
- Constant Contact has around 200 templates across categories like promotions, newsletters, and more. They are easy to customize with basic text/image edits.
- Mailchimp has about 100 highly customizable templates with drag-and-drop content blocks. Their templates are organized by industry and campaign objective.
- Mailchimp offers more advanced personalization with merge tags, customizable content blocks, and integration with e-commerce data.
- Mailchimp provides more options for branding including colour schemes, font selection, images, and layouts when designing from scratch.
- Constant Contact’s editor is more limiting for extensive visual design customization beyond templates.
- Mailchimp allows importing custom HTML/CSS code for the most flexibility. Constant Contact also allows code imports but the process is not as seamless.
- Both platforms allow saving templates, but Mailchimp makes it easier to find and organize your saved templates for reuse.
- Mailchimp offers handy pre-designed layouts that provide starter frameworks for faster custom design.
Overall, Mailchimp provides significantly more options for branded design and extensive visual customization. For simple template-based editing, the platforms are comparable. But Mailchimp offers far greater flexibility for creative customization, personalization, and coding.
The wider range of templates, content blocks, fonts, colours, and layouts in Mailchimp makes it my top pick for customized email design. Constant Contact’s template-reliant approach is too limiting.
Email Marketing Capabilities: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
Beyond newsletter design, robust email marketing features are imperative. Let’s compare Constant Contact and Mailchimp’s respective capabilities:
- Both platforms provide email-building basics like templates, drag-and-drop editors, image/content importing, and contact management.
- For automation, Mailchimp offers more advanced options like multi-email workflows, timed sequences, and segment-triggered campaigns. Constant Contact has basic automation.
- Mailchimp enables more complex segmentation and tagging for personalized, behavioural-based messaging.
- Mailchimp has superior A/B testing capabilities for subject lines, content, and send times.
- Constant Contact provides basic surveys and coupons which Mailchimp lacks, but Mailchimp’s features are more comprehensive.
- Reporting and analytics in Mailchimp are vastly superior with detailed engagement metrics, demographic data, and e-commerce tracking.
- Both platforms have solid deliverability and spam testing tools, but Mailchimp edges out with more granular inbox placement analysis.
- Mailchimp supports more advanced features like RSS-to-email, Facebook/Instagram ad integration, and more.
The extensive feature differences make Mailchimp the clear choice for maximizing email marketing capabilities. Automation, conversion tracking, and segmentation in Mailchimp empower more sophisticated messaging and campaigns.
Constant Contact’s offering is just too basic by comparison, lacking the advanced features expected from a modern email marketing platform. The limited toolset will hinder your ability to create targeted, personalized subscriber experiences over the long term.
While Constant Contact works for very simple email newsletters, Mailchimp’s far richer feature set makes it my top recommendation if you want to fully leverage the power of email marketing.
Integrations: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
The ability to connect your email marketing platform with other tools is essential for maximizing functionality.
Mailchimp offers significantly more integrations than Constant Contact:
- Mailchimp has over 800 native integrations with apps like Shopify, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
- Constant Contact has about 350 available integrations.
Some notable integrations:
- Both platforms integrate with popular CMS tools like WordPress and website builders.
- Mailchimp offers deep integration with Shopify and WooCommerce for e-commerce stores. Constant Contact recently ended its Shopify integration.
- Mailchimp connects with webinar/course platforms like Zoom, Teachable, and Thinkific. Constant Contact lacks these advanced connections.
- Mailchimp integrates with CRM tools like Salesforce, Insightly, and Capsule. Constant Contact does not.
- Mailchimp’s social media integrations are more robust, syncing with Facebook ad data, Instagram followers, Twitter, etc.
- Both platforms integrate with Google Analytics for website tracking.
The much wider range of integrations gives Mailchimp a major advantage for connecting email to other marketing channels and platforms.
Things like CRM integration and e-commerce connections in Mailchimp allow highly customized, omnichannel subscriber experiences.
Constant Contact’s relatively paltry integration options severely limit its versatility. You’ll likely need to seek out expensive third-party plugins for crucial functionality.
Ultimately, Mailchimp’s vast library of seamless integrations makes it the best choice if you want to unify your email marketing with other systems and data sources.
Analytics and Reporting: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
Understanding your email campaign performance through reporting and analytics is crucial for optimization.
In this area, Mailchimp significantly outperforms Constant Contact.
- Constant Contact provides basic engagement reports on opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. Settings are limited for customizing your reports.
- Mailchimp delivers deep, customizable reporting on subscriber engagement, demographic data, clicks, device usage, geography, and more.
- Mailchimp’s visual campaign reports provide insights through heatmaps, graphs, and charts. Constant Contact lacks visual reporting.
- Mailchimp offers detailed e-commerce analytics on product views, abandoned carts, and sales directly attributed to your emails.
- Mailchimp allows exporting report data to CSV or connecting to business intelligence tools like Google Data Studio.
- Mailchimp provides superior A/B test result analysis for optimizing campaigns. Constant Contact’s A/B test reports are basic.
- Mailchimp can integrate Google Analytics for website traffic insights tied to emails.
Mailchimp’s unparalleled analytics offer a much greater ability to track audience behaviour and engagement at a granular level. The visual reporting provides at-a-glance insights for informing email strategy.
By comparison, Constant Contact’s simplistic reporting fails to provide the depth of data and customization needed for optimal email performance. Lack of critical data severely limits your ability to improve.
For making data-driven optimizations using detailed engagement metrics and actionable insights, Mailchimp is my top recommendation for analytics and reporting.
Deliverability Rates: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
Deliverability – getting your emails reliably delivered to subscribers’ inboxes – is crucial for email marketing success.
Overall, Constant Contact edges out Mailchimp when it comes to deliverability:
- Constant Contact has consistently scored deliverability rates around 95% in recent benchmark tests.
- Mailchimp’s deliverability rates average 90-92% in benchmarks.
- Constant Contact tends to have fewer emails incorrectly sent to spam folders compared to Mailchimp.
- However, both platforms offer strong IP reputations, whitelabeling, and deliverability tools to maximize inbox placement.
- Mailchimp does provide more granular analytics on inbox placement rates across different email providers. This allows better optimization.
- Both platforms offer excellent protection against blacklisting. Bounces and spam complaints are handled quickly.
While Mailchimp has seen their deliverability improve recently, Constant Contact still maintains an advantage when it comes to reliable inbox delivery.
However, Mailchimp’s deliverability remains industry-leading overall. The slightly higher rates of Constant Contact may not outweigh Mailchimp’s superior feature set for most use cases.
Unless inbox placement is absolutely critical, Mailchimp likely remains the best choice – with the caveat that its deliverability continues to reach parity with Constant Contact.
Support: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
Getting timely, high-quality customer support is key for any email platform.
Here’s how Constant Contact and Mailchimp compare:
- Mailchimp offers 24/7 email and chat support, along with an extensive library of guides and tutorials.
- Constant Contact provides live chat and phone support from 7am to 8pm ET on weekdays. Support outside of business hours is limited.
- Mailchimp generally receives high marks from users on responsiveness and the knowledge of support staff.
- Response times for Constant Contact support have frequently been criticized as slow. Follow-ups are not always prompt.
- Mailchimp offers free onboarding support and ongoing access to an account strategist for paid users. Constant Contact has no onboarding.
- Both platforms provide active online communities for users to connect and discuss issues.
- Cancellation processes are smooth with Mailchimp but can be a headache for Constant Contact users.
Mailchimp’s superior around-the-clock support availability, thorough help resources, and onboarding give them the edge.
Constant Contact’s limited hours and mediocre responsiveness have resulted in many user complaints. Their lack of onboarding is also a disadvantage.
Reliable customer support is too crucial to email marketing success. In this area, Mailchimp is the preferred choice based on extensive availability and knowledge resources for users.
Niche Features: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
Beyond core email marketing capabilities, Constant Contact and Mailchimp offer some additional niche features:
- Both platforms now provide website builders and basic online stores to complement email. However, these are very limited compared to dedicated solutions like Squarespace or Shopify.
- Constant Contact previously offered event management capabilities like online registrations, attendance tracking, etc. However, this was discontinued, which removes a major unique selling proposition they had.
- Mailchimp offers basic surveys which can be helpful for gathering subscriber feedback and data. Constant Contact lacks an integrated survey option.
- Mailchimp provides automated appointment scheduling features which can be useful for service businesses. This functionality is not available in Constant Contact.
- Constant Contact enables sending printed newsletters via mail merging. Mailchimp does not support print mail merging.
- Mailchimp offers Facebook and Instagram ad management within their platform. This deepens the social media integration Constant Contact lacks.
- Mailchimp supports more robust automation with things like RSS-to-email, e-commerce notifications, and other innovative features.
Overall, Mailchimp’s niche capabilities are more modern and add meaningful functionality for many users. Discontinuing event management was a big loss for Constant Contact in terms of unique value.
Mailchimp’s integrations, surveys, and scheduling features solve real business needs for marketers. Constant Contact’s extras are less compelling or outdated.
When it comes to innovative niche functionality beyond basic email marketing, Mailchimp is the superior choice in my opinion. Their forward-thinking platform develops new capabilities that lack in Constant Contact.
For niche needs like events or printed mailers, third-party add-ons may work with either platform. But Mailchimp satisfies more specialized requirements out-of-the-box that demand expensive extras with Constant Contact.
Conclusion: Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
After conducting this comprehensive comparison, Mailchimp emerges as the clear winner over Constant Contact for the majority of email marketing use cases and requirements.
Mailchimp’s advantages include:
- More extensive features for automation, segmentation, social media integration
- Greater analytics and reporting capabilities
- Superior design and branding customization options
- Far more integrations and CRM connectivity
- Competitive deliverability rates nearing Constant Contact’s
- Flexible pricing with free and pay-as-you-go options
- More helpful customer support resources and availability
Constant Contact holds an edge in simplicity and deliverability, though Mailchimp is closing the gap in both areas quickly.
Ultimately, Mailchimp provides more value and room for growth versus Constant Contact’s limitations. The pricing gap has also narrowed, making Mailchimp very affordable.
The only cases where I would recommend Constant Contact are:
- Absolute beginners wanting the simplest email editor
- Businesses with very large contact lists sending basic newsletters
- Users prioritizing deliverability over all other considerations
For everyone else – from entrepreneurs, small businesses, e-commerce stores, and beyond – Mailchimp is my top pick as the leading email marketing platform on the market today.
They offer an unrivalled combination of ease of use, powerful features, compelling integrations, analytics, and excellent support at affordable pricing.
Constant Contact vs Mailchimp – FAQs
What are the key differences between Constant Contact and Mailchimp?
The biggest differences are:
- Mailchimp has more features, integrations, and design flexibility
- Constant Contact is simpler to use but more limited
- Mailchimp has superior analytics and segmentation capabilities
- Constant Contact delivers slightly higher inbox placement rates
- Mailchimp offers more affordable pricing options
Which platform is better for beginners?
Constant Contact is likely better for absolute email marketing beginners, given its slightly simpler interface. However, Mailchimp also offers great educational resources and support to help new users get started.
Who should use Constant Contact over Mailchimp?
The main cases for choosing Constant Contact are:
- You want the simplest email editor possible
- You have a very large contact list of over 50k emails
- Maximizing inbox deliverability is critically important to you
For most other needs, Mailchimp is the better choice.
How do Constant Contact and Mailchimp’s pricing compare?
Constant Contact only has monthly plans based on the number of contacts, starting at $12/month. Mailchimp offers a free plan of up to 2,000 contacts, scalable monthly plans, and pay-as-you-go pricing that can be more affordable.
Which platform has better templates and customization?
Mailchimp provides around twice as many highly customizable templates as Constant Contact. Mailchimp’s editor also offers much more customization flexibility for branding and design.
Can you connect other software tools to Constant Contact or Mailchimp?
Yes, both platforms allow integrations with other tools but Mailchimp supports over 800 native integrations whereas Constant Contact supports under 400.
