Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact: Comparing 9 Key Features of These Email Marketing Services

What's the best email marketing service for small- to mid-sized businesses? If you're on the quest, you've likely encountered Mailchimp and Constant Contact in your research.

And for good reason. Mailchimp holds the top chunk of the market with about 68%, reports Datanyze. Constant Contact is third at 6%, just behind Klaviyo. They're both industry leaders with deep roots. So — which is better for you? And how can you be sure you're getting the best value for your investment?

Here at Zoe Marketing & Communications, our clients use both. Heck, over our 15+ years in digital marketing, we've used both! So we're here to help you navigate some key features:

1. Pricing plans and perks

2. Limits on email sends

3. Email templates

4. List segmenting

5. Email automation

6. Integrations

7. Other marketing perks

8. Reports

9. Customer support

It's a lot to consider, but stick with us. By the end, you'll have a clearer sense of both platforms — and which one might be right for your business.

1. Pricing plans and perks

Mailchimp offers a free package; its other options start at $13, $20 or $250 monthly. Constant Contact's choices start at $9.99 or $45. You can also have a free trial of both. But these low rates go up quickly based on your number of contacts. Let's take a look.

Pricing for Mailchimp

There are four plan options with multiple pricing tiers in between, plus a free trial option.

1. Free: Geared at beginners looking to grow their audience and give Mailchimp a spin. You're limited to 500 contacts and 1,000 sends a month. You can only have 1 user and set up 1 audience. You're also limited in your templates, reports and more.

2. Essentials ($13-$350/month): This choice helps build relationships and grow sales. At the low end, it's $13/month for 500 contacts, but you can have up to 50,000 at $350. You get 3 audiences and 3 users. It unlocks full template access, A/B testing, assisted onboarding, 24/7 support, email scheduling and signup forms, plus extras like landing pages, social media posting and Meta ads.

3. Standard ($20-$700): Tailored for those more experienced in marketing. It starts at $20/month for 500 contacts and goes up to $700/month for 100,000. You'll now have 5 users and 5 audiences, plus access to a campaign manager, retargeting ads and more.

4. Premium ($350-$1,510/month): Designed for more advanced marketers, this one starts at $350/month for 10,000 emails and goes up to $1,510/month for 200,000. (For 250,000 or more, you'll need to talk to a sales rep.) It includes unlimited users/owners and audiences, advanced segmenting, priority support, surveys and more.

5. Free 30-day trial: This applies only to Essentials and Standard. A credit card is required.

Pricing for Constant Contact

Constant Contact offers a free trial plus two options.

1. Core ($9.99-$300/month): Rates for this starter option are $9.99/month for 500 contacts. The max is $300/month for 50,000 contacts, with 12 total price tiers. It allows 5 users and includes access to all templates, signup forms, some reporting, email and social marketing tools and more.

2. Plus ($45-$410/month): This "next level" plan is $45/month for up to 500 contacts and goes up to $410 for 50,000 (any more requires a sales rep chat). It allows unlimited users and adds in automations, in-depth reporting, personalized consultations and more.

3. Free 60-day trial: You're limited to 100 contacts and email sends. You can access all templates, images, content manager and reporting. A credit card isn't needed. If you decide to buy a package, all of your info is saved.

The verdict

It's a tie. Pricing comes down to your contacts — and the bells and whistles you want. Constant Contact's base rates only get you to 50,000 contacts, while Mailchimp goes to 100,000.

Get cozy with the pricing pages for both Mailchimp and Constant Contact to inform your choice.

2. Limits on email sends

This is essential if you're looking to send a high volume of emails each month. A "send" means one email sent to one contact.

Send limits for Mailchimp

• With the Free plan, you'll have 1,000 sends per month. At just 500 contacts, if you're sending emails to all of your contacts, you could send only two per month.

• With Essentials, your monthly send limit is 10 times your contact limit.

• With Standard, that monthly limit is 12 times your contact limit

• And with Premium, your monthly limit is 15 times your max number of contacts.

Send limits for Constant Contact

During the 60-day free trial, you can only have 100 contacts and 100 sends. So if you send one email campaign to all of your contacts at once, you'll have used up all of your sends.

With Core and Plus, you have a monthly send limit of 24 times your total contacts. This means you can send out 24 email campaigns to all of your contacts once per month. (If you segment your contacts, though, you'll feasibly be able to squeeze in more campaigns.)

The verdict

When it comes to paid plans, Constant Contact has a higher send limit across the board. However, for either option, you can boost that limit for an additional cost.

3. Email templates

Both services offer a variety of plug-and-play email templates so you don't have to start from scratch. Of course, you can do your own HTML coding if you've got those chops. Both are mobile responsive and let you save your templates for future campaigns, too.

Templates on Mailchimp

At the free level, you'll get access to a few. With the paid plans, you can use all 100+.

The drag-and-drop options include "featured" predesigned templates that let you spotlight products, big news and how-tos. Other options focus on ecommerce, events, holidays, newsletters, notifications and subscriber alerts.

Templates on Constant Contact

Here you'll have access to 200+ templates, with options for newsletters, holidays, retail and more. It also offers choices for different industries, including real estate and nonprofits.

The verdict

In terms of volume, Constant Contact is the winner, with more than double the templates. But dabble in those free accounts/trials to see which templates work for you.

4. List segmenting

Based on the user data you collected via campaigns, you can slice up your audience and target them with different emails. Both services have you covered.

Segmenting on Mailchimp

It offers three "pre-built" options, including engagement (new, active, inactive, etc.), behavior (potential customer, first time, relapsed, etc.) and demographics.

All told, Mailchimp has about 30 segmentation types. They include landing page activity, location, fields, tags and demographics. Most plans offer "basic" segmenting, which lets you set up five conditions. With Premium, you get "advanced," which gets more layered.

Segmenting on Constant Contact

The general version is included in both plans and lets you segment your audiences using contact activity, tags and profiling info, to name a few. For auto-generated engagement segments, you'll need the Plus plan (this lets you send content to most-, somewhat- and least-engaged contacts).

You'll also need Plus to segment content for best, recent, one-time, lapsed or repeat customers.

The verdict

Mailchimp's segmenting gets way more nuanced, including detailed customer behavior. For more flexibility and options, it's better. That said, Constant Contact can be easier to navigate.

5. Email automation

Automating your emails is essential. For example: automatically sending a welcome email to new subscribers or an autoresponse for downloading a guide.

Automation on Mailchimp

It offers none at free, "basic" at Essentials and "enhanced" at Standard and Premium. It's packed with around 45 automation options — plus retargeting emails, so you can send more content to those who engaged with your email but didn't take action.

Options include tagged contents, new subscriber welcomes, order notifications, birthday notes and more.

Automation on Constant Contact

An automated welcome email for new contacts comes with Core; you'll need Plus for anything else. That includes:

• Resends to people who didn't open the first email

• Birthday and anniversary emails

• Abandoned cart reminders

• Automations based on behaviors

The verdict

For the best variety, Mailchimp takes the prize here — plus it delivers those important retargeting emails. Again, Constant Contact may meet your needs if you're going for simpler.

6. Integrations

From your website to leads from Facebook, Eventbrite and more, you can integrate many outside sources with your email.

Integrations on Mailchimp

Notes having 250+, including Stripe, WordPress, Zendesk, LinkedIn and more. Find more Mailchimp integrations here.

Integrations on Constant Contact

Offers 300+, such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Canva and Etsy. Get more scoop on Constant Contact integrations here.

The verdict

It's a wash. While Constant Contact offers more, it ultimately comes down to what you need for your company. 

7. Other marketing options

Email marketing services aren't just about email anymore. They'll let you post to social media, run ads, create landing pages — even make your entire website. Here's an overview.

Marketing options on Mailchimp

• Landing pages (in all plans)

• Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads (in all plans)

• Social media posting (in all plans)

• Social media scheduling on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (Standard and Premium)

• Remarketing ads with Google Ads (Standard and Premium)

• Retargeting ads with Google Ads, starting at $7/week (Standard and Premium)

• Websites and domains (Standard and Premium)

• Content and design tools for websites

• Postcards (in all plans; for an added cost, you can send snail-mail cards to contacts)

Marketing options on Constant Contact

• Landing pages (in all plans)

• Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads (Core and Plus)

• Social media posting (Core and Plus)

• Social scheduling on FB, IG, Twitter AND LinkedIn (Core and Plus)

• Remarketing ads with Google Ads (Plus only)

• Websites and domains (Core and Plus)

• Content and design tools for websites

The verdict

At a glance, a lot matches up. Mailchimp notches out ahead for its landing pages and website options, which gives you the option to buy a domain name — and its retargeting ads. That said, Constant Contact does offer LinkedIn posting, if that's important to you.

8. Reports

How are your campaigns doing? Here's a look at how both services serve up the data.

Reports on Mailchimp

These offer a deep dive, even in the free plan. Reports include click performance, social media results (if you set up the integrations) and even Google Analytics data.

You have 28 options to set up, such as recipients, audience, subject, delivered, click rate, opened, clicked, bounced, unsubscribed, forwards, opens and more.

If you want to compare campaigns, you'll need Standard or Premium.

Reports on Constant Contact

These center on the basics. Both plans let you track:

• Customer list growth over time and by source

• Email views, clicks, bounces and click heatmaps

• Social post reach, impressions and engagement

You can only see conversions and sales in Core. For online ad performance, you can see Meta results with both — plus Google Ads with Plus.

The verdict

Mailchimp's data is much more extensive. Even if it doesn't help you now, it likely will longer term.

9. Customer support

You're bound to run into snafus with your email service — at the get-go and over time. See how the help options stack up.

Support on Mailchimp

It's a rock star with detailed online guides and tutorials, with reams of helpful articles and videos. As for the custom help:

• The Mailchimp Assistant bot is available at all four levels.

• 24/7 live chat support is available for all paid levels.

• Email support is available to all paid plans — but only for 30 days for free users.

• Phone support is limited to Premium.

• Assisted onboarding is included for Essentials and Standard; dedicated onboarding is for Premium only.

• It also has an Experts Directory if you want to hire someone to handle your marketing (prices vary and aren't provided).

Support on Constant Contact

Its Knowledge Base online is also filled with learning resources like how-tos and FAQs. At a more tailored level:

• The general "Constance" support bot is available for all.

• Offers live chat support for all on weekdays only.

• Phone support comes with both the Core and Plus plans. 

• Offers in-house experts who can handle email creation, content curation and custom reporting starting at $50/month.

The verdict

We'll hand this one to MailChimp — but just by a hair. The 24/7 live chat and email options nudge it over the edge, paired with onboarding help. That said, Constant Contact's phone support is more generous, and we like the in-house expert marketing support plans.

What are my next steps with email marketing?

Email is a crucial digital marketing tool. Mailchimp and Constant Contact both offer an easy user experience and tools, making them perfect for businesses just getting started.

Which wins out? In this blog, we weighed out nine key options. Of these, Mailchimp "won" on 5, Constant Contact on 2, and it was a tie on 2. That's not surprising, considering Mailchimp's popularity. Still, our verdict: Experiment with free trials of both, and see which fits your company's needs best. Mailchimp is more detailed, but Constant Contact may fit your needs perfectly.

Ready for your next email marketing moves? Talk to us. Zoe Marketing & Communications is ready to put our 15+ years of digital marketing experience to work for you. 

Or, in the meantime, explore other important email factors and options, including:

• Best practices to keep your email marketing out of spam filters

• What targeted email marketing is and how it can work for you