Constant Contact Email Marketing Review and Pricing

Why We Chose Constant Contact as Best for Small Businesses

Constant Contact is an excellent email marketing software platform for small businesses. It’s easy to use and offers all the essential email marketing campaign features, including A/B testing, an autoresponder, deliverability tools and a drag-and-drop email editor. As a bonus, its user-friendly interface makes campaign creation easy.

Constant Contact’s impressive feature set rivals those of more expensive platforms. It offers an array of email templates, subscriber list management tools, and robust reporting and analytics functions. Its price is affordable, starting at just $12 per month, making it a great fit for small businesses with limited budgets.

We were really impressed by Constant Contact’s 97 percent email delivery rate — a critical factor for small businesses looking to grow and establish their email marketing lists. We also appreciated the numerous help resources on the vendor’s website, including email best practices and information about phrases that can land your campaigns in spam folders. For all these reasons and more, Constant Contact is our choice for the best email marketing software for small businesses.

Constant Contact’s drag-and-drop email editor helps you build campaigns from scratch with standard elements like text boxes, images and buttons. Source: Constant Contact

Ease of Use

Constant Contact’s outstanding email editor is exceptionally easy to learn and use. We were impressed with how it automatically scrubs your website to find your logo, colors and social media profiles — making it simple to apply your branding to email campaigns. With this information loaded into Constant Contact’s editor, you can easily customize one of its dozens of templates. Then, you can save it as a “favorite” for future use. We didn’t see this functionality in some competitors we reviewed.

Other notable ease-of-use elements include:

• Email list building: Constant Contact integrates with popular business software — including Excel, Salesforce and Outlook — to help build email marketing lists. We found that it’s straightforward to sync your data from these tools to capture contact information, which can be a big time-saver.
• Video: Constant Contact partners with Vimeo to allow users to create, host and manage videos within the Constant Contact platform. Many competitors don’t offer this video content strategy option, which can add a valuable element to your marketing efforts.
• Automation: We liked Constant Contact’s easy-to-use automation features. You can configure the service to send automated email sequences triggered by specific customer actions to ensure you reach out to consumers at precisely the right time.

Constant Contact Features

Here’s an overview of some of Constant Contact’s essential email marketing features that small businesses will appreciate.

Drag-and-Drop Email Editor

We really liked Constant Contact’s email editor. Combined with its helpful BrandKit feature, you can easily add your brand’s colors, logo and social media accounts to the platform simply by allowing the tool to scrub your website. Once your branding is loaded into Constant Contact, you can select a template and edit it or build your own from scratch using the drag-and-drop function. First-time users will see a tutorial video to help them navigate the email editor — a touch we appreciated.

Email Templates

Constant Contact users can browse the platform’s library of well-designed email marketing templates built for desktop and mobile devices. The platform includes over 300 templates across 20-plus categories. Each of Constant Contact’s fully customizable templates follows responsive web design best practices for mobile. This feature means your messages will automatically adjust when your subscribers open your emails on their mobile devices.

The platform provides more than 300 templates with drag-and-drop elements to choose from and customize. Source: Constant Contact

Automations and AI Marketing

Constant Contact allows users to focus on email efficiency, relevance and flexibility with automated campaigns. Pre-built templates help those new to automation easily plug in their information, choose their contacts and press “Send.” You can take your automation to the next level by setting up triggers to send messages based on subscriber activity on your e-commerce platform and other integrated apps.

Constant Contact users can also leverage the AI marketing platform to handle most of the tedious work. Powered by AI, the Campaign Builder considers your preferences and generates branded, fully drafted emails to simplify the marketing process, saving you time and energy.

A/B Testing

Constant Contact’s A/B testing feature lets you alter subject lines when sending campaigns to two test contact groups. After the test period, the better-performing subject line is automatically sent to the rest of your audience. This tool can be helpful when you’re trying to target your campaign to ensure it’s hitting all the right notes. However, we were disappointed to note that Constant Contact’s A/B testing is limited to subject lines; you can’t use it to test other message components.

Autoresponder

Constant Contact’s autoresponder lets you create a series of personalized, automated emails to send when specific trigger behaviors or dates occur. These emails may include welcome messages for new subscribers, birthday and anniversary emails for existing customers, and reminders about unused discounts.

List Management

With Constant Contact, building an email subscriber list is as simple as syncing the platform with Outlook, Salesforce, Excel or wherever you store leads. We like that you can create list segments based on activity, demographics, previous interactions and more to categorize your imported contacts.

List management is a standard feature in email marketing software. But, Constant Contact makes the import process easier by automatically removing duplicates and unsubscribed contacts. We didn’t find this feature in all email marketing software packages we reviewed.

Constant Contact makes it easy to add new contacts and see how many subscribers you have at all times. Source: Constant Contact

Reporting and Analytics

An email marketing campaign is only as good as the number of recipients who receive, open and respond to the included call-to-action (CTA). We appreciate that Constant Contact offers comprehensive reporting and analytics tools that display campaign results almost immediately after sending an email.

You can view email open rates; the number of emails sent; your click-through rate (CTR); successful deliveries; unsubscribes; spam reports; email bounce rates; and the number of unopened emails. You can also see which links were clicked, social media statistics and poll responses. We really like that the Constant Contact mobile app allows you to check reports and analytics on the go.

Constant Contact allows you to track and analyze your email campaign data to evaluate your success. Source: Constant Contact

Integrations

Constant Contact integrates with over 300 different platforms, making it easy to connect your existing tech stack to your marketing efforts. You can use integrations to streamline various processes, including the following:

• Reaching your target audience: Constant Contact integrates with Google Ads and Facebook Ads to help you reach prospective customers. It’s also compatible with Salesforce, so you can further improve your email targeting.
• Creating compelling visuals: Enhance your emails with designs from Canva or videos from Vimeo, both of which connect directly with the Constant Contact platform.
• Simplifying online sales: Constant Contact’s integrations with Shopify, Stripe and WooCommerce make it easier for your customers to make purchases — and for you to keep track of them.

Additional Marketing Capabilities

We were impressed by Constant Contact’s broad array of marketing features, including the following:

• Social media marketing: Constant Contact’s social media marketing tools help businesses seamlessly integrate their favorite channels — including Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn — and manage them all in one place. Users can schedule content across multiple platforms simultaneously. Plus, they can respond to customer inquiries — including comments and direct messages — directly from the dashboard.
• Text message marketing: With Constant Contact’s SMS marketing capabilities, businesses can enable auto-triggered messages — like abandoned shopping cart messages — to nudge hesitant consumers. The platform also features AI-powered message drafting, a built-in editor that optimizes content for SMS, and performance testing and tracking capabilities. Plus, users can easily opt in to ensure they never miss a message.
• E-commerce email marketing: Businesses using Stripe, Wix, Shopify or another platform can easily connect their online store to Constant Contact. This integration allows users to set up and track automated communications. This practice can help capture consumers’ attention with targeted messaging, such as product recommendations and triggered discounts based on customer behavior and data.
• Event management: Constant Contact’s event management features enable businesses to create invitations and promotional content to be shared across their contact list and via social media. The platform can also manage ticket sales, allow users to process payments via PayPal or Stripe, and provide reports to monitor event success.

Constant Contact has tools to help you assess and manage your social media performance. Source: Constant Contact

Constant Contact Pricing

Constant Contact has three service tiers and bases its pricing on a business’s number of contacts. For example, if you opt for the Lite tier and have 500 or fewer contacts, you’ll pay $12 per month. However, if you have 501 to 1,000 contacts, you’ll pay $30 monthly.

Here’s how Constant Contact’s tiers match up:

Additional pricing considerations include the following:

• Exceeding send limit: For all plan levels, the fee for exceeding your send limit is just $0.002 per send. This is especially appealing for small businesses that may not want to upgrade to a higher tier just to send an extra campaign or two each month.
• SMS marketing: Lite and Standard users can add SMS marketing tools to their plan starting at $10 per month. (Premium includes 500 SMS messages.)
• Prepayment discount: Constant Contact allows you to pay monthly, but you can get a 15 percent discount by prepaying for 12 months. The provider offers an additional discount of up to 30 percent for nonprofits that prepay.
• Free trial: While there’s no free version, businesses can take advantage of a 30-day free trial that allows you to send up to 100 emails. When your trial ends, you can select a plan or opt not to continue.

Implementation and Onboarding

Once you start your free trial and create your Constant Contact account, you can immediately begin crafting your first email campaign by clicking the “Create an email” option.

Next, you’ll import your fonts, logo, brand colors and social profiles from your website. From there, you can choose an email template that best suits your needs, such as an email newsletter or a product announcement. Once you’re happy with the email’s components and content, you’re ready to build your email list and send your first message.

We like that Constant Contact is truly invested in helping small business owners succeed while learning and using its platform. For instance, the company offers a Small Business Hub filled with useful articles designed to help you improve your email marketing efforts.

Customer Service

Constant Contact has several resources to help its customers succeed. (Note that Premium plan users will enjoy dedicated priority support from the Constant Contact team on all channels.)

• Live chat: Live chat is available Monday through Friday, 3 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET.
• Phone support: Phone support is available Monday through Saturday, with varying hours depending on the department. When we reached out to Constant Contact to test its support, the customer service rep was friendly and helpful, answering all our questions.
• Online resources: The platform offers an extensive online knowledge base with articles, videos, guides, free webinars, blog posts and a community support forum. There are also developer resources for companies that want to use the Constant Contact API to develop custom software.
• Ask a Trainer: Constant Contact’s unique Ask a Trainer drop-in sessions impressed us. We haven’t encountered this type of service from any competitors we reviewed. On weekdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET, a Constant Contact representative is available for any user to join a live Google Meet. Here, they can ask questions about the platform’s features and functionality. This can be extremely useful for small business owners who need quick answers while building email campaigns.

Constant Contact’s Ask a Trainer drop-in sessions are a unique way to get personalized assistance. Source: Constant Contact

Limitations

Constant Contact is an excellent email marketing platform for small businesses. However, we did note the following downsides:

• No free plan: While we appreciate Constant Contact’s 30-day free trial, there’s no free plan. Many businesses need more time to evaluate an email marketing platform or prefer using a less robust free option. If you need an email marketing platform with a free tier, check out our review of HubSpot. HubSpot’s Free Tools plan allows up to 2,000 email sends per month.
• Limited A/B testing: Constant Contact’s A/B testing feature is currently limited to email subject lines. In contrast, businesses may prefer an email marketing platform with more robust element testing — including images, layouts and CTAs — to gain better insights into email campaign effectiveness. Read our review of Campaigner to learn about a platform with much more extensive A/B testing capabilities.
• No unlimited sends: Even on Constant Contact’s most generous tier, businesses can’t send unlimited emails. This limitation may be an issue for some high-volume senders. Read our review of Benchmark email marketing if you’re looking for a provider that allows unlimited sends on its paid plans.

Methodology

To identify the best email marketing services, we first compiled a list of popular email marketing platforms based on online research. We carefully examined each service’s reputation and narrowed down our list to some finalists. We then spent several weeks researching each vendor by investigating its offerings, watching tutorials and how-to videos, testing the software (when possible), and reading user reviews. We also evaluated each service’s pricing structure and customer support. When selecting our pick for the best email marketing service for small businesses, we considered the features that would be most important to small businesses with modest email marketing budgets.

Bottom Line

We recommend Constant Contact for …

• Small and midsize businesses looking for affordable email marketing software.
• Companies that want to experiment with a risk-free email marketing service.
• Organizations that want to integrate email marketing with e-commerce or social media platforms.

We don’t recommend Constant Contact for …

• Businesses with many email contacts (over 50,000).
• Companies looking for highly customizable templates.
• Organizations seeking a completely free plan.

Sean Peek contributed to this review.