Constant Contact Email Marketing Review and Pricing

Why Constant Contact Is the Best for Small Businesses

We chose Constant Contact as the best email marketing software for small businesses. We did so because it combines affordable pricing with helpful email automation software to create an effective email marketing tool for small businesses of all types. The easy-to-use interface and quick sign-up enable marketers to create and launch an email campaign in under 10 minutes.

Constant Contact is also cost-effective for the value it offers, making it advantageous even for small businesses on a tight budget. Constant Contact provides an ideal blend of usability, functionality and affordability for small businesses looking to explore email marketing.

Usability

Constant Contact is one of the easiest-to-use email marketing services we reviewed, and the email editor is outstanding. Even if you have never designed an email, the editor automatically scrubs your website to find your logo, colors and social media profiles. Once it has this information, you can easily customize templates to create an appealing email. There are dozens of templates to pick from. Plus, we liked that we could save our favorite templates to quickly reuse them when creating a new email.

Constant Contact integrates with more than 300 additional platforms, such as Microsoft Excel, Salesforce, Outlook and email list building tools. This functionality allows you to sync contacts and other data easily.

One of Constant Contact’s most unique integrations is with Vimeo. This strategic partnership allows email marketers to create, host and manage video within the Constant Contact platform. Users can create videos, embed GIFs, capture and sync leads, and measure video performance on any given campaign.

Additionally, Constant Contact’s automated service lets you send automatic emails triggered by customer actions. So, you’ll have a response in place when consumers are interested in your products or services.

Constant Contact Features

Constant Contact has an array of tools that make it easy to create email marketing content that is eye-catching, appealing and effective. Here are some features we like:

A/B Split Testing

With Constant Contact’s A/B testing feature, you create two subject lines that are sent to different portions of your contact list. The software determines the better-performing subject line and automatically sends that one to the rest of your audience.

Keep in mind that Constant Contact only allows you to A/B test subject lines; many of the other email marketing services we reviewed allow for different elements to be tested. Additionally, this feature is only available at the Standard tier or higher.

Automations and AI Marketing

Constant Contact’s Campaign Builder, powered by AI, streamlines the email marketing process by developing fully drafted, branded messages for your campaign. If you’re new to automation, simply plug your information and contacts into the platform’s pre-built templates. If you’d like to dig further into automation, you can also set up custom triggers that send messages based on subscriber activity.

Autoresponders

With Constant Contact’s autoresponders, we created a series of personalized, automated emails. These emails are sent automatically based on certain triggers. You can automate emails such as welcome messages to new subscribers and birthday or anniversary emails to your existing customers.

Deliverability

Constant Contact boasts a 97 percent deliverability rate. The company also offers resources on common email mistakes, phrases that may trigger spam filters and best practices to ensure your messages are received. Staying out of spam folders not only ensures you reach users more effectively, but it also helps bolster your deliverability rate to other users. The latter prevents your address from being flagged as a source of spam.

Email Editor

We found Constant Contact’s email editor to be one of the most intuitive among the email marketing services we reviewed. When you click “Create an Email,” you can choose to add your website to the message. If you do, Constant Contact’s helpful BrandKit tool scrubs your website to find your brand’s colors, logo, and social media accounts, and then adds them to the email automatically. Next, you can build your email from scratch or pick a template and edit it using simple drag-and-drop tools.

BrandKit is a useful tool available on all Constant Contact plans that automatically creates a branded theme by scanning your business website. You can adjust colors, logos, images and other elements after the scan is complete. Source: Constant Contact

A video tutorial introduces the email editor tool the first time you access it. So, even new users will get a quick instructional overview of the system before getting started. The emails we designed were easy to build and reached the test inboxes — not the spam folders.

Email Templates

Constant Contact has hundreds of templates in its library. Each template is reusable and built for both desktop and mobile. Once you pick a template, you can customize it with your own images as well as your brand’s colors, logos and fonts. Maintaining a uniform brand in appearance and tone across multiple channels can improve your ability to attract your target audience wherever they interact with your content.

Constant Contact offers over 300 templates across 20 categories, letting you create emails quickly. Source: Constant Contact

List Management

With Constant Contact, you can upload your existing contacts from Microsoft Excel, Outlook, Salesforce or wherever else you manage your leads. When you upload new email contacts, you can use tags to categorize them, such as “VIP donor” or “prospect.” You can also create segments based on activity, demographics and other characteristics. Other email marketing services offer this feature as well, but Constant Contact makes it especially easy to use this tool: It automatically removes duplicates and unsubscribed contacts for you so that you don’t have to manage your lists manually.

Managing your email marketing lists is simple and straightforward with Constant Contact. Source: Constant Contact

Reporting

Once you send emails, you can immediately view reports from the campaign. Statistics include open rates; click rates; the number of emails sent; bounces; successful deliveries; unsubscribes; spam reports; and did-not-opens. You can also view which links are clicked, social media statistics and poll responses. In this dashboard, you also have the option to resend an email. Additionally, if you have the Constant Contact app, you can check your reporting data no matter where you are.

Constant Contact offers useful reporting features to help your business track its email marketing performance over time. Source: Constant Contact

Constant Contact Pricing

Constant Contact offers a three-tiered pricing structure: Lite, Standard and Premium. Below is a breakdown of the pricing and features:

Keep in mind that the base price increases with contact list size; for businesses that plan to have more than 50,000 subscribers, reach out to Constant Contact for a custom quote. Constant Contact automatically adjusts user fees if contact lists change from one billing cycle to the next.

Constant Contact offers a 30-day free trial that comes with all of Constant Contact’s tools: templates, images, an email editor, contact management, reporting and live support. There is no need to make a commitment or input credit card information to get started with Constant Contact’s free trial. Plus, you can receive a full refund if you cancel your plan within the 30-day period.

Setup for Constant Contact

To begin, sign up for the 30-day free trial, which is available with every plan. There’s no need to provide any credit card information — just enter your name, company name, email address and phone number. Once you have your account, you can create your first email campaign by clicking “Create an Email.”

From there, choose an email template and create content using fonts, media and colors. Once you’ve finished your email, you’re ready to create a mailing list and send the email. When we used Constant Contact’s email editor, we created and sent an email in less than 10 minutes. You can get started with Constant Contact in three simple steps.

Customer Service

Constant Contact’s phone lines are open Monday through Saturday at various times depending on the department. The chat features are available Monday through Friday from 3 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET. The representative we contacted was helpful, didn’t try to push us to make a purchase and answered all of our questions.

One unique feature Constant Contact offers is its “Ask a Trainer” drop-in sessions, available on weekdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. During these sessions, users can join a live Google Meet call and ask any questions they might have about the platform.

In addition to a dedicated support team, Constant Contact has a variety of self-service options. The platform offers an extensive array of articles, videos, and guides, along with free webinars, a community support forum and resources for developers.

Drawbacks

One potential drawback of Constant Contact is that, although it has a 30-day free trial, it does not offer a free plan. Many other email marketing services provide a free version of their software, often with limited capabilities. To learn about a free option, read our review of Mailchimp.

Another downside is that Constant Contact’s A/B testing feature lets you test subject lines only, which can limit insight into your email campaigns’ effectiveness. A December 2023 Constant Contact community discussion refers to the fact that the company confirmed that other split-testing requires users to manually send out, track and compare emails. Other email marketing services we reviewed let you easily compare multiple variables, such as different designs, with your A/B tests.

Methodology

To identify the best email marketing services, we compiled a list of popular platforms based on online research and carefully examined each service’s online reputation. We spent several weeks researching each email marketing service 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 service by posing as a business owner. When selecting our best pick for small businesses, we looked for software that’s user-friendly; provides features for small business owners who are new to email marketing; and has affordable pricing.

Overall Value

We recommend Constant Contact for …

• Small and midsize businesses looking for an affordable marketing solution.
• Businesses that want to try a new email marketing service without risk.
• Businesses that want to integrate their email marketing with other e-commerce or social media platforms.

We don’t recommend Constant Contact for …

• Businesses with over 50,000 email contacts.
• Businesses that need a free plan.
• Businesses that want extensive A/B testing capabilities.