Constant Contact Review: Well Known, But Worth Its (High) Price?

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Charlotte Evans

Charlotte Evans

Researcher

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Constant Contact has been in the email marketing game since 1995. During that time, they’ve managed to become one of the most used email tools in the world, after Mailchimp.

One thing I noticed is that Constant Contact is very often the top choice for many other review websites. Naturally, I am curious to see if our detailed analysis produces the same outcome.

You might have checked out the Constant Contact reviews offered by users online, too, and whilst they are pretty positive, they may not give you the whole picture. Our review of Constant Contact is based on a methodical approach and uses our practical experience and knowledge of dozens of other simple and advanced marketing automation tools.

What makes them special is that they’ve added several features over the years that few of their competitors sport. These include digital product downloads, event management, appointment scheduling and social campaigns, which makes them particularly appealing to certain niches (e.g. real estate). These all add to the diverse list of email options available, in addition to automations and recurring newsletters.

Constant Contact boasts a marketplace with around 400 apps and integrations that cater to even the most niche of products. Yet despite these flashy numbers and features, interest in Constant Contact seems to be on the decline, at least according to Google Trends. Enough reason for us to take a closer look at Constant Contact’s ins & outs and check if it’s still relevant in a modern email marketing strategy. Find out below!

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Constant Contact Summary

Constant Contact is directed towards small businesses, but their prices aren't the most affordable, especially when you consider that their features just aren't that advanced. Plans start from $12/month, but this only allows for 500 subscribers, and prices rise pretty sharply after that.

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Constant Contact Pricing

$ 12

500 Subscribers

unlimited emails

Lite Plan. Discounts available for 12-month plans.

$ 30

1,000 Subscribers

unlimited emails

Lite Plan. Discounts available for 12-month plans.

$ 50

2,500 Subscribers

unlimited emails

Lite Plan. Discounts available for 12-month plans.

$ 80

5,000 Subscribers

unlimited emails

Lite Plan. Discounts available for 12-month plans.

$ 120

10,000 Subscribers

unlimited emails

Lite Plan. Discounts available for 12-month plans.

$ 180

15,000 Subscribers

unlimited emails

Lite Plan. Discounts available for 12-month plans.

$ 280

25,000 Subscribers

unlimited emails

Lite plan. Discounts available for 12-month plans.

$ 430

50,000 Subscribers

unlimited emails

Lite plan. Discounts available for 12-month plans.

$ 110

2,500 Subscribers

unlimited emails

Premium Plan. Discounts available for 12-month plans.

> Compare prices with our cost calculator

> Find out more about Constant Contact’s plans in our complete pricing guide

Pros and Cons

  • Pros
  • Cons

Pros

  • Niche features

    Constant Contact have some interesting niche features such as the ability to sell digital products, schedule your social media posts and create your logo. They also let you take payments for events (with some additional feeds applied, of course).

  • High deliverability rates

    They have consistently performed well in our deliverability tests, offering some of the highest rates of deliverability among our reviewed tools.

Is Constant Contact the right newsletter service for you?

  • Recommended if:
  • Not recommended if:
  • You run events

    Constant Contact is quite unique in this regard, being one of the few email marketing tools to allow you to manage event invitations, registrations, and tickets. Bear in mind that this feature comes with its own fees: 5.4% + $0.80 for each ticket sold or transaction conducted.

Rating Details

Ease of Use

Generally it’s easy to navigate, though a bit dull-looking. You can get to most places within a couple of clicks, though as they’ve added more functionality, some things have become a little hidden, for example, automations.

Editor Info popup

The editor is fast, but light on features, especially in the styling department. Apart from that it’s easy to work with.

Personalization Info popup

This is very basic, only allowing you to insert simple greetings or contact details. There is no if/then/else logic available.

Email types Info popup

Classic, autoresponders, basic automations, recurring newsletters, A/B testing, event registrations, coupons, surveys and polls.

Choice and Flexibility of Template Designs Info popup

Not bad. There are around 200 (!) templates to choose from, with varying degrees of quality (some are decent, while others look a little basic and dated). You can also start from scratch, and use a handy feature called ‘Brand your email’ to auto-generate a template based on your website’s colors and logo.

Email Marketing Automation Info popup

They offer autoresponders and abandoned cart campaigns for Shopify and WooCommerce. It also generates pre-defined contact segments based on your customers’ interactions with your online store (e.g. repeat, lapsed and potential customers). Automations based on contact triggers (e.g. email opens, clicks) are also available. It’s worth noting that the automations aren’t the most flexible, as you can’t really combine conditions and actions as you can in many other tools.

List Management Info popup

You can create segments from contact activity, list membership, contact details, tags, or ecommerce activity. You can also create a segment from your contact insights and tag contacts based on contact field criteria.

Registration Forms/ Opt-in & Opt-out- Process Info popup

There is next to no customization with the form, and it simply offers a description box, basic field options (which you can’t add to) and then a list, or lists, that people can check to be added to.

Deliverability Info popup

As you can see in our deliverability tests, Constant Contact performs very well, reaching the most popular email providers (AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook) the majority of the time. They came second in our most recent deliverability test in January 24.

Reports and Analysis

In addition to standard open and click reports, spam, bounce and unsubscribe rates are also available. You also get click heat maps, and some useful overview reports such as open and click trends, opens by device, % of contacts engaged, and most successful subject line. You can also compare campaigns. However, advanced tracking such as social tracking isn’t available.

Languages Info popup

Here’s where it gets a bit hairy. The site and the tool are only available in English. You can choose to change some of the non-editable email sections (e.g. footer and privacy policy text) to one of 10 languages available, mostly European. Support and the knowledge base is available in 4 languages. Slightly confusing, but at least there’s some effort to support multilingual users and audiences.

Spam- and Design-Testing Info popup

Spam testing isn’t available, however, there is a feature to check the email for errors (missing links, placeholder text that hasn’t been updated, etc.). There’s also a tool that allows you to preview how emails will look for specific recipients, although this didn’t seem to work when we tested it out. ‘Inbox Preview’ by Litmus is available as an add-on service, although at $10/month for just 5 tests, it’s a little steep. Find out how to avoid spam filters here.

Bounce Management Info popup

Soft bounces are placed on temporary hold for 15 days, and then resent. If it happens again, they are moved into a suspended bounce category. They have a ‘recommended for removal’ filter available to view these, but don’t remove them automatically.

Blocklist Info popup

Import/export available although it’s not as straightforward as it could be – you need to first enable advanced email permissions under Account Settings.

Storage available for data and images

Unlimited

All plans come with unlimited storage.

Authentication Info popup

SPF and DKIM are supported.

Own Domain Info popup

Different levels of account access Info popup

The Account Owner can also assign roles to be either an Account Manager or a Campaign Creator.

Integrations

Constant Contact offer a massive amount of apps and integrations, almost 400.

Landing Page Builder Info popup

This is only available via their form builder, and it’s very basic. Instead, we’d recommend these free landing page builders.

Customer Support

There are several channels of support, including live chat, phone support, a knowledge base and community-based support. However, I found that the chat and phone support weren’t always available, which was a little frustrating. When I was able to get hold of chat support, however, I did find them to be responsive and useful. Bear in mind that you’ll need to call in order to cancel your subscription, which is pretty annoying.

Overall rating

3.6

For a basic email tool, Constant Contact ticks most of the boxes. The main issue here, though, is that they’re asking a premium price for a sub-premium product.

Constant Contact Deliverability

The deliverability rate of Constant Contact is good overall, they are one of the providers that we’ve tested from our very first round in 2017, and ever since they have managed to keep a stable score ranging from the late eighties to early nineties. In the last three rounds, they have scored around the 88% mark, and in our latest email deliverability test, they came second out of fifteen providers. They were one of the few providers who managed to land 100% of all of their emails in Yahoo, Outlook, Hotmail, and AOL inboxes – great work!

Conclusion

As Constant Contact themselves reiterates through their site, they are a tool for small businesses. And, as such, it’s worth evaluating them on these terms. As mentioned above, they definitely have enough of the basics covered to satisfy most small businesses, and if it were as simple as that then we’d recommend them more highly.

The issue, these days, is that there are plenty of other email tools offering even more than Constant Contact, and for a lot less money. This includes not only features, but also user experience. In fact, for the amount you pay with Constant Contact, you could find yourself using much more powerful tools such as ActiveCampaign and GetResponse.

They do pick up points for their decent deliverability rates, integrations (particularly social media integrations), and for allowing different access levels for separate users. And with recent enhancements to automations and reporting, and the addition of new features like a website builder, it does look like they’re making an effort to improve the product. But their lack of advanced features makes it difficult to recommend them over others at this price point. (You’ll see we don’t list them as a good Mailchimp alternative, either.)

So, there you have it: the next time you see Constant Contact as the number 1 rated service anywhere around the web, I would boldly claim that there might be other interests at play there.

Try Constant Contact now for free for 30 days.

Check out our Constant Contact tutorial to learn the basics.

FAQ

Mailchimp beats Constant Contact hands down. If you’d like to get into the details, take a look at our Mailchimp vs Constant Contact comparison.

Constant Contact, in partnership with SharpSpring, offers an all-in-one CRM platform. However, at $399/month, you’d be much better off taking a look at any of these CRMs for small businesses, which will be far more affordable. There are even plenty of excellent free CRMs to choose from.

Frustratingly, you’ll need to call Constant Contact within business hours Eastern time in order to cancel your account. Here is the number for the US and Canada: 855-229-5506

Constant Contact is a legit email marketing software for small businesses. It safely stores your customer data and offers a secure way to manage your subscribers.

Constant Contact’s deliverability rates are consistently good in our bi-annual deliverability tests.

Constant Contact Alternatives

ActiveCampaign has one of the most advanced automation systems we’ve ever tried, and it can’t be compared to Constant Contact’s simplistic approach (it only features autoresponders). They also offer robust reports and analysis tools. On top of that, they are even cheaper than Constant Contact.

Brevo is one of the cheapest all-in-one email marketing tools on the market. It’s available in 6 languages and comes with advanced automation options and a built-in CRM.

GetResponse is a solid alternative. It comes with many advanced features (e.g. a webinar tool), has excellent automations and offers one of the best spam and design testing tools we’ve ever used. That’s why Constant Contact falls short when compared to GetResponse.

We have a detailed guide with the best alternatives to Constant Contact, check it out here. You can also try out our Smart Finder to see which newsletter service is best suited to you.

The authors

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Roberta Phillips

Marketing Manager

Hey, I'm Roberta! Having worked as a digital marketer for a host of online businesses, I've tried, tested, fallen in love with and despaired with so many marketing tools. I'm excited to help you find the email marketing and CRM tools you need to thrive.

Charlotte Evans

Content Manager

Hey, I'm Charlotte! I've always been enthusiastic about helping others. After working for various tech startups and eCommerce businesses, I developed a strong passion for email marketing. Now, at EmailTooltester, I'm putting this knowledge to good use by recommending the very best digital tools for your business.

Learn more about us

We keep our content up to date

06 Feb 2024 - Updated deliverability section
20 July 2023 - Added deliverability section
19 April 2023 - Plans and pricing updated
17 March 2022 - Note added about legitimacy
16 Feb 2022 - Pricing plan names changed
26 Jan 2022 - No longer part of EIG
08 Nov 2021 - FAQs updated
25 Aug 2021 - Contact management features updated
07 Jun 2021 - General update
30 Oct 2020 - New video review
05 Oct 2020 - Images updated
14 Apr 2020 - Small update
23 Jan 2019 - Updated review
07 Jan 2019 - Deliverability rating updated
20 Mar 2018 - Deliverability rating added
06 Apr 2016 - Readjustments of the ratings
12 Aug 2016 - Video review added.
28 Jul - 01 Aug 2016 - Initial tests.

Our Methodology

This review has been written and researched following our EmailToolTester methodology.

Our Methodology

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