Constant Contact vs Mailchimp: The Pros and Cons of Each Tool

No matter how experienced we might be, we know better than to ignore email marketing. And although email marketing has evolved, sending the right email message to the right recipient at the right time remains at the core of attracting and nurturing potential customers.

 

But here comes the question to which you probably don’t have the answer: which is the ideal email marketing software for your business needs and resources? There are a plethora of tools out there, and that’s where we come to the rescue.

 

Coming right up a detailed, side-by-side comparison of two of the most popular email marketing solutions to help you make the right choice. So, Constant Contact or Mailchimp?


Constant Contact and Mailchimp at a Glance

Before diving into our in-depth comparison, let’s have a quick overview of these two email marketing platforms.

 

Constant Contact is one of the oldest and most popular players in the email marketing game. It offers an easy-to-grasp solution either for entry-level marketers or experienced pros. With it, customers craft email marketing campaigns, build websites, create and manage email lists, or set up e-commerce businesses.

 

Mailchimp is an email marketing service used by millions of customers and is considered one of the most affordable solutions. Mailchimp has an impressive feature list, including automation options, stylish templates, landing pages, and more, while also offering a free plan -  coming with limitations, though.

 

Tool

 

 

Constant Contact

 

Mailchimp

Best for

Non-profits, Event management agencies

Small businesses, E-commerce, Agencies

Pricing

Email: starting from $20/month

Email plus: starting from $45/month

Essentials: $9.99

Standard: $14.99

Premium: $299

Best features

Intuitive user interface, survey tool, online donations

Appointment scheduling feature, Postcards, Detailed analytics

Cons

 

Poor automation, high pricing

Limited segmentation options, lack of 24/7 support

Customer support

Chat and phone support, social media support, email support, knowledge base

Phone support, email and live chat support (for paid plans), knowledge base

 

Free plan

 

60-day trial

 

Yes (with limitations)



Constant Contact vs Mailchimp: Features

Both Constant Contact and Mailchimp are functional and fairly simple to use, loaded with essential features to power up your email marketing campaigns. Let’s review the most crucial:

List management

When it comes to email list management, Constant Contact offers more options for you to upload email recipients, while also simplifying contact organization via its navigation bar. You can upload contacts by adding them separately, adding multiple recipients at once, uploading a file, or transferring them through their integration system. Moreover, you can segment your contacts through the usage of tags and certain recipient criteria like subscription status.

Mailchimp may offer advanced segmentation and monitor subscriber behavior effectively through crucial metrics, but its list management is a multiple-step, slightly complicated process. Quite often, users are confused by the distinction between segments, groups, or the purpose of tags. Like with Constant Contact, there’s the option of importing and exporting recipients through numerous integrations with popular tools.

 

Verdict: Constant Contact is your go-to tool for managing contacts, making it more straightforward for you to break your email lists into segments efficiently.

Design and templates

Constant Contact and Mailchimp provide you with various ready-made templates and a drag-and-drop functionality. Constant Contact’s templates outnumber Mailchimp’s and are more intuitive for beginners. You also have a gallery of stock images at your disposal to embed in your emails and a unique feature called ‘Action Blocks’ to directly add products to your campaigns or gather customer data through polls or surveys.

Mailchimp, on the other hand, has better customization options so that you match its templates to your brand’s image. What’s more, the templates offered are more polished and they are sorted into useful categories like e-commerce, newsletters, notifications, etc. There are also blank templates (layouts) that you can benefit from to create your own email content by adding or removing elements.

 

Verdict: This one is a close tie, but if we must choose, we’ll go with Mailchimp. Its templates are more stylish and offer more flexibility in terms of design and customization.

Automation

Constant Contact allows you to set up decent autoresponders such as welcome emails, sign-up emails, or birthday and anniversary emails. You can also create automated series that are triggered upon certain recipient behavior like whether they opened a specific campaign or not. There’s the option of adding elements like surveys, too. However, its automation capabilities are somewhat basic.

 

With Mailchimp, you get automation workflows to dispatch personalized product recommendation emails, follow-up emails, cart abandoned emails, and more. There are several options and triggers to work with, based on your different recipient actions, from rewarding top buyers with special discounts or re-engaging inactive recipients to move forward with purchasing an item based on their website activity.

 

Verdict: Constant Contact’s automation is only available in the Email plus plan. Mailchimp’s automation features aren’t included in the Free plan, but it is in the low-priced plans. So, Mailchimp is declared the winner.

A/B testing

Both tools let you perform A/B tests to experiment with different email variants and decide which one performs better.

 

Constant Contact only allows you to test email subject lines, an option offered only with the Email plus plan. Unfortunately, there are shortcomings in its A/B testing functionality - this actually means you’ll have to split test your emails manually.

 

Mailchimp’s experimentation scope is broader, providing numerous A/B testing options. You can test email elements such as subject lines, content, sending times, or senders, with up to three campaign variations. There’s also the option of running split tests on your entire email list or choosing a certain email recipient percentage, and that percentage is entirely up to you.

 

Verdict: Definitely Mailchimp. Advanced testing is an integral part of your content marketing strategy, which, if not implemented, you’ll end up testing campaigns without knowing if they’ll drive the desired results.


Constant Contact vs Mailchimp: Ease of use

Constant Contact was created with simplicity in mind. It offers a personalized dashboard experience, readjusting the content displayed based on the answers you gave the first time you logged in. This is especially useful for entry-level marketers that want to come across relevant content depending on their email marketing experience. It also has an intuitive drag and drop interface and crucial functionalities like integrations, email templates, or segmentation are easy to find and manage.

 

Mailchimp has a clean interface that uses colors to catch users' attention and is easy to grasp even if you haven’t used their tool before. Creating email campaigns is fairly simple since you have all the steps displayed in a single dashboard and a handy checklist interface to know what steps are needed to complete campaign creation. There are also help messages appearing to help you understand how to use certain features, as well as their advantages.

 

 

Verdict: Constant Contact brags for having a customized experience in store for every user but it lacks Mailchimp’s interface charm. Mailchimp's editor is considered faster but some of its features have a bigger learning curve. We’ll have to say it’s a tie.


Constant Contact vs Mailchimp: Deliverability

Email deliverability is a crucial metric to measure your campaign’s performance. That’s easy to understand given that an email getting delivered and not ending up in the spam folder is the first - and most important - step towards success.

 

Both tools show better deliverability compared to the average rates. According to Email Tool Tester’s recent research, these are the findings regarding their deliverability rates:

(Source)

 

Of course it’s hard to be absolutely sure about these metrics - since they tend to vary. Constant Contact has a spam check tool that detects potential deliverability issues before the emails are dispatched. It also has users swearing about its extremely high deliverability rates. Mailchimp has great deliverability rates and an abuse-detecting technology that prevents users from distributing inappropriate content.

 

Verdict: Constant Contact wins this round. Although Mailchimp has a great reputation and deliverability, Constant Contact seems to be more consistent with getting emails to reach recipients’ inboxes.

 

Summary

There’s no doubt both tools are solid and effective solutions for your email marketing efforts and recipient engagement to succeed. They are both user-friendly platforms offering advanced features and a great user experience.

 

If higher deliverability, easy email list management, and great customer service are factors that weigh heavily in your decision, our advice is to go with Constant Contact. The same goes if you run a non-profit organization. Mailchimp is a better choice in terms of automation and A/B testing, while its pricing gives it a competitive advantage, especially if you are an entry-level marketer or a small business owner.

 

Keep in mind that both platforms offer free trials or free plans that you can test to check which one has the features you deem necessary and combines usability with functionality. This process, along with all necessary information around the Constant Contact vs Mailchimp never-ending battle, is all you need to opt for the option that suits your business objectives.