Constant Contact Email Marketing Review: Pros & Cons, Features, Ratings, Pricing and more

Constant Contact was founded in 1995 by an entrepreneur named Randy Parker, initially known as Roving Software before switching to its current name in 2004. It's one of the oldest email marketing software tools in existence. Since its inception, it has since expanded from a simple email marketing tool into a full-fledged online marketing platform for different types of campaigns, including social media, web, and SMS. 

Constant Contact has acquired a lot of other companies to expand, such as CardStar, a loyalty rewards app, and Bantam Live, a social CRM startup. In 2015, Constant Contact itself was sold to IT company Endurance International for $1.1 billion. In 2021, private equity firm Clearlake Capital acquired Endurance International and spun off Constant Contact as a standalone business.

Constant Contact: Plans and pricing

Constant Contact doesn't have a free tier, which puts it at a disadvantage compared to the competition. However, it offers a 60-day free trial for its premium plans, unlike most other platforms that limit theirs to 30 days.

This app has two premium plans; Core and Plus. The Core plan starts at $9.99 / £9.99 / AUD$14.99 per month for 500 contacts and increases according to the range of contacts. For example, between 10,000 to 15,000 contacts costs $105 / £100 / AUD$150 per month and between 45,000 and 50,000 contacts cost $270 / £260 / AUD$400 per month.

The Plus plan costs $45 / £44 / AUD$70 per month for 500 contacts and increases according to the range of contacts. For instance, between 10,000 and 15,000 contacts on this plan costs $180 / £180 / AUD$270 per month and 45,000 to 50,000 contacts costs $410 / £380 / AUD$600 per month. There's also a Marketing Automation+ plan which enables you to centralize your data and automate email campaigns and costs a flat $449 / £410 / AUD$650 per month.

Constant Contact limits its standard pricing plans to 50,000 contacts. Anything above that number, and you’ll need to contact the company’s sales team for a quote. You can start a 60-day free trial for the premium plan with no credit card details and there’s a 30-day window to request a refund if you’re not satisfied with the platform after paying.

Constant Contact: Features

For business owners that are novices at design, Constant Contact has over a hundred customizable templates- already optimized for mobile. Another neat feature will scan your website and auto-generate a template themed for your website’s colors and images.

Editing of these templates is a snap with drag-and-drop layouts or image and text boxes. Users with coding skills will appreciate the feature to create an email template based on a custom code.

To build your contact list, Constant Contact offers the option to enter your contacts one by one, import them from a spreadsheet or file, or import them from Gmail or Microsoft Outlook. 

With your contact list complete, you then create segments, which enables you to target, for example, customers who haven’t opened an email in a while via a special promo or update. 

Constant Contact also integrates with Shopify and WooCommerce, enabling you to create contact list segments based on what customers have purchased. With Constant Contact’s integration with ecommerce, customers can also shop your store directly from their inbox.

We also appreciate the email automation tools. Automation can reduce the workload, with such features as the ability to send an automatic resend of the email to a non-opener.

Constant Contact: Interface and in use

An ease to set up and get started with, Constant Contact takes just a few minutes to register a new account. With your account created, you’ll be queried with a few questions about your business and any existing contact lists. 

Intuitively simple to set up, the web interface makes it pretty easy to find what you’re looking for, be it campaigns, contacts, or reports.

Constant Contact also has apps available for both iOS and Android. While the app is sleek and the ability to draft emails and organize contacts on the go has its appeal, the usefulness is extremely hindered by the inability to edit draft email campaigns created on desktop. By way of example, users that want to draft a campaign on their work computer, and then edit it from their iPad later will be disappointed.

Constant Contact: Support

Constant Contact offers direct support through email, live chat, and telephone. You can chat with a live support agent from Monday through Friday or contact them via phone from Monday to Saturday (hours and department phone numbers vary depending on your region). There's also an online community where you can interact with other users and exchange solutions to each other's problems. 

This platform also offers many other support resources for users. There's the Knowledge Base, which contains a lot of articles and user guides for all features concerning the platform. You can also find video tutorials to learn about the platform in an interactive way. Likewise, Constant Contact hosts regular webinars for users to interact with marketing experts and ask questions. If you're finding it difficult to run email campaigns, you can hire a marketing professional from Constant Contact's directory.

Constant Contact offers excellent customer support, which is one of its main selling points. 

Constant Contact: The competition

For the budget conscious, Mailchimp is a worthy competitor to Constant Contact. It offers most of the same email marketing basics, such as templates and list segmentation- at a lower price. Even further, Mailchimp offers a free plan if you have under 2,000 contacts, making it ideal for users who are just starting out.

For businesses that have webinars as a core component, it might be worth looking into GetResponse, to allow for easy integration of webinars with your email contact list.

Constant Contact: Final verdict

Constant Contact easily makes the shortlist of names people think of when it comes to email marketing, and there’s plenty of reasons why. Constant Contact is easy to set up and use, offering high levels of support and security.

However, the shortcoming is that there’s nothing really setting Constant Contact apart from its competitors among email marketing services. At least Constant Contact offers a 60-day free trial, so it’s worth checking out. However, temper your enthusiasm as you can’t expect game-changing innovation at these levels.

Constant Contact can stand out with the separately featured and more comprehensive CRM plan, but as with the Constant Contact Website Builder, we'll consider that in its own review.

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