MailChimp and Constant Contact are two big players in the marketing automation and email marketing industry. They help companies of all sizes become more proficient at using email, get in touch with their prospects, market their products and re-engage lapsed customers. If you’re not familiar with the tools, MailChimp’s and Constant Contact’s features can sound similar, making it difficult to decide which to use.
We’ve compared MailChimp and Constant Contact to emphasize key differences and the factors to take into account for a buying decision.
Product Overviews
For a quick overview, here are some snippets from our comprehensive reviews on MailChimp and Constant Contact.
MailChimp – MailChimp is a complete email marketing solution with robust marketing automation capabilities. It offers an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that makes it easy to create and share attractive emails, and has built-in analytics and reporting functionality. In terms of marketing automation, the product enables users to re-engage lapsed customers by creating a win-back email series using custom email triggers based on the unique needs of their business.
Constant Contact – Constant Contact is a powerful email marketing and marketing automation solution that is loaded with hundreds of email templates and offers multiple ways to upload contacts. Its automation feature allows users to send and target a series of personalized emails to recipients based on specific triggers. In addition, Constant Contact offers an event registration tool that enables business marketers to drive attendance at conferences and trade shows via email marketing.
How They Stack Up
Automation
MailChimp: MailChimp’s automation features seem to provide rich and powerful functionality. For instance, users can set up automated emails that send when triggered by a customer’s activity like when someone clicks on a certain link in an email, buys a product from a user’s site or even abandons their shopping cart. In addition, users can connect an ecommerce store with MailChimp to send personalized product recommendations and follow up on purchases.
Constant Contact: Constant Contact allows users to set up autoresponders, welcome emails, and anniversary and birthday emails to be sent automatically based on certain triggers. Once users spend time to customize messages, they don’t have to worry about them again until they’re ready to change the content. However, Constant Contact doesn’t offer any advanced automation features for sending behavior-targeting emails.
Bottom Line: Both MailChimp and Constant Contact allow users to send the right content at the right time to the right people using trigger-based emails. However, MailChimp lets users connect their ecommerce store to their MailChimp account to recover abandoned carts and increase average order value using advanced automation – a capability that Constant Contact lacks.
Reporting
MailChimp: MailChimp offers reports that explain bounce rate, click-through rate, open rate and other metrics users will need to measure an email’s success. Interactive graphs also highlight top locations by opens, industry averages and which links recipients clicked the most. Additionally, MailChimp users get access to email click map overlay, which provides insights like what elements attract subscribers and why.
Constant Contact: Constant Contact provides reports that show statistics on number of opens, forwards, unsubscribes, clicks and more. These stats are graphically presented in the user’s account. An activity tab logs removals, updates, additions and exports. However, Constant Contact doesn’t highlight industry averages or offer a click map.
Bottom Line: From a reporting standpoint, MailChimp is more mature than Constant Contact, providing industry averages and a robust email click map that helps users identify the best positions for link placement.
Customer Support
MailChimp: MailChimp’s customer service process is guided online. First, users visit the Contact page, where they can select the topic of their issue. Once the category is selected, users are asked questions to more specifically address the issue. Users are then led to several related Knowledge Base articles that may solve it. If not, users can use support prompts to message the support team.
Alternatively, users can log into the customer portal to file a direct support inquiry or use Twitter to tweet their question using the @MailChimp handle.
Constant Contact: Constant Contact offers customer support by phone, email, live chat and its Ask Constant Contact Twitter account (@CTCTHelp).
Users can reference Constant Contact’s Knowledge Base, its comprehensive database of video tutorials or its Help Center community of more than 550,000 Constant Contact customers. Users who are interested in further support and training can attend a number of online and in-person educational and training events.
Bottom Line: MailChimp’s customer service is primarily offered online and doesn’t offer the option to call the support team directly, while Constant Contact does offer phone support. Additionally, Constant Contact customers can utilize additional resources like the Help Center and more “hands-on” support events.
Pricing
MailChimp: MailChimp provides four pricing plans. The Free plan includes one audience, 2,000 contacts, 10,000 monthly emails, seven marketing channels, one-click automations, basic templates, custom domains and a marketing CRM.
The Essentials plan offers three audiences, 5,000 monthly emails, email templates, A/B testing, custom branding and 24/7 support. Prices start at $13 per month (500 contacts).
The Standard plan provides five audiences, 6,000 monthly emails, advanced customer journeys, predictive segmentation, send time optimization, custom-coded templates and dynamic content. Prices start at $20 per month (500 contacts).
The Premium plan includes unlimited audiences, 150,000 monthly emails, advanced segmentation, multivariate testing and phone support. The price starts at $350 per month (500 contacts).
Constant Contact: Constant Contact has three monthly pricing plans with a 60-day free trial and a 15% discount if companies pay annually. The Lite plan includes basic features and starts at $12 per month for up to 500 contacts.
The Standard plan adds on A/B testing, email resends to non-opens, prebuilt automation template, contact segmentation and social media ads integration. It starts at $35 per month for up to 500 contacts.
The Premium plan adds advanced email marketing features, custom automation, search engine optimization (SEO) and advanced ads. It starts at $80 per month for up to 500 contacts.
Constant Contact offers a Marketing Automation+ platform for organizations that need robust functionality. It starts at $449 per month and includes features like sales automation, lead scoring, advanced workflows, tracking and analytics and a dedicated onboarding expert.
Bottom Line: MailChimp offers more affordable and flexible payment options, including the Forever Free plan. However, the price jumps considerably if users are interested in premium features. For this reason, MailChimp may be a better choice for small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) with low to moderate email marketing and automation needs, while Constant Contact may be better for larger businesses or SMBs with more complex needs.
Key Takeaways
MailChimp and Constant Contact are robust email marketing tools with marketing automation capabilities. While Constant Contact offers a lengthy 60-day trial, MailChimp offers a Forever Free account with limited use, allowing businesses with less activity to use the software without making a financial commitment.
For those who value phone support, the scale is tipped in Constant Contact’s favor, as MailChimp only offers online support. However, advanced automation and performance analysis based on industry averages is something that just about every business marketer wants to be able to do – and MailChimp excels at these things.
Ultimately, choosing one over the other depends on the user’s preferences and business size.
If you’re entirely new to Marketing Automation tools, take a look at Marketing Automation Buyers Guide. It offers a full overview of market trends, must-have features and common challenges to avoid.
Finally, if you’re looking for software alternatives, our detailed reviews is a good place to start.