Product comparison
Mailchimp vs Constant Contact: Which Fits Your Small Business?
The short answer
Choose Mailchimp for most general email programmes. It has broader automation, reporting and integrations, and it is easier to justify when your staff or agency already knows it.
Choose Constant Contact when you will use its event registration, tickets, payments and attendee communication, or when phone and chat support remove real work for a small organisation.
- Mailchimp read our full review.
- Constant Contact read our full review.
The practical difference
Mailchimp is a broad marketing platform. Constant Contact is a more guided email and event product.
That difference matters more than a feature count. A business sending newsletters, promotions and moderate follow-up will usually get more room from Mailchimp. A local organisation running classes, fundraisers, workshops or paid events can save time by keeping registration and email in Constant Contact.
Where Mailchimp is stronger
- More capable segmentation, customer journeys and reporting.
- A larger range of integrations and stronger agency familiarity.
- A permanent free entry plan, though it is small.
- Pay-as-you-go credits for some irregular senders.
- Lower switching cost where staff, assets and integrations already use Mailchimp.
Mailchimp's weakness is the contact model. Subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts can count, and separate audiences need careful management.
Where Constant Contact is stronger
- Native event registration, free or paid tickets, promo codes and payments.
- Event invitations, attendee messages and follow-up in the same workflow.
- Live phone and chat support.
- A clear nonprofit prepay offer.
- A simpler proposition for an organisation that does not need sophisticated automation.
Constant Contact's weakness is value outside that niche. It is relatively expensive for its automation and reporting depth.
What each platform costs in practice
Mailchimp Free supports 250 contacts and 500 monthly sends. Paid plans scale with contacts, send multiples and feature gates. Contact states and separate audiences can raise the practical total.
Constant Contact starts with Lite, Standard and Premium. Current base plans begin at $12, $35 and $80 a month, then rise with contacts. Send allowances are ten, 12 and 24 times the contact count. Event payments can add platform and payment-processing fees.
Neither product is a simple low-cost winner at larger lists. Price the same contact count, sends, users, automation and event workload in both checkouts.
Which takes less work?
Both can support a beginner. Mailchimp has more breadth and therefore more settings to govern. Constant Contact has a narrower everyday email workflow, but event setup adds its own work.
- MailerLite often easier than either when the team only needs newsletters.
If event registration and support are the reason for buying, Constant Contact's workflow can be the easier option overall.
Which is better for nonprofits?
Constant Contact offers 20% off when an eligible nonprofit prepays six months and 30% off for 12 months. There is no nonprofit discount on monthly billing. Mailchimp offers 15% to verified nonprofits without the same event-specific case.
The discount should not decide the purchase by itself. A nonprofit running frequent events may justify Constant Contact. A simple newsletter programme should also compare MailerLite, Sender and EmailOctopus. A fundraising or membership operation may need a different system altogether.
Migration check
Before switching, inventory templates, automations, forms, custom fields, integrations and suppression records. Test event registration or Mailchimp journeys with a real end-to-end example. Keep the old account available until sending-domain authentication and unsubscribe handling are verified.
Verdict
Mailchimp is the better generalist. Constant Contact wins for a narrower but legitimate reason: events and live guidance. If neither advantage matters, start with MailerLite.