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It's a split decision.
Choose Mailchimp if you want a free entry point: its Free plan caps you at 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, while paid plans start at $13/month on a 12-month promotional rate. Choose Constant Contact if social and event marketing matter alongside email and SMS; its paid plans start at $12 monthly or $10.20/month with annual prepayment. Mailchimp lists support by plan; Constant Contact’s published pricing gives no support details. Compare caps before switching.
01Side by side
| Constant Contact | Mailchimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Paid: $12/mo; $10.20/mo with annual prepayment | Free; paid starts at $13/mo promotional rate |
| Free plan | No free plan; trial not published | 250 contacts, 500 emails/month, 1 seat |
| Best for | Businesses combining email, SMS, social, and event marketing | Businesses wanting email/SMS, automation, and audience tools |
| Core strength | Email plus social scheduling, SMS, and event tools | Email/SMS with behavioral data and automations |
| Learning curve | Review ease-of-use score: 4.5 | Review ease-of-use score: 6.5 |
| Data and integrations | Contact tags, segments; integrations not listed | Behavioral data; predictive segmentation on Premium |
| Team and seat costs | 2–unlimited users; Lite $12/mo, Premium $80/mo | 1–unlimited seats; Free $0, Premium $350/mo |
| Support | Review support score: 4; plan details not listed | 24/7 email/chat on Essentials; phone on Premium |
Constant Contact Choose Constant Contact if
- Choose Constant Contact if you need email, SMS, social, and event tools.
- Choose Constant Contact if its $10.20 annual rate fits your budget.
- Choose Constant Contact if you want 500 SMS messages included on Premium.
Mailchimp Choose Mailchimp if
- Choose Mailchimp if you want a free plan capped at 250 contacts.
- Choose Mailchimp if you need 24/7 email and chat on Essentials.
- Choose Mailchimp if you want behavioral data and Premium predictive segmentation.
02Pricing compared
Mailchimp is cheaper to enter: its Free plan costs $0 and caps you at 250 contacts, 500 emails a month, one seat and one audience. Essentials starts at $13/month, and Standard at $20/month; those are promotional rates billed for 12 months, and Mailchimp says month-to-month rates may be higher after the promotion. Its Standard plan lists up to 6,000 emails a month on the pricing page.
Constant Contact has no free plan in the published pricing. Lite starts at $12/month, or $10.20/month with 12-month prepayment; Standard is $35 or $29.75, and Premium is $80 or $68. Lite sends up to 10 times its contact count monthly, versus 12 times on Standard and 24 times on Premium. Email overage is $0.002 per send. Multi-Account pricing is custom.
03Features and depth
Constant Contact covers more than email: its listed tools include SMS, social post scheduling and lead ads, event pages and registrations, contact forms, landing pages, and contact tagging. Its automation examples include welcome, birthday, re-engagement and abandoned-cart messages. Lite includes one automation template; Standard includes three, while Premium lists unlimited custom automations and segments. Premium also includes 500 SMS messages a month; SMS for Lite and Standard starts at $10/month for 1–500 messages.
Mailchimp centers on email and SMS campaigns, AI-assisted marketing, behavioral audience data and customer-data-driven automations, according to its homepage. The pricing page lists up to 200 automation flows on Standard. A/B and multivariate testing and predictive segmentation are Premium features. SMS is not included on Free; paid-plan SMS add-ons are listed for Essentials, Standard and Premium. The published feature details give Constant Contact a clearer fit for social and event marketing, while Mailchimp’s listed differentiators include predictive segmentation and testing at Premium.
04Ease of use and learning curve
Neither product’s published material establishes how quickly a new team can learn the platform. The review scores give Mailchimp a 6.5 for ease of use and Constant Contact a 4.5, but those are ratings, not a guarantee of your team’s experience. Constant Contact’s review also flags reported editor problems, so buyers who rely on campaign editing should weigh that caution rather than assume the broader channel set makes setup simpler.
Plan limits can add to the learning curve: Mailchimp Free allows one audience, while Constant Contact’s Lite includes one automation template and one custom segment. Both platforms offer more capacity on higher plans. Check whether your existing audience structure, automations and sending volume fit before switching.
Questions people ask
How much does iContact cost?
The published pricing information covers Constant Contact and Mailchimp, not iContact, so we can’t give a verified iContact price here. Check iContact’s current pricing page for its plans and limits before comparing costs.
What is Mailchimp and Constant Contact?
Mailchimp is an email and SMS marketing platform with AI-assisted tools, audience segmentation and automation. Constant Contact is a marketing platform covering email, SMS, social media and events, with contact management, automation and reporting tools.
What are the disadvantages of Mailchimp?
Its Free plan is limited to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, and SMS is not included. The listed paid starting prices are promotional rates billed for 12 months; Mailchimp says month-to-month rates may be higher after the promotion ends.
What is similar to Mailchimp?
Constant Contact is a comparable option in this comparison: both offer email marketing, SMS options and automation. Constant Contact also lists social and event marketing tools, while Mailchimp lists behavioral data, predictive segmentation on Premium and testing features on Premium.