Constant Contact has been a fixture in small business email marketing for nearly three decades. But knowing what it is and knowing how to get the most from it are two different things. Constant Contact has evolved from a basic email tool into a comprehensive marketing solution, offering everything from email campaigns to advanced automation and ecommerce integration. Whether you are evaluating it for the first time or looking to sharpen your existing strategy, this guide covers the platform's features, pricing, deliverability, limitations, and the scenarios where it genuinely earns its keep.
Key Takeaways
Constant Contact is one of the first modern email marketing platforms, founded in 1995, and has grown a customer base of 650,000 users worldwide.
There are three subscription tiers: Lite, Standard, and Premium, all billed monthly starting at $12 for the entry plan.
In independent deliverability testing, Constant Contact achieved a deliverability rate of 91.7% and ranked second out of fifteen providers tested.
Email marketing returns an average of $36 for every $1 spent, making it one of the highest-ROI channels available to any business.
Constant Contact suits small businesses and nonprofits well, but growing teams with advanced automation needs may hit its limits quickly.
What Is Constant Contact Email Marketing?
Constant Contact email marketing is a cloud-based platform that lets businesses build, send, and track email campaigns from a single dashboard. It is an all-in-one digital marketing platform built for growing businesses, providing tools for email marketing, SMS marketing, social ads, and customer engagement.
Originally called Roving Software, Constant Contact was created in 1995 to level the playing field between small businesses and their larger competitors, and since then it has helped make digital marketing more accessible and affordable to small businesses.
The core pitch is simplicity. Constant Contact's biggest strength is that it is beginner-friendly. You can get started creating and sending email marketing campaigns in 30 minutes. For many business owners who are not full-time marketers, that accessibility has real value.
Core Features
When it comes to email marketing specifically, Constant Contact offers an intuitive drag-and-drop builder with over 200 templates for quick campaign creation. It also includes core features like contact management, segmentation, event management, forms, and landing pages.
Here is a breakdown of what you get across the platform:
Email Builder and Templates
Email templates are easier to select, with options that match your brand's style or that are specific to your industry. You can also view templates you have recently used or that match the season, and choose the perfect template in just a few clicks.
Constant Contact has been a fixture in small business email marketing for nearly three decades. But knowing what it is and knowing how to get the most from it are two different things. Constant Contact has evolved from a basic email tool into a comprehensive marketing solution, offering everything from email campaigns to advanced automation and ecommerce integration. Whether you are evaluating it for the first time or looking to sharpen your existing strategy, this guide covers the platform's features, pricing, deliverability, limitations, and the scenarios where it genuinely earns its keep.
Key Takeaways
Constant Contact is one of the first modern email marketing platforms, founded in 1995, and has grown a customer base of 650,000 users worldwide.
There are three subscription tiers: Lite, Standard, and Premium, all billed monthly starting at $12 for the entry plan.
In independent deliverability testing, Constant Contact achieved a deliverability rate of 91.7% and ranked second out of fifteen providers tested.
Email marketing returns an average of $36 for every $1 spent, making it one of the highest-ROI channels available to any business.
Constant Contact suits small businesses and nonprofits well, but growing teams with advanced automation needs may hit its limits quickly.
What Is Constant Contact Email Marketing?
Constant Contact email marketing is a cloud-based platform that lets businesses build, send, and track email campaigns from a single dashboard. It is an all-in-one digital marketing platform built for growing businesses, providing tools for email marketing, SMS marketing, social ads, and customer engagement.
Originally called Roving Software, Constant Contact was created in 1995 to level the playing field between small businesses and their larger competitors, and since then it has helped make digital marketing more accessible and affordable to small businesses.
The core pitch is simplicity. Constant Contact's biggest strength is that it is beginner-friendly. You can get started creating and sending email marketing campaigns in 30 minutes. For many business owners who are not full-time marketers, that accessibility has real value.
Core Features
When it comes to email marketing specifically, Constant Contact offers an intuitive drag-and-drop builder with over 200 templates for quick campaign creation. It also includes core features like contact management, segmentation, event management, forms, and landing pages.
Here is a breakdown of what you get across the platform:
Email Builder and Templates
Email templates are easier to select, with options that match your brand's style or that are specific to your industry. You can also view templates you have recently used or that match the season, and choose the perfect template in just a few clicks.
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Automation
From abandoned carts to behavioral-based automation, the platform offers a library of plug-and-play templates to send the right message at the right moments, including birthday or anniversary messages always delivered at the right time. That said, automation depth is a known limitation. You can automate emails in Constant Contact, but at a basic level compared to other ESPs. Even though you can create automation for various trigger offers to automate email series, the UI is not always intuitive or easy to navigate.
Reporting and Analytics
In addition to standard open and click reports, spam, bounce, and unsubscribe rates are available. You also get useful overview reports such as open and click trends, opens by device, percentage of contacts engaged, and most successful subject line.
Event Management
Constant Contact includes tools for organizing and managing events. You can build a list of attendees, run promotions, and handle ticket sales inside the platform. This feature sets it apart from most competitors and makes it especially useful for real estate firms, nonprofits, and community organizations.
SMS Marketing
You can add SMS marketing functionality (available for US customers only) to any plan for 0 to 500 messages at $10 per month.
AI Content Tools
The platform helps users create email copy faster by generating subject lines and body content based on campaign goals, which reduces drafting time and supports more consistent messaging.
Pricing Plans Explained
Constant Contact changed its pricing plans in the US in 2023 and rolled them out worldwide in 2025. The current structure has three tiers:
Lite: $12/month (500 contacts)
The Lite plan is ideal for beginners or small businesses with minimal requirements. It is a great fit for occasional senders and solopreneurs who do not need advanced features and marketing automation.
Standard: $35/month (500 contacts)
The Standard plan's advanced segmentation, A/B testing, and automation features enable marketers to create more targeted, personalized campaigns. Businesses typically see improved engagement and conversion rates. You can segment contacts based on various criteria and test different subject lines. Pre-built email and SMS workflows also help automate tasks like sending welcome emails and abandoned cart reminders.
Premium: $80/month (500 contacts)
The Premium plan is ideal for businesses looking to take their email marketing to the next level with advanced features such as ads, search engine optimization, and advanced user segmentation.
A few cost details worth knowing:
For 500 contacts, the Lite plan costs $12/month, Standard $35/month, and Premium $80/month. A 15% discount applies to 12-month plans, and a 30% discount is available to nonprofits.
If you exceed your monthly send allowance, overage fees are charged at $0.002 per email. Automated emails such as welcome messages and abandoned cart reminders are excluded from this fee calculation.
Constant Contact struggles to compete on price with other email marketing platforms. It charges more for plans that include fewer features than many rivals, and it gets particularly expensive as your email list grows. Factor this into your evaluation if you are planning for scale.
Deliverability: Where Constant Contact Earns Its Reputation
Deliverability is where Constant Contact genuinely stands out. They have consistently performed well in independent deliverability tests, offering some of the highest rates of deliverability among reviewed tools.
In the January 2024 deliverability test, Constant Contact achieved an excellent deliverability rate of 91.7% and came second out of fifteen providers. They also performed well in the previous test (June 2023), coming fifth and scoring an impressive 92%. They are one of the few providers who have remained somewhat consistent in their scoring, ranging from 90 to 92% across the last five tests.
Constant Contact fully supports proper email authentication with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and provides a step-by-step setup guide within the platform. The system also automatically handles bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints to help protect sender reputation.
Constant Contact's dedicated deliverability team continuously monitors new contact signups, list uploads, and email content for any signs of suspicious activity. This approach allows them to detect and address potential deliverability issues, ensuring that users' emails reach their intended recipients.
One gap to note: the platform does not currently offer access to Feedback Loop data or a dedicated deliverability dashboard, and it lacks built-in list cleaning tools or third-party integrations for that purpose.
Integrations and Ecosystem
Constant Contact integrates with the apps you use every day. Through Zapier alone, it connects with over 8,000 other apps.
Native integrations include tools like Shopify, Salesforce, Squarespace, and Zoho. Through its Zoho integration, users can auto-sync contact and lead data directly into Constant Contact. The platform also enhanced its Squarespace integration, and Premium users can now build automations based on a contact's purchase activity.
Users can create professional emails using hundreds of customizable templates, segment contact lists for targeted messaging, and track engagement metrics. The platform also offers A/B testing, automated follow-ups, and integration with popular ecommerce platforms.
For teams already running CRM-driven workflows, pairing Constant Contact email marketing with tight list segmentation is where results improve most. For a deep dive on segmentation strategy, see our guide on Email List Segmentation Strategies That Boost ROI by 760%.
Who Should Use Constant Contact (and Who Should Not)
Constant Contact is best for DIY marketers wearing many hats, nonprofits, and organizations that need an all-in-one digital marketing platform.
It is a strong fit if you:
Run a small or medium-sized business and need an easy-to-use platform to get campaigns out fast
Manage events and need integrated ticketing alongside your email campaigns
Are a nonprofit (the 30% discount is a meaningful benefit)
Want reliable deliverability without a deep technical setup
It may not be the right choice if you:
Need advanced conditional automation workflows
Have a large list and are sensitive to escalating per-contact pricing
Require built-in list hygiene tools or deep deliverability analytics
Many users also report difficulties cancelling their subscription. You have to call customer service and talk to a representative to cancel, rather than doing it within account settings. That friction is worth knowing upfront.
How to Get the Most from Constant Contact Email Marketing
Even with its limitations, constant contact email marketing can drive strong results when used deliberately. Here is how to maximize it:
Start on Standard, not Lite. The Lite plan locks you out of marketing automation and A/B testing. Without those, you are leaving performance data on the table from day one.
Use segmentation on every send. With tools like segmentation, behavioral targeting, and automation, businesses can tailor messages to individuals, increasing the chances of conversion. Even basic segmentation by purchase behavior or geography improves relevance and click rates.
Optimize your subject lines. Subject lines are the single biggest lever on open rates. Pair Constant Contact's A/B testing with proven copywriting principles. Our post on Email Subject Line Best Practices That Boost Open Rates by 27% covers the tactics that consistently move the needle.
Build a welcome series immediately. Constant Contact has built a sign-up landing page and a 3-step automated welcome series for new users. Just review what has been built, add your personal touch, and you will be ready to capture new contacts quickly. Do not skip this. A well-built welcome sequence converts subscribers at a higher rate than any subsequent campaign. For the specifics, see our guide on Welcome Email Sequence Best Practices: 7 Proven Strategies.
Authenticate your domain. Setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC through Constant Contact's guided process is essential for protecting deliverability as your list grows.
Monitor your send allowance. Constant Contact's pricing operates on a "send allowance" system. Tracking usage monthly prevents unexpected overage charges.
The Bigger Picture: Why Email Marketing ROI Justifies the Investment
Before you finalize any platform decision, the channel itself deserves attention. For every $1 spent on email marketing, $36 is made in return, according to data from Litmus. That equals a 3,600% ROI.
Open rates rose for the fifth consecutive year, increasing from 26.6% in 2024 to 30.7% in 2025. Automations accounted for just 2% of email sends but drove 30% of revenue, earning 16 times more per send than scheduled campaigns.
Constant Contact's own Small Business Now report reveals that in 2024, 53% of small business owners in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia used email marketing as the most frequent strategy for finding new and retaining repeat customers.
Those numbers make a clear case. The platform you choose matters less than the discipline with which you run your campaigns. Constant contact email marketing, used consistently with proper segmentation and automation, can deliver results that justify the subscription cost many times over.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Constant Contact email marketing?
Constant Contact email marketing is a cloud-based platform that helps businesses create, send, and track professional email campaigns. It is a popular email marketing program that has been on the market for over two decades, coming with a wide range of features such as email automation, segmentation, and reporting, making it suitable for small businesses that want to grow their audiences and manage their mail campaigns.
How much does Constant Contact cost?
Constant Contact pricing consists of three plans: the Lite plan at $12/month for 500 contacts with basic email marketing features; the Standard plan at $35/month for 500 contacts, which includes marketing automation, advanced segmentation, subject line A/B testing, and dynamic content; and the Premium plan at $80/month for 500 contacts, which adds SEO tools, ads management, and richer analytics.
Is Constant Contact good for email deliverability?
Yes. Constant Contact's deliverability rates are consistently good in bi-annual independent deliverability tests. The platform also maintained 100% deliverability to Yahoo, Outlook, Hotmail, and AOL inboxes throughout both recent tests, and showed a noticeable improvement in deliverability to Gmail, growing from 58% to 100% between testing periods.
Does Constant Contact have a free plan?
Constant Contact has no free plan. However, it offers a 60-day free trial with no credit card required, and the company provides a 30-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the service. During the trial, you can create unlimited campaigns and send up to 100 emails, upload contacts, and use custom segments to organize your audience.
How does Constant Contact compare to Mailchimp?
Constant Contact lacks the depth of automation and omnichannel capabilities that Mailchimp offers. However, Constant Contact tends to be easier for beginners and has stronger phone support across all paid plans. Phone support on all paid plans is unusual for email marketing services and is one of Constant Contact's standout differentiators. The right choice depends on whether you prioritize ease of use and support access or deeper automation and a larger free-tier feature set.
Automation
From abandoned carts to behavioral-based automation, the platform offers a library of plug-and-play templates to send the right message at the right moments, including birthday or anniversary messages always delivered at the right time. That said, automation depth is a known limitation. You can automate emails in Constant Contact, but at a basic level compared to other ESPs. Even though you can create automation for various trigger offers to automate email series, the UI is not always intuitive or easy to navigate.
Reporting and Analytics
In addition to standard open and click reports, spam, bounce, and unsubscribe rates are available. You also get useful overview reports such as open and click trends, opens by device, percentage of contacts engaged, and most successful subject line.
Event Management
Constant Contact includes tools for organizing and managing events. You can build a list of attendees, run promotions, and handle ticket sales inside the platform. This feature sets it apart from most competitors and makes it especially useful for real estate firms, nonprofits, and community organizations.
SMS Marketing
You can add SMS marketing functionality (available for US customers only) to any plan for 0 to 500 messages at $10 per month.
AI Content Tools
The platform helps users create email copy faster by generating subject lines and body content based on campaign goals, which reduces drafting time and supports more consistent messaging.
Pricing Plans Explained
Constant Contact changed its pricing plans in the US in 2023 and rolled them out worldwide in 2025. The current structure has three tiers:
Lite: $12/month (500 contacts)
The Lite plan is ideal for beginners or small businesses with minimal requirements. It is a great fit for occasional senders and solopreneurs who do not need advanced features and marketing automation.
Standard: $35/month (500 contacts)
The Standard plan's advanced segmentation, A/B testing, and automation features enable marketers to create more targeted, personalized campaigns. Businesses typically see improved engagement and conversion rates. You can segment contacts based on various criteria and test different subject lines. Pre-built email and SMS workflows also help automate tasks like sending welcome emails and abandoned cart reminders.
Premium: $80/month (500 contacts)
The Premium plan is ideal for businesses looking to take their email marketing to the next level with advanced features such as ads, search engine optimization, and advanced user segmentation.
A few cost details worth knowing:
For 500 contacts, the Lite plan costs $12/month, Standard $35/month, and Premium $80/month. A 15% discount applies to 12-month plans, and a 30% discount is available to nonprofits.
If you exceed your monthly send allowance, overage fees are charged at $0.002 per email. Automated emails such as welcome messages and abandoned cart reminders are excluded from this fee calculation.
Constant Contact struggles to compete on price with other email marketing platforms. It charges more for plans that include fewer features than many rivals, and it gets particularly expensive as your email list grows. Factor this into your evaluation if you are planning for scale.
Deliverability: Where Constant Contact Earns Its Reputation
Deliverability is where Constant Contact genuinely stands out. They have consistently performed well in independent deliverability tests, offering some of the highest rates of deliverability among reviewed tools.
In the January 2024 deliverability test, Constant Contact achieved an excellent deliverability rate of 91.7% and came second out of fifteen providers. They also performed well in the previous test (June 2023), coming fifth and scoring an impressive 92%. They are one of the few providers who have remained somewhat consistent in their scoring, ranging from 90 to 92% across the last five tests.
Constant Contact fully supports proper email authentication with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and provides a step-by-step setup guide within the platform. The system also automatically handles bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints to help protect sender reputation.
Constant Contact's dedicated deliverability team continuously monitors new contact signups, list uploads, and email content for any signs of suspicious activity. This approach allows them to detect and address potential deliverability issues, ensuring that users' emails reach their intended recipients.
One gap to note: the platform does not currently offer access to Feedback Loop data or a dedicated deliverability dashboard, and it lacks built-in list cleaning tools or third-party integrations for that purpose.
Integrations and Ecosystem
Constant Contact integrates with the apps you use every day. Through Zapier alone, it connects with over 8,000 other apps.
Native integrations include tools like Shopify, Salesforce, Squarespace, and Zoho. Through its Zoho integration, users can auto-sync contact and lead data directly into Constant Contact. The platform also enhanced its Squarespace integration, and Premium users can now build automations based on a contact's purchase activity.
Users can create professional emails using hundreds of customizable templates, segment contact lists for targeted messaging, and track engagement metrics. The platform also offers A/B testing, automated follow-ups, and integration with popular ecommerce platforms.
For teams already running CRM-driven workflows, pairing Constant Contact email marketing with tight list segmentation is where results improve most. For a deep dive on segmentation strategy, see our guide on Email List Segmentation Strategies That Boost ROI by 760%.
Who Should Use Constant Contact (and Who Should Not)
Constant Contact is best for DIY marketers wearing many hats, nonprofits, and organizations that need an all-in-one digital marketing platform.
It is a strong fit if you:
Run a small or medium-sized business and need an easy-to-use platform to get campaigns out fast
Manage events and need integrated ticketing alongside your email campaigns
Are a nonprofit (the 30% discount is a meaningful benefit)
Want reliable deliverability without a deep technical setup
It may not be the right choice if you:
Need advanced conditional automation workflows
Have a large list and are sensitive to escalating per-contact pricing
Require built-in list hygiene tools or deep deliverability analytics
Many users also report difficulties cancelling their subscription. You have to call customer service and talk to a representative to cancel, rather than doing it within account settings. That friction is worth knowing upfront.
How to Get the Most from Constant Contact Email Marketing
Even with its limitations, constant contact email marketing can drive strong results when used deliberately. Here is how to maximize it:
Start on Standard, not Lite. The Lite plan locks you out of marketing automation and A/B testing. Without those, you are leaving performance data on the table from day one.
Use segmentation on every send. With tools like segmentation, behavioral targeting, and automation, businesses can tailor messages to individuals, increasing the chances of conversion. Even basic segmentation by purchase behavior or geography improves relevance and click rates.
Optimize your subject lines. Subject lines are the single biggest lever on open rates. Pair Constant Contact's A/B testing with proven copywriting principles. Our post on Email Subject Line Best Practices That Boost Open Rates by 27% covers the tactics that consistently move the needle.
Build a welcome series immediately. Constant Contact has built a sign-up landing page and a 3-step automated welcome series for new users. Just review what has been built, add your personal touch, and you will be ready to capture new contacts quickly. Do not skip this. A well-built welcome sequence converts subscribers at a higher rate than any subsequent campaign. For the specifics, see our guide on Welcome Email Sequence Best Practices: 7 Proven Strategies.
Authenticate your domain. Setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC through Constant Contact's guided process is essential for protecting deliverability as your list grows.
Monitor your send allowance. Constant Contact's pricing operates on a "send allowance" system. Tracking usage monthly prevents unexpected overage charges.
The Bigger Picture: Why Email Marketing ROI Justifies the Investment
Before you finalize any platform decision, the channel itself deserves attention. For every $1 spent on email marketing, $36 is made in return, according to data from Litmus. That equals a 3,600% ROI.
Open rates rose for the fifth consecutive year, increasing from 26.6% in 2024 to 30.7% in 2025. Automations accounted for just 2% of email sends but drove 30% of revenue, earning 16 times more per send than scheduled campaigns.
Constant Contact's own Small Business Now report reveals that in 2024, 53% of small business owners in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia used email marketing as the most frequent strategy for finding new and retaining repeat customers.
Those numbers make a clear case. The platform you choose matters less than the discipline with which you run your campaigns. Constant contact email marketing, used consistently with proper segmentation and automation, can deliver results that justify the subscription cost many times over.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Constant Contact email marketing?
Constant Contact email marketing is a cloud-based platform that helps businesses create, send, and track professional email campaigns. It is a popular email marketing program that has been on the market for over two decades, coming with a wide range of features such as email automation, segmentation, and reporting, making it suitable for small businesses that want to grow their audiences and manage their mail campaigns.
How much does Constant Contact cost?
Constant Contact pricing consists of three plans: the Lite plan at $12/month for 500 contacts with basic email marketing features; the Standard plan at $35/month for 500 contacts, which includes marketing automation, advanced segmentation, subject line A/B testing, and dynamic content; and the Premium plan at $80/month for 500 contacts, which adds SEO tools, ads management, and richer analytics.
Is Constant Contact good for email deliverability?
Yes. Constant Contact's deliverability rates are consistently good in bi-annual independent deliverability tests. The platform also maintained 100% deliverability to Yahoo, Outlook, Hotmail, and AOL inboxes throughout both recent tests, and showed a noticeable improvement in deliverability to Gmail, growing from 58% to 100% between testing periods.
Does Constant Contact have a free plan?
Constant Contact has no free plan. However, it offers a 60-day free trial with no credit card required, and the company provides a 30-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the service. During the trial, you can create unlimited campaigns and send up to 100 emails, upload contacts, and use custom segments to organize your audience.
How does Constant Contact compare to Mailchimp?
Constant Contact lacks the depth of automation and omnichannel capabilities that Mailchimp offers. However, Constant Contact tends to be easier for beginners and has stronger phone support across all paid plans. Phone support on all paid plans is unusual for email marketing services and is one of Constant Contact's standout differentiators. The right choice depends on whether you prioritize ease of use and support access or deeper automation and a larger free-tier feature set.
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