Mailchimp vs Constant Contact: Our Verdict
Two of the oldest names in small-business email, priced in opposite ways and gated behind different features. We compared the current plans to decide which one most small businesses should actually pay for.
Mailchimp wins on pricing floor, free-tier access, and automation depth at the entry paid tier, and takes our recommendation for most small businesses sending newsletters, welcome series, and lifecycle campaigns. Constant Contact is the right choice when the email calendar is organized around events, where its event-registration tooling and included phone support justify the premium over Mailchimp's comparable plan.
These are the two platforms most small businesses weigh when they outgrow a free Gmail-based newsletter. Mailchimp (owned by Intuit) prices by stored contact count across four tiers, Free, Essentials, Standard, and Premium, and gates its real automation behind Standard. Constant Contact also prices by stored contact count and gates most of what a growing list actually needs behind its mid-tier plan.
We compared both platforms against their current official pricing and documentation to decide which one small businesses should actually pay for. Each round names a winner and states the procedure we used to decide it. No hands-on sends were run for this comparison; where a round turns on product behavior rather than published terms, we say so.
Mailchimp publishes a permanent Free plan capped at 250 contacts with a 500-sends-per-month allowance and a 250-per-day cap, enough for a solo operator to actually test a real list before paying. For a founder who wants to prove the channel before committing a budget line, Mailchimp wins this round cleanly.
How we tested itWe opened both vendors' current pricing pages and recorded the entry-level option a brand-new small business would land on, including whether a permanent free plan exists, the contact ceiling, and the monthly send allowance at the entry tier.
Mailchimp Essentials starts at $13/month for 500 contacts with a monthly send allowance set at 10× the contact limit, 3 seats, and 3 audiences. Essentials ships three seats and permits three separate audiences, which matters the moment a small business needs a staff login or a second list.
How we tested itWe priced both vendors' cheapest paid tier at the 500-contact entry point from each product's official pricing page, on monthly billing, and compared the published send allowance at that tier.
Mailchimp Standard at $20/month unlocks expanded automation flows, advanced segmentation, custom-coded email templates, multivariate testing, send-time optimization, and dynamic content. For a small business whose next hire is "a working welcome series and a win-back flow," Mailchimp's Standard is a capable plan at the 500-contact entry tier.
How we tested itWe read both vendors' feature matrices for their mid-tier plan (Mailchimp Standard, Constant Contact Standard) and listed what each unlocks that its entry plan does not, specifically the automation, segmentation, and testing features a growing list actually uses.
At 5,000 contacts, Mailchimp Standard is published on the Mailchimp pricing page as part of its tiered contact pricing, with the plan supporting up to 100,000 contacts and a monthly send limit of 12× the contact limit. For a business whose list is growing on purpose, Mailchimp's Standard line pairs tiered contact pricing with the deeper automation stack.
How we tested itWe re-priced both vendors' Standard plans at a realistic small-business list size (5,000 contacts) using each product's published tier table.
Mailchimp has landing pages but doesn't sell event management as a first-class feature, and phone support is a Premium-tier benefit. Constant Contact is widely associated with event-driven small businesses, which is the round that keeps it in the conversation.
How we tested itWe read both vendors' feature pages for event-registration tools, included phone support, and the specific use cases each product highlights for service businesses, nonprofits, and local organizations.
Both platforms price by stored contact count rather than by sends, which is standard in the category. Mailchimp's contact-based billing famously counts unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts against the limit until a user cleans the list, which is the single most common cause of bill shock we see cited in small-business write-ups. On the fairness of how the meter actually runs, Constant Contact edges this round.
How we tested itWe read each vendor's documentation on how contacts are counted toward the plan limit, specifically whether unsubscribed or inactive contacts continue to bill, and compared that with the published overage policy for exceeding monthly sends.
Where the verdict turned
Mailchimp and Constant Contact answer the same question, “how does a small business run email?”, with similar billing models and different pricing floors. Four of six rounds went to Mailchimp, and the two that went the other way are narrow, situational wins for Constant Contact rather than broad advantages.
Mailchimp publishes four Marketing plans: Free, Essentials, Standard, and Premium. The Free plan includes up to 250 contacts and 500 sends per month, with a daily send limit of 250. That matters more than it sounds: a small business can test the editor, build an onboarding sequence, and prove the channel before paying anything.
Mailchimp Essentials starts at $13/month, includes up to 500 contacts at the entry tier, scales to as many as 50,000 contacts on the plan, and sets the monthly send limit at 10 times the contact limit.
The automation tier is where small businesses actually land
Most small businesses that stay on an email platform for more than a quarter end up on the mid-tier plan, because the entry tier of either vendor is a broadcast tool rather than a lifecycle tool. The question is how much you pay for that upgrade and what it unlocks.
Mailchimp Standard is the plan it recommends for growth; the base price includes 500 contacts, the plan supports up to 100,000 contacts, and the monthly send limit is 12 times the contact limit. Standard also adds the features that make email work as a channel rather than a megaphone: five audiences, five seats with role permissions, expanded automation flow capabilities and templates, advanced segmentation and pre-built segments, custom-coded email templates, multivariate testing, custom reports, personalized onboarding, and 24/7 email and chat support. The published monthly price is $20 at the 500-contact entry tier.
Where Constant Contact earns its keep
The decisive case for Constant Contact isn’t price, and it isn’t automation. It’s the shape of a small business whose email calendar is organized around events: a studio, a nonprofit, a local retailer with a holiday schedule, a service business that runs workshops. Event registration is a long-standing part of Constant Contact’s product story in a way it isn’t on Mailchimp.
Phone support is the other soft advantage. Mailchimp lists phone support as a Premium feature. For a small business where email is run by the owner between other jobs, being able to call someone matters more than a feature matrix suggests.
Billing fairness is the second round Constant Contact wins. Mailchimp’s contact-based billing counts subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts against the plan limit until a user actively cleans the list, which is the single most common cause of bill shock small businesses report. A disciplined operator can neutralize that by scheduling list hygiene; most don’t.
Who should buy which
Choose Mailchimp if you’re a small business running newsletters, welcome series, and lifecycle campaigns, if you want a real free tier to prove the channel before paying, or if your next quarter’s email plan involves multi-step automations, A/B tests, and segmentation at the Standard-tier price. For most small businesses, our recommendation is Mailchimp. If a cold-email program sits alongside the newsletter, our Customer.io vs Brevo verdict handles the heavier automation case.
Choose Constant Contact if events, workshops, or classes are a routine part of your calendar, or if being able to call a support line without an upgrade is non-negotiable.
A pragmatic point: both platforms sell contact-counted plans, which means list hygiene is now a line item on your P&L on either side. If your inbox is currently a dumping ground for anyone who ever filled out a form, pick the platform you want to live with and clean the list before you upload it. For Shopify stores adding a birthday or welcome program on top of a core sender, we’ve ranked those categories separately in our AI birthday email automation apps for small Shopify stores and AI onboarding email sequence tools for small SaaS teams verdicts.