Both Brevo and Constant Contact claim to be built for small businesses. But they serve fundamentally different types of small business owners, and the gap starts with how they charge you. Brevo vs Constant Contact comes down to one critical distinction: Brevo charges by emails sent, while Constant Contact charges by contacts stored. That single difference can mean paying $29/month or $80/month for the same 5,000-person list.
Most comparison articles line up features in a table and call it a day. That won't help you here. Since 2024, these platforms have diverged sharply.
Brevo poured $50 million into AI and went multi-channel (email, SMS, WhatsApp, CRM). Constant Contact doubled down on simplicity and built out event marketing tools no competitor can match.
I tested both platforms and compared them across 8 criteria that actually drive the decision for small business owners, with real pricing math, deliverability data, and a clear winner for each.
Brevo and Constant Contact at a Glance
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue, rebranded in 2023) is an all-in-one marketing platform covering email, SMS, WhatsApp, CRM, and live chat. It launched in 2012 and now serves over 600,000 customers globally. Capterra users rate it 4.6 out of 5 across 3,339 reviews, and EmailTooltester named it their Best Email Marketing Tool for 2026.
Constant Contact is one of the oldest names in email marketing, founded in 1995. It focuses on ease of use and small business simplicity, with strong phone support and a unique event marketing feature. Capterra users rate it 4.3 out of 5 from 2,889 reviews, though its Trustpilot score sits lower at 3.9/5 with 19% one-star reviews.
Here's how they stack up on the basics:
| Criteria | Brevo | Constant Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2012 | 1995 |
| Pricing model | Per emails sent | Per contacts stored |
| Starting price | $9/mo | $12/mo |
| Free plan | Yes (300 emails/day) | No |
| Channels | Email, SMS, WhatsApp, Chat | Email, SMS, Social |
| CRM included | Yes (free) | No (basic lists only) |
| Capterra rating | 4.6/5 | 4.3/5 |
Those top-level numbers only tell part of the story. The real differences show up when you look at each category in detail.
1. Pricing and Value for Money
The pricing gap between these two platforms compounds every month your list grows. It's the first thing I check when comparing email marketing tools.
Brevo uses volume-based pricing: you pay for the number of emails you send, not the number of contacts you store. Their Starter plan runs $9/month for 5,000 emails. The Standard plan costs $18/month for 5,000 emails and adds A/B testing plus advanced automation.
The free plan gives you 300 emails per day (roughly 9,000 per month), unlimited contact storage up to 100,000, basic automation, and a built-in CRM. No credit card required.
Constant Contact prices by contact count. The Lite plan starts at $12/month for up to 500 contacts. Standard costs $35/month for 500 contacts, jumping to $110/month at 5,000 contacts.
Premium runs $80/month for 500 contacts. There's no free plan, though they offer a 60-day money-back guarantee.
The real picture becomes clear when you scale:
| Contacts | Brevo | Constant Contact | Savings with Brevo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | Free | $12/mo | $144/year |
| 1,500 | $17/mo | $50/mo | 66% ($396/yr) |
| 5,000 | $29/mo | $80/mo | 64% ($612/yr) |
| 10,000 | $69/mo | $120/mo | 42% ($612/yr) |
| 50,000 | $399/mo | $430/mo | 7% |
Hidden costs to keep in mind. Brevo charges $12/month per additional user seat on Standard plans and above, which adds up fast for agencies or teams. Brevo's free plan also puts Brevo branding on your emails.
On Constant Contact's side, canceling your account requires a phone call during Eastern business hours. There's no self-service option, and some users report unexpected charges after attempting to cancel.
Winner
Brevo. The Brevo pricing advantage is decisive for most small businesses, saving up to 64% at common list sizes. The one exception: if you have fewer than 500 contacts and value phone support, Constant Contact Lite at $12/month may be worth it since Brevo's free plan only offers email-based support.
2. Automation and Workflows
If you only send a monthly newsletter, both platforms get the job done. The moment you want to automate a welcome series, build an abandoned cart flow, or set up lead scoring, the Brevo vs Constant Contact gap becomes impossible to ignore.
Brevo gives you automation on the free plan (limited to 2,000 contacts entering workflows). You get if/then/else branching logic, A/B splits within workflows, lead scoring with point-based rules, and web tracking that triggers emails based on specific page visits. Multi-channel workflows let you chain email, SMS, and WhatsApp steps into a single automated sequence. There are 8 pre-built workflow templates to start from, plus a transactional email API that handles order confirmations and password resets natively.
Constant Contact's automation tells a different story. The Lite plan gets you basic autoresponders only: welcome email, birthday email, anniversary email. You'll find 12 pre-built templates (more than Brevo's 8, but significantly simpler in scope). Custom workflows with any real logic require the Premium tier at $80/month or more.
There's no branching logic on Standard or Lite plans. Abandoned cart emails work with Shopify only, leaving WooCommerce and Magento users without coverage. Independent reviewer EmailVendorSelection rated Constant Contact's automation capability just 1 out of 5 stars. No transactional email capability, no web tracking, and no lead scoring on any tier.
Winner
Brevo. Brevo gives you on the free plan what Constant Contact locks behind its most expensive tier. For growing businesses that need real marketing automation beyond basic autoresponders, Brevo is the clear pick. Skip it only if you need nothing beyond a simple welcome email sequence, where Constant Contact's pre-built templates get the job done with less initial setup time.
3. Ease of Use and Email Editor
If you've never touched email marketing software before, Constant Contact will feel friendlier on day one. That's not just marketing copy. It's the result of 30 years of UX optimization for non-technical users, and I noticed the difference immediately when testing both platforms side-by-side.
Constant Contact's drag-and-drop editor is one of the most intuitive in the industry. You get 200+ email templates (compared to Brevo's 48), a Brand Kit that auto-imports your colors and logo from your website, and social media posting built into the same dashboard. The navigation is simpler because there are fewer menus. One reviewer described the experience as “dashboard to editor in 2 clicks.”
Brevo also uses drag-and-drop, but the editor sits inside a much larger platform. The dashboard covers email, SMS, CRM, chat, and ads in one place, which can feel overwhelming at first. On the upside, Brevo offers an HTML code editor for advanced users, dynamic content blocks (show different content to different segments within the same email), and its own Brand Library for importing website assets.
My honest assessment: Constant Contact wins the first-session experience. Brevo wins on long-term flexibility. Most users I've seen in reviews report getting comfortable with Brevo within one to two weeks.
- First-time user experience: Constant Contact
- Template variety: Constant Contact (200+ vs 48)
- Advanced editing (HTML, dynamic content): Brevo
- Long-term flexibility: Brevo
4. AI Features
Every email platform now slaps “AI-powered” on its marketing page. The difference between Brevo and Constant Contact here isn't incremental. It's generational, and I was genuinely surprised by how wide the gap has become.
Brevo launched its AI assistant “Aura” in May 2025, backed by a $50 million investment. Aura generates full email copy (not just subject lines), translates campaigns across languages, enriches contact data by filling in missing profile information like job titles and company names, predicts optimal send times by analyzing each contact's individual open patterns, and powers a product recommendation engine for ecommerce stores. You can access Aura from any page in the Brevo dashboard via a chat-style icon. All of these features are available on every plan, including free.
Constant Contact's AI features consist of subject line suggestions and basic paragraph-level text generation. No predictive sending, no contact enrichment, no product recommendations, no translation capability. For a platform charging $80/month at 5,000 contacts, that's a significant gap.
Why should this matter to you? Send-time optimization alone can boost open rates by 10-20% without changing a single word of your copy. Contact enrichment saves hours of manual data entry every month.
These aren't gimmicks. They're operational time savings that compound as your list grows and your campaigns become more sophisticated.
Winner
Brevo. This isn't close. Constant Contact's AI feels like a 2023 feature bolted onto an existing product. Brevo's feels like a platform rebuilt around it. If AI capabilities factor into your decision at all, this category alone could tip the entire email marketing comparison.
5. Deliverability
You can craft the perfect email with an optimized subject line and a compelling offer, but none of that matters if your message lands in spam. Deliverability is the invisible metric that separates useful platforms from expensive ones.
Constant Contact scored 91.7% average deliverability in January 2024 testing by EmailTooltester, ranking 2nd out of 15 platforms. Even more impressive, it achieved 100% inbox placement at Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook during that test. The platform has maintained scores in the high eighties to low nineties consistently since 2017. That consistency is hard to argue with.
Brevo's deliverability ranges from 88% to 92% depending on the testing methodology and time period. The platform uses shared IP pools by default, which means your deliverability is partially affected by other senders on the same IP. A known issue: Brevo emails frequently land in Gmail's Promotions tab rather than the Primary inbox. Upgrading to a dedicated IP on the Business plan ($18+/month) significantly improves results, and proper authentication setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) helps close the gap further.
Some context on the numbers. A 3-4 percentage point gap sounds small, but at 10,000 sends that's 300-400 more emails reaching inboxes with Constant Contact. For high-stakes campaigns like product launches or seasonal sales, that gap matters. For regular newsletters, the difference is less critical.
Winner
Constant Contact. Constant Contact wins on raw deliverability and consistency. Brevo is adequate for most senders, but if inbox placement is your top priority, Constant Contact has a measurable edge, especially on shared IP plans.
6. Ecommerce Tools
If you sell products online, email marketing goes far beyond newsletters. You need abandoned cart recovery, post-purchase follow-ups, product recommendations, and order confirmations. I tested both platforms against these ecommerce requirements, and one covers all of them while the other covers some, sometimes.
Brevo integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and PrestaShop. You get abandoned cart workflows across all supported platforms, post-purchase email sequences, AI-powered product recommendations through Aura, and a transactional email API for order confirmations, shipping updates, and password resets. Revenue tracking shows up right in the dashboard.
Constant Contact connects to Shopify for abandoned cart emails, but only Shopify. No WooCommerce or Magento abandoned cart support. No transactional email API exists at all.
You can insert basic product listings into emails, add coupon codes, and create shoppable landing pages. For simple Shopify-only email marketing, it works.
The transactional email gap deserves emphasis. If you need order confirmations, shipping notifications, or password reset emails, Brevo handles this natively with 50% of transactional messages delivered within 1 second. With Constant Contact, you'd need a separate service like Mailgun or SendGrid, adding both cost and complexity to your stack.
Best for ecommerce
Brevo. Broader platform integrations, transactional email, and AI product recommendations make Brevo the stronger Constant Contact alternative for online sellers. The exception: if you only use Shopify and don't need transactional emails, Constant Contact's Shopify integration is simpler to configure.
7. Unique Features Each Platform Owns
Beyond standard email marketing, each platform has one standout capability the other simply can't match. If either fits your business, it could be the deciding factor.
Constant Contact: Event Marketing
Constant Contact is the only major email platform with built-in event management. You can create branded event pages, manage registrations and RSVPs, sell tickets through Stripe or PayPal, integrate virtual meeting links (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Webex), and send automated reminder emails. Ticket fees run 5.4% plus $0.80 per transaction.
Brevo has no equivalent. You'd need Eventbrite or a similar tool plus manual integration. If you're a nonprofit running fundraisers or a local business hosting workshops, this feature alone justifies choosing Constant Contact.
Brevo: Built-in CRM
Brevo includes a free CRM on all plans. You get deal pipeline management, full contact interaction history (emails opened, pages visited, purchases made), segmentation based on CRM data, and task assignment for sales teams.
Constant Contact offers basic contact lists with tags only. No pipeline, no deal tracking, no interaction history. For consultants, agencies, and B2B services, Brevo's CRM eliminates the need for a separate tool.
Brevo: Multi-Channel Messaging
Brevo also supports SMS campaigns, WhatsApp Business messaging, and a live chat widget for your website, all integrated into the same automation workflows. Constant Contact offers SMS as a US-only add-on starting at $10/month, with no WhatsApp or live chat option.
The short version: if you run paid events, Constant Contact is the only real choice between these two. If you need a CRM or multi-channel messaging, Brevo is the only choice. For everyone else, the remaining criteria should guide your decision.
8. Customer Support
Features stop mattering the moment your campaign breaks and you can't reach anyone. For non-technical small business owners, support access is itself a feature worth paying for.
Constant Contact offers phone support Monday through Saturday on all paid tiers, even the $12/month Lite plan. Live chat runs Monday through Friday, 18 hours per day. Multiple review sources describe the support team as “award-winning.” When you have a problem, you call a human.
Brevo took a different path. The company eliminated live chat and replaced it with an AI chatbot. Phone support is available only on Professional ($65+/month) and Enterprise tiers.
On the free and Starter plans, you get email-based support and the knowledge base. Users report that the AI chatbot struggles with complex issues, requiring multiple back-and-forth exchanges to resolve problems.
The practical impact is real. On Brevo's free or Starter plan, if something goes wrong with a time-sensitive campaign, you submit a ticket and wait. On Constant Contact's cheapest paid plan, you pick up the phone. For a small business owner sending a Black Friday promotion, that difference is significant.
One note on overall satisfaction: Brevo holds a 4.4/5 on Trustpilot versus Constant Contact's 3.9/5 (with 19% one-star reviews, many citing cancellation difficulties and unexpected pricing increases). Neither platform has a spotless support reputation.
Winner
Constant Contact. Constant Contact wins on support access and human availability across all paid plans. If being able to call someone when things break is important to you, Constant Contact is meaningfully better here.
The Bottom Line
Across 8 categories, Brevo wins 6: pricing, automation, AI features, ecommerce tools, unique feature breadth, and overall value. Constant Contact wins 2: deliverability and customer support. The pricing gap alone (up to 64% savings at 5,000 contacts, or $612 per year) makes Brevo the stronger default choice for most small businesses.
Brevo is the better platform for most small business owners. It costs less, does more, and its free plan lets you start without risk or a credit card. The AI tools, built-in CRM, and multi-channel capabilities give you room to grow without switching platforms later.
Choose Constant Contact if:
- You run paid events (Constant Contact's event marketing has no Brevo equivalent)
- You need phone support on a basic plan and aren't comfortable troubleshooting alone
- Deliverability is your top priority for high-stakes, email-heavy campaigns
- You want the simplest possible setup with zero learning curve
Choose Brevo if:
- Budget matters (free plan or significantly cheaper paid plans)
- You need automation beyond basic autoresponders
- You sell online and need transactional emails plus abandoned cart flows
- You want CRM, SMS, and WhatsApp in one platform
- AI-powered send-time optimization and content generation appeal to you
Your next step: Start with Brevo's free plan (no credit card required) to test whether the interface works for you. If you need event management or phone support, try Constant Contact's 60-day money-back guarantee instead. Either way, you'll know within a week which platform fits.
FAQ
Is Brevo really free?
Yes. Brevo's free plan includes 300 emails per day, storage for up to 100,000 contacts, basic automation workflows (capped at 2,000 contacts), and a built-in CRM. The trade-offs: emails carry Brevo branding, you only get email-based support, and there's no A/B testing. For a small business sending under 9,000 emails per month, it's a legitimate free option, not a limited trial.
Does Constant Contact have a free plan?
No. Constant Contact eliminated its free plan. The cheapest option is the Lite plan at $12/month for up to 500 contacts. They offer a 60-day money-back guarantee instead of a free tier.
If you need a free starting point, Brevo is the only option between these two platforms.
Which platform has better deliverability?
Constant Contact has a slight edge, scoring 91.7% in independent testing (ranked 2nd of 15 platforms). Brevo ranges from 88-92% depending on the test methodology. The gap narrows if you use Brevo's dedicated IP option on the Business plan and configure proper email authentication. For most small business senders, both platforms deliver adequately.
Can I switch from Constant Contact to Brevo?
Yes. Brevo accepts CSV contact imports, so you can export your Constant Contact list and upload it directly. Automation workflows, templates, and email designs won't transfer and need rebuilding.
Budget 2-4 hours for a basic migration. Start with Brevo's free plan to test the switch before canceling Constant Contact.
Which is better for Shopify stores?
Brevo. Both platforms integrate with Shopify, but Brevo also supports WooCommerce and Magento, includes AI product recommendations, and offers a transactional email API for order confirmations and shipping updates. Constant Contact's Shopify integration covers abandoned carts but lacks transactional email capability entirely.
Does Brevo have phone support?
Only on Professional ($65+/month) and Enterprise plans. Free and Starter plan users get email support and an AI chatbot only. Brevo removed its live chat option entirely. If phone support matters to you, Constant Contact offers it on all paid plans starting at $12/month.
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