The Complete Guide to Constant Contact Pricing

Constant Contact is one of those brand names that almost everyone in the ecommerce and digital marketing spaces is seemingly familiar with. The company has promoted its products widely and it continues to make a name for itself, especially when it comes to email marketing. We’ll give them that.

But, while many people are now vaguely aware of its powerful email marketing features (which you can learn from our detailed Constant Contact Review here), there’s a lot of confusion surrounding Constant Contact pricing.

The problem is, although you might find a “Plans” page on Constant Contact’s main site, it turns out the pricing information s pretty sketchy. You’ll only see two plans, yet in reality, Constant Contact’s pricing options vary quite extensively.

There are about 20 different cost packages you could choose from.

So, let’s get down to the real facts. This Constant Contact pricing guide provides all the critical details about the package costs. It reveals the features you should expect at various price points, as well as all the possible discounts you could secure. Then towards the end, it answers that one important question- which Constant Contact pricing option is best for you?

But first, what is Constant Contact all about? And what’s the fuss about its email marketing features?

Introducing Constant Contact Email Marketing

If you thought this was a fairly new email marketing solution that’s attempting to challenge the likes of MailChimp and AWeber, you couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Well, at least on that first part. Because yes, the second part is true. Constant Contact is quite an aggressive competitor against most of the dominant email marketing services. You can read more about Mailchimp vs Constant Contact here.

Now, back to my Constant Contact story. While you could call it many things, a newcomer is not one of them. It just so happens that Constant Contact lost its off-the-store scent ages ago- probably way before you even learned the whole shebang on digital promotions, leave alone email marketing.

In essence, Constant Contact has been a member of the elite club of email marketing solutions since 1995. That’s right, it was one of the premier email services on the web, alongside Mailchimp and the rest- as we’ve explained in our Mailchimp Review here (here are some of the best Mailchimp alternatives).

So, all in all, Constant Contact has managed to survive for close to two and a half decades now. Quite a remarkable achievement, but for several good reasons.

Constant Contact, for starters, is no pushover when it comes to email marketing. It means business and it has more than 650,000 users who can attest to that.

Well, besides the typical stuff, Constant Contact comes with a couple of exceptional functionalities you won’t find in a host of its competitors. Surveying is one of the prominent ones, along with event management tools plus social ad campaigns.

It also boasts of decent campaign automation capabilities, like bulk email personalization and sending, as well as automated follow-up emails and resends to recipients who fail to read their original messages.

Come to think of it, that would also mean you can go ahead and rely on Constant Contact when it comes to email tracking, monitoring, and analytics.

Not just on PC though. But rather, you should also be able to run and track your campaigns on the go via Constant Contact’s mobile app.

Then to top it off, Constant Contact has built a marketplace that offers more than 400 apps and integrations. It should come in handy when you need to set up a holistically-connected marketing campaign framework.

Now, when you combine all that, Constant Contact can be summed up as an email marketing solution for:

Drag and Drop email creation plus editing.
Contact segmentation and list building.
Behavior-based email campaign automation.
Lead conversion campaigns
Automated contact management.
Real-time campaign performance tracking
Surveying and polling.
Collecting and managing donations.
Event management.

Sounds like an interesting service worth considering. But sadly, it’s not that simple to compare your options across Constant Contact’s pricing packages. It’s one of those solutions that only mention the basic “starting at” cost without explicitly revealing all the possible price levels.

So, let’s explore every single Constant Contact pricing option the right way…

Constant Contact Pricing – The Basics

One of the first things you might do on this solution’s main site is probably checking out the type of Constant Contact pricing options available on the “Plans” page.

👉 Here’s what you’ll ultimately find:

The Email pricing plan, which costs at least $20 a month.
The Email Plus pricing plan, which costs at least $45 a month.

Just two Constant Contact pricing plans. That’s it.

But then again, get this. That’s not all there is to Constant Contact pricing. And he giveaway here is the “starting at” phrase, which essentially means that each plan possibly comes with multiple price points. So, don’t rush into purchasing one of the plans right off the bat. Instead, try to understand all the basic pricing options before proceeding.

And speaking of which, Constant Contact’s pricing options are fundamentally based on the number of contacts per user.

Ok, we’re not talking about contact names. Although name is one of the main fields on its contact profiles, Constant Contact chooses to assess your contact volume based on the number of email addresses.

Every single unique email you add to your subscriber profiles is considered a new contact. Therefore, a subscriber who appears with the same email address on multiple lists is counted as one contact. However, if you enter a different email address in each list, Constant Contact will interpret them as multiple contacts.

That said, it turns out that the two principal Constant Contact pricing plans can accommodate any contact list size. You’re allowed to settle for either Email or Email Plus with anything from 0 to over 50,000 subscribers.

Don’t get me wrong though. $20 a month or $45 per month will not give you an allowance of 0-50,000+ contacts. Each of the main Constant Contact pricing plans offers multiple volume ranges at varying price points.

The Email plan, for instance, will cost you $20 for less than 500 subscribers. But, if the allowance extends to 2,500 subscribers, you’ll have to pay $45 a month. Up to 5,000 subscribers, on the other hand, will cost you $65 per month.

And that’s more or less the cost trend that applies in Constant Contact’s pricing until you hit 50,000 subscribers at $335 a month. Anything beyond that entitles you to a custom quote.

That’s pretty much the same case when you shift to the Email Plus Constant Contact pricing plan. There are several ranges at different prices. And get this- each of them is costlier than its corresponding package in the Email plan.

0-500 subscribers, for example, will cost you $45 per month instead of $20. Then 501-2,500 subscribers have a price tag of $70 instead of the $45 quoted in the equivalent Email plan option.

Ok, I know what you might be wondering at this point. What’s the big deal about the Email Plus plan? Why does the Constant Contact pricing schedule apply higher rates here?

Well, as you’ve probably guessed already, the difference between the two pricing plans is email marketing features. The Email package was built for small businesses and online merchants that are just getting started with email marketing, while the Email Plus plan serves the real digital marketers.

In other words, you should consider Email when you’re planning to run basic email marketing campaigns. The type that doesn’t necessarily need dynamic automation and advanced campaign features.

Email Plus, on the other hand, is reserved for marketers and larger businesses that need unrestricted capabilities. Some of the features you can expect here include online donations, event marketing, plus subject line A/B testing, along with advanced segmentation and automation. The file storage space at this level will also increase to 2GB, consequently doubling the Email plan’s 1 GB.

Advertisment ⓘ

Another smart feature you’ll get by upgrading is Email Plus’ online donations. Certainly, a much-needed supplement when you’re dealing with a nonprofit organization, since you’ll be able to set up a suitable landing page and then proceed to collect donations through WePay.

And speaking of which, the Constant Contact pricing schedule is fairly generous to non-profits. It offers them a 30% discount when they pay for 12 months in advance.

Constant Contact’s pricing discounts don’t stop there though. You can also reduce your service costs through annual advance billing. Please note, however, that the percentage discount for regular users is 15%.

👉 Otherwise:

A 6-month advance payment entitles you to a 10% discount
Non-profit organizations get a 20% discount when they pay for 6 months in advance.

Not bad, not bad at all.

On a rather sad note though, it turns out there’s no free package on the Constant Contact pricing schedule. It only offers a limited 30-day free trial on both Email and Email Plus plans. After that first month, every single Constant Contact feature comes at a price.

Constant Contact Pricing – Summary

Here’s a summary of the features offered on both Email and Email Plus plans, as well as the accompanying pricing options:

Email Plan – The Email plan provides automated resends to recipients who fail to open their emails, as well as learning resources, live chat, phone and email support, a Constant Contact mobile app, tracking and reporting, apps and integrations, an image library, a marketing calendar, landing pages, Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram ads, list segmentation, pop-up forms, list-building tools and welcome email, contact list import, WooCommerce integration, automated abandon cart email for Shopify, branded or industry templates, customizable templates, and unlimited emails.

👉 The price points at this level are:

0-500 subscribers – $20 per month.
501-2,500 subscribers – $45 per month.
2,501-5,000 subscribers – $65 per month.
5,001-10,000 subscribers – $95 per month.
10,001-15,000 subscribers – $195 per month.
15,001-25,000 subscribers – $225 per month.
25,001-30,000 subscribers – $295 per month.
30,001-35,000 subscribers – $315 per month.
35,001-50,000 subscribers – $335 per month.
50,001+ subscribers – Get in touch with Constant Contact for a custom quote.

Email Plus – The Email Plus plan supplements Email plan features with tools for new customer consultation, online donations, coupons, polls, surveys, event marketing, multi-user support, dynamic content, subject line A/B testing, email automation based on behavior, and automated welcome emails.

👉 The pricing options at this level are as follows:

0-500 subscribers – $45 per month.
501-2,500 subscribers – $70 per month.
2,501-5,000 subscribers –  $90 per month.
5,001-10,000 subscribers – $125 per month.
10,001-15,000 subscribers – $195 per month.
15,001-25,000 subscribers – $225 per month.
25,001-30,000 subscribers – $295 per month.
30,001-35,000 subscribers – $315 per month.
35,001-50,000 subscribers – $335 per month.
50,001+ subscribers – Get in touch with Constant Contact for a custom quote.

Constant Contact Pricing – Add-On Services

Constant Contact’s pricing schedule even includes add-on services for users who might need professional help to get their campaigns up and running.

That said, there are two forms of professional services offered by the teams at Constant Contact- design and marketing.

Design, to begin with, entails helping you come up with solid and attractive templates for your campaigns. You could have Constant Contact’s professions create them from scratch or alternatively, help you customize template designs you already have in mind. Such projects will cost you at least $79.

Then marketing services, on the other hand, give you the chance to work with experienced marketers. You could hire someone to review your campaigns and advise you accordingly, or pay them to work with you hand in hand to develop effective campaigns.

And if building campaigns seems like a lot of work, Constant Contact’s team is willing to provide the full service. That means creating and customizing everything from the ground up.

The pricing for such marketing services starts at $50 per month.

Constant Contact Pricing – The Target Market

Previously, Constant Contact’s pricing schedule primarily targeted small businesses. The plans came with just the standard email marketing features for basic users.

Then with time, Constant Contact began expanding its functionalities for more dynamic marketing. And that’s how it ultimately ended up reworking its pricing structure to provide options for large organizations.

👉 As a result, Constant Contact is now an email marketing powerhouse whose pricing plans target not only beginners and small businesses, but also advanced users and large enterprises. In fact, some of the prominent brands that are currently leveraging the service include:

Luke Adams Glass Blowing
Element Productions
Boston Athletic Association
Light Health Research
The River Rock
Turnstyle Cycle
Artists for Humanity

Which Constant Contact Pricing Plan Should You Choose?

As we’ve established already, Constant Contact’s pricing schedule follows a simple structure that separates its marketing features based on two different types of users. While they both provide customer support, a mobile app, an image library, tracking and reporting tools, pop-up forms, plus list-building tools, they have varying campaign capabilities.

Now, I’d advise you to consider purchasing an Email plan package if you’re a typical online merchant with basic marketing needs. All the price options here are capable of supporting typical campaigns. So, you should be able to build attractive templates, as well as engage leads through automated messages.

In essence, you could start with the cheapest Constant Contact pricing option on the plan, which will accommodate up to 500 subscribers at a cost of $20 a month. Then subsequently, you can expect to pay more as your list numbers increase steadily over the long haul.

But, if you’d want to run automated campaigns based on your leads’ click behaviors, you’ll have better luck with the Email Plus pricing plan. This is a multi-user plan that provides a full automation experience, along with smart tools for event marketing and raising donations.

Combined, such features make Email Plus a suitable plan for large marketing teams and enterprises.

Constant Contact Pricing – The Bottom Line

There’s no denying Constant Contact is a powerful marketing suite. It has indeed proven to be a strong competitor against the likes of Mailchimp or AWeber. So, well done to its team.

However, going by everything we’ve explored here, one thing they should consider revisiting is the Constant Contact pricing strategy. While we admit that it’s flexible enough to conveniently accommodate different types of users, and that it offers attractive discounts, we also have to face the truth.

At a starting price of $20 a month for the cheapest option, Constant Contact’s pricing strategy isn’t as competitive as you’d hope. Compare that with, say Mailchimp, which offers a permanently free package to beginners.

In all fairness, however, it’s worth acknowledging that Constant Contact provides way more features than you’d get from Mailchimp and many of its close competitors. So, I guess we could also argue that it’s not a bad bargain- overall, the packages offer a reasonable balance between Constant Contact pricing and marketing features.