So you’ve realized Constant Contact isn’t your cup of tea.
We get it – it’s not them; it’s you. This breakup was inevitable.
The good thing is there are many fantastic email marketing tools in the sea – and today, we’ll be your Cupid, matching you with suitable Constant Contact competitors so you don’t waste your time on the wrong tools.
After giving it a thought, these are the tools we’ll cover today:
- GetResponse
- Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
- ActiveCampaign
- MailerLite
- Hubspot
But first;
How did we choose the best Constant Contact alternatives?
We used the following criteria to choose the top four Constant Contact alternatives:
- Feature score
- Ease of use
- Customer support
- Price
- Aesthetics
Are you looking to save time? Here is a TL;DR and a visual comparison photo of the Constant Contact alternatives battling it out.
TL; DR: 5 Best Constant Contact Alternatives
- Pick GetResponse if you want an advanced email marketing and marketing automation toolkit. The platform lets you create various email marketing campaigns, get subscribers, build professional-looking websites, and convert sales funnels.
- Pick Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) if you’re looking to save money while utilizing automation and small subscriber lists.
- Pick ActiveCampaign if you own a B2B company or ecommerce business and wish to automate, personalize, and improve customer relationships.
- Pick MailerLite if you’re looking for cost-effective email marketing software for SMBs with a great free plan.
- Pick Hubspot if you’re looking for a unified platform for handling your email marketing, sales, and customer service needs.
For the full-feature comparison table, take a look at the bottom of the article.
Curious to learn more? Let’s dive deeper.
Why switch to a Constant Contact alternative?
Before we present you with the contestants, let’s examine what made Constant Contact good (and bad) in the first place.
- Event Management (marketing) – It allows you to manage registrations for your virtual events. Unfortunately, you can only access it in their Email Plus plan.
- Geared toward small businesses – Originally aimed to be cost-effective yet innovative, now it’s being challenged by newer competitors that offer better functionality.
- Ability to create websites – many alternatives offer a way to create landing pages, but close to none let you create full-fledged websites.
Things we like about Constant Contact
- Intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard – Constant Contact’s dashboard may be a bit dull-looking, but it’s easy to navigate and use.
- Website builder – Pretty robust, with enough customization options to satisfy everyday needs.
- Email builder – Constant Contact has a pretty simple drag-and-drop email builder, which makes it easy to create emails and email templates.
- Great for sending simple newsletters – We’ve read and agree with many reviewers that Constant Contact has done an excellent job making sending newsletters as easy as possible.
- Good customer support – Constant Contact offers email, chat and phone support.
Things we do NOT like about Constant Contact
- It’s increasingly becoming less cost-effective (and it offers no free plan) – Over the years, they’ve been steadily increasing prices (and adding more features, of course). Still, at some point, the price isn’t ideal for small businesses just wanting to send simple newsletters to their audiences.
- Forms have no custom field option and poor customization options – Users are frustrated there aren’t more customization options here.
- Canceling requires going through a sales rep – This is not something you think about while using the software, so it might not be a “con,” per se, but it just feels like an unnecessary hoop.
- The editor is sometimes buggy/glitchy – This is not a frequent occurrence, but when you’re in a flow state, and the image you’re uploading doesn’t seem to load or keeps disappearing, you might get annoyed.
- Lack of design customization and cookie-cutter designs – While many marketers won’t take this as a terrible thing, creative freedom is something we’d love to see more of.
Constant Contact pricing
Constant Contact is somewhat expensive.
Their pricing is based on the number of subscribers you have and the number of emails sent. Overage fees of $0.002 per email sent may also apply. This pricing model can become quite expensive over time.
You’ll also notice those interesting features you were looking forward to (like custom segmentation and scheduled email sends) are in the more expensive “Standard” and “Premium” packages that start at $35/mo and $80/mo, respectively.
But, if you upgrade, you’ll get access to more tools like automated welcome series, customizable pop-up forms, and advanced ecommerce marketing tools.
For example, Let’s say you have a list of up to 10,000 subscribers and want to access email automation. Then, your best choice is to go for the Standard plan, which will add up to $210 per month (before any discounts). That’s $131 more than what you’d pay at GetResponse!
Speaking of which…
Here is a detailed review of the best Constant Contact alternatives.
1. GetResponse – an advanced email marketing solution
Get Response is an all-in-one solution with superior email marketing features and a suite of other marketing tools to help you grow your business. Our platform is more affordable and easy to use, so you can grow your email list and send engaging email campaigns like a pro.
Beyond that, Get Response allows you to automate your email campaigns and overall marketing workflow, especially if you run an eCommerce store. Not that, but you can also use our automation features to personalize your emails with dynamic content for optimal conversions.
You’ll also get tools for creating webinars, paid ads, and custom sales funnels– which you wouldn’t find on Constant Contact.
Reasons to pick GetResponse over Constant Contact
This is what makes us confident you’ll enjoy using GetResponse:
- Unlimited emails – pricing is based on the contact number, not on the number of emails you send. Send away as you please and create steady drip campaigns with perfect timing; it’s the same whether you send two emails per day or one per month! While Constant Contact has a limit on the number of contacts you can store, GetResponse does not. So, with GetResponse, you barely have any restraint when trying to grow your email list.
- First-class customer support – our reps respond within a minute or two. You can get in touch via email, chat, and phone, just like you would with Constant Contact. However, GetResponse offers responsive 24/7 support, so you’re never stranded in the middle of a risky situation.
- Wide range of features – more than any other alternative to Constant Contact, GetResponse offers tools that let you engage your audience and personalize your customer journey across all key channels. That includes email, marketing automation, transactional emails, SMS, webinars, web push notifications, live chats, landing pages, website builder, and paid ads. No need to integrate external tools as all of these come out of the box.
- Flawless conversion funnels – With GetResponse, you can create and manage your entire sales process from one place. Build landing pages to enhance lead generation, create high-converting sales pages, order forms, webinars, and more – GetResponse makes it easy to create multiple conversion funnels, even if you have zero experience!
- It’s cost-effective – we’re not about that penny-pinching life, but a good deal is a good deal. 😎
- Multi-language support – GetResponse comes in 20+ languages, so even if English isn’t your native language, you’ll be able to use it with ease.
Reasons NOT to pick GetResponse
We’re not really keen on the “one size fits all” approach – it’s just not true.
Although we have a stellar tool, GetResponse won’t fit everybody:
- A smaller number of integrations – GetResponse does have around 150 integrations, but it’s still less than other popular Constant Contact alternatives like Mailchimp. On the other hand, you get a substantial amount of features, and you can connect external tools with API, Zapier, or PieSync, so this one is easily fixed.
- A bit difficult to use once you try to connect multiple tools – with GetResponse, you can easily grow sales funnels, create multiple lists, and build an audience. However, things get a bit cluttered regarding the UI. Nothing to worry about – our customer success team helps in a flash, and with the MAX plan, you get a dedicated account manager, so things run smoothly.
GetResponse pricing
GetResponse’s pricing has four tiers: Email Marketing, Marketing Automation, Ecommerce Marketing, and Max.
Your monthly costs will depend on the size of your email list and what features you want to use.
The Email Marketing plan at $19 per month will offer email marketing, autoresponders, unlimited landing pages, unlimited websites, and more.
But, if you’re looking to utilize webinars, contact scoring and tagging (helpful in evaluating the worth of a particular email contact), sales funnels, and building automation, you’ll want to grab the “Marketing Automation” plan or higher.
Want to learn even more? Check out our GetResponse vs Constant Contact review
2. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) – an affordable Constant Contact alternative
Brevo is a cost-effective and user-friendly solution to your email marketing needs. The platform offers email, SMS, and chat features to help you connect with your leads. You can create beautiful landing pages and sign-up forms even without coding skills.
Reasons to pick Brevo over Constant Contact
- All-in-one solution – Brevo is advertised as a complete, standalone marketing platform covering the entire marketing funnel. It contains everything from CRM, email, and SMS marketing to ads. This makes it handy for people who cannot be bothered with tinkering and combining several different tools to get what they need – but only if you get a paid plan.
- Intelligent and robust marketing automation – create rules and triggers for emails, SMS, updates, and contact organization. If that’s too complicated, Brevo has both beginner and advanced automation templates you can set and forget. A/B split testing will show what works best.
- Being there for your customers – install a branded chatbox with a simple copy-paste action and help the customers in real-time. You can automatically see which page they’re on and assign the conversations to different agents. Or, use personalized SMS messages to send time-sensitive/ transactional info or other bulk messages and monitor their performance.
- Reliable CRM – manage customer relationships from a centralized dashboard. It requires no prior installation: just upload contact information, and you’re ready to work. Notes from previous calls are there, too. You can organize the contacts according to their place in the conversion funnel, sources of acquisition, similar characteristics, or other criteria of your choice. A shared inbox makes teamwork even easier.
- SMS and WhatsApp marketing – Brevo allows you to send personalized and timely SMS messages to your contacts. The platform also offers WhatsApp campaigns that allow you to connect with your leads on the popular messaging app, making communication even simpler.
- Conversion features – Landing pages are so simple to build: use one of the provided templates, adjust the branding, and add whatever you wish in the drag-and-drop editor, then choose the goal, and they can go live. Creating Facebook Ads is just as simple. With Brevo, you can target specific contacts or find new but similar people to target with Facebook’s lookalike audience feature.
Reasons NOT to pick Brevo
- A bit basic and outdated – it is easy to use but also a bit clunky with few customization options for design.
- No mobile options – here is the other thing making Brevo outdated: it’s not compatible with mobile users. A mobile app would solve many issues for marketers working on the go.
- Issues with Shopify – people complain of bugs that randomly subscribe, unsubscribe, and resubscribe users who have previously unsubscribed, making it challenging to stay GDPR compliant.
Brevo pricing
Brevo is cost-effective and scales according to the business size and needs. Pricing is based on the number of emails sent. For example, the Starter plan limits you to only 20k emails per month. Also, additional charges apply if you want to expand certain features (add more landing pages, for example).
Their Free plan is a decent choice, as it doesn’t rob you of the best features this app has, which we see pretty often when analyzing Constant Contact and some of its alternatives. You can cover all the basics with it; as for the things it doesn’t include, a couple of integrations won’t do you any harm, but the lack of customer support might.
The Starter plan, however, is pretty meh – it’s too similar to the Free plan. If you decide to get the paid plan, it’s better to go for the Business plan and enjoy. Dare we say, you can use it even as an enterprise – these are the only differences between Business and Brevo Plus:
- Landing Page Builder – unlimited for Brevo Plus, five (+ five extra for $20, max 20/ month) for Business
- Shared inbox – custom for Brevo Plus, one for Business (additional inboxes can be purchased as add-ons)
- Integrations – basic for Business, basic and advanced for Brevo Plus
- Multi-user access – available for Brevo Plus, can be purchased as add-ons for Business
- Dedicated IP, Dedicated account manager, SLA, SSO & SAML – only for Brevo Plus
In short, the Business plan has enough, and Brevo Plus has unlimited stuff. These differences only matter once you scale from big to huge.
Read more related content:
1. Best email marketing services in 2024
3. ActiveCampaign – customer experience automation platform
ActiveCampaign – a well-known email service provider – will help you nurture the customer relationship with more than just emails throughout the sales funnel.
Reasons to pick ActiveCampaign over Constant Contact
- Sales automation – new deals are created automatically once the customers take specific actions. The tasks are assigned per lead behavior: everyone is on the same page, without customer slips. Lead scoring reveals who’s ready to be taken to the next stage of the sales funnel, and then they’re guided further with triggered emails.
- Personalized emails – tailored explicitly for segmented groups. ActiveCampaign uses machine learning to process the gathered data and only sends the most attractive stuff to the people most likely to convert.
- Email deliverability – Email Tool Tester’s March 2021 testing showed that email deliverability for ActiveCampaign users was 91%.
- Mobile apps and Chrome extension – available for Apple and Android devices, with a neat interface. Manage accounts, assign tasks, update contacts, and test and track your email performance, all on the phone. Chrome extension lets you manage sales without leaving the email account: CRM info shows up in the Gmail inbox.
Reasons NOT to pick ActiveCampaign
- Not so easy to use – their UI demands someone with experience in email marketing and automation. There is some learning curve to it, and it’s not that intuitive until you get used to the dashboard and creation process.
- Outdated templates – pre-designed email templates are really old school, and so are the design options; the email builder is also buggy and clunky.
- It’s pricey – this is something you seriously want to consider before picking ActiveCampaign as your Constant Contact alternative. Although the tool offers great functionalities, it’s often too expensive for SMBs.
ActiveCampaign pricing
ActiveCampaign starts at $29 per month for the Lite plan, which is actually more expensive than what you get from Constant Contact ($19/mo). So, you actually need to pay for the more expensive Plus package ($49/mo) to enjoy the more advanced features from Active Campaign.
It’s important to note that you can get more affordable solutions that work just as fine (if not better). When compared to the GetResponse $19 plan, it’s clear that you can get more for less money if you dig a little deeper.
Want more details? See our GetResponse vs. ActiveCampaign comparison
4. MailerLite – easy-to-use email marketing platform
MailerLite offers a good number of features that help you create and manage your email marketing campaigns with ease. MailerLite is typically easier to set up than Constant Contact, making it ideal for beginners.
Reasons to pick MailerLite over Constant Contact
- Intuitive and easy to use – setting up your account and your first email campaign is a breeze. MailerLite also breathes freshness with its modern-looking UI and easy-to-use navigation. Compared to Constant Contact, MailerLite’s visual workflow editor makes it a lot easier to create well-defined automations for your customer journey.
- Advanced forms and pop-ups – MailerLite allows for plenty of automation capabilities. Its pop-up forms have many triggers from which you can automate virtually anything after a form is completed. You can design a custom workflow after a visitor fills out a sign-up form on a product page, for example.
- Practical free plan – We see a lot of free plans that are simply an extended free trial with limited features. That’s boring. MailerLite, on the other hand, created a good free plan that small businesses can utilize to actually generate some results before they can start paying for the paid plan—more on this in the pricing section.
- A ton of learning resources – Once you’re on board, you won’t be annoyed and confused about the next steps. MailerLite gives you free guides, a knowledge base, best practices, webinars, an academy (a course), a video library, and more.
Reasons NOT to pick MailerLite
- Your emails might end up in the spam folder – While during our testing, we’ve personally not had this issue, many users reported that being the case. It’s something to consider before making a more considerable investment. The challenge with these very cheap platforms is that they also attract a ton of marketers with older lists with very low engagement rates.
- It doesn’t include many templates – MailerLite is sort of a lite version of an email marketing tool. Hence, it doesn’t have a lot of pre-built email or landing page templates you can use.
- Could use more integrations – Additionally, many of its integrations are through Zapier, which is not always ideal.
MailerLite pricing
MailerLite is a cheaper Constant Contact alternative. It also has an excellent free plan that works for up to 1000 subscribers.
It doesn’t leave out anything you need from an email marketing solution; as the number of subscribers grows (prices are subscriber-based), prices stay affordable, and you get a 15% discount for annual billing.
The free trial lasts for 30 days, and you get to test the premium features.
For more detailed review see our GetResponse vs. MailerLite review.
5. Hubspot – the all-in-one marketing hub
While Constant Contact primarily focuses on email marketing, Hubspot marketing hub is famous for its all-in-one solution to CRM needs. With Hubspot, you get various tools to help with marketing, sales, and customer service.
Reasons to choose Hubspot over Constant Contact
- Streamlines operations – HubSpot’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is tightly integrated with its marketing tools. This means that you can align your marketing and sales efforts seamlessly to ensure leads generated are efficiently managed and converted into customers.
- Inbound marketing excellence – Hubspot offers an array of tools and resources to execute successful inbound strategies. This includes content creation, SEO, and lead generation tools. For instance, you can create lead magnets like eBooks, webinars, and email courses, which help entice visitors to share their contact information.
- Easy marketing automation – Hubspot provides advanced marketing automation features you would not find on Constant Contact. One good example is Hubspot’s Sequences. This feature allows you to create a series of personalized emails that are delivered to your leads based on their interests or behavior.
- Chatbots – Hubspot’s Chatbot is a vital tool that allows you to automate your customer service with ease. You can set this up to provide quick answers to common questions your target audience may have.
- Analytics and reporting – HubSpot email marketing offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing users to track their marketing efforts’ performance and make data-driven decisions.
- User-friendly interface – HubSpot has an intuitive interface that’s easy to navigate, making it accessible for users of all technical backgrounds. This user-friendliness is one of its major selling points.
Reasons NOT to choose Hubspot
- Pricing – While Hubspot offers a free version, more advanced features come at a relatively high cost. This can be a drawback for budget-conscious companies,
- Learning curve – Despite its user-friendliness, HubSpot’s extensive features may still pose a learning curve for some users. It might take time to harness its potential fully.
- Integration challenges – There may be instances where specific integrations are not available, which can be limiting for certain businesses with specialized needs. For instance, if you use a different CRM tool, it may be difficult to sync your customer data.
Hubspot pricing
For individuals and small teams, the available price plans are the Starter plan at $20 monthly and professional at $800. That’s apart from the free plan with features like form builders, landing pages, and live chat.
For businesses and enterprises, Hubspot’s professional email plan offers more features for growing companies. It also includes marketing automation and lead-scoring tools. Pricing starts at $800 per month.
There’s also the Enterprise package for larger companies. It includes advanced features like custom behavioral events, custom reporting, and integration. Pricing starts at $3,600 per month.
Finally, there’s a custom package with tailored solutions for businesses with unique demands. The cost varies based on individual requirements.
All in all, we think Hubspot may be a good alternative to Constant Contact if you want an email marketing solution with additional tools for your marketing, sales, and customer service teams. This will make your life easier, plus it may justify the relatively high price tag.
But if your sole focus is just a better email marketing solution, then you may want to look at some of the other Constant Contact alternatives we’ve covered above.
Still undecided? Here’s a complete visual comparison of the five Constant Contact alternatives
Evaluation | Constant Contact | GetResponse | Brevo | ActiveCampaign | MailerLite | Hubspot |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ease-of-use | 4 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
Email deliverability | 4.5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
Customer support | 4.5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3.5 | 5 |
Feature score | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 |
Pricing | 3 | 5 | 4.5 | 3 | 5 | 3 |
Total score | 4 | 4.9 | 4.6 | 4.4 | 4.1 | 4.4 |
Pricing (monthly, 1,000 subscribers) | Constant Contact | GetResponse | Brevo | ActiveCampaign | MailerLite | Hubspot |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard plan | $30 | $19 | $25 | $39 | $15 | $20 |
Medium plan | $55 | $59 | $65 | $70 | $30 | $800 |
Pro plan | $110 | $119 | N/A | $187 | N/A | $3,600 |
Maximum plan | N/A | Custom pricing | Custom pricing | Custom pricing | Custom pricing | Custom pricing |
Use cases | Constant Contact | GetResponse | Brevo | ActiveCampaign | MailerLite | Hubspot |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Best for | Excellent for small businesses looking for an easy-to-use, intuitive email marketing tool | A complete marketing and sales automation for ecommerce SMBs and mid-marketing companies | Companies looking for an email marketing solution to manage contact lists and launch workflows based on collected data | Affluent larger ecommerce and B2B companies, to automate customer experience and nurture customer relationships | Companies on tighter budgets that need easy to use solution with basic automation capabilities | Companies looking for a unified platform to manage their marketing, sales, and customer service. |
We hope our research and evaluation helped you figure out the best choice for your business.
Of course, we are eager to have you try out GetResponse to see why (in our opinion) it’s the best pick for most marketers and businesses.
Best Constant Contact alternatives FAQs
1. Who is a competitor of Constant Contact?
GetResponse, Brevo, ActiveCampaign, and MailerLite are some of the top competitors of Constant Contact. Those email marketing solutions are also better than Constant Contact in various ways. For example, GetResponse provides a more advanced all-in-one solution than Constant Contact.
2. Is Constant Contact good for email marketing?
Yes, Constant Contact is mostly good for email marketing, but it has a few downsides that force users to seek alternatives. For example, it’s less cost-effective and has fewer customization options than email marketing solutions like GetResponse.
Author’s note: This comparison is accurate on November 30th, 2024. We do our best to keep it as accurate as possible, and we check it on a regular basis, however, if you want to acquaint yourself with the offer of our competitors, you should check it at their official website or contact their representatives.