Key facts
- Mailchimp's Essentials plan starts at $18 a month for 501 to 1,500 contacts, with 3 audiences, 3 user seats, A/B testing, and 4 automation flow steps, per mailchimp.com.
- Mailchimp's Standard plan runs $28 to $32 a month for the same contact range, adding up to 200 automation flows, AI features, and multivariate testing; Premium reaches $495 a month with unlimited contacts, unlimited users, and phone support, per mailchimp.com.
- Constant Contact's Lite plan starts at $12 a month, Standard at $35 a month, and Premium at $80 a month on standard billing, with a 15% discount for prepaying a year (Lite $10.20, Standard $29.75, Premium $68 a month).
- Constant Contact's Standard plan documents 3 users, email scheduling, subject-line A/B testing, automatic resend to non-openers, and 10 custom segments; Premium adds unlimited users, unlimited custom automations and segments, a Google Ads manager, SEO recommendations, and 500 SMS messages a month.
- Both vendors send more email volume as your contact count grows: Mailchimp scales monthly sends from 10x contacts (Essentials) to 15x contacts (Premium); Constant Contact scales from 10x contacts (Lite) to 24x contacts (Premium).
The job: a growing contact list, a growing bill
Mailchimp and Constant Contact solve the same problem the same way: you pay more as your list grows, and you get more automation and reporting depth at higher tiers. Neither one prices by feature set alone; the contact count on the account decides the base price, then the plan tier decides what you get to do with those contacts.
The practical question for a small business is less “which is cheaper” and more “which tier's included features match what I'll actually use,” since both vendors gate automation complexity, segment counts, and support behind their higher plans rather than pricing those features separately.
Plan tiers, side by side
Mailchimp's three paid tiers step up in automation depth: Essentials caps you at 4 automation flow steps with 3 audiences and 3 user seats; Standard raises that to up to 200 automation flows with AI features and multivariate testing; Premium removes the contact and user ceiling entirely and adds phone support and a dedicated onboarding specialist, per mailchimp.com.
Constant Contact's three tiers step up differently: Lite gives you one user and one automation template; Standard adds two more users, subject-line A/B testing, automatic resends to people who didn't open your email, and 10 custom segments; Premium goes to unlimited users and automations, adds dynamic content, a Google Ads manager, SEO recommendations, revenue reporting, and 500 SMS messages a month bundled in.
What each tier costs, as published
On standard monthly billing, Mailchimp runs $18 (Essentials), $28 to $32 (Standard), and $495 (Premium) for 501 to 1,500 contacts, per mailchimp.com. Constant Contact runs $12 (Lite), $35 (Standard), and $80 (Premium) on standard billing, dropping to $10.20, $29.75, and $68 a month with a 15% annual prepay discount; nonprofits get up to 30% off when prepaying.
Both vendors' published prices rise as your contact count crosses each plan's next threshold, so the sticker price at the top of either pricing page is a starting point for a small list, not a ceiling.
Choose Mailchimp when, choose Constant Contact when
Choose Mailchimp when you want the most automation depth and the widest integration list (Salesforce, Shopify, WooCommerce, Square, QuickBooks Online) available at the Standard tier and above, and you're willing to pay a jump to Premium for unlimited contacts.
Choose Constant Contact when you want SMS credits and a Google Ads manager bundled into one plan at a lower top-tier price than Mailchimp's Premium, or when the lower Lite entry price fits a very small list better than Mailchimp's Essentials minimum.
Related questions
Constant Contact's Lite plan starts at $12 a month on standard billing, undercutting Mailchimp's cheapest paid tier at $18 a month for a similar small list, before either vendor's free tier limits are exceeded. Both free tiers cap around 250 to 500 contacts, so check where your list actually sits before comparing paid prices.
Constant Contact's Premium plan documents 500 SMS messages a month included, per its published feature list. Mailchimp's core plans are built around email; SMS is not listed as a standard inclusion on the tiers reviewed here, so confirm current SMS availability on Mailchimp's own pricing page before assuming it's bundled.
Mailchimp's Standard plan (not its top tier) documents up to 200 automation flows, well beyond Constant Contact's Standard tier, which lists automation templates rather than a large flow count. If automation depth matters most and you don't need the top-tier extras, Mailchimp's middle tier goes further.
Constant Contact's Premium plan documents a built-in Google Ads manager and SEO recommendations as part of the subscription. Mailchimp's plans reviewed here don't list an equivalent Google Ads feature; it integrates with Google Analytics instead, which is a reporting connection, not an ads management tool.
Constant Contact publishes a 15% discount for prepaying 12 months (more for nonprofits), bringing its tiers down to roughly $10 to $68 a month. Mailchimp's pricing page notes promotional first-month rates on some tiers rather than a standard annual-prepay discount structure, so the two vendors don't offer the same kind of long-term discount.
Sources
- Mailchimp: Pricing (accessed 2026-09-23)
- Constant Contact: Pricing (accessed 2026-09-23)
desk research from vendor documentation; no affiliate relationship; where we have implemented a tool for clients we say so.
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