Constant Contact vs. Mailchimp

If you’re comparing Constant Contact vs Mailchimp for ecommerce, Mailchimp is the better choice for most online stores. It has more flexible automation, deeper use of store behavior, and stronger product recommendation tools. Constant Contact is better for small businesses that want a simpler platform, live phone and chat support on every paid plan, or built-in event management.

The decision comes down to what your business needs from email. Choose Mailchimp if welcome, cart recovery, post-purchase, and purchase-based emails are the priority. Choose Constant Contact if you send straightforward campaigns, promote in-person or online events, and want more help from a support team.

Constant Contact vs Mailchimp: Quick Comparison

Category	Constant Contact	Mailchimp
Best for	Simple campaigns, strong support, and event-led businesses	Ecommerce campaigns, behavioral automation, and product recommendations
Free plan	No; free trial available	Yes, up to 250 contacts and 500 monthly sends
Starting paid price	$12 per month	$13 per month for Essentials
Automation	Basic on lower plans; unlimited custom automations on Premium	Up to 4 steps on Essentials; up to 200 steps on Standard and Premium
Ecommerce	Shopify and WooCommerce integrations, product blocks, cart reminders, sales reporting	Store event syncing, product recommendations, purchase segments, cart flows, revenue tracking
Support	Phone and chat on every paid plan	Email and chat on paid plans; phone support on Premium
Events	Built-in registration, payments, reminders, and reporting	Usually handled through an integration
Monthly send limits	10x, 12x, or 24x the contact-tier allowance	10x, 12x, or 15x the contact limit on paid plans
Overall ecommerce winner	Better for simplicity and support	Better for most store-focused email programs

What Is Constant Contact?

Constant Contact is a digital marketing platform built mainly for small businesses and nonprofits. It combines email, forms, social posting, contact management, events, ads, and SMS options in one workspace.

Its main strength is accessibility. The editor is straightforward, the plan structure is easy to understand, and paid customers can reach live support without buying the highest tier. Constant Contact also offers more than 300 integrations, including Shopify, WooCommerce, Canva, and Zapier.

For ecommerce, it can sync contacts, insert products into emails, create customer segments, send cart reminders, and report on sales. Some of the more useful ecommerce automation and reporting tools require Premium.

What Is Mailchimp?

Mailchimp is an email marketing and automation platform for small businesses, ecommerce stores, creators, and larger teams. Its tools cover campaigns, forms, landing pages, audience management, segmentation, automation, reporting, and SMS add-ons.

Mailchimp has a stronger ecommerce data layer. Its Shopify integration syncs customer and order information along with events such as product views, searches, cart activity, checkout starts, and completed checkouts. Marketers can use those events to trigger automations and target campaigns.

The platform is still approachable, but its audiences, tags, segments, contacts, and plan limits take time to understand. A messy account can become expensive and hard to manage.

Pricing

As of August 2026, Constant Contact’s pricing starts at:

Constant Contact plan	Starting price	Monthly send allowance	Notable plan limits
Lite	$12 per month	10x contact tier	1 user, 1 automation template, 1 custom segment
Standard	$35 per month	12x contact tier	3 users, 3 automation templates, 10 custom segments
Premium	$80 per month	24x contact tier	Unlimited users, custom segments, and custom automations

Constant Contact doesn’t have a permanent free plan. It offers a free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee for new plans. Pricing rises as the active contact tier grows. If you exceed the monthly send allowance, the current overage fee is $0.002 per extra email.

Mailchimp’s pricing starts with a free plan for up to 250 contacts and 500 monthly sends. Paid plans start at $13 per month for Essentials, $20 for Standard, and $350 for Premium. Entry prices usually cover a small contact allowance, so the cost increases with list size.

Mailchimp’s paid monthly send limits are 10 times the contact limit on Essentials, 12 times on Standard, and 15 times on Premium. Standard and Premium also provide much stronger automation than Essentials.

Pricing Winner: It Depends

Mailchimp wins if you need a permanent free plan or want a lower-cost path to stronger ecommerce automation. Constant Contact can be competitive for simple sending and provides a higher allowance on Premium. Compare both tools at your actual contact count and expected monthly volume instead of relying on the starting price.

Ease of Use and Email Design

Both platforms are friendly to beginners. They offer drag-and-drop editors, templates, brand tools, signup forms, scheduling, and AI writing assistance on eligible plans.

Constant Contact feels more guided. Its campaign process suits an owner who needs to build a newsletter, promote a sale, or announce an event without configuring a complex system. Live support also makes setup less stressful.

Mailchimp’s editor is polished and gives ecommerce teams more room to grow. It works well for product campaigns and reusable layouts, but the wider set of audience and automation controls creates a steeper learning curve.

Ease-of-Use Winner: Constant Contact

Constant Contact wins for the simpler learning experience. Mailchimp remains easy enough for basic campaigns, but it takes longer to organize well.

Ecommerce Integrations and Features

Both platforms work with common store systems, but Mailchimp makes broader use of ecommerce behavior.

According to Mailchimp’s Shopify documentation, the integration syncs customer, order, and company data. It also receives product views, searches, cart updates, checkout activity, and purchases in near real time. That data can support:

• Abandoned cart and checkout flows
• Purchase follow-ups
• Product retargeting
• Purchase-based segments
• Discount codes
• Product recommendations
• Campaign and automation revenue tracking

Mailchimp’s purchase-history recommendations have an important limit. A store needs at least 10 products, 50 customers, and 500 orders in the past year for that recommendation model. Smaller stores can still use best sellers, new arrivals, or manually filtered product feeds (Mailchimp product recommendation requirements).

Constant Contact supports Shopify and WooCommerce, among other integrations. Its WooCommerce integration can sync customers into activity-based lists, insert store items through product blocks, send cart reminders, and connect email sends with sales reporting.

These tools cover the basics for many small stores. Mailchimp has the advantage when you want more behavioral triggers and product personalization from synced store data.

Ecommerce Winner: Mailchimp

Mailchimp wins for ecommerce depth. Constant Contact is capable, but its best case is a smaller store with simpler campaign and automation needs.

Marketing Automation

Mailchimp gives you more control over complex customer journeys. Essentials supports flows with up to four steps. Standard and Premium allow up to 200 steps, as many as three starting triggers, filters, conditional splits, percentage splits, delays, tags, webhooks, and other actions (Mailchimp automation flow limits).

That flexibility helps when a store needs to branch based on a purchase, product interest, engagement, or customer status. You can build a simple series, but you also have room for more detailed lifecycle flows.

Constant Contact includes one automation template on Lite and three on Standard. Premium adds unlimited automation templates, custom automations, and ecommerce templates. Its automation is easier to approach, but it offers less control for advanced branching and store behavior.

Automation Winner: Mailchimp

Mailchimp wins because its Standard and Premium flows can handle more conditions, branches, and actions. Constant Contact works when you need a welcome series, cart reminder, birthday email, or another straightforward sequence.

Segmentation and Personalization

Constant Contact limits custom segments by plan: one on Lite, 10 on Standard, and unlimited on Premium. Premium also adds dynamic email content and ecommerce segmentation. This structure is simple, but growing stores may reach the lower-plan limits quickly.

Mailchimp supports tags, groups, contact fields, predicted data, engagement, and purchase activity. Standard adds predictive segmentation and behavioral targeting. When Shopify is connected, store events give marketers more ways to target browsers, cart starters, buyers, and customers interested in certain products.

Mailchimp wins for detailed ecommerce targeting. Constant Contact is enough if you mainly separate customers by basic interests, engagement, or list membership.

Reporting

Both tools report opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes. The real difference is what happens after the click.

Mailchimp can connect campaign and automation activity to orders and revenue when the store integration is configured correctly. Product reporting can also show sales tied to recommendations. This makes it easier to compare campaigns and flows by business results.

Constant Contact offers basic reporting on Lite and more detailed engagement reporting on Standard. Premium adds revenue reporting and ecommerce analytics. Stores can review the relationship between email sends and sales, though the available detail depends on the integration and plan.

Reporting Winner: Mailchimp

Mailchimp wins for ecommerce reporting and product-level context. Constant Contact is easier for basic campaign checks but places deeper reporting on higher tiers.

Customer Support

Support is Constant Contact’s clearest advantage. Every paid plan includes live phone and chat support. Premium adds priority support and a dedicated onboarding team.

Mailchimp provides new Free accounts with email support for 30 days. Essentials and Standard include email and chat support. Only Premium includes dedicated phone support, according to Mailchimp’s support options.

Support Winner: Constant Contact

Choose Constant Contact if being able to call for help matters. That access can be more useful to a small team than another advanced feature it won’t use.

Event Marketing and Other Channels

Constant Contact has built-in event tools for registration pages, tickets, promo codes, attendee check-in, reminders, payments, refunds, and reporting. Payments can run through Stripe or PayPal. This is useful for retailers that host classes, pop-ups, product previews, or community events.

Both tools also support social posting, forms, landing pages, integrations, and SMS options. Constant Contact includes 500 SMS messages with Premium for eligible U.S. customers; Lite and Standard can add SMS. Mailchimp offers SMS as an add-on to paid marketing plans, subject to approval and regional availability.

Event Marketing Winner: Constant Contact

Constant Contact is the stronger choice when events are a regular part of the customer experience. Mailchimp can connect to event platforms, but the workflow isn’t as centralized.

Which Platform Should Your Ecommerce Business Choose?

Choose Mailchimp if:

• Your store data needs to drive campaigns and flows.
• You want detailed automation with branches and multiple triggers.
• Product recommendations and purchase segments matter.
• You need a free plan while your list is very small.
• You want more room to build a lifecycle email program.

Choose Constant Contact if:

• You want the simpler platform and setup process.
• Phone and chat support are important to your team.
• Your emails are mainly newsletters, promotions, and announcements.
• You host events and want registration, payments, and follow-up in one tool.
• You prefer a higher send allowance on the top plan.

Before choosing, estimate your cost at 500, 2,500, 5,000, and 10,000 active contacts. Then list the flows you need today and the ones you expect to add within a year. This exposes plan limits that an entry price can hide.

Conclusion

For a product-led store, the Constant Contact vs Mailchimp decision usually points to Mailchimp. Its behavioral data, product tools, segmentation, and flexible automations provide more room to build store-focused campaigns and lifecycle flows.

Constant Contact is the better choice when ease of use, live support, and event management matter more than advanced ecommerce automation. Pick the platform that fits your real contact count, sending volume, store integration, and team capacity. Either tool can send attractive campaigns, but the right one should also support how your customers browse, buy, and return. For other Mailchimp matchups, compare it with Brevo or ActiveCampaign.