Is Constant Contact really worth it?
Constant Contact is a popular email marketing program that has been on the market for over two decades. This tool comes with a wide range of features, such as email automation, segmentation, and reporting, making it suitable for small businesses that help them grow their audiences, manage their mail campaigns, create landing pages, or increase exposure to events. However, Constant Contact's high prices have become an issue for many users.
In my experience, Constant Contact can be quite expensive, especially for small businesses just starting out. And while Mailchimp is a reliable platform, their pricing model can also get expensive as your email list grows.
One of Constant Contact's pricing plans' drawbacks is that it does not offer a free trial or trial period. This means that, from the beginning, if businesses are unsure whether Constant Contact is an appropriate choice for their needs, they must commit to monthly payments, which can be a problem for small businesses.
A new contact is defined as a specific email that you add to your subscribers' profiles. Therefore, if one contact is considered to be a subscriber who appears on multiple lists with the same email address, Constant Contact will interpret them as multiple contacts in each list, which can increase the price of the plan. For this reason, the business needs to be careful and clean their lists once in a while to keep their email marketing costs within a budget.
In addition, for companies that need the services of professionals with a view to achieving campaign success, Constant Contact provides additional services. For example, one of the available add-on services will be able to help you take advantage of a custom email template starting at 79 USD. To help you deepen your email marketing play and increase it substantially, there are custom consultancy services offered by the experts of Constant Contact that will be made available to you. You can hire someone who will review your campaign and help you with the development of effective campaigns. The pricing starts at 50 USD per month.
Updates in Constant Contact pricing
The recent pricing plans of Constant Contact as of May 2024 are shown below in the table.
| Number of Contacts | Lite Plan | Standard Plan | Premium Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $12/mo | $35/mo | $80/mo |
| 2,500 | $50/mo | $75/mo | $150/mo |
| 5,000 | $80/mo | $110/mo | $200/mo |
| 10,000 | $120/mo | $160/mo | $275/mo |
| 25,000 | $280/mo | $310/mo | $425/mo |
| 50,000 | $430/mo | $460/mo | $575/mo |
| 50,000+ | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Additionally, a $0.002 USD per email is charged when sent over a certain limit.
- The Lite pricing plan costs at least $12 a month.
- The Standard pricing plan, which costs at least $35 a month.
- The Premium pricing plan, which costs at least $80 a month.
This doesn't include all the Constant Contact pricing; there are several pricing points that are taken into account while choosing an apt plan for your business. Before going further, ensure you get a good idea of all the basic price options and features. On top of that, the pricing options for Constant Contact are based on the number of contacts per user.
While price plans can be considered acceptable for SMEs with few contacts, as the number of contacts increases, it becomes increasingly expensive. For instance, an enterprise with 10,000 contacts must pay $195 monthly for email and $335 monthly for the Email Plus plan. This may be a significant cost for a small or medium-sized business, particularly when other email marketing tools offer similar features at a lower price.
Verdict
While Constant Contact offers an extensive range of email marketing tools, the high price plans and supplementary costs make it a costly option for businesses, particularly those with many contacts. Before adopting Constant Contact's pricing plans, it may be worth exploring alternatives in light of other email marketing tools currently on the market at a reduced price.
The quality of email automation, where Constant Contact fails miserably, is one of the key features that every business looks at in any email service provider. The triggers are next to nil, and the user interface is confusing. In addition, the landing page builder is not useful because it's part of the signup form builder, and there are no customizations.
To put it bluntly, the features offered by Constant Contact are not worth their price. Similar and more advanced features are available in today's email marketing landscape at a relatively low price point compared with Constant Contact.
