Home › Guides › Constant Contact vs Mailchimp
Updated October 10, 2026 · Prices verified from vendor pricing pages, October 2026 · Affiliate disclosure
Both vendors publish their smallest-band prices openly — Constant Contact as "starting at" figures on three plan cards with a monthly/annual toggle, Mailchimp as three figures for the 0–500 contact band on its US page. Those six pairs are the only complete row these two pages share. Everything above 500 contacts is computed inside a slider on Constant Contact's page and inside a plan selector on Mailchimp's, and neither prints a figure a static reader can quote.
| Tier at 0–500 contacts | Constant Contact, monthly | Constant Contact, billed annually | Mailchimp, monthly | Mailchimp, billed annually |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry (Lite / Essentials) | $12/mo | $10.20/mo ($122.40/yr) | $13/mo | $11.05/mo ($132.60/yr) |
| Middle (Standard) | $35/mo | $29.75/mo ($357.00/yr) | $20/mo | $17/mo ($204.00/yr) |
| Top (Premium) | No monthly figure printed | $68/mo ($816.00/yr) | $350/mo | $297.50/mo ($3,570.00/yr) |
USD. Constant Contact figures read from constantcontact.com/pricing on October 10, 2026; its annual totals are the printed monthly-billed annual rate times twelve ($10.20 × 12 = $122.40, $29.75 × 12 = $357.00, $68 × 12 = $816.00). Mailchimp figures are its published US prices for the 0–500 band, read October 2026; its annual column works out at exactly 15% on each printed pair ($297.50 × 12 = $3,570.00). Constant Contact's page prints no monthly figure for Premium, so none is shown.
Three gaps in that table decide most buying decisions. The top-plan gap is the widest we have recorded between any two vendors' Premium cards at the same band — $282 a month on list rates, and the annual bills land $2,754 apart ($816 against $3,570). The middle gap runs the other way: Mailchimp Standard costs $15 a month less than Constant Contact Standard, and it carries the automation — up to 200 flows against Constant Contact's 3 templates on Standard. The entry gap barely exists: $1 a month on monthly billing, $10.20 a year on annual terms ($122.40 against $132.60).
Both pages hide the same thing in different machinery. Constant Contact's page computes prices for contact counts above 500 only inside its interactive slider; its own footnote says "plan price is based on number of contacts and email sends" and links overage fees to a knowledge-base article. Mailchimp's US page renders one band at a time inside a plan selector. A static reader can quote neither vendor's bill at 2,500 or 10,000 contacts, so the table below quotes what is printed and says so everywhere else — the same policy as our Klaviyo vs Mailchimp head-to-head and our MailerLite vs Mailchimp comparison.
| Subscribers | Constant Contact (Lite / Standard / Premium) | Mailchimp (Essentials / Standard / Premium) |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $12 / $35 / — monthly · $10.20 / $29.75 / $68 billed annually | $13 / $20 / $350 monthly · $11.05 / $17 / $297.50 billed annually |
| 2,500 | Not published — priced only inside the page's contact-count slider | Not published — the US page renders one band at a time |
| 10,000 | Not published | Not published; annual plans from 10,000 contacts are a sales conversation |
Send allowances do publish above the entry band, as multipliers: Constant Contact 10×/12×/24× the contact count, Mailchimp 10×/12×/15×. At a 2,500-contact band that is 25,000–60,000 sends on Constant Contact's plans (its own knowledge base works the Lite example at 25,000) against 25,000–37,500 on Mailchimp's.
The multiplier gap is not cosmetic, and it is the one structural advantage that scales with your list. Constant Contact's Premium sends 24× your contact count against Mailchimp's 15× — 60% more email per contact on the top plan. At the entry and middle tiers the multipliers match exactly (10× vs 10×, 12× vs 12×), so a Lite-to-Essentials or Standard-to-Standard comparison is a pure feature-and-price question; the moment your volume needs point at the top plan, Constant Contact's per-contact leverage becomes the argument that outlasts any promotional year.
Constant Contact's figures come from its own pricing page, read October 10, 2026: the three plan cards with both billing cycles where printed, the seat and send-multiplier rows in its plan table, and its footnote that plan prices are based on contacts and email sends. Its overage rate, the bounce rule and the automated-email exclusion come from the vendor's own knowledge-base article on send allowances and overage fees, updated July 11, 2026. Mailchimp's figures are its published US prices for the 0–500 band, read October 2026; above that band its page renders one plan at a time and publishes no per-band figure, so those cells say so rather than carrying an estimate. Where a total is our arithmetic on a printed pair, it is labelled as such — no rate on this page is inferred from a percentage or a discount badge. Both vendors' entry-band prices, and every change we catch on their pages, are logged in our pricing change tracker. To price your own list size across the plans that publish figures, use the list-size cost calculator; our methodology and affiliate disclosure explain how prices are verified and how the site earns.
It depends entirely on which plan you are pricing. At the entry band, Constant Contact's Lite lists $12 a month against Mailchimp Essentials' $13 — a coin flip. In the middle, Mailchimp wins visibly: Standard at $20 against Constant Contact Standard at $35. At the top, Constant Contact wins by a distance: Premium at $68 a month billed annually against Mailchimp Premium at $350 a month ($297.50 on annual terms) — $282 a month apart on list rates and $2,754 a year apart on annual billing. No comparison exists above the smallest band, because neither vendor publishes per-band prices there.
Mailchimp does: its free plan carries 250 contacts and 500 email sends a month (250 a day), and sending pauses rather than bills when the limit is crossed. Constant Contact does not — the cheapest card on its pricing page is Lite, so there is no way to run a live list before paying.
It is the discount for paying twelve months upfront, printed on every plan. On Lite, twelve monthly payments of $12 total $144 against the $122.40 annual total ($10.20 a month) — $21.60 a year. On Standard, $420 monthly against $357 — $63 a year. Mailchimp's annual billing works out at the same 15% on its published pairs ($11.05 against $13, $17 against $20, $297.50 against $350), so the percentage is a tie; the difference is which plan the percentage lands on.
Constant Contact states its rate: $0.002 for every send over the monthly allowance — $2 per thousand — with a worked example in its own knowledge base ($30 on a 15,000-send overage). Mailchimp bills overages automatically on paid plans but does not print the send-overage rate on its pricing page. Two Constant Contact details matter as much as the rate: bounced emails count toward your allowance, while automated emails such as welcome series and abandoned-cart reminders do not.
Constant Contact sets allowances at 10×, 12× and 24× the contact count: 5,000 sends on Lite, 6,000 on Standard and 12,000 on Premium at the smallest band. Mailchimp sets 10×, 12× and 15×: 5,000, 6,000 and 7,500 on Essentials, Standard and Premium. The top plans are the outlier — Constant Contact's Premium sends 60% more per contact than Mailchimp's Premium, and no other plan pair in this comparison differs.
Not for the discount alone — both work out at 15%. Switch if your bill is dominated by the top plan: at the smallest band, Constant Contact Premium bills $816 a year against Mailchimp's $3,570, with a higher send multiplier (24× against 15×). Stay if you are inside Mailchimp's promotional first year ($10 a month on Standard, $6.50 on Essentials), if you rely on the free plan (Constant Contact has none), or if your automations are the point — Mailchimp Standard carries up to 200 flows at $20 a month where Constant Contact Standard sells 3 automation templates at $35.