Constant Contact vs Mailchimp: Pricing, Billing Rules and Which Is Better in 2026

Short answer: Constant Contact and Mailchimp cost almost the same on the sticker, $12 against $13 at 500 contacts and roughly $110 against $100 at 5,000. The real difference is how each one counts a contact. Constant Contact never bills you for unsubscribes but locks you into the highest tier you have ever reached. Mailchimp bills unsubscribes until you archive them but recalculates from your current peak each cycle.

That single distinction decides which is cheaper for you, and it has nothing to do with the number on either pricing page. Two businesses with identical list sizes can get opposite answers depending on how their list got that way.

Constant Contact vs Mailchimp pricing side by side

Both platforms price on stored contacts, and both publish a ladder. Here are the monthly figures, checked in August 2026, for the entry plan and the mid plan on each side.

Mailchimp is modestly cheaper at most rungs, and the gap is widest in the middle of the ladder. If your decision comes down to list price alone, Mailchimp wins by 10 to 20 percent and you can stop reading.

Two honesty notes on that table. Above 10,000 contacts, independent sources stop agreeing on Mailchimp's numbers, with Standard at 25,000 quoted anywhere from $270 to $310, so treat the bottom row as indicative and check the slider in your own account. And Constant Contact prices in bands rather than at exact counts, so a list of 1,100 contacts sits in the 1,001 to 2,500 band and pays that band's rate.

The billing rules matter more than the plan price

This is the part that comparison articles skip, and it is where the money actually is. Both vendors document their own rules, so none of this is inference.

Read the last two rows together, because they pull in opposite directions.

Constant Contact's billing documentation says your contact tier is based on the highest number of active contacts you have had in your account, and states plainly that deleting contacts does not lower the contact tier. Their own worked example: an account that goes 400, then 525, then back to 410 is billed on the 501 to 1,000 tier throughout. The tier only comes down if you clean the list and then ask billing to move you.

Mailchimp's help documentation says your monthly bill reflects the peak contact total during your billing period, and that even if your contact total decreases, the bill reflects the highest number stored that month. The difference is the reset. Mailchimp's peak is per billing period. Constant Contact's is permanent until you intervene.

So the expensive mistake is different on each platform. On Constant Contact it is one bulk import. On Mailchimp it is never cleaning up.

Which one is cheaper for your list

Work out which of these three you are, because it matters more than the ladder.

Your list has years of unsubscribes. Constant Contact is very likely cheaper, and the gap can be larger than the 10 to 20 percent list-price advantage Mailchimp has. A 12,000 record Mailchimp audience carrying 4,000 opt-outs nobody archived is paying to store all 12,000. The same list on Constant Contact bills on 8,000. That difference is worth more than the sticker gap at almost any size.

You once imported a big list and cut it back. Mailchimp is cheaper, and it is not close. Constant Contact is still charging you for a tier you left months ago, and will keep doing so until somebody calls. Mailchimp reset at the next billing date.

You run several lists with overlapping people. Mailchimp charges per audience, so somebody who is in your newsletter audience and your customer audience is two billable contacts. Constant Contact treats lists as segments of one contact database, so the same person counts once. Teams that spun up a second audience for an event are often paying twice for a large slice of the same people without knowing it.

If none of those describe you, and your list has grown steadily without imports or big cleanups, Mailchimp is cheaper and the comparison is straightforward.

Which is better, Constant Contact or Mailchimp?

Price aside, they are good at different things, and the honest split is fairly clean.

Constant Contact is stronger on events and support. Event registration and ticketing are built in and genuinely useful, which matters for nonprofits, associations, venues and anyone whose marketing calendar is a calendar. Live phone support is included on every paid plan, and it is the single most common thing customers praise. If you want a US number to call when a send goes wrong at 4pm, that is a real product feature.

Mailchimp is stronger on ecommerce and depth. The template editor is better, the integration marketplace is far larger, product and revenue attribution for online stores is more mature, and transactional email through Mandrill covers receipts and app notifications that Constant Contact does not touch. If you sell online, Mailchimp is built closer to your problem.

Both changed their free offering recently, and neither change was in the customer's favor. Constant Contact removed its free plan in June 2025 and moved A/B testing and advanced segmentation up-tier. Mailchimp cut its free plan to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month in February 2026, down from 2,000 contacts a few years ago. Constant Contact now offers a 30 day trial capped at 100 total sends. Mailchimp's free tier survives but works as a trial rather than a plan.

Do nonprofits get a better deal on either?

Yes, and Constant Contact is clearly more generous. Nonprofits get 20 percent off by prepaying 6 months, or 30 percent off by prepaying 12 months. Mailchimp offers 15 percent off the base plan and only if you request it through their contact form before you purchase, since it is never applied retroactively.

Constant Contact is also in the TechSoup catalog at a discount commonly reported around 50 percent, while Mailchimp is not. The catch is worth stating clearly, because it costs organizations real money: nonprofits that already hold a Constant Contact subscription are not eligible for the TechSoup offer. Check TechSoup before you open an account, not after.

Is Mailchimp better than Constant Contact for small business?

For most US small businesses selling online, yes, on the strength of the integrations and the slightly lower ladder. For small businesses that run events, take bookings, or want somebody on the phone, Constant Contact earns its premium. Neither is a bad product, and the gap between them is much smaller than the gap between either one and doing nothing.

The more useful question is whether the thing holding your marketing back is the sending platform at all. Both tools assume the emails exist. If your newsletter goes out sporadically because nobody has time to write it, moving it from one platform to the other changes your invoice and nothing else.

What to do before you switch

Three things, in order, and the first one is free.

Count your dead records first. Filter for unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts in your current platform. If that number is large and you are on Mailchimp, archiving them may drop you a tier immediately and remove the reason you were switching. If you are on Constant Contact, remember that cleaning alone does nothing until you ask billing to move your tier down.

Check whether you crossed a tier by accident. Look at your peak contact count over the last year rather than today's number. On Constant Contact that peak is still setting your price.

Plan where the replies land. Campaign replies, out-of-office bounces and the one customer who answers a broadcast with a support question all arrive somewhere, and on small teams that is usually a personal inbox that nobody else can see. Putting every mailbox your team sends from in one place before you migrate saves you rebuilding that routing afterwards.

Then decide on the billing model rather than the brand. We break down the full ladder and every charge outside the list price on Constant Contact pricing and Mailchimp pricing. If you have concluded the answer is neither, the Constant Contact alternative and Mailchimp alternative comparisons cover where people actually go, and email marketing software explains how the whole category prices so you can spot the next contact ladder before you sign up for it.

One last note on both platforms. Every figure here was verified in August 2026, and email vendors reprice more often than comparison articles get updated. Confirm the current numbers in your own account before you commit, because the ladder you signed up on is rarely the ladder you are on now.