When it comes to email marketing, there are lots of contenders for your business, but there are two vendors that stand out. We’ve used both extensively, and in the past year, we’ve reversed our opinion on them based on pricing and capabilities. Those two companies are Mailchimp and Constant Contact, and while Constant Contact (or “ConCon,” as one of our clients has charmingly nicknamed it) used to be our most recommended… we now recommend Mailchimp. Read on to find out why!
In case you didn’t already know it, we almost always recommend that you do use a third-party vendor to handle your email marketing. Of course you CAN send out email newsletters from your company email, but these email marketing companies ensure that you stay within FCC guidelines and, most importantly, that your ISP never bans you for spamming people. It can happen, and there’s very little that’s more inconvenient than not being able to send email.
The Price Consideration
Price is almost everyone’s top concern, and in this category, Mailchimp wins handily. Mailchimp is free for up to 2,000 subscribers (most businesses will find that they quickly exceed that number) and very reasonably priced for more. You can also choose to pay as you go OR pay monthly, which is a huge advantage if you don’t regularly send email newsletters. Constant Contact requires that you pay their monthly subscription fee even if you send no email that month.
Here’s a breakdown with current pricing for 2015:
|
Subscribers |
Mailchimp | Constant Contact |
| 2,000 or fewer |
Free |
$35.00/month, or $29.75/month if prepaid for 12 months |
|
5,000 or fewer |
$50.00/month, or $100.00 on the pay-as-you-go plan |
$55.00/month, or $46.75/month if prepaid for 12 months |
|
7,500 or fewer |
$75.00/month, or $150.00 on the pay-as-you-go plan |
$85.00/month, or $72.25/month if prepaid for 12 months |
| 10,000 or fewer | $75.00/month, or $200.00 on the pay-as-you-go plan |
$85.00/month, or $72.25/month if prepaid for 12 months |
Here are quick links to Mailchimp’s pricing and Constant Contact’s pricing so you can compare for yourself based on your own real world scenario.
Email Deliverability
Of course, there’s no point in paying for email marketing if the emails aren’t actually getting delivered. Constant Contact and Mailchimp are our top recommendations because they consistently have great deliverability rates—some of the best in the industry. Both companies have studiously avoided publishing claims of high deliverability rates, but others report that Constant Contact has a 97% deliverability rate and Mailchimp’s rate is typically between 96%-99%. Both are excellent in comparison to other services we’ve used, where we’ve encountered more emails going to spam folders. The difference between the two services is negligible, and depends more on user techniques. Constant Contact offers a great tutorial for ensuring high deliverability rates, regardless of the service you pick. If you do experience a problem with deliverability, we recommend switching services. It’s very tough to unscramble the issues when you encounter a blacklisting, and frankly we don’t think it’s worth the headache.
Features
Constant Contact and Mailchimp both have nice, simple templates that are mobile responsive. We personally think that Mailchimp’s basic templates are a little more modern—they seem to have more of an Apple aesthetic, if you like. In any case, we do recommend sticking with their templates and not going too far afield. That’s because both companies have tested them with tons of email applications, and they’re proven winners. While normally we are big fans of customization, think of the myriad ways people read their email: via Gmail, on their phones, on Outlook or Mac Mail. You can hope that your email looks similar on all devices and email applications, but it won’t be exact.
A few of our other conclusions about Constant Contact and Mailchimp’s features:
- Constant Contact has more template options than Mailchimp.
- Both have a WYSIWYG editor, drag and drop for images, and image editing.
- Constant Contact will charge you extra to upload images beyond their 5-photo limit—a huge disadvantage. Mailchimp doesn’t do that.
- Mailchimp lets you insert emoticons in your subject lines—really fun!
- Mailchimp integrates with EventBrite for event management. Constant Contact has its own event management platform, EventSpot, which is an extra fee per month.
- Constant Contact’s list segmentation is a bit easier to understand and work with.
- Mailchimp makes it easier to do A/B testing.
Tech Support
If you do need help, Constant Contact offers chat AND phone support, which beats Mailchimp by quite a bit. Mailchimp offers only Knowledge Base support for free users. For paid users, Mailchimp allows you to get support by chat or by email, and on weekends, only email support is available.
Or, you know, we can offer tech support for you! We’re happy to set up your email marketing campaign or optimize your existing one with improved design and best practices. Contact us!
