Constant Contact vs Mailchimp Pricing: Cost Per Contact Compared

Neither one is simply cheaper. The answer flips depending on which plan tier you compare. On the entry and mid tiers Mailchimp undercuts Constant Contact by 16% to 43%, but on the top tier Constant Contact is roughly 30% cheaper at every contact level, and it sells a Premium plan below 10,000 contacts where Mailchimp does not sell one at all.

Almost every comparison of these two puts three starting prices side by side and calls it a day. That is close to useless, because both vendors price on a contact ladder and the starting price only applies to the smallest tier. We read both ladders in full, directly from each vendor's own pricing page with US locale headers, and the picture that comes out is more interesting than "Mailchimp is cheaper".

Constant Contact vs Mailchimp on the mid tier

This is the comparison most people actually need, because Standard is the tier both companies steer small businesses toward. Constant Contact Standard against Mailchimp Standard, at matched contact counts:

The two ladders cross at about 15,000 contacts. Below that Mailchimp wins every tier, most dramatically at the bottom where $20 against $35 is a 43% difference. Above it Constant Contact wins for a stretch, then the two converge so tightly that from 25,000 contacts upward they sit within $10 of each other at every single tier, and are exactly identical at 25,000 and 30,000.

The reason for the crossover is a quirk in Mailchimp's ladder rather than anything Constant Contact does. Mailchimp's steepest step is crossing 10,000 contacts, where Standard jumps from $135 to $230. That is a 70.4% price increase for 50% more contacts, and it is what hands the lead to Constant Contact right at 15,000.

Where Constant Contact wins decisively: the top tier

Nobody writes about this, and it is the biggest gap between the two products. Constant Contact Premium costs about 30% less than Mailchimp Premium at every comparable tier.

Two things are happening here. First, Mailchimp Premium does not exist below 10,000 contacts. If you want Mailchimp's top tier features on a 3,000 contact list, you cannot buy them at any price. Constant Contact will sell you Premium at 500 contacts for $80.

Second, the send allowances point the same way. Constant Contact Premium includes 24 times your contact count in monthly sends; Mailchimp Premium includes 15 times. At 50,000 contacts that is 1.2 million sends for $575 against 750,000 sends for $815. Constant Contact gives you 60% more sending for 29% less money, which works out to $0.48 per 1,000 sends against $1.09.

The entry tiers, and the trap in each

Constant Contact Lite starts at $12 and Mailchimp Essentials at $13, so at 500 contacts they are effectively tied. What happens next is not tied at all. Adding one contact past 500 takes a Constant Contact Lite bill from $12 to $30, a 150% increase for a single email address. That is the steepest single step on either company's ladder.

Mailchimp's equivalent trap sits higher up, at 10,000 contacts, and it is the 70.4% jump described above. Between roughly 2,500 and 10,000 contacts Mailchimp Essentials runs slightly cheaper than Constant Contact Lite ($45 against $50, $75 against $80, $110 against $120), then the two are exactly level at $180 and $230 for the 15,000 and 20,000 tiers, and above that Mailchimp pulls ahead again, finishing at $385 against $430 at 50,000.

Billing behavior matters more than the sticker price

Three differences here will cost you more real money than a $15 gap on the plan price.

The peak contact rule is the one that surprises people. Mailchimp bills on the highest number of contacts your account reached during the billing cycle, not the number you finished with. Import a list on the 3rd, delete it on the 10th, and you are still billed for it. Constant Contact bills on your tier instead, which makes a one time list cleanup pay off immediately: dropping from 10,001 to 10,000 contacts cuts a Lite bill from $180 to $120.

Do not turn that into a monthly routine, though. Constant Contact's Acceptable Use Policy specifically prohibits customers who "repeatedly upload and remove unique email addresses" or otherwise "try to manipulate data in an attempt to circumvent our Fees". Cleaning a list once is hygiene. Cycling it every month to dodge a tier is a policy violation, and the stated penalty is termination without a refund.

Which one should you pick?

Take the tier you will actually be on in a year, not the one you are on today, and read it off the tables above. As a shortcut:

• Under 10,000 contacts on a mid tier plan: Mailchimp, on price. The gap is 16% to 43%.
• Around 15,000 to 20,000 contacts: Constant Contact, by $20 to $25 a month.
• Above 25,000 contacts on Standard: a coin flip. They are within $10 of each other.
• Any list size on the top tier: Constant Contact, by roughly 30%, and it is the only one of the two that sells a top tier under 10,000 contacts.
• You want phone support or event tools: Constant Contact. Live phone and chat is on every plan, including the $12 one.

Price is only half the decision. Both platforms bill you for every stored contact whether that person opens anything or not, which means the cheapest thing you can do on either is stop adding contacts who were never going to buy. That is an acquisition problem rather than a billing one, and it usually starts with knowing which search terms actually bring buyers to your signup page before you spend anything on filling the list.

Neither one allows cold email

If you landed here while pricing a platform for outbound prospecting, stop comparing tiers. Both contracts rule the use case out.

Constant Contact's Acceptable Use Policy, updated July 22, 2026, says you may not send to "distribution lists, newsgroups, publicly available press or media addresses, email addresses or telephone numbers that are purchased, borrowed, third-party or any other lists that have not directly consented". Mailchimp's is equally direct, banning "purchased, rented, third-party, co-reg, publicly available data, or partner lists of any kind". That phrase "publicly available data" is exactly what a researched prospect list is.

Both also close the obvious workarounds. Constant Contact states that a survey response, an event registration, a Facebook Like or a Twitter follow is not consent, and bans running multiple accounts to send similar content unless you are a franchise. Enforcement in both cases can mean account termination with no refund.

Outbound needs a different shape of tool: one that meters emails sent rather than contacts stored, and that runs on sending infrastructure you control. That is why picking an SMTP provider for cold email is a genuinely separate decision from choosing a marketing platform, and why the economics look nothing alike once you compare on cost per email sent.

Every figure in this article was read from each vendor's own US pricing page and tier tables in August 2026. Full ladders, send multipliers and policy detail for each are in our Constant Contact pricing breakdown and Mailchimp pricing breakdown. We have deliberately not reproduced either vendor's own review score or star rating, because neither is something we can independently verify.