MailerLite vs Constant Contact: Which is better for 2024

The winner – Constant Contact

4.0

Not great not terrible

What Constant Contact features are better than Mailerlite?

Selecting the right email marketing platform is crucial for achieving the desired outcomes. However, the emergence of new email marketing solutions makes deciding the perfect tool for your needs challenging.

Both MailerLite and Constant Contact are among the top email marketing platforms for startups and small businesses. 

MailerLite is an affordable email marketing tool with a user-friendly interface and an intuitive campaign builder. It is a popular choice for startups. 

Meanwhile, Constant Contact is known for its comprehensive marketing toolkit that caters to many businesses. 

We’ll discuss the tools’ features in this MailerLite vs Constant Contact review. By the end, you will know the strengths and drawbacks of each tool. 

Let’s get started.

MailerLite vs Constant Contact: Quick overview

On the G2 platform, MailerLite has a sound rating of 4.7. Customer reviews emphasize the ease of use and good email templates.

Comparatively, Constant Contact has a 4.0 out of 5 rating on the same G2. Users highly commend the platform’s customizable templates and robust integrations. 

Let’s briefly explore their key features. 

MailerLite vs Constant Contact: Feature by feature

Constant Contact vs MailerLite are both very efficient email service providers. They offer unique features that set them apart from other email marketing platforms.  

In this section, we’ll conduct a performance review of MailerLite vs Constant Contact. We’ll critically analyze each feature and give a verdict on which tool is better.   

Ease of getting started

The signup process and ease of use are important factors when evaluating an email marketing tool. 

Both MailerLite and Constant Contact provide a quick and easy way to get started. However, there are some differences in their onboarding process.

Constant Contact offers a straightforward signup setup. You can create an account and start building your email campaigns with ease. There are no technical details, and the interface is user-friendly. 

MailerLite set up

In contrast, MailerLite requires you to answer many questions when signing up. It takes you through a rigorous account confirmation process. 

MailerLite’s interface is more robust. Its wizard provides clear directions on what users need to do after signup. This feature is particularly useful for beginners who need help exploring the platform.

At first glance, MailerLite has some unique features, which include: 

• iPad subscribe app: This app enables you to acquire subscribers on the go directly through your iPad or iPhone
• Email verifier: This guarantees your email list has accurate and deliverable addresses
• Paid newsletter subscription: This allows you to provide exclusive content or benefits to paid subscribers  
• Website builder: This offers basic functionalities to create a landing page or a simple website

While both platforms are easy to use, Constant Contact wins. It asks fewer questions in the beginning.

Building an email campaign

MailerLite email editor 

Mailerlite provides three email campaign builders:

• It has a standard, beginner-friendly drag-and-drop editor. There are quizzes, surveys, and product listing elements to add to your emails.
• It also has a rich-text editor to create emails with a personal touch.
• A custom HTML editor for advanced design control is available on the highest-tier plan.

Constant Contact email editor

Similarly, Constant Contact’s email builder is easy to use. The navigation and content layout are intuitive. Although the wizard’s logic differs from Mailchimp’s, Omnisend’s, and some other platforms, it takes a minute to figure this out and start using it.

On Mailerlite, in addition to standard content blocks, you will find a countdown timer and features that allow you to add Twitter and Facebook posts directly to an email. Also, Mailerlite’s email campaign offerings include a rare feature that automatically resends campaigns to non-openers, a capability that only a few email platforms possess.

The Constant Contact email wizard doesn’t lag behind. You can find here polls, RSVP, product content blocks, social sharing and many other features. We find it very good. The only negative thing we experienced was the lagging product content block; it took some time to load the products.

Now, let’s discuss their email templates. Both MailerLite and Constant Contact offer email templates for different occasions. 

MailerLite boasts a collection of over 90 pre-designed email templates. However, they are only accessible on paid plans. Constant Contact also offers many occasion-ready templates, but some seem outdated.

The personalization feature is similar on both platforms. You can add personalized elements to both tools’ subject lines, preheaders, and email content. 

However, personalization on MailerLite isn’t as direct as on Constant Contact. We had to go through their knowledge base to learn how to personalize the preheader and email content.

Constant Contact allows you to personalize interactions by adding dynamic links to your emails. Meanwhile, MailerLite allows you to embed Twitter and Facebook posts directly within your email campaigns. 

MailerLite also offers a unique feature that automatically resends your campaign to subscribers who haven’t opened the initial email. This unique feature is a valuable tool for improving campaign performance and engagement.

Constant Contact indeed presents fierce competition to MailerLite in this round. However, we think that Mailerlite is a bit better regarding email campaigns.

Marketing automation

Next, let’s compare the marketing automation capabilities of MailerLite vs Constant Contact. 

Constant Contact automation

Whether you choose Constant Contact or MailerLite, both platforms offer user-friendly automation features. Constant Contact’s interface includes standard titles and names of the automation functions. This feature makes it easy for beginners to navigate the platform.

MailerLite automation

In terms of pre-built automation workflows, MailerLite offers 15 automation templates to build on from scratch. There are no ready-to-use workflows, only workflow structures.

Here are some of MailerLite’s automation templates:

• Simple welcome email
• Win back subscribers
• Retargeting emails
• Abandoned cart
• Birthday wishes
• Membership renewal, and others.

Constant Contact also offers 15 suggested marketing automation templates. Additionally, it allows you to integrate other marketing channels, like SMS. However, this comes at an extra cost. This function isn’t available on MailerLite as it only sends emails. 

Are there automation features missing in Constant Contact or MailerLite?

Both platforms lack onsite behavior triggers. Overall, we discovered that the marketing automation on both platforms isn’t as robust and sufficient for ecommerce as other email tools like Omnisend or Mailchimp.

Constant Contact wins in this round. The platform seems to have a slight edge over MailerLite in terms of pre-built automation workflows and marketing channel integration.

Signup forms and landing pages

Both platforms offer signup forms and landing pages for building email lists. Let’s take a look at how they differ:

MailerLite signup form builder

• Pre-built signup forms: MailerLite provides 24 user-friendly signup form templates. This includes popups, flyouts, embedded forms, and more.

  
  Meanwhile, Constant Contact offers signup forms like popups, banners, and flyouts. However, it has a single basic form design that you can edit to align with your brand style. The same principle applies to Brevo or Mailchimp. In our opinion, it lacks visually appealing templates.

• Customization: You can customize forms on both tools and adjust forms to your brand colors. However, MailerLite’s user-friendly editor might be easier to navigate and more flexible.

• Analytics: MailerLite and Constant Contact offer basic analytics. For instance, users can check the number of submissions, the number of views, and the conversion rate.

  
  MailerLite analytics goes a step further with A/B testing capabilities and real-time performance monitoring.

• Landing pages: MailerLite shines with intuitive landing pages. It also offers 49 modern, customizable, and visually appealing templates. Constant Contact also offers a landing page builder but doesn’t provide templates.
• List management: Both Constant Contact and MailerLite offer straightforward contact management with tagging, lists, and segments.

Without a doubt, MailerLite takes the lead in this round. It outperforms Constant Contact in every aspect.

Segmentation

In this round of MailerLite vs Constant Contact, let’s examine how both tools perform regarding segmentation capabilities.

MailerLite segmentation

MailerLite doesn’t provide any pre-built segments. Meanwhile, Constant Contact provides four pre-built segments based on customer engagement level. 

This includes:

• Most engaged
• Somewhat engaged
• Least engaged
• Everyone else

Constant Contact segmentation

However, we noticed that Constant Contact didn’t provide any rules for the segments. So, it’s not clear what those segments actually mean.

MailerLite offers multiple segment options. On MailerLite, you can create segments based on various metrics. This includes user interests, email engagement, time zone, location, and completed signup form. You can also combine these segment options.

Meanwhile, on Constant Contact, you have the following segment options:

• List membership
• Ecommerce activity, like the number of orders and the amount spent
• Contact details
• Tags

Overall, both tools have basic segmentation capabilities with no advanced segmentation criteria.

MailerLite lacks other essential segmentation criteria relevant to ecommerce businesses. For instance, it lacks onsite behavior, lifetime value, and purchase behavior. 

Similarly, Constant Contact lacks onsite behavior segmentation criteria. Its pre-built segments need improvement.

Constant Contact leads this round because of its pre-built segments and some ecommerce segmentation offerings.

Analytics

MailerLite offers a simple reporting dashboard, including the usual metrics for email campaign activity, subscriber engagement, devices, popular links, click maps and opens by location. If you connect your store to Mailerlite, you may also track your ecommerce results – the number of orders and revenue generated by email campaigns.

Constant Contact offers very similar insights: email campaign performance, automation revenue, and conversion rates. However, it doesn’t have heatmaps, geo-location reports.

We find it very practical that Constant Contact has a mobile app for accessing campaign results. Mailerlite can’t offer this functionality.

Both platforms lack predictive analytics capabilities.

 It’s a tie. You can get very similar insights on both platforms, so it shouldn’t be the criteria for your decision.

Customer support

Constant Contact’s impressed us with its customer service options. It offers phone support, live chat, email, a help center, and a user community.

It is important to mention that the platform provides several resources. These resources include blogs, video tutorials, webinars, and even onboarding calls. 

One drawback is that support is only accessible on weekdays.

Whereas, MailerLite offers live chat, email support, and help centers. However, free users can only access the live chat and email support for the first 30 days. 

Customers on paid plans can access 24/7 email support. However, only those on the highest-tier plan can access unlimited live chat support.

MailerLite also has many helpful resources, including the blog and YouTube tutorials. It also has the MailerLite Academy, where you can get free online courses on email marketing.

Constant Contact tops this round because of its multi-channel support and range of resources.

Integrations

Whether you choose Constant Contact or MailerLite, you’ll have a good selection of integrations to improve your workflow. 

MailerLite offers a list of 140+ integrations that cut across different categories. These include:

• Signup forms
• CRM platforms like Zoho, Zapier, Google Sheets, Salesforce, and more.
• Ecommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and more.
• Payment gateways like PayPal, Magento, Stripe, and more.
• Design tools like Canva and Vimeo. 

Meanwhile, Constant Contact boasts a selection of 300+ integrations under these categories:

• Lead generation tools
• Ecommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, and more.
• CRM platforms like Salesforce, Wix, Gmail, and others.
• Image and video tools like Vimeo, Canva, and more. 
• Social media integrations with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

These integrations are accessible regardless of the plan you are on.

Both platforms offer useful integrations. However, Constant Contact provides more options. Therefore, Constant Contact takes the lead in this round.

Compatibility with other marketing channels

MailerLite offers no native integration with other marketing channels, except Facebook. However, the Facebook retargeting functionality is only available for users on the Advanced plan.

Constant Contact integrates directly with Facebook Ads and Google Ads. It has native integration with Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

It also offers users in the US SMS marketing as an add-o. This add-on requires additional payment.

Once again, Constant Contact takes the lead. Unlike MailerLite, the platform is compatible with many marketing channels.

Generative AI tools

MailerLite and Constant Contact both offer basic generative Al email tools. MailerLite’s AI subject line generator can generate short email subject lines and preview text for your campaign. 

Constant Contact’s AI content generator integrates into your workflow and suggests email content, images, and subject lines. It provides templates and content blocks that you can easily customize. 

Constant Contact offers more AI assistance. This platform wins.

Price Comparison

Constant Contact vs MailerLite: Which is the cost-effective choice? Let’s find out.

Free plan comparison

Constant Contact has no free plan, but you can use the 14-day free trial to explore its features. 

Conversely, MailerLite has a free plan that includes basic email marketing features. It allows you to send 12,000 monthly emails to up to 1,000 subscribers.

You can get the following features on MailerLite’s free plan: 

• 10 landing pages
• Email automation builder with limited templates
• Drag and drop newsletter editor
• One website
• Ecommerce integrations
• Email A/B split testing
• Email campaign reports
• MailerLite Academy, knowledge base
• Live chat and email support for up to 30 days.

MailerLite offers paid options if you wish to send emails to over 1,000 subscribers each month.

Paid plans comparison

MailerLite offers three pricing plans. Its plans include Growing Business, Advanced, and Enterprise. They are based on the number of subscribers and the feature set.

Similarly, Constant Contact offers the same pricing structure and three pricing plans. Its plans include Lite, Standard, and Premium.

Which plan is more affordable, MailerLite or Constant Contact?

In this section, we’ll briefly examine both tools’ pricing plans to determine which is more affordable.

Both MailerLite and Constant Contact offer competitive pricing with lower initial costs for small subscriber lists.

However, Mailerlite is more affordable in all pricing tiers.

MailerLite vs Constant Contact - which one wins?

MailerLite offers an affordable solution for startups or email marketing beginners to create email marketing campaigns. 

Constant Contact provides more robust options and better compatibility with other marketing channels.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to email marketing software. Ultimately, the choice between Constant Contact and MailerLite depends on your specific business needs and budget.

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Our team strives to be accurate and unbiased in reviewing email tools. However, we recognize that mistakes can happen, and it’s essential for us to stay up to date. If you come across any errors or things that need to be reviewed again, please let us know.