MailerLite vs. Constant Contact

Choosing the right email marketing tool can be a game-changer for your business. Two often talked-about services in this arena are MailerLite and Constant Contact. Both platforms offer unique features and benefits, catering to a wide range of business needs and marketing strategies. To help you make an informed decision we are giving you a quick overview of both providers and pointing out their differences to get you started with the best platform for you needs.

MailerLite Overview

MailerLite stands out in the crowded field of email marketing with its user-friendly interface and affordable pricing. Known for its simplicity and effectiveness, MailerLite caters to businesses of any size and industry, offering a range of tools that are both powerful and easy to use. It's particularly favored by those who don't need a complex solution with advanced features without breaking the bank, as it provides a straightforward way to create impactful email campaigns and automations.

Highlights

• Simplicity and Ease of Use: Intuitive drag-and-drop editor and straightforward campaign setup
• Affordable Pricing: Competitive pricing, making it a go-to choice for businesses with basic needs
• Feature Set: Despite its simplicity, MailerLite offers many features like automation, segmentation, and detailed analytics

Constant Contact Overview

Constant Contact is a heavyweight in the world of email marketing, known for its robustness and extensive range of cross-marketing features. It's a top choice for businesses looking for an all-in-one marketing solution that goes beyond just email. Constant Contact offers a variety of templates, automation options, and plenty of integrations, making it suitable for businesses that want to cover multiple marketing needs.

Highlights

• Comprehensive Toolset: Wide array of features including social media ads management, SEO, event management, and survey tools.
• Easy of use: The interface is intuitive and easy to navigate with helpful guides and templates along the dashboard.

Buying Guide

When deciding between MailerLite and Constant Contact, we have to keep in mind that we are talking about an email marketing software.

MailerLite delivers just that with features built around the purpose of email marketing (e.g. the ability to create landing pages with the purpose to collect emails). The software is simple, affordable, and has all essential features to create email campaigns and automations with ease and without any overwhelming options.

Constant Contact, on the other hand, is doing a lot of things – and as harsh as it sounds – it doesn't do it well. Instead of concentrating on one area, i.e. email marketing, and providing a great product, they try to be a solution for everything that fails to deliver where it's most needed. The email marketing features are not bad at all, but since you pay for everything and most people only use part of it, it makes little sense to opt for the software if you are primarily looking for an email marketing solution.

The only real advantage Constant Contact has over MailerLite is that you can include SMS messages as part of your marketing automation flows. Everything else regarding email marketing, MailerLite does either better or just as well. In addition, Constant Contact only offers a limited free trial while MailerLite is completely free to start with until you upgrade for more features (or if your contact list reaches the limit).

Overall, it can be said that Constant Contact only makes sense if you want to use it for your email marketing, SEO, social media management and ads, as well as a small storage space for creatives – all at the same time. Since most companies prefer to use specialized tools for each of these areas, the potential use case is rather small.

If you're just looking for email marketing software, then MailerLite is clearly the better choice. It is cheaper, is not severely limited by different plan levels, and offers a well-balanced product making is a great solution for any business with basic email marketing requirements.

Final Remarks

While MailerLite excels in email marketing with simplicity and affordability, Constant Contact stands out with its comprehensive feature set and versatility. For email marketing, MailerLite is the clear winner, as it outweighs Constant Contact in features and plan structure, delivering a much better price-performance ratio.