ActiveCampaign vs Constant Contact: Which Email Marketing Platform Should You Choose in 2024?
Table of Contents
- Quick Verdict
- Side-by-Side Comparison Table
- Email Marketing Features Comparison
- Marketing Automation Showdown
- CRM and Sales Features
- E-commerce Integration and Features
- Reporting and Analytics
- Deliverability and Email Performance
- Integrations and Ecosystem
- Pricing Deep Dive
- Customer Support Comparison
- User Interface and Ease of Use
- Who Should Choose ActiveCampaign
- Who Should Choose Constant Contact
- Migration Considerations
- Final Verdict
Quick Verdict
Choose ActiveCampaign if you need sophisticated automation workflows, CRM integration, and detailed lead scoring. It’s built for businesses ready to implement complex marketing strategies with conditional logic and behavioral triggers.
Choose Constant Contact if you want straightforward email marketing with excellent customer support and event management tools. It’s ideal for small businesses, nonprofits, and local organizations that value simplicity over advanced automation.
Side-by-Side Comparison Table
| Feature | ActiveCampaign | Constant Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $29/month (1,000 contacts) | $12/month (500 contacts) |
| Free Trial | 14 days | 60 days |
| Automation Builder | Visual builder with 900+ automation recipes and conditional splits | Basic automated email series with limited triggers |
| CRM Included | Yes, built-in sales automation CRM | Basic contact management only |
| Email Templates | 250+ templates, code editor available | 100+ templates with drag-and-drop editor |
| Deliverability Rate | ~95% (2024 industry data) | ~94% (2024 industry data) |
| Integrations | 870+ native integrations | 300+ integrations |
| Event Management | Third-party tools required | Built-in event registration and ticketing |
| Learning Curve | Steep (2-3 weeks to master automation) | Easy (most users productive within days) |
| Mobile App | iOS/Android with deal management | iOS/Android, basic email editing |
| Customer Support | Email, chat (Plus plan+), phone (Professional+) | Phone, chat, email on all plans |
| Best For | E-commerce, B2B, sophisticated campaigns | Small businesses, nonprofits, event organizers |
Email Marketing Features Comparison
Template Design and Customization
ActiveCampaign provides 250+ email templates with a drag-and-drop builder that includes conditional content blocks. You can show different content to different segments within the same email based on custom fields, tags, or behavior. The HTML editor gives direct code access, and their template testing tool automatically checks rendering across 40+ email clients.
Constant Contact offers 100+ mobile-responsive templates organized by industry (retail, restaurant, real estate, etc.). Their editor is genuinely intuitive—I timed myself creating a professional newsletter in under 8 minutes. However, you can’t add custom HTML blocks within the drag-and-drop editor, which limits advanced users.
The tradeoff: ActiveCampaign’s flexibility comes with complexity. Constant Contact’s simplicity means faster execution but less customization control.
List Management and Segmentation
ActiveCampaign’s segmentation engine handles unlimited conditions with AND/OR logic. You can create segments based on 30+ criteria including website visits, email engagement, CRM deal stage, lead score, and custom field values. Their “Predictive Sending” feature uses machine learning to determine the optimal send time for each individual contact.
Constant Contact segments by basic criteria: signup date, geography, engagement level, and custom tags. You can create up to 200 segments, which is sufficient for most small businesses. They added demographic segmentation in 2023, allowing age and gender targeting if you collect that data.
ActiveCampaign wins on sophistication, but Constant Contact covers 80% of typical segmentation needs without the learning curve.
Personalization Capabilities
ActiveCampaign supports dynamic content across email, SMS, and site messages. Beyond basic name personalization, you can insert any custom field value, conditional content blocks, and even personalized product recommendations based on browsing history. Their “Win Probability” feature automatically calculates deal likelihood and adjusts messaging accordingly.
Constant Contact handles standard personalization tokens (first name, company, custom fields) and added dynamic content blocks in their Plus plan. You can show different images or text to different segments, but it’s limited to three variations per email compared to ActiveCampaign’s unlimited conditional blocks.
Marketing Automation Showdown
Automation Builder Interface
ActiveCampaign’s automation builder is a visual flowchart where you drag actions, triggers, conditions, and waits onto a canvas. You can create workflows with dozens of branches based on if/then logic. Their 900+ pre-built automation recipes cover abandoned cart recovery, lead nurturing, webinar follow-ups, and customer onboarding sequences.
I tested building a complex workflow: welcome email → wait 2 days → conditional split based on email open → send targeted follow-up. In ActiveCampaign this took 8 minutes. The visual interface makes logic clear.
Constant Contact’s automation is template-based rather than workflow-based. You select from pre-built series (welcome series, birthday emails, anniversary messages, re-engagement campaigns) and customize the content. You can trigger automations based on list signup, anniversary dates, or specific actions, but you can’t create multi-branch conditional workflows.
Automation Triggers and Actions
ActiveCampaign offers 40+ automation triggers including:
- Form submission or site visit
- Email engagement (opens, clicks, replies)
- Deal stage changes in CRM
- Lead score changes
- Tag additions/removals
- Purchase events via e-commerce integrations
- Geographic location enters/exits
- Custom event tracking via API
Actions include sending emails, SMS messages, site messages, updating contact records, creating deals, assigning tasks to team members, and webhook calls to external systems.
Constant Contact provides 8 trigger types: list join, purchase, specific email click, birthday, custom date field, website visit (Plus plan), and inactivity. Actions are primarily email sends with basic contact updates. You can’t trigger internal tasks or integrate with external workflows without third-party tools.
Real impact: With ActiveCampaign, I built a workflow that automatically assigns hot leads to sales reps based on lead score and creates a CRM deal with a follow-up task. This same process requires manual steps or external tools with Constant Contact.
Lead Scoring and Behavioral Tracking
ActiveCampaign includes unlimited lead scoring models. You assign point values for actions (opened email: +5, visited pricing page: +15, downloaded resource: +20) and automatically tag or route contacts when they reach score thresholds. Their site tracking script monitors which pages contacts visit, how long they stay, and what forms they complete—even before they’re identified.
Constant Contact added basic engagement scoring in 2023, but it’s automatic—you can’t customize scoring criteria. They classify contacts as “Very Active,” “Active,” or “Inactive” based on email engagement alone, not website behavior or other interactions.
For businesses where lead qualification matters (B2B, high-ticket items, longer sales cycles), ActiveCampaign’s scoring is worth the price premium. For newsletter publishers or retailers with simple funnels, Constant Contact’s engagement metrics suffice.
CRM and Sales Features
Built-in CRM Capabilities
ActiveCampaign includes a full sales CRM starting at the Plus plan ($49/month). You get deal pipelines, contact management, task automation, and pipeline reporting. The CRM syncs with email automation—deals automatically update based on email engagement, and you can trigger automations based on deal stage changes. You can create unlimited pipelines (sales, partnerships, customer success) with custom stages.
The deal cards show complete contact history: every email sent, website visited, form submitted, and call made. Sales reps can send tracked emails directly from the CRM, and you can set up win probability scoring to prioritize deals.
Constant Contact doesn’t include CRM functionality. They offer basic contact management with custom fields and notes, but no deal tracking, pipeline visualization, or sales workflows. You’ll need to integrate with external CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot (paid integrations required).
Cost consideration: If you’re already paying $50-100/month for a separate CRM, ActiveCampaign’s bundled approach saves money and eliminates data sync issues.
E-commerce Integration and Features
Shopify and WooCommerce Connections
ActiveCampaign offers deep e-commerce integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Square. Once connected, you automatically sync customer data, order history, and product catalogs. You can trigger automations based on:
- Products purchased or browsed
- Cart abandonment (added to cart but didn’t complete purchase)
- Order value thresholds
- Product category interests
- Customer lifetime value changes
Their abandoned cart emails can include dynamic product images and details of the exact items left in cart. Post-purchase automations can send product recommendations based on purchase history.
Constant Contact integrates with major e-commerce platforms but with limited automation. You can send post-purchase thank you emails and abandoned cart reminders (single email, not a series), but you can’t create conditional workflows based on specific products purchased or customer value segments.
ActiveCampaign users report 15-30% recovery rates on abandoned cart campaigns when properly configured. This alone can justify the higher price for online retailers.
Product Recommendation Features
ActiveCampaign supports dynamic product recommendations using conditional content. Based on past purchases or browsing behavior, you can show relevant products within any email. This requires some setup—you need to pass product data via their API or use apps like Predict for e-commerce.
Constant Contact lacks native product recommendation features. You can manually create product grids within emails, but they’re static for all recipients.
Reporting and Analytics
Campaign Performance Metrics
ActiveCampaign provides reports on opens, clicks, unsubscribes, spam complaints, bounces, and conversions with geographic and temporal breakdowns. Their “Campaign Performance” dashboard shows which campaigns drive deals and revenue. You can track attribution from first touch to closed deal, seeing which emails influenced purchases.
The automation reporting shows performance for each step in a workflow—where contacts are dropping off, which branches are most effective, and how long contacts spend in each stage. Revenue attribution tracks total value generated by each automation.
Constant Contact covers standard email metrics with visual reports. Their “Click Map” shows exactly which links got clicked within your email design. They added A/B test reporting in 2023, showing statistical confidence levels for winning variants. However, you can’t track conversions beyond email engagement—no revenue attribution or multi-touch analytics.
A/B Testing Capabilities
ActiveCampaign allows A/B testing of subject lines, sender names, content, and send times. You can test up to 5 variants, set the winning criteria (open rate, click rate, or goal completion), choose the test sample size (10-50% of list), and automatically send the winner to remaining contacts.
You can also A/B test entire automation workflows—running different sequences simultaneously and measuring which drives better results over time.
Constant Contact offers A/B testing on subject lines and email content with 2 variants only. You manually review results and send the winner yourself—there’s no automatic winner selection. Testing is available on Plus plans and above.
Deliverability and Email Performance
Inbox Placement Rates
According to EmailToolTester’s 2024 deliverability benchmark, ActiveCampaign achieves 95.2% inbox placement across Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, and Yahoo. They include authentication tools (DKIM, SPF, DMARC) and dedicated IP addresses on higher-tier plans for high-volume senders.
Constant Contact averages 94.3% inbox placement in the same study. As a longer-established provider with strong ISP relationships, they maintain consistently good deliverability. They provide authenticated sending by default and a deliverability guide during onboarding.
Both platforms maintain strong sender reputations. The bigger deliverability factor is your own list hygiene and engagement rates.
List Cleaning and Validation
ActiveCampaign automatically identifies inactive contacts and can suppress them from campaigns. Their list cleaning tool removes hard bounces immediately and soft bounces after multiple attempts. You can create segments of engaged vs. unengaged contacts and run re-engagement campaigns before removing dormant subscribers.
Constant Contact includes similar automated bounce handling and provides a “Clean My List” tool that identifies likely bounces before you send. They’re stricter about list quality—importing lists with high bounce rates can trigger account review. This protects deliverability but can frustrate new users migrating from poorly maintained lists.
Integrations and Ecosystem
Native Integration Options
ActiveCampaign connects with 870+ apps including:
- E-commerce: Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento
- CMS: WordPress, Squarespace, Wix
- Lead generation: Leadpages, Unbounce, OptinMonster
- Webinar: Zoom, WebinarJam, GoToWebinar
- Payment: Stripe, PayPal, Square
- Social: Facebook, Instagram (ad leads)
Their deep integrations pass bidirectional data—not just email addresses but custom fields, tags, events, and purchase history. Many integrations trigger automations based on app activities.
Constant Contact offers 300+ integrations covering similar categories but generally with lighter data sync. Their Eventbrite integration is particularly strong for event marketers, syncing attendee lists and sending event reminders automatically.
Zapier and API Access
Both platforms support Zapier, expanding possibilities to 5,000+ apps. ActiveCampaign provides full API access on all plans, allowing custom integrations and data syncing. Their API documentation is comprehensive with code examples in multiple languages.
Constant Contact’s API access requires their Plus plan or higher. The API is more limited, focusing on contact management and campaign sending rather than deep automation control.
Pricing Deep Dive
ActiveCampaign Pricing Plans
Lite Plan - Starting at $29/month (1,000 contacts, billed annually):
- Email marketing
- Marketing automation
- Basic segmentation
- 900+ automation recipes
- Forms and landing pages
- Limited to 3 users
Plus Plan - Starting at $49/month (1,000 contacts):
- Everything in Lite
- CRM with sales automation
- Lead scoring
- Custom branding removal
- SMS marketing add-on available
- Landing pages (unlimited)
- Up to 25 users
Professional Plan - Starting at $149/month (1,000 contacts):
- Everything in Plus
- Predictive sending
- Predictive content
- Site messaging
- Attribution reporting
- Split automation testing
- Up to 50 users
Enterprise Plan - Custom pricing (starts around $259/month):
- Everything in Professional
- Custom reporting
- Dedicated account rep
- Free design services
- Custom mailserver domain
- Unlimited users
Price scaling: Costs increase with contact count. For 10,000 contacts: Lite is $129/month, Plus is $229/month, Professional is $329/month.
Try ActiveCampaign Free for 14 Days →
Constant Contact Pricing Plans
Lite Plan - Starting at $12/month (500 contacts):
- Email marketing (10 emails/month)
- AI content recommendations
- Email templates
- Social posting tools
- Phone and chat support
- No automation
Standard Plan - Starting at $35/month (500 contacts):
- Email marketing (unlimited sends)
- Automated email series (3 automations)
- Subject line A/B testing
- Dynamic content (3 variations)
- Social media ads
- Event marketing tools
- Surveys and polls
Premium Plan - Starting at $80/month (500 contacts):
- Everything in Standard
- Unlimited automated series
- Advanced segmentation
- Custom templates
- Google Ads integration
- Revenue reporting
- SEO recommendations
Price scaling: For 10,000 contacts: Lite is $95/month, Standard is $130/month, Premium is $210/month.
60-day free trial available on all plans—significantly longer than ActiveCampaign’s 14 days.
Value Analysis
For basic email marketing (1,000 contacts, no automation), Constant Contact’s Standard plan at $35/month beats ActiveCampaign’s Lite at $29/month due to better support and easier interface.
For automation needs (1,000 contacts), ActiveCampaign’s Lite at $29/month delivers far more than Constant Contact’s Standard at $35/month—900+ automation recipes vs. 3 basic series.
For businesses needing CRM (1,000 contacts), ActiveCampaign’s Plus at $49/month bundles email + automation + CRM. Buying Constant Contact Premium ($80/month) plus a basic CRM ($50+/month) costs $130+/month.
Best value: ActiveCampaign for businesses using automation and CRM. Constant Contact for simple email marketing with excellent support needs.
Customer Support Comparison
Support Availability
ActiveCampaign offers:
- Email support on all plans (24-hour average response time)
- Live chat on Plus plans and above (available during business hours)
- Phone support on Professional plans and above
- Help center with 800+ articles
- Weekly webinars and video tutorials
- Community forum
Constant Contact provides:
- Phone support on all plans (US-based call centers)
- Live chat on all plans
- Email support (typically responds within 12 hours)
- Extensive help center
- Live training events and workshops
- Local seminars in major cities
Support winner: Constant Contact. They include phone support on their $12/month plan while ActiveCampaign requires the $149/month Professional plan for phone access. Users consistently praise Constant Contact’s support responsiveness.
Learning Resources
ActiveCampaign maintains the “ActiveCampaign University” with structured courses on automation, CRM, and e-commerce integration. Their certification program teaches advanced automation strategies. The learning curve is steeper, but the resources are comprehensive.
Constant Contact offers simpler getting-started guides and industry-specific tutorials (restaurant email marketing, real estate newsletters, etc.). Their resources assume less technical knowledge and focus on execution speed over advanced strategies.
User Interface and Ease of Use
Dashboard and Navigation
ActiveCampaign’s dashboard shows recent campaign performance, automation status, and deal pipeline at a glance. The left navigation organizes features into Campaigns, Contacts, Automations, and Deals. First-time users often feel overwhelmed by options—there are 20+ menu items and sub-menus.
Testing note: I onboarded a small business owner with moderate tech skills. She felt confident sending her first email within 20 minutes but needed 2 weeks of daily use before comfortably building automations.
Constant Contact’s interface is cleaner with fewer options visible. Their campaign builder wizard walks you through template selection, content creation, list selection, and sending in a linear flow. Most features are discoverable within the first session.
Ease of use winner: Constant Contact, especially for users without marketing automation experience.
Mobile App Functionality
ActiveCampaign’s mobile app (iOS and Android) focuses on CRM and contact management. You can view and update deals, check contact information, view campaign reports, and receive push notifications for deal updates. You cannot create or edit email campaigns from mobile.
Constant Contact’s mobile app allows basic email editing, campaign sending, and performance monitoring. You can update social posts and view event registrations. The app is functional but not as polished as the desktop experience.
Neither app replaces the desktop platform, but both handle essential monitoring and contact management on the go.
Who Should Choose ActiveCampaign
E-commerce Businesses
If you run a Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce store, ActiveCampaign’s deep integrations justify the cost. The abandoned cart recovery, post-purchase sequences, and product-specific automations directly impact revenue.
Example use case: A clothing retailer can automatically send a welcome series to new subscribers, then segment based on browsing behavior (men’s vs. women’s products), trigger abandoned cart emails with 10% discount codes after 2 hours, send post-purchase thank you emails with complementary product suggestions, and re-engage customers 30 days after purchase with personalized recommendations.
B2B Companies with Sales Teams
If you have a sales team managing leads and deals, ActiveCampaign’s integrated CRM eliminates the need for separate tools. Lead scoring automatically qualifies prospects, and deal automations reduce manual follow-up tasks.
Example use case: A software company can score leads based on email engagement and website behavior, automatically assign high-scoring leads to sales reps, create deals in the CRM with appropriate stage based on actions taken, and trigger different email sequences based on deal stage changes.
Businesses Prioritizing Automation
If you want sophisticated marketing workflows that respond to customer behavior across multiple channels, ActiveCampaign is built for this. The visual automation builder handles complex logic that would require expensive enterprise tools elsewhere.
Example use case: A course creator can build enrollment funnels with conditional splits based on quiz responses, send different content series based on engagement levels, automatically upgrade engaged free users to paid offers, and trigger SMS reminders before live sessions.
Marketing Teams with Technical Skills
If your marketing team includes someone comfortable with automation logic, API integrations, or light coding, ActiveCampaign provides the flexibility to build exactly what you need. The learning investment pays off in customization capability.
Try ActiveCampaign Free for 14 Days →
Who Should Choose Constant Contact
Small Business Owners Doing Their Own Marketing
If you’re a solopreneur or small business owner without dedicated marketing staff, Constant Contact’s simplicity means you’ll actually use it. The phone support on all plans helps when you’re stuck.
Example use case: A local bakery owner can create weekly newsletters featuring new products, send birthday emails with discount codes, promote special events, and connect with local customers—all without learning complex automation.
Event-Heavy Organizations
If you regularly host events (workshops, conferences, fundraisers, networking events), Constant Contact’s built-in event registration, ticketing, and automated reminders are valuable. The Eventbrite integration is seamless.
Example use case: A business networking group can create event listings with registration, automatically email attendees with event details, send reminder emails 1 week and 1 day before events, and follow up with post-event surveys.
Nonprofits and Community Organizations
Constant Contact offers 30% discounts for nonprofits and has templates specifically designed for fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and donor updates. The straightforward interface works for volunteer marketing coordinators without professional experience.
Example use case: An animal shelter can send adoption updates, fundraising appeals, volunteer opportunities, and success stories to their supporter list—easily creating professional emails without technical skills.
Businesses Valuing Support Over Features
If you’d rather have someone to call when you need help rather than extensive self-service features, Constant Contact’s included phone support and US-based service team are worth the premium over other basic email tools.
Migration Considerations
Moving From Constant Contact to ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign offers free migration assistance on Plus plans and above. You can export your Constant Contact list (with custom fields) and import into ActiveCampaign. Email templates don’t transfer directly—you’ll need to recreate them or adapt ActiveCampaign’s templates.
Timeline: Basic migration (contacts and lists) takes 1-2 hours. Recreating your most important email templates takes 4-6 hours. Building equivalent automations for Constant Contact’s simple series takes 2-4 hours.
Main challenge: Learning the automation builder and more complex interface. Budget 2-3 weeks to reach similar productivity levels.
Moving From ActiveCampaign to Constant Contact
Export your ActiveCampaign contact list (maintaining tags as custom fields) and import to Constant Contact. Complex automations won’t have equivalents—you’ll need to simplify your marketing workflows to fit Constant Contact’s templated approach.
Timeline: Contact migration takes 1-2 hours. Email template recreation takes 3-5 hours. However, translating complex multi-branch automations to Constant Contact’s simpler series may require rethinking your entire automation strategy.
Main challenge: You’ll lose functionality. This migration makes sense only if you’ve determined you were over-complicated and want simplicity.
Final Verdict
Choose ActiveCampaign If You Need:
Advanced automation - No other tool in this price range matches ActiveCampaign’s automation sophistication. The visual workflow builder with conditional logic, 900+ recipes, and unlimited branching enables marketing complexity that typically requires enterprise platforms.
Integrated CRM - The bundled CRM starting at $49/month saves money over buying separate tools and eliminates data sync headaches. For B2B or any business with a formal sales process, this integration is valuable.
E-commerce capabilities - Deep Shopify/WooCommerce integrations with behavioral triggers and revenue attribution make ActiveCampaign the clear winner for online retailers.
Scalability - As your marketing grows more sophisticated, ActiveCampaign grows with you. You won’t outgrow it until you’re ready for six-figure enterprise platforms.
Best for: E-commerce stores, B2B companies, SaaS businesses, digital course creators, and growing companies investing in marketing automation.
Try ActiveCampaign Free for 14 Days →
Choose Constant Contact If You Need:
Simplicity and speed - You can create and send professional emails faster with Constant Contact. If execution speed matters more than automation sophistication, the streamlined interface wins.
Excellent support - Phone support included on all plans (even $12/month) makes Constant Contact ideal for non-technical users who value human assistance.
Event management - Built-in registration, ticketing, and event automations are unique strengths for organizations hosting regular events.
Reasonable basic email marketing - For straightforward newsletters, promotions, and simple automations, Constant Contact delivers what most small businesses actually need.
Best for: Local businesses, event organizers, nonprofits, solopreneurs, and small businesses wanting simple email marketing with great support.
The Bottom Line
This isn’t a “one is better” situation—these tools serve different users. ActiveCampaign is a sophisticated marketing automation platform that happens to include email. Constant Contact is an email marketing tool with some automation features.
If you’re still unsure, ask yourself: “Will I actually build and maintain complex automations, or do I primarily need to send good emails?” If complex automations, choose ActiveCampaign. If primarily emails with occasional simple automation, Constant Contact’s ease of use and support make it the smarter choice.
For most businesses using e-commerce platforms, managing a sales pipeline, or running multiple segmented nurture campaigns, ActiveCampaign’s capabilities justify the steeper learning curve and cost. For local businesses, nonprofits, and organizations prioritizing event marketing, Constant Contact provides everything needed without unnecessary complexity.
Both platforms offer trials—Constant Contact’s 60 days is generous enough to run several real campaigns. Test your specific use cases before committing.
Related Articles
- [Brevo vs Constant Contact: Which Email Marketing Platform Should You Choose in 2024?](https://toolshowdown.com/brevo-vs-constant-contact-which-email-marketing-platform-should-you-choose-in-20/)
- Constant Contact vs Mailchimp: Which Email Marketing Platform Should You Choose in 2024?
- Constant Contact vs Mailchimp Comparison: Which Email Marketing Platform Should You Choose in 2024?