Best known as an email marketing platform, Constant Contact offers customer relationship management (CRM) features such as contact management, sign-up forms, and segmentation. Launched in 1998, it now has 600,000 customers worldwide, ranging from small businesses and sole proprietors to government agencies like NASA. It has generally positive reviews, with 4.4 stars from over 2,700 reviews on Capterra and a 4.0-star overall rating from over 5,700 reviews on G2.
In 2021, we expanded Constant Contact's CRM capabilities by acquiring SharpSpring and rebranding it to Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM. Below, we'll dive into everything you need to know about Constant Contact and whether it's right for your business. All rates and fees are accurate as of June 5, 2024 and are subject to change.
Constant Contact CRM
| price: | From $299 |
| Free trial period: | 0 |
| Free plan available: | no |
Strong Points
- Marketing automation makes it easy to automate repetitive tasks like email campaigns based on contact behavior.
- Integrate your email marketing with your CRM for consistent messaging
- Lead Scoring
- Activity feed showing your hottest leads
Cons
- Not as many CRM features as competitors
- Limited integration
- Still a bit clumsy
- Pricing is opaque, and you'll need to sign up for a demo to find out more
While Constant Contact is primarily built for businesses that want to manage their email marketing campaigns, it supports all stages of the customer lifecycle, from lead generation to capture to follow-up. It's a great option for anyone who wants to maintain regular communication with their contacts. For example, you can further personalize your contacts' experience by running targeted email campaigns based on their behavior and interactions.
Constant Contact may not be a good fit for larger organizations or those with more advanced CRM needs. It offers a wide range of services, but most of them are centered around email marketing with a CRM accompaniment, not CRM at all. Despite adding SharpSpring to its lineup of CRM features, integrations are still in transition and can be a bit unwieldy for businesses of any size. Unlike many of its competitors, it doesn't yet offer extensive third-party integrations or advanced predictive analytics. That means it's not a good fit for multi-tiered, complex organizations, despite a high starting price that's not suitable for startups or small businesses. Plus, all pricing details are locked behind a mandatory demo, so if you want to get started quickly or have a tight budget, consider other products.
Constant Contact Service Plan Overview
To sign up for Lead Gen & CRM, you'll need to get a sales demo so your rep can figure out what type of features you need from your plan. Each service is fully customized to your needs, including competitor enterprise-level plans. Plans start at $299 per month and can include features like sales reports, activity feeds, lead organization, call recording with Sales Dialer, conferencing, and more.
Other services offered by Constant Contact
- Sales Dialer: This will enable you to make outgoing calls directly from the contact details and record calls.
- Chance Withdrawal: This is where you organize all your contacts. You can schedule tasks, create new opportunities, write and pin notes, add products, and create custom fields.
- meeting: Connect with team members or contacts in person, over the phone, or via Zoom (if integrated).
- ReportsThese reports include pipeline value, opportunity health, conversion analysis, wins and losses, sales performance, sales optimizer, activity, and follow-up.
- CRM Migration: If you have another CRM account that you want to migrate to Constant Contact, you can do so using a comma-separated values (CSV) file.
Constant Contact Platform and Customer Support
Finding the information you need on Constant Contact's website is an exercise in patience, especially when it comes to their Lead Gen & CRM products. The SharpSpring service acquisition may have added some complexity, but it's been three years since the acquisition and it's a bit frustrating to have it this clunky even after more than a year.
For example, when you click on the price for Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM, you are taken to a demo page with no pricing information whatsoever. However, there is a menu button at the top of that page that lists the prices, but when you click on it, it displays the price for email marketing, which is misleading as it is significantly lower than the actual CRM price. I had to contact chat support to find out the price, but I was told it was all custom and starts at $299/month.
Support is available via live chat weekdays from 3AM to 8PM EST. Phone support is available Monday through Saturday, with hours varying by department. You can also get additional help by searching our knowledge base, visiting our user community, watching video tutorials, and attending free webinars with live Q&A sessions.
Is Constant Contact safe?
Constant Contact has had one notable security breach, as well as several smaller account-specific breaches.
- In May 2021, the Russia-linked group NOBELIUM compromised USAID's Constant Contact account and launched a spear-phishing campaign targeting more than 7,000 accounts from various organizations around the world, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), intergovernmental organizations, and government agencies.
- Some users have reported that their accounts have been compromised – for example, Constant Contact accounts have sent phishing emails disguised as legitimate invoices, and some have reported that multi-factor authentication (MFA) has been bypassed to compromise their accounts.
Constant Contact User Reviews
The CRM portion of Constant Contact has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on G2 with 865 reviews. People say the platform is easy to use and great for email marketing, and they love the drag-and-drop functionality. The integrations make things easier. Some users are frustrated with Constant Contact's customization limitations, automation features, bugs, and restrictive pricing structure.
Compare Constant Contact alternatives
 Constant Contact |
 Zoho |
 Zendesk Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Basic monthly fee per user | Basic monthly fee per user | Basic monthly fee per user |
| From $299 | From $20 | From $25 |
| Maximum Number of Users | Maximum Number of Users | Maximum Number of Users |
| Unlimited (premium plans available) | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Free trial period | Free trial period | Free trial period |
| 0 | 15 days | 14 days |
| learn more |
Is Constant Contact Right for You?
Constant Contact is best suited for mid-sized businesses that don't need a lot of customization. These businesses will find it easy to use thanks to its integrated marketing tools and support. However, larger organizations that require complex automation or lots of third-party integrations should look elsewhere. The lack of pricing transparency is a big problem. After all, if you don't know what features you're paying for, you can't decide whether you need more or less features to fit your budget. For this reason, it can be used by small and medium-sized businesses, but you have to be prepared to pay for it.
FAQ
Does Constant Contact offer a CRM?
Constant Contact acquired the SharpSpring name and brand in 2021. The CRM portion of Constant Contact is now called Lead Gen & CRM and is priced separately from the email marketing platform.
How much does Constant Contact CRM cost?
Pricing for Constant Contact's Lead Gen & CRM is customized to each business but starts at $299 per month, and you'll need to schedule a demo with the sales team to get a personalized quote.
Is anyone still using Constant Contact?
From small businesses and nonprofits to large enterprises and government agencies like NASA, Constant Contact is a popular email marketing platform. The CRM portion was acquired in 2021 and is one of the newest additions to the company's arsenal, but it's still widely used by many different types of businesses.
