Top 7 Alternatives to Constant Contact

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Constant Contact, it is one of the leaders in e-mail marketing services. They allow small businesses to create and manage e-mail lists and professional looking newsletters. The site boasts to have serviced over 130,000 customers (Update: As of June 2009, they've almost doubled to 250,000 customers). The company went public earlier this month and nearly doubled its offering price on the first day.

We use the service ourselves at Team and a Dream and are extremely satisfied with it (Click on the banner above for a free 60-day trail). However, I wondered what other companies offered the same service after I heard about the IPO. After talking to some of our clients and browsing through the web, I’ve compiled a list of seven alternatives to Constant Contact (in no particular order).

1. iContact – In addition to creating, sending and tracking e-mail newsletters, you can also create and send surveys, blogs, and RSS feeds. iContact offers a free trial without requiring a credit card and the next level starts at $9.95 a month. This service charges you on the number of contacts you have - not the number of e-mails sent or a flat fee basis. The platform also works with Macs (not common with other platforms).They've also partnered with a third party to improve how many e-mails get through to recipients. Look for the 20% discount if you're a non-profit. The service recently won the Web 2.0 Award for "Best Marketing Application." Update: Subscriptions now include auto-responders and surveys. 
2. VerticalResponse – This company offers a pay as you go model or a monthly subscription. They seem to be one of the few services to integrate with Salesforce and Intuit. In addition to offering surveys, they also allow you to send postcards from your browser. You can customize your postcards online and VerticalReponse will send them for you - offering a unique and an additional way to get in touch with your prospects or customers. Their rates are comparable - with $10/month for up to 500 emails and $120/month for as many as 16k emails. 
3. MailChimp - Offering a pay-per-email or a monthly plan option, MailChimp lets you customize how you want to be billed. The most notable difference is how they allow users to perform A/B testing of your subject lines. Their monthly plan starts at $10 for 500 subscribers and goes up to $240 for up to 50k. Pay-per-you-go pricing starts at three cents per email and decreases accordingly as more credits are purchased.  Update: MailChimp has launched a "Forever Free Plan" that allows you to send 3k/emails a month as long as your contact list is less than 500 contacts. 
4. Newsberry – Another e-mail campaign service that allows you to create your e-mail, send it to your list, and track the results. The difference is that they offer a pay as you go model based on the number of e-mails – not a monthly subscription like Constant Contact.
5. ReachMail – The company services small businesses in addition to large enterprises. They also offer XML integration to keep your e-mails frequent and streamlined.
6. ennectMail – Also has a pay as you go model, charging five cents per e-mail. A unique feature I noticed here is what they call “HotPlots.” This shows you who your hottest prospects are, how well your e-mails are working, as well as your contacts participation over time.
7. Emma – This company is praised for their customer service as well as their intuitive features. Their service includes custom designs, which are available for a fee. It is the most expensive option out of the seven and is also the only site I’ve seen that charges a one-time setup fee of $250. Update: Emma is offering special startup pricing. Click here for more details.

Bonus: For those looking for an enterprise solution, Infusionsoft combines email marketing, CRM and ecommerce solutions. Their most impressive feature is what they call a "an automatic follow-up engine" which they guarantee will double your sales (has anyone tried these guys?). Offering a 15-day free trial, monthly pricing starts at $199/month for 10k contacts and 25k emails/month. 

If you’ve encountered or use a service we haven’t mentioned, please share your experiences with us by adding a comment below.

By: Yasmine

Comments

[Dave Delaney]

Hi Skip:
Thanks very much for the link love. If you'd like to learn more about Emma please shoot me an email. Feel free to drop by our nifty blog if you like, we'd love to have ya. www.myemma.com/blog

Cheers,
Dave

[Sam Freedom]

The one thing that would REALLY help any business owner who wanted to SWITCH services is knowing what is each company's "first time import" policy.

There's just no way in heck I'm transferring over to any company no matter what their deliverability rate if it's going to crush my business with a RESUBSCRIBE policy.

I understand THEIR concerns but they don't trump mine as a marketer who knows ALL TOO WELL the reading habits of most people. Sure, each one has their DIE-HARD fans who read every last email that comes their way.

But there are way more who subscribe to a newsletter just to stay IN THE LOOP and sometimes they check out ever 4th or 5th email. And they might never get that new FIRST email.

I had one company tell me to keep steady dripping the old list with mentions of the new list. Well, the problem with that is what if the reason one is leaving the OLD company is because their delivery rates were dismal?

So the only choices, it seems, are between staying with a DISMAL deliverability rate AND moving to a new company whose resubscribe policy will have you losing a LOT of hard-earned readers.

That's why I suggest to each company reading this to consider SOME kind of process by which a prospective client can be individually evaluated if requested. I have many good referrals and have been in a large family owned business for 30 years but I, along with everyone else, am regarded in the same light as a SPAMMER when I want to transfer my readership to a new service.

Something about that doesn't seem right.

Regards,
Sam Freedom

[Steven]

Hi,

Just thought you'd like to know about Contactology. We get a lot of folks who are looking for an alternative to Constant Contact signing up with us. We offer personalized service and a unique feature called EasyCast which lets users send their emails using Outlook. Thanks!

[Amanda Fier]

Another good thing to know about these programs is if it matters at all whether you're a PC or Mac user... All in all, however, this is a very helpful little write-up. Thank you.

[Jeff Paul Scam]

since I became a big IT freak. I started internet marketing for the last four months and still looking for material that can help my marketing.

[Kamagra Discount]

great article... thanks!

[chris]

Great post on alternatives for email marketing

[nino]

My gratitude as well ;)

[Accounting Tutor]

Any feedback from other users on the quality/value of the alternatives. About ready to sign up with Constant Contact but want to make sure that I am making the right decision.

[Translation Company]

We are also looking at Constant contact. Any other advice from users of the software?

[Yasmine]

I'm most familiar with Constant Contact and iContact. Constant Contact is a bit clunky and the interface could be nicer but it works pretty well depending on the features you need. iContact is a bit more user-friendly but it's hard to guage if it's right for you without knowing what features you need. Both offer a free trial if you want to give them a test run though.

Hope that helps!

Yasmine

[Heather]

Thanks for the great review points on email marketing providers. We just submitted the company I work with,RatePoint, for you to review. RatePoint’s easy-to-use, Web-based communication services include feedback tools, email marketing, survey and dispute resolution capabilities to provide businesses with the ability to collect, manage and promote customer feedback directly. Would love to hear your feedback.

[karambo]

I was looking for this kind of explanation for quite a while already, thanks for sharing.
http://healthnova.org

[Adam]

For senders looking for their own IPs for SMTP, Greatmail provides affordable dedicated email servers optimized for high volume. Our server configurations are customized to match volume, frequency and usage habits and pricing is fixed monthly.

[crazyguy]

nice read! thanks for this note !

[Dale Dreher]

Constant Contact is charging me $150.per month for my 11,000 contacts, fine. But, now they Stage and hold my emails when I send out. According to CC 6 Spam reports in 3000 is enough to shut me down. That is unacceptable to me, I know my clients or prospective clients, I want a service that I control, not them controlling me. Anyone know of a service like Constant Contact that doesn't tell dictate to me the quality of my email list?

[Rick]

Now that constant contact has event management tools, how about a list of alternative services like www.eventbrite.com and www.ettend.com?

[Skip Shuda]

@Rick - thanks for the suggestion! We'll take a look at that topic.

[Adam]

ShiftMail provides UK based email marketing that works on a pay as you go basis.

http://mail.shiftcreate.com/

[psychology dissertations]

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