Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) and Constant Contact represent two different eras of email marketing. Constant Contact has been in the game since 1995, building its reputation on reliability, ease of use, and strong customer support. Brevo emerged as a European challenger that has rapidly evolved into a comprehensive multichannel marketing platform offering email, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, and CRM — all at prices that dramatically undercut established competitors.
This comparison often comes down to a choice between familiarity and value. Constant Contact is the platform your business mentor probably recommends. Brevo is the platform that makes you wonder why you'd pay more for less. Let's dig into the details.
| Feature | Brevo | Constant Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $9/mo (5,000 emails) | $12/mo (500 contacts) |
| Free Tier | Yes — 300 emails/day, unlimited contacts | 60-day free trial only |
| Best For | Budget-conscious SMBs, multichannel marketing | Small businesses wanting simplicity and support |
| Ease of Use | Easy — clean, modern interface | Very easy — designed for beginners |
| Key Strength | Multichannel messaging at aggressive pricing | Ease of use, event marketing, customer support |
Constant Contact's email builder is one of the most beginner-friendly in the industry. The drag-and-drop editor is intuitive, the template library is extensive and well-organized by industry, and the Brand Kit feature automatically pulls your branding elements for consistency. If you've never built a marketing email, Constant Contact makes it painless.
Brevo's email builder has improved substantially and is now competitive with Constant Contact's. It offers a solid drag-and-drop experience, responsive templates, and a clean editing interface. The template selection is slightly smaller than Constant Contact's, but the quality is good. Both platforms get the job done well, though Constant Contact has a slight edge in polish and template variety.
Brevo's automation capabilities are notably stronger than Constant Contact's, particularly on the Business plan and above. Brevo offers a visual workflow builder with triggers based on email engagement, website behavior, transactional events, and contact property changes. You can build multi-step workflows with conditions, delays, and branching — enough for most small business automation needs.
Constant Contact's automation is more limited. You get automated welcome series, birthday and anniversary emails, resend-to-non-openers, and basic behavioral triggers. The Premium plan adds more customization, but even then, Constant Contact's automation doesn't match the flexibility of Brevo's workflow builder. If automation is important to your strategy, Brevo has a clear advantage.
Both platforms offer basic segmentation capabilities. Constant Contact lets you segment by engagement level, demographics, purchase activity, and list membership. Brevo segments based on contact attributes, email engagement, purchase behavior, and custom conditions.
In practice, neither platform offers particularly advanced segmentation. They both cover the essentials — engaged vs. disengaged subscribers, location-based targeting, purchase history — but neither supports the deep behavioral segmentation you'd find in platforms like ActiveCampaign. For most small business use cases, both are adequate.
Constant Contact provides clean, easy-to-read reports with open rates, click rates, click maps, and trend comparisons over time. The data presentation is excellent — even non-technical users can quickly understand how their campaigns performed.
Brevo's reporting covers similar ground with campaign analytics, real-time statistics, and heat maps. The Business plan adds advanced statistics and email engagement scoring. Both platforms provide the analytics most small businesses need, though neither offers the depth of more advanced platforms.
Constant Contact has a strong deliverability reputation built over decades. Their strict anti-spam policies, authentication support, and long-standing relationships with inbox providers result in consistently good inbox placement.
Brevo's deliverability is generally good but can be more variable on shared IP plans, since their large free-tier user base shares infrastructure. The dedicated IP option on the Business plan and above significantly improves deliverability consistency. For critical email programs, Constant Contact's more established deliverability track record is an advantage.
This is where Brevo pulls away. Beyond email, Brevo offers SMS marketing, WhatsApp campaigns, live chat, chatbots, and a built-in CRM — all within the same platform. For businesses that want to reach customers across multiple channels without juggling separate tools, Brevo offers remarkable consolidation. The transactional email capability is another standout — you can handle both marketing and transactional emails (order confirmations, password resets, etc.) from one platform.
Constant Contact focuses primarily on email but has added social media posting, event marketing, and basic SMS. The event marketing tools — including registration pages, invitations, and RSVP tracking — are a unique strength that no other platform in this price range matches. If events are central to your business, this is a genuine differentiator.
At 20,000 emails/mo: Starter is ~$25/mo, Business is ~$35/mo.
At 2,500 contacts: Lite is ~$35/mo, Standard is ~$75/mo. At 10,000 contacts: Lite is ~$80/mo, Standard is ~$160/mo. Constant Contact becomes expensive quickly as your list grows.
The pricing difference is stark. A business with 5,000 contacts sending 20,000 emails per month would pay approximately $25-35/mo with Brevo versus $55-110/mo with Constant Contact. Over a year, that's hundreds of dollars in savings.
Brevo is the right choice for:
Constant Contact still makes sense for:
On pure value, Brevo wins this comparison decisively. It offers more features — multichannel messaging, transactional email, CRM, stronger automation — at a significantly lower price point. The free tier with unlimited contacts is far more generous than Constant Contact's limited trial. And Brevo's pricing model (based on email volume rather than contacts) makes it dramatically cheaper for businesses with large lists.
Constant Contact's advantages are real but narrow: superior ease of use for absolute beginners, unique event marketing tools, and the comfort of a long-established brand with phone support. These matter for specific use cases, but they don't justify the significant price premium for most businesses.
Our recommendation: choose Brevo unless event marketing is a core part of your business or you specifically need the hand-holding of Constant Contact's onboarding and phone support. The cost savings alone are compelling, and Brevo's multichannel capabilities give you room to grow into SMS and WhatsApp marketing when you're ready. Constant Contact is showing its age, and its pricing hasn't kept pace with the value offered by modern competitors like Brevo.
| Brevo | Constant Contact | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | Formerly Sendinblue, Brevo is an all-in-one marketing platform offering email, SMS, chat, and CRM at competitive pricing. | Trusted email marketing platform for small businesses with easy-to-use templates, automation, and event marketing tools. |
| Pricing | Freemium ($0-65/mo) | Subscription ($12-80/mo) |
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