Constant Contact vs HubSpot: An Email Tool or a Shared CRM

The short answer: if one or two people send newsletters and run ticketed events for a list, and nobody in sales needs the same contact record, Constant Contact is the smaller, closer tool: events, invitations and ticket payments sit in the email account, with its own 3.5% fee on tickets for events created from 1 August (event payments article). If marketing and sales must work from one record, HubSpot is built for that: its free tools cover up to 2 users, and Marketing Hub Starter is $10 a seat a month paid monthly, or $7 paid annually, as a new-customer offer against a $20 list price, with 1,000 marketing contacts (HubSpot marketing pricing, checked on 26 October 2026).

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Constant Contact's pricing page returned a bot check to automated reading on 26 October 2026, so its plan prices are not on this page. Open it in a browser for the figures; everything else about Constant Contact below comes from its knowledge base.

Three checks before a demo call:

1. Count sends, not contacts. HubSpot Starter allows sends of 5 times your marketing contact tier a month (HubSpot pricing); Constant Contact allows 5, 10, 12 or 24 times the top of your contact tier depending on plan, and charges $0.002 for every send over (send allowance article). For example, 1,000 contacts mailed eight times a month is 8,000 sends: 3,000 over HubSpot Starter's 5,000, and on a 5x Constant Contact plan, 3,000 x $0.002 = $6 of overage.
2. Find where your contact records live today. If sales already keeps deals in a spreadsheet or another CRM, HubSpot can hold them: non-marketing contacts are stored free up to 15 million, and only marketing contacts count toward the paid tier (HubSpot pricing FAQ). If nobody outside marketing touches the list, that capacity buys nothing.
3. Name the result you will check. Registrations per invitation for an events business; meetings booked from email-sourced contacts for a sales-led one. Pull last quarter's number before either trial.

How each one bills you

From Constant Contact's billing article, plans article and send allowance article, and HubSpot's marketing pricing page and its FAQ.

Where they part

An event desk or a shared record

Constant Contact sells tickets inside the account that sends the invitation. Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per order, Constant Contact adds its platform fee of 3.5% for events created on or after 1 August, and you choose whether registrants pay that fee or you absorb it (event payments article). HubSpot's pitch is the record: contacts, companies, deals, tickets and email activity in one CRM, with agents built on top (HubSpot pricing, MCP docs). Neither is the bigger tool for every job. A bakery's workshop calendar and a SaaS sales team need different centres.

Both bills only go up mid-term

Constant Contact bills the highest number of contacts you have held, and deleting contacts does not lower the tier (billing article). HubSpot lets you mark contacts as non-marketing at any time, updated once a month, but a chosen tier cannot be lowered until the contract renews (HubSpot pricing FAQ). In both, a careless import costs money for the rest of the term, so clean the file before it goes in.

Who gets a login

Constant Contact's Lite plan includes one user, Standard three and Premium unlimited (plans article). HubSpot prices Starter per seat; Professional includes 3 core seats and adds more from $45 a month each paid annually or $50 paid monthly (HubSpot pricing).

HubSpot's prices, checked on 26 October 2026

Source: HubSpot marketing pricing. Constant Contact's plan prices could not be read on 26 October 2026; see its pricing page.

An agent finds the contacts you are paying to ignore

HubSpot's MCP server lets an AI client read per-contact email engagement and create static segments; marketing-contact status is not among its documented write actions (HubSpot MCP docs). Two months before renewal, ask the agent for marketing contacts with no opens or clicks in the last six months and have it put them in a static segment. A person reads twenty of them, removes any that sales still works, and only then sets the rest to non-marketing inside HubSpot, so the tier at renewal reflects the people you mail.

Constant Contact's AI is its Campaign Builder, on Standard and Premium, which drafts emails, social posts, SMS and events from a goal for you to edit before anything goes out (Campaign Builder guide).

The free step first

HubSpot's free tools take two users and 2,000 sends a month with branding, enough to load a real list, connect a form and see whether sales opens the records (HubSpot pricing). For Constant Contact, run your next event's invitation and ticketing on paper first: fee per ticket, who absorbs it, and how many sends the invitation sequence takes against the allowance.

HubSpot shows the Starter seat at a new-customer price beside the $20 list price, and its FAQ says a contact tier cannot be lowered until renewal: the offer brings you in at the bottom, and the tier rule keeps the bill at its high point. Read both lines before you click buy.

Choose Constant Contact if your job is

• Promoting and selling tickets to events from the same account that emails your list.
• Sending newsletters with one to three people, without a CRM to maintain.
• Paying for a contact tier and nothing else.

Choose HubSpot if your job is

• Giving sales and marketing the same contact record, with deals and email activity side by side.
• Starting free with two users and growing seat by seat.
• Letting an AI client read and segment the CRM over MCP.

Sometimes the comparison is a symptom: two teams keep their own lists because nobody has decided who owns the customer record. That is a team question before it is a software one, and an interim CMO, which I sell, settles it with the people involved before any licence is bought.

FAQ

Why are Constant Contact's prices missing here?

Its pricing page showed a bot check instead of content on 26 October 2026. The knowledge base says the bill combines your plan and contact tier, with current prices on the pricing page and in the account's Plans and Pricing page (billing article).

Do automated emails count toward Constant Contact's send allowance?

No. Welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders and automated series are excluded; scheduled campaigns and resends to non-openers count (send allowance article).

Does HubSpot Professional require paid onboarding?

Yes. HubSpot's FAQ says onboarding is charged automatically when you buy Professional or Enterprise, and not on Starter (HubSpot pricing FAQ).