What Is Constant Contact? Email Marketing With Event Tools
By Joris van Huët · Constant Contact's own site
The short answer: if your marketing runs on events, workshops, open days, paid webinars, Constant Contact puts registration, ticketing and the invitation emails in one account, alongside email, SMS and social ads. Paid tickets carry its platform fee on top of the card processor's: 3.5% for events created from 1 August, per its event payments article, read on 24 October 2026.
Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.
Red flags to check before you buy:
- What a ticket really nets. Take a $40 ticket paid by card through Stripe: 2.9% x $40 + $0.30 = $1.46 to Stripe, plus 3.5% x $40 = $1.40 to Constant Contact, so $2.86 per ticket (event payments article). You can pass the platform fee to registrants, not the Stripe fee.
- A tier that only goes up. Your bill is your plan plus a contact tier set by the highest number of active contacts you have had, and deleting contacts does not lower it (billing article). Clean the list before you import it, not after.
- Where you will read the result. Each event's dashboard shows invitation opens, clicks, accepts and declines (invitation article); registrations against invitations sent is the number to watch.
What Constant Contact does
Constant Contact sells email marketing with landing pages, sign-up forms, surveys, SMS, social ads and automation paths. Its event tool builds in-person or virtual, free or paid events with tickets, add-ons, promo codes and a registration form, paid through Stripe or PayPal (event creation guide).
Its AI has two parts: an AI Content Generator on every current plan, and a Campaign Builder on Standard and Premium that drafts emails, social posts, SMS or events for a goal you describe, for you to edit before anything goes out (Campaign Builder article).
Who it suits, and who it does not
It suits small businesses, associations and nonprofits that run events and want one login for invitation, registration and follow-up. It suits less well a team that needs many automations cheaply: Lite allows one active automation path and Standard three (plan comparison).
What it costs
I could not read the prices: on 24 October 2026 the Constant Contact pricing page and homepage returned a bot check to automated reading, so open the pricing page for the figures. The knowledge base documents:
- Three plans, Lite, Standard and Premium, with 1, 3 and unlimited users (plan comparison).
- No contact limit on any plan; the contact tier sets the price, and exceeding the monthly send allowance brings an overage fee (billing article).
- Prepaying gives 10% off for 6 months or 15% for 12, and 20% or 30% for nonprofits; prepayments are not refunded beyond the 30-day money-back guarantee (prepayment guidelines).
How it compares
Mailchimp. Mailchimp lists Essentials from $13 a month and Standard from $20, with overages past a contact or send limit and a free plan for fewer than 250 contacts (Mailchimp pricing). The decider is the event: Constant Contact sells tickets inside the same account that sends the invitation.
MailerLite. MailerLite publishes prices from $12 a month on monthly billing for 500 subscribers on Comfort, with the full feature set on every paid plan (MailerLite pricing). Weigh limits that do not ration automations against built-in ticketing.
A tier that never drops after a clean-up is a pricing design, not an accident: it bills your list's high point, so import only the contacts you will mail.
Getting started
Create the event, tickets and registration form with its marketing opt-in, connect payments, activate and invite: How to use Constant Contact walks through it.
FAQ
Can I run a free event?
Yes. A $0 ticket or a ticketless event can be activated without a payment method, and registrants enter no payment details (event payments article).
Does Constant Contact include SMS?
Premium includes 500 SMS messages a month; on Lite and Standard, SMS is an add-on, according to the plan comparison.
Am I charged in a month when I send nothing?
Yes. The billing article says the monthly fee applies whether or not you send, because it keeps the account, list, forms and reports active.