Email Marketing Small Business (1-10)

Constant Contact vs Brevo: 2026 Small Business Email Comparison

Constant Contact ($12+/mo) vs Brevo ($9/mo). Automation depth, cancellation friction, and 72% Gmail deliverability compared.

11 features compared

EmailTool™ Score

How we score

Composite score based on features, pricing, deliverability, and reported friction severity.

Constant Contact 68
Brevo 80

Cost Calculator

Estimated monthly cost based on your contact list size.

contacts

Constant Contact

$42/mo

No free tier

Brevo

Free/mo

Free tier: 100,000 contacts

Brevo saves you ~$42/mo at 5,000 contacts.

Estimates based on published starting prices with proportional contact scaling. Actual pricing varies by plan tier and billing cycle. Check vendor sites for exact quotes.

Feature Comparison

Constant: 2 | Brevo: 9
Feature Constant Contact Brevo Edge
Starting price $12/mo Lite $9/mo Starter Brevo
Free tier None 300 emails/day forever Brevo
Price at 10K subs ~$95/mo Lite ~$35/mo Brevo
Cancellation path Phone-only — no web cancellation Self-serve web cancellation Brevo
Automation builder depth Limited branching/conditional logic Multi-step with conditional logic Brevo
Gmail inbox placement Industry-average ~90% 72% (67.7% all-time low) Constant
Auto-suspension risk Standard review 0.2% complaint rate = suspension Constant
Template design Outdated per reviewers Modern + drag-and-drop Brevo
Copy-paste behavior Random font size/color changes Stable formatting Brevo
SMS + WhatsApp included No Yes (separate credits) Brevo
X/Twitter social integration None — manual posting Native social scheduling Brevo

Real Friction Points

Manually researched issues reported by actual users. Not AI-generated.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact runs nearly 2× the cost of alternative platforms at scale — the Lite plan at 10K and 50K subscribers beats MailerLite's highest tier on price per emailtooltester comparison. Cancellation is phone-only; you literally cannot end your subscription through the web interface and have to call customer service per emailtooltester and sitejabber. Automation offers limited branching and conditional logic, templates are design-dated, copy-paste randomly changes font size/color, and there's no X/Twitter integration — social posts must be published manually.

Brevo

Brevo's Gmail inbox placement sits at just 72%, and June 2023 marked an all-time low of 67.7% overall deliverability per Encharge.io and emailtooltester tracking. Brevo auto-suspends accounts when complaint rates exceed 0.2% — Capterra reviewers report campaigns suspended even while maintaining 25-41% open rates. The free plan is capped at just 300 emails/day (too tight for most active lists), and Trustpilot complaints consistently describe 2-3 day support ticket delays with a meaningful share never getting a response at all.

The Verdict

Choose Brevo almost any time a small business is comparing these two head-to-head — it's cheaper, has a free tier, better automations, SMS support, and no phone-cancellation trap. Choose Constant Contact only if Gmail inbox placement is the top priority and you're willing to pay ~2× more for it; otherwise the feature and pricing gap keeps widening.

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