Constant Contact has no free plan. It offers a trial with no card needed, then you pay by list size: up to 500 contacts, Lite is $12 a month and Standard $35 a month; up to 1,000, they’re $30 a month and $55 a month. Lite suits a newsletter you send by hand. Most small businesses that want to schedule their emails belong on Standard.
- How it is priced
- By the size of your contact list
- Starting list price
- $12 a month (Lite)
- Free plan
- No free plan
- Free trial
- 30 days, card required: no
- Checked
- October 13, 2026
Which plan should a small business pick?
Standard, if you want to write an email ahead and have it go out on its own schedule. It adds email scheduling, subject line testing, automatic resend to people who didn’t open, 3 automation templates, reports on who opened and clicked, and 3 users instead of Lite’s 1 user. It’s $35 a month up to 500 contacts, $55 a month up to 1,000, and $75 a month up to 2,500.
Lite, if you’re happy to press send yourself. It has the email editor, templates, sign-up forms, 1 automation template, basic reports, and the same live phone and chat support as the other plans. Its automations run 1 at a time, and that one can be an automated welcome email. At $12 a month up to 500 contacts and $30 a month up to 1,000, it’s the cheapest way into Constant Contact, but no scheduling is a real limit if you send at a set time each week.
Premium is for a business whose email does the selling: automations you build from scratch, automations triggered by shop or invoice activity, full automation reports, unlimited users, and SMS messages included. That’s $80 a month up to 500 contacts and $150 a month up to 2,500. If you can’t name the automation you’d build, you don’t need it yet.
Say you run a family bed and breakfast with about 900 past guests and newsletter sign-ups on your list. You and your partner both handle the marketing, you send a seasonal offer twice a month, and you write the emails on quiet weekday afternoons to go out on Friday mornings.
You’re in the 501 to 1,000 tier. Lite is $30 a month, but scheduling isn’t on it, so one of you would have to be at a screen every Friday morning. Standard is $55 a month: it schedules the Friday send, gives you both a login, and resends the offer to guests who didn’t open it. Two emails a month to 900 people is 1,800 sends, nowhere near Standard’s monthly allowance.
So Standard is the plan. If you’d like new sign-ups to get a welcome email, it can be one of Standard’s automations; Premium isn’t needed for it. Before you import, keep only the guests who agreed to hear from you; a past booking on its own isn’t a newsletter sign-up.
What moves you up a plan or a tier?
Your list size. Each plan is priced by contact tier, and the bill jumps when you pass a tier’s top: Lite is $12 a month up to 500 contacts and $30 a month from 501.
Sending, a little. Each plan’s monthly sends are a multiple of your contact tier, and going over doesn’t stop your emails; it adds a fee for each extra send. For Lite, Constant Contact lists it this way: 10 times the contact tier; overage $0.002 per email. At one email a week you won’t get close.
Then features. The move from Lite to Standard is about scheduling, resending to non-openers, more automation templates, or a second person. The move from Standard to Premium is about more automations than Standard’s 3 automation templates, automations you build from scratch, shop-triggered emails, SMS, or unlimited users.
Skip Constant Contact if
- You want to start free. There’s no free plan here. When a free email marketing plan is enough compares the free plans in this guide and what ends each one.
- Price is what decides it. At 1,000 contacts and about one email a week, the lowest paid bill in this guide is Brevo (Starter) at $17 a month. What email marketing costs at 500, 1,000, 2,500, and 5,000 contacts lays every tool side by side.
- You want several automations running without the top plan. Active automations are 1 at a time on Lite and up to 3 at a time on Standard; past that, and for automations you build yourself, it’s Premium. Do you need automation, or just a newsletter? shows where each tool puts it.
- You email a few dozen customers now and then. A newsletter tool may be more than you need yet: can you send a customer newsletter from Gmail or Outlook? draws the line.
Plans and prices
| Plan (US name) | Monthly | Yearly, per month | Promotional price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lite | From $12 | From $10.20 | None |
| Standard | From $35 | From $29.75 | None |
| Premium | From $80 | From $68 | None |
| Up to | Monthly | Yearly, per month |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $12 | $10.20 |
| 1,000 | $30 | $25.50 |
| 2,500 | $50 | $42.50 |
| 5,000 | $80 | $68 |
| 10,000 | $120 | $102 |
| Up to | Monthly | Yearly, per month |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $35 | $29.75 |
| 1,000 | $55 | $46.75 |
| 2,500 | $75 | $63.75 |
| 5,000 | $110 | $93.50 |
| 10,000 | $160 | $136 |
| Up to | Monthly | Yearly, per month |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $80 | $68 |
| 1,000 | $110 | $93.50 |
| 2,500 | $150 | $127.50 |
| 5,000 | $200 | $170 |
| 10,000 | $275 | $233.75 |
What each plan includes
- Lite
Limits: Users: 1. Monthly email sends: 10 times the contact tier; overage $0.002 per email. Automation: 1 automation template. Active automations: 1 at a time. Custom segments: 1.
- users: also from constantcontact.com/pricing, checked
- Active automations: also from knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/email-digital-marketing/articles/KnowledgeBase/43904-Getting-started-with-the-Automation-Path-Builder?lang=en_US, checked
- Standard
Limits: Users: 3. Monthly email sends: 12 times the contact tier; overage $0.002 per email. Automation: 3 automation templates. Active automations: Up to 3 at a time. Custom segments: 10.
Adds: 3 automation templates, AI campaign builder, Automatic resend to non-openers, 10 custom segments.
- users: also from constantcontact.com/pricing, checked
- Active automations: also from knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/email-digital-marketing/articles/KnowledgeBase/43904-Getting-started-with-the-Automation-Path-Builder?lang=en_US, checked
- Premium
Limits: Users: Unlimited. Monthly email sends: 24 times the contact tier; overage $0.002 per email. Custom segments: Unlimited. SMS messages included: 500.
Adds: Unlimited automation templates, Custom automations, Ecommerce templates, Unlimited custom segments, 500 SMS messages included.
- users: also from constantcontact.com/pricing, checked
Every figure is the whole monthly bill for the contact tier, not a price per contact. The yearly column is the per-month price when you prepay for a year. Constant Contact’s own pages differ on welcome emails: the pricing page lists auto-send welcome emails under Premium, while its help center says every plan allows a single automated welcome email, which is what this page follows.
Costs that are easy to miss
- The pricing page opens on yearly prices. It shows “Annual” first, so the figure you see is lower than the monthly bill, and yearly means prepaying twelve months. Lite up to 500 contacts is $12 a month billed monthly and $10.20 a month prepaid yearly.
- Going over your sends costs extra, quietly. Your emails still go out and the overage is added to your bill. If you send more than once a week to a big list, check your allowance before a busy month.
- Add-ons change the price. SMS on Lite and Standard, and Inbox Preview, are billed on top of the plan. Premium includes some SMS messages.
- The guarantee has a deadline. New plans come with a money-back guarantee if you cancel within 30 days of signing up. Use the trial first, and if you buy, decide within that window.
- Nonprofits pay less. If your organization is a nonprofit, Constant Contact gives a larger discount for prepaying a year.
Our view
Constant Contact suits an owner who wants a person to call: live phone and chat support and onboarding come with every plan, Lite included. Our position: use the trial, then pick Standard on monthly billing if you schedule your emails, and Lite if you don’t. Stay off Premium until you’ve written the automated emails it would send. What you give up is price and a free start. At 1,000 contacts, Lite is $30 a month and Standard $55 a month, while the lowest paid bill in this guide at that size, for about one email a week, is Brevo (Starter) at $17 a month. If you don’t expect to pick up the phone, compare the other tools at your size before you buy.
Your next step
Start Constant Contact’s trial (no card needed), import the people who agreed to hear from you, and send your next newsletter from it. Notice whether you wanted to schedule it. Before the trial ends, pick Standard if you did and Lite if you didn’t, at the tier your list falls in, on monthly billing.