Constant Contact vs SparkPost | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 7.7 out of 10

Based on 555 reviews and ratings

Score 6.3 out of 10

Based on 11 reviews and ratings

Likelihood to Recommend

Constant Contact is terrific for an organization with a marketing budget that would like to send out a variety of emails with visuals, videos, surveys and/or coupons. It's a quick way to reach thousands of potential and/or current customers at a reasonable price. However, for the startup or the company that is very concerned about budget, there is no free version and the monthly paid versions can be a bit more pricey than some comparable competitors.

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Director of Sales

GlobalyceumE-Learning, 1-10 employees

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Our early experiences with SparkPost were great; we were looking for a low-cost (or no-cost) solution to our email messaging needs, and SparkPost had the best low-cost option: 100,000 messages per month for free, guaranteed for life. Even though our team has experience with other APIs, we chose SparkPost because it felt like the best value. Our experience with it was great. Two years ago, they discontinued their free option but sent the existing users the following message: "When you signed up, we promised that if we ever changed the terms of our 100K free plan, we would continue to honor the original plan for the life of the account. I would like to reaffirm this promise: while this plan is no longer available to new customers, you are grandfathered into this level of free sending volume."The following year, apparently following a change in leadership, they decided to "deprecate" existing free plans, dropping us down from 100,000 messages per month to 500, the lowest of any email API service I'm aware of. No recognition of the broken promise, the reneged guarantee, just a 20% off coupon. This atrocious behavior that reeks of a new culture of squeezing as much money as possible out of its users and has coincided with a steady deterioration of functionality and customer service. At this point, I have no idea why anyone would pay more for a worse service that treats its users so poorly when you could use SendGrid or a similar competitor for a lower price and way more features.

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Verified User

Director in Research & Development

Legal Services Company, 11-50 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Constant Contact

SparkPost

WYSIWYG email editor

Dynamic content

Ability to test dynamic content

Landing pages

A/B testing

Mobile optimization

Email deliverability reporting

List management

Triggered drip sequences

Constant Contact

SparkPost

Dashboards

Standard reports

Custom reports

Pros

We are a huge fan of the numerous templates that may be used for designing emails.
Constant Contact also allows for our organization's brand (logo, colors, and fonts) to be easily incorporated into designs.
The metrics and data gathered from email campaigns is very detailed and helpful.

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Verified User

Employee in Marketing

Non-Profit Organization Management Company, 1-10 employees

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Good Documentation
Developer focused
Supports sub-accounts
Good support
Integrates with Laravel out of the box

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Chief Technical Officer, Software Developer

Assessment GeneratorComputer Software, 1-10 employees

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Cons

This system is great and I do not have much to say against, I just wish they could improve the search filter of email campaigns made previously, and include a search field that allows you to find campaigns related to the phrase name included in that field of search.
I really don't have any dislikes with the software now that I am familiar with the product.

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Verified User

Professional in Finance and Accounting

Human Resources Company, 1001-5000 employees

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I really like SparkPost, it was really useful to achieve our goals

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Member of the Technical Staff

ioet ltdInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Constant Contact 8.0

Based on 19 answers

There is no doubt that we are going to renew Constant Contact. We have not just invested a lot of time in learning and creating a great looking product but we have developed a strong database of information that allows us to track how we are doing for each newsletter. This supports our goals of creating products that residents desire and are excited to receive.

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Ty Swartz, CPP, USN Ret.

Multimedia Communications Supervisor

Virginia Beach City GovernmentGovernment Administration, 5001-10,000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

Constant Contact 8.9

Based on 8 answers

There is always room for improvement. I don't know how they test their systems, but they should invite not-so computer savvy people to test it. If I, as an expert have problems, they need to think like the technophobe. Since I've used Constant Contact in the past as part of my former employment, I have not viewed any of the tutorials and just jumped in to work on my client's newsletter. With that said, I found some areas easy and some a bit cumbersome

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Owner, Consultant

AZ Social Media WizInternet, Myself Only

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Reliability and Availability

Constant Contact 9.0

Based on 2 answers

No major problems in sending out the email campaigns and accessing the analytics

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Verified User

Manager in Research & Development

Public Policy Company, 11-50 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Performance

Constant Contact 10.0

Based on 2 answers

The system seemed quite slow sometimes. Specifically, there was sometimes a delay in sends if it was during a high traffic period. There were time-outs when uploading new code for an email, and a lag in reporting analytics which was sometimes as long as 72 hours

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Verified User

Employee in Marketing

Retail Company, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Constant Contact 3.0

Based on 8 answers

I think the overall support for Constant Contact has always been incredible; I have nothing negative to say. Our customer support representative was attentive, easy to understand, and very knowledgeable. I never felt like I wasn't a priority of his and my issues, while very small, were fixed in a very short time frame.

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Verified User

Administrative Assistant in Marketing

Real Estate Company, 51-200 employees

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SparkPost 1.0

Based on 1 answer

Would give it a zero if I could. Their customer service used to be incredible; fast response times, really hands-on with their users, and a pretty regular feedback process. They sent me an awesome t-shirt that became part of my go-to climbing gear. But for the past year, their response times went way down, their customer service was less helpful and generally a lot more rude, and they haven't asked for customer input once since their leadership change

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Verified User

Director in Research & Development

Legal Services Company, 11-50 employees

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Implementation Rating

Constant Contact 8.0

Based on 4 answers

Implementation is very easy for someone who wants to send out the “batch and blast” type newsletters. If you want to use their templates with no customizations, the product works fine. However, the more customizations you get into involving link color, etc, that’s where things can get tricky for someone who may not be familiar with coding

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Verified User

Employee in Marketing

Retail Company, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

I think if I were coming in with nothing in hand, I would have chosen MailChimp over Constant Contact. Constant Contact won because it was the incumbent and we're satisfied.The time and operating cost of moving from one platform to another was higher than the expected return on that change. I don't think anything about Constant Contact is much better or worse, in my view, than the other.Pretty lukewarm, I know. But it's honest!

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Chief Operating Officer

Reflexive Performance ResetSports, 1-10 employees

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ExactTarget, Marketo CRM. These are completely different types of systems, but their email element is similar.

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Verified User

Manager in Marketing

Real Estate Company, 11-50 employees

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Scalability

Constant Contact 10.0

Based on 1 answer

Very reliable in sending email campaigns and controlling the recipients so that no contact is sent the same email more than once, even if they are on a resent list

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Verified User

Manager in Research & Development

Public Policy Company, 11-50 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Many of our clients use a variety of email management services, and Constant Contact is usually chief among them. This keeps our team sharp and up to date for customer service inquiries.
Constant Contact is extremely reliable. It's been applicable and has grown with trends in digital marketing over the last decade to stay at the top as a best-in-class provider.
The reporting tools help to give a sense of how well campaigns are performing (or not performing) and gives insight on how to create future campaigns in more effective ways.
The lack of Google Analytics integration on the app is a hinderance for marketing managers who use the robust API on a variety of other platforms that seamlessly integrate with the service.
Higher pricing for integrating social media and surveys, and other additional service, is a drawback for the average user on a budget – especially when competitors offer those services for free.

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Digital Marketing Manager

LGD CommunicationsMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

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It has helped us with our IP health and making sure that we avoid spam traps
Very high deliverability and automatic retrying once they have the event

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Software Engineer II

CareerBuilderHuman Resources, 1001-5000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Rating Summary

Constant Contact

SparkPost

Constant Contact

SparkPost

Constant Contact

SparkPost

Constant Contact

SparkPost

Constant Contact

SparkPost

Constant Contact

SparkPost

Constant Contact

SparkPost

Constant Contact

SparkPost

Constant Contact

SparkPost

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