Constant Contact vs. Twilio SendGrid

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Constant Contact
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Constant Contact is a full-featured email marketing solution with capabilities such as social media integration, drag-and-drop editing, and real-time reporting. It is a bulk email tool designed for SMB customers. Since 2019, Constant Contact also offers marketing automation features, a website and landing page builder, and other tools to support midsize businesses.
$12
per month
Twilio SendGrid
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns provides users with segmentation, campaign editing, and deliverability. According to the vendor, Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns is trusted by over 80,000 customers globally, including Airbnb, Spotify and Uber. Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns aims to help users by providing: MORE EFFICIENT EMAIL BUILDING The campaign building process is free from frustrating, rigid step-by-step wizards that slow users down. The vendor says…
$15
per month
Pricing
Constant ContactTwilio SendGrid
Editions & Modules
Lite
Starting at $12.00
per month
Standard
Starting at $35.00
per month
Lead Gen & CRM
Starting at $449.00
per month
Premium
Starting at $80.00
per month
Basic
$15
per month
Advanced
$60
per month
Free
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Constant ContactTwilio SendGrid
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe SMS Marketing tool can be added to any Core or Plus Constant Contact account. SMS is only available in the US for Core and Plus paid plans. SMS can be added when logged in to an account after purchase. Plans start at $10/month for up to 500 messages.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Constant ContactTwilio SendGrid
Considered Both Products
Constant Contact
Chose Constant Contact
Constant Contact is much more intuitive for people who are not tech-savvy. Also, while sendgrid offered more options in it's drag and drop interface, it displayed differently across different email clients, which made it very cumbersome to use. It also took much longer to …
Chose Constant Contact
Simplest to use, great GUI, and awesome support! For SMB and startups, email marketing isn't their specialty, so having support is essential.
To design a beautiful email can be challenging, but with CC, you put in your website and it can create custom emails using the colors …
Twilio SendGrid
Chose Twilio SendGrid
Some of the other platforms we have used in the past appeared to be cheaper up front, but in the long run... they were a lot more costly than Twilio SendGrid. Some of the other email marketing tools did not offer drag and drop features that make building an email campaign easy …
Chose Twilio SendGrid
All of the aforementioned competing services don't have a transactional email component along with their email marketing campaign services. Also, SendGrid is the most economical value of the 4, while 2nd place goes to MailChimp with regard to pricing. I liked SendGrid out of …
Chose Twilio SendGrid
For transactional email, SendGrid is hard to beat. When your use case includes transactional emails as well as marketing email sends, SendGrid is a one-stop shop.
Chose Twilio SendGrid
Most cost effective was the reason we chose this one. It is absolutely the most bang for your buck without spending a lot of money. This also comes at a cost as there are less templates, less features, and the customer service can be difficult to utilize.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Constant ContactTwilio SendGrid
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Constant Contact
8.0
113 Ratings
2% below category average
Twilio SendGrid
7.8
46 Ratings
4% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor8.097 Ratings7.733 Ratings
Dynamic content7.998 Ratings7.936 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content8.382 Ratings8.134 Ratings
Landing pages8.172 Ratings7.622 Ratings
A/B testing7.069 Ratings8.526 Ratings
Mobile optimization8.586 Ratings9.034 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting9.1109 Ratings7.646 Ratings
List management8.2111 Ratings5.940 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences7.157 Ratings7.520 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Constant Contact
8.0
110 Ratings
2% above category average
Twilio SendGrid
7.9
46 Ratings
1% above category average
Dashboards8.388 Ratings8.444 Ratings
Standard reports8.1108 Ratings8.544 Ratings
Custom reports7.458 Ratings6.928 Ratings
Pre-Send Testing
Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Product A and Product B
Constant Contact
8.0
62 Ratings
6% below category average
Twilio SendGrid
9.1
8 Ratings
7% above category average
URL Validation8.231 Ratings9.38 Ratings
Link Tracking7.934 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Image Validation8.832 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Inbox Display8.535 Ratings9.38 Ratings
Email Accessibility Tools7.928 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Spelling and Grammar Check7.849 Ratings8.66 Ratings
Spam Testing6.026 Ratings9.38 Ratings
Email Previews9.061 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Constant ContactTwilio SendGrid
Small Businesses
VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse
Score 10.0 out of 10
ReachMail
ReachMail
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse
Score 10.0 out of 10
VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Emma by Marigold
Emma by Marigold
Score 8.6 out of 10
Emma by Marigold
Emma by Marigold
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Constant ContactTwilio SendGrid
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(128 ratings)
5.7
(57 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.7
(23 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(10 ratings)
1.0
(4 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(9 ratings)
3.0
(9 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Constant ContactTwilio SendGrid
Likelihood to Recommend
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is an excellent tool for sending out flyers and newsletters. However, I feel the content's appearance is typically all the same. When I receive an email from Constant Contact, I can immediately identify it - the templates usually all look the same. When sending out communications with images, it is easy to use Constant Contact and link webpages. However, the email layout is always vertical and can get very lengthy. I prefer a more flip-book approach with options to flip the page.
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Twilio
I think Sendgrid is a great tool for sending out emails of all types. I've primarily used it for transactional emails as we've had other solutions for marketing emails, but I'm sure it would do just a good job - there is a "Marketing" section within the app you can use. Sendgrid integrates really easily with the development frameworks I've used, such as Laravel and Lumen; I've also integrated it with Moodle with ease.
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Pros
Constant Contact
  • Market segmentation is great: my main segmentation is by region because that's how our sales team is divided.
  • Lists: making customized email lists is easy and intuitive; the custom fields allow some flexibility in case our fields don't exactly line up with Constant Contact's.
  • Campaigns: creating campaigns is quick and simple. I especially appreciate the 'resend to non-openers' option. I am constantly using this feature.
  • Subject line generator: I like using the recommended subject lines. I'm able to plug in their recommended ideas, or sometimes, this feature helps me generate my own ideas.
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Twilio
  • Managing email lists / audiences is easy with features like groups and segments.
  • They provide pre-built email templates that are very easy to modify. It is also super easy to create new email templates with their drag-and-drop email builder.
  • Provides clear / easy-to-read analytics of email campaigns.
  • I can easily import large email contact lists all at once or add a user manually one-at-a-time, when needed.
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Cons
Constant Contact
  • It would be nice if we had more customizable options for emails - like moving around pictures and text boxes, rather than a set spot for everything to go.
  • I would like it if multiple people could work on a document at one time. So if I'm in charge of graphics, I can get those updated while someone else is entering content, etc.
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Twilio
  • Not necessarily their Email API but their email in general - they are currently in beta for automated email sequences but are still bare bones. Much more work is needed before it can be used mainstream and be able to convert everything to SendGrid.
  • Helping with warming up our dedicated IP for the best-sending score.
  • We seem to hit the promotions folder a decent amount (maybe the IP problem above) and even a lot of their emails hit my spam or promotions folder (whether they be transactional or marketing) which isn't a great sign when trusting an ESP.
  • Transactional email sequences would be a huge plus.
  • Now that Twilio owns SenGrid, having an integrated platform where you could see all our transactional emails together.
  • Better reporting and split reporting between transactional and marketing emails.
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Likelihood to Renew
Constant Contact
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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Twilio
No answers on this topic
Usability
Constant Contact
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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Twilio
It has the potential to be really cool. However, it feels as if it was created by developers for developers (and I work with developers, yet even for me the instrument was somewhat not easy to use - just read SendGrid's help manuals...) However, if you are into data and your way of thinking is more mathematical rather than lyrical, you'll enjoy this instrument
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Reliability and Availability
Constant Contact
No major problems in sending out the email campaigns and accessing the analytics
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Twilio
No answers on this topic
Performance
Constant Contact
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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Twilio
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Constant Contact
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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Twilio
Twilio SendGrid Email API is everything we want it to be, and we have no reason to look for any other solution. Features and pricing match exactly what we need. As developers for SaaS products, Twilio SendGrid Email API provides a great service. I hope that they stay this way and don't inflate the service with too many marketing oriented features, because there are other tools for that and Twilio SendGrid Email API is a API for sending email first and foremost.
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Implementation Rating
Constant Contact
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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Twilio
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is much more intuitive for people who are not tech-savvy. Also, while sendgrid offered more options in it's drag and drop interface, it displayed differently across different email clients, which made it very cumbersome to use. It also took much longer to upload contact lists and it was harder to manage existing contacts. Performance in sendgrid was much slower as well, and the Preview feature was quite buggy. Our team initially chose sendgrid because of the integration options that it's API offered, but we ultimately switched to Constant Contact because it was much easier to build campaigns and better suited our requirements.
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Twilio
If given a choice between the two, I would pick Mandrill over SendGrid. Mandrill is slightly more expensive but the data & reports that you receive from it make the service worth it. Mandrill lets you export reports over a period of time, view the actual content of emails that you've dispatched and the customer support is way better. If you can bear the slightly higher cost, Mandrill would be a better choice.
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Scalability
Constant Contact
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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Twilio
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Constant Contact
  • I have had nothing but positive impacts from using Constant Contact.
  • The church is large, and there are many subgroups and axillary groups within the church. Setting up specific groups based on responsibility, interest, member goals, and service needs allows me to send information quickly, saving valuable time for other tasks.
  • Constant Contact allows leadership to stay personally engaged with the members I work with, without over-taxing my time. It feels so seamless.
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Twilio
  • Our clients experience significant ROI from their web forms - without receipt of forms, many of them would not still be in business.
  • As a solution for clients' sites, we find SendGrid is a fast installation and a 1 stop problem solver, saving us man-hours.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Constant Contact Screenshots

Screenshot of The AI Content Generator can be used to create content for emails, social posts, or SMS.Screenshot of Advanced Automation workflows make sure marketing is always on.Screenshot of Hundreds of pre-built email templates are available or a simple drag-and-drop email editor is available to start from scratch.Screenshot of The Social Posting tool is used to plan and post Social media messaging across platforms.Screenshot of SMS Marketing can reach customers wherever they are.Screenshot of E-commerce tools can be integrated with Constant Contact to sell more.