Constant Contact vs. HubSpot: Which Email Marketing Platform is Best for Your Small Business?

Introduction: Choosing the Right Marketing Engine

The decision between Constant Contact vs HubSpot is a critical one for any small business looking to grow its digital presence. Both platforms offer powerful tools for engaging your audience, but they serve fundamentally different needs. Constant Contact is a dedicated, user-friendly email marketing service, while HubSpot is a massive, all-in-one Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and marketing automation suite.

If you are a small business owner or a beginner marketer, the complexity and cost of a full CRM can be overwhelming. This comprehensive guide breaks down the key differences between HubSpot vs Constant Contact—from ease of use and features to pricing and affiliate potential—to help you choose the platform that will deliver the best results for your specific goals.

What They Are: Email Marketing Specialist vs. All-in-One CRM

To understand the comparison, it is essential to define what each platform is at its core:

•Constant Contact: This platform is a veteran in the email marketing space, focusing almost exclusively on helping small businesses and non-profits create, send, and track professional email campaigns. It is designed for speed and simplicity, allowing users to get started with minimal technical knowledge.

•HubSpot: HubSpot is a comprehensive CRM platform that offers a suite of “Hubs” for Marketing, Sales, Service, and Operations. Its Marketing Hub, which includes email marketing, is built on top of this powerful CRM, making it an all-in-one solution for managing the entire customer lifecycle.

Features and Benefits: A Head-to-Head Comparison

While both tools offer email creation and contact management, their feature sets diverge significantly, especially as you move into advanced automation and segmentation.

Feature	Constant Contact	HubSpot Marketing Hub
Ease of Use	Excellent. Very easy to use and set up, ideal for beginners and small teams.	Moderate to Complex. Can be confusing due to the sheer number of features and different “Hubs.”
Target Audience	Small businesses, non-profits, and beginners who prioritize email marketing.	Growing businesses and enterprises that need an integrated CRM, sales, and marketing solution.
Email Templates	Hundreds of professionally-designed, highly customizable templates.	Fewer templates, but the email builder offers more advanced styling and design control.
Contact Segmentation	Basic segmentation based on engagement, demographics, and list membership.	Advanced. Powered by a robust CRM, allowing for deep segmentation based on lifestyle stages, custom properties, and sales data.
Landing Page Builder	Limited number of templates with basic customization options.	Broad selection of templates with advanced customization and A/B testing capabilities.
Automation	User-friendly, visual automation builder for simple, personalized journeys (e.g., welcome series, birthday emails).	Advanced. Powerful workflow builder for complex, multi-step user journeys across all Hubs (marketing, sales, service).
AI Features	Includes an AI writer for generating email copy and multi-channel campaign content.	Provides AI assistance for content generation, contact segmentation, and workflow automation (Breeze AI).

Pricing: Affordability vs. Scalability

Pricing is often the deciding factor for small businesses, and this is where the difference between the two platforms is most stark. Constant Contact is designed to be affordable, while HubSpot’s full power comes with a significant investment.

Constant Contact Pricing (Starting at $12/month)

Constant Contact’s pricing is straightforward and based on the number of contacts you have. It offers three main tiers:

Plan	Starting Price (up to 500 contacts)	Best For
Lite	$12/month	Absolute beginners and micro-businesses.
Standard	$35/month	Most small businesses needing basic automation and segmentation.
Premium	$80/month	Businesses requiring advanced features and multi-channel campaigns.

Constant Contact does not offer a free plan but provides a generous 30-day free trial to test all features.

HubSpot Marketing Hub Pricing (Free Tools Available)

HubSpot offers a free tier, but its paid plans quickly become expensive, especially for the features that truly compete with Constant Contact’s automation.

Plan	Starting Price	Best For
Free Tools	$0/month	Basic email, forms, and CRM for testing the platform.
Starter	$20/month	Small teams that need more than the free tools, including ad management and landing pages.
Professional	$890/month	Businesses that require full marketing automation, custom reporting, and SEO tools.

The Critical Difference: While HubSpot has a free tier, the advanced features that make it a powerful marketing tool are locked behind the Professional tier, which starts at a steep $890 per month. For a small business, this cost is often prohibitive.

How to Use: Getting Started and Daily Workflow

Constant Contact is built for the “get-going-quickly” mentality. You can import your contacts, choose a template, and send your first professional email in minutes. The dashboard is clean, and all the tools you need for a campaign are immediately accessible.

HubSpot, by contrast, requires a steeper learning curve. Because its email tool is integrated with the CRM, setting up your first campaign involves configuring contact properties, understanding the different “Hubs,” and navigating a more complex interface. While this complexity offers greater power for advanced users, it can slow down a small business owner who just needs to send a newsletter.

Pros and Cons

Constant Contact	HubSpot
Pros	Pros
Affordable and transparent pricing for small businesses.	All-in-One platform that integrates marketing, sales, and service.
Extremely easy to use with a minimal learning curve.	Powerful CRM for deep contact segmentation and management.
Excellent customer support and hundreds of professional templates.	Advanced automation capabilities for complex user journeys.
Cons	Cons
Automation and segmentation features are less advanced than HubSpot’s.	Very expensive for small businesses to access full features (Professional tier).
Not a full CRM; you may need to integrate a separate sales tool.	Steep learning curve and can be overwhelming for beginners.

FAQs

Is HubSpot better than Constant Contact for a small business?

For most small businesses and beginners, Constant Contact is better. It provides all the essential email marketing tools at an affordable price and is significantly easier to use. HubSpot is only better if your small business has a large budget and requires a fully integrated CRM and sales platform from day one.

Does Constant Contact have a free plan?

No, Constant Contact does not have a free plan, but it offers a 30-day free trial to test all its features. HubSpot offers a suite of free tools, but the most valuable marketing features are in its expensive paid tiers.

Which platform is easier to set up?

Constant Contact is much easier to set up. Its focus on email marketing means you can import your list and start sending campaigns almost immediately, without the need to configure a complex CRM.

Conclusion and Next Steps

The choice between Constant Contact vs HubSpot ultimately comes down to your budget and your business’s complexity.

For the vast majority of small businesses, entrepreneurs, and content creators, Constant Contact is the clear winner. It provides a powerful, easy-to-use, and affordable platform that allows you to focus on what matters: engaging your audience and growing your business without breaking the bank or getting lost in a complex system.

If you are ready to start building your email list and sending professional campaigns today, take advantage of their free trial.

Constant Contact offers a high-value, low-cost entry point into professional email marketing, making it the smarter choice for budget-conscious growth.

Don’t let complexity slow you down. Choose the platform that lets you hit the ground running and scale affordably.