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2026-11-11 00:00 Tool comparisons

Klaviyo vs Constant Contact (2027): E-commerce Email and SMS for Online Stores or Email Marketing With Events and Surveys for Small Businesses, Prices and Free Plan Compared

Klaviyo vs Constant Contact: Email and SMS for Your Online Store or Email Marketing for Your Small Business?

Klaviyo and Constant Contact both send newsletters and automated emails, but they are built for different businesses. Klaviyo is made for online stores: it pulls in order and browsing data from Shopify, WooCommerce and other shop platforms, runs email, SMS and app messages from one customer profile, and adds product reviews and a help desk. Constant Contact is made for small businesses and nonprofits: newsletters, social posts, events with tickets, polls and surveys in emails, US text messages and live phone help on every plan. Whether you search for Klaviyo vs Constant Contact or Constant Contact vs Klaviyo, the question is the same: do you sell products online, or do you keep a community, clients or donors informed? We checked plans, prices and limits on both official sites on 11 November 2026 and removed what we could no longer confirm.
Quick answer: pick Klaviyo if you run an online store and want abandoned-cart, browse and post-purchase flows plus SMS: it is free up to 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, and the Email plan starts at $20 a month. Pick Constant Contact if you are a local business, service company or nonprofit that sends regular updates, runs events or classes and wants someone to call: Lite starts at $12 a month ($10.20 billed yearly) and Standard, with 3 users and scheduling, at $35 ($29.75 billed yearly).
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Klaviyo vs Constant Contact at a Glance

KlaviyoConstant Contact
What it isB2C CRM for online stores: email, SMS, mobile app, reviews, help deskEmail, social, SMS and event marketing for small businesses and nonprofits
Free optionFree plan: 250 active profiles, 500 emails a month, $5 of mobile messagesNo free plan; free trial with no credit card; 30-day money-back guarantee
Paid plans (USD)Email $20 and Marketing $25 a month at 500 active profiles; Custom above 150,000Lite $12, Standard $35, Premium $80 a month; billed yearly $10.20, $29.75 and $68
Email sends500 a month (Free), 5,000 a month at 500 profiles (Email, Marketing)10x (Lite), 12x (Standard), 24x (Premium) your contacts; $2 per 1,000 extra sends
How you payBy active profiles you can market toBy contacts and email sends
AutomationCampaigns, flows and segmentation on every plan; A/B testing on paid plans1 template (Lite), 3 plus AI campaign builder (Standard), unlimited and custom (Premium)
SMSAdd-on on paid plans; $5 of mobile messages a month on Free; 1,000 US messages $15 in its calculatorUS only: 500 a month on Premium; from $10 a month for 1-500 on Lite and Standard
Store toolsReviews, Customer Hub, Customer Agent and Helpdesk (limits on Free)Ecommerce automation templates on Premium; Shopify integration
Events and surveysNot offeredEvent pages, tickets, promo codes, payments and check-in; polls and surveys in emails
SupportEmail support (first 60 days on Free)Live phone and chat on every plan; live 1:1 onboarding
Integrations400+, including Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, Wix300+, including Shopify, Eventbrite, Canva and Zapier
Sources: klaviyo.com pricing and SMS pages, constantcontact.com pricing and event management pages, default views in US dollars, checked 11 November 2026. Klaviyo's prices are for its default 500 active profiles; Constant Contact's are its starting prices. Both rise with your list size.

Klaviyo and Constant Contact Explained

Klaviyo: email, SMS and customer data for online stores

Klaviyo calls itself a B2C CRM. It connects to your shop, builds one profile per customer with orders, browsing and message history, and lets you send campaigns and automated flows by email, SMS, MMS and mobile app push. Its AI marketing agent, Composer, drafts and tests campaigns and flows. It lists more than 400 integrations, with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento), Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Wix among the shop platforms.
  • Free plan, $0: up to 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, $5 of mobile messages and $5 of Composer usage a month, reviews for 50 orders a month, Customer Hub for 250 profiles, 10 Customer Agent resolutions and 10 help desk tickets a month, and email support for the first 60 days. No A/B testing.
  • Email, $20 a month at the default 500 active profiles: 5,000 emails a month and everything in the free plan; SMS, Composer, the AI Customer Agent and Helpdesk are add-ons.
  • Marketing, $25 a month at 500 active profiles: everything in Email plus social marketing for 500 profiles, reviews with no order limit and Customer Hub for 500 profiles. A limited-time offer on the page priced the first month at $1 for up to 5,000 active profiles.
  • Custom: for more than 150,000 active profiles or several brands, with volume pricing, advanced data management, data warehouse sync and enterprise security; price from sales.
How you pay: the Klaviyo pricing page charges by active profiles, which it defines as any contact in your database that you can market to, so contacts you can no longer market to do not count. Prices rise as you move the profile slider; the plans above are its default view. There is no time limit on the free plan, which makes it the cheaper way to test with a small list.
SMS: on the paid plans, SMS and MMS are an add-on priced by volume. The calculator on Klaviyo's SMS marketing page showed $15 a month for 1,000 messages in the default view (United States, toll-free number). It collects marketing and transactional consent separately, has a compliance hub, and can tie Shopify POS sales in your physical shop back to your messages.
Best for: founders of Shopify or WooCommerce stores, direct-to-consumer brands and subscription boxes whose revenue depends on abandoned-cart, browse-abandonment, win-back and post-purchase messages.
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Constant Contact: newsletters, events and surveys for small businesses

Constant Contact is an all-in-one marketing account for small businesses. Every plan includes a drag-and-drop email editor with an AI copy generator and templates, polls and surveys you add to an email, sign-up forms, social posting to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, and live phone and chat support with a live one-to-one onboarding session. It connects to more than 300 apps, including Google, Microsoft, Canva, Zapier, Shopify and Eventbrite.
  • Lite, from $12 a month ($10.20 billed yearly): 1 user, sends of 10 times your contacts, 1 automation template, 1 custom segment and basic reporting.
  • Standard, from $35 a month ($29.75 billed yearly): 3 users, sends of 12 times your contacts, email and social scheduling, subject line A/B testing, automatic resend to non-openers, 3 automation templates, the AI campaign builder, 10 custom segments and reports that show who opened and clicked.
  • Premium, from $80 a month ($68 billed yearly): unlimited users, sends of 24 times your contacts, unlimited and custom automations, ecommerce templates, automatic welcome emails, dynamic content, unlimited segments, Google Ads Manager, SEO recommendations, revenue reporting, 500 SMS a month and a dedicated priority support team.
  • Multi-Account (Constant Contact Teams): for organisations that need 5 or more accounts, such as franchises or chapters; price on request.
How you pay: the Constant Contact pricing page shows yearly prepaid prices by default, which save up to 15%. Your price depends on your number of contacts and sends, and extra sends cost $0.002 each ($2 per 1,000), so campaigns are never stopped. There is no free plan, but you can start a free trial without a credit card, and every new plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee. Nonprofits get 20% off when they prepay 6 months and 30% when they prepay 12.
Events: Constant Contact's event marketing tool, included on every plan, builds invitations, a branded event page and online tickets, with promo codes, early-bird prices and RSVPs, and adds attendees to your list. You promote the event by email, social posts and text, take ticket or donation payments through Stripe or PayPal, check guests in and see payments and attendance in one dashboard, for in-person and virtual events.
SMS: text messaging is for paid-plan customers in the US only. Premium includes 500 messages a month; on Lite and Standard you add it from $10 a month for up to 500 messages, with text-to-join for list building and SMS reporting.
Best for: local shops, studios, consultants, nonprofits and community founders who send a regular newsletter, run workshops, classes or fundraisers, ask their audience for feedback and want a human on the phone.
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Head-to-Head: Where Each Tool Wins

Price and free option

Klaviyo wins for a small list: its free plan has no time limit and covers 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month. Constant Contact has no free plan, only a free trial. At the first paid step, Constant Contact Lite ($12 a month, or $10.20 billed yearly) costs less than Klaviyo Email ($20 a month at 500 profiles), but Lite allows 1 user and 1 automation template. Both bills grow with your list, so price your real contact count on each slider before you decide.

E-commerce automation

Klaviyo wins clearly. Flows, segmentation and campaigns are on every plan, its profiles hold order and browsing data from your shop, and it adds reviews, a customer hub and an AI customer agent next to your email. Constant Contact keeps ecommerce automation templates and automatic welcome emails for Premium ($80 a month, $68 billed yearly) and lists Shopify among its 300+ integrations; it is enough for a simple welcome series, not for a store's full flow library.

SMS

Klaviyo wins for most online stores. SMS sits in the same flows as email and is priced by volume as an add-on; its calculator showed $15 a month for 1,000 US messages. Constant Contact includes 500 messages a month on Premium and sells an add-on from $10 a month for Lite and Standard, but only for customers in the US.

Events, surveys and social posts

Constant Contact wins for businesses that meet their customers. Event pages, tickets, promo codes, payments and check-in are on every plan, polls and surveys go inside your emails, and social posting is built in. Klaviyo has no event or survey tool; its social marketing product covers 250 profiles on the free plan and is part of the Marketing plan.

Support and ease of use

Constant Contact offers live phone and chat support and a live onboarding session on every plan, which matters to founders who do marketing on the side. Klaviyo's free plan includes email support for the first 60 days, and paid plans include email support. Klaviyo has more settings because it works with store data; plan time to connect your shop and switch on its prebuilt flows.

Klaviyo or Constant Contact: Which Should You Choose?

  • A Shopify or WooCommerce store: Klaviyo. Start on the free plan, connect the shop and switch on abandoned-cart and welcome flows before you pay.
  • A store that also texts customers: Klaviyo with the SMS add-on, especially if you text outside the US, where Constant Contact's SMS is not available.
  • A local business, studio or nonprofit with a newsletter: Constant Contact Lite or Standard.
  • Workshops, classes, meetups or fundraisers: Constant Contact, because tickets, promo codes, payments and reminders sit next to your email list.
  • A team of 3 who all need logins: Constant Contact Standard includes 3 users.
  • A tiny list and no budget: Klaviyo's free plan, or the tools with free plans in our free Mailchimp alternatives.
  • You want to own your data and server: neither. Look at open-source Mailchimp alternatives you can self-host.
  1. Ask where you sell. If most revenue comes from an online store, start with Klaviyo. If it comes from services, events, memberships or donations, start with Constant Contact.
  2. Count your active profiles. Klaviyo is free up to 250 and charges by profiles you can market to; Constant Contact charges by contacts and sends. Move both price sliders to your real number.
  3. List your channels. Texting customers outside the US rules out Constant Contact's SMS. Social posting on every plan points to Constant Contact.
  4. Check for events and surveys. Tickets, RSVPs, check-in and polls are built into Constant Contact; Klaviyo has none of them.
  5. Test before you pay. Build one real flow on Klaviyo's free plan or in Constant Contact's free trial, send one campaign to a real segment, and only then commit, especially to a yearly bill.

What Changed Since the Old Version of This Comparison

  • Klaviyo's plans are now Free, Email, Marketing and Custom. The free plan covers 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, and SMS is an add-on on the paid plans. Magento is now called Adobe Commerce.
  • Constant Contact's plans are Lite, Standard and Premium, priced by contacts and sends, with a free trial that needs no credit card and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Its old standalone survey page now redirects to its email marketing page; polls and surveys are part of the email editor.
  • Removed: the claim that email marketing returns "$42 for every dollar spent", which had no traceable source, "winner" verdicts without evidence, and links to third-party blogs. Every number above comes from Klaviyo's and Constant Contact's own pages.

How Founders Use Klaviyo, Constant Contact and the Rest of Their Marketing Stack

Most early-stage startups need three emails before anything else: a welcome sequence for new sign-ups, a regular update or newsletter, and a reminder that brings people back. For a store, the fourth is the abandoned-cart email. Our mean.ceo guides explain how to build an email list from zero and how to automate email marketing in a startup. Before launch, a waitlist of your first 1,000 customers is the list you will email first.
Comparing more email tools? Read Constant Contact vs ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp vs Constant Contact, Constant Contact vs MailerLite and SendGrid vs Constant Contact. For other e-commerce email tools, see Omnisend vs Brevo, Omnisend vs SendGrid and Marketo vs Omnisend; for automation-heavy funnels, Mailchimp vs ActiveCampaign and HubSpot vs ActiveCampaign. If your product also sends receipts and password resets, Mailchimp vs Mailgun explains marketing email versus an email API.
Texts and events work best together: our guide to SMS marketing for startups covers consent and timing, and our list of startup events for female entrepreneurs shows what good event pages look like. To connect your email tool to the rest of your apps, see open-source Zapier alternatives, and to plan what all of this costs, use the marketing budget calculator.
Newsletters work better when they point to content people find on their own. The F/MS AI SEO Tool writes articles from your keywords that are built to rank on Google and to be cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity, and the AI SEO blog explains how.
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FAQ: Klaviyo vs Constant Contact

What is the main difference between Klaviyo and Constant Contact?

Klaviyo is built for online stores: it uses order and browsing data from your shop for email, SMS and app messages and adds reviews and a help desk. Constant Contact is built for small businesses and nonprofits: newsletters, social posts, events with tickets, polls and surveys, US SMS and live phone support on every plan.

Does Klaviyo have a free plan?

Yes. Klaviyo's free plan covers up to 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, plus $5 of mobile messages a month, with email support for the first 60 days. Constant Contact has no free plan, only a free trial without a credit card.

Which is cheaper, Klaviyo or Constant Contact?

For a list under 250 active profiles, Klaviyo, because its free plan costs nothing. At the first paid step, Constant Contact Lite ($12 a month, $10.20 billed yearly) costs less than Klaviyo Email ($20 a month at 500 active profiles). Both prices rise with your list size.

Which is better for Shopify stores?

Klaviyo. It connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce and Wix, and runs store flows such as abandoned cart and post-purchase from every plan. Constant Contact connects to Shopify too, but keeps ecommerce automation templates for Premium.

Can I send SMS with Klaviyo and Constant Contact?

Yes. Klaviyo sells SMS as an add-on on paid plans (its calculator showed $15 a month for 1,000 US messages) and gives $5 of mobile messages a month on the free plan. Constant Contact includes 500 messages on Premium and sells an add-on from $10 a month, for US customers only.

Which tool is better for events?

Constant Contact. Its event tool on every plan builds event pages and tickets, handles promo codes, RSVPs, Stripe or PayPal payments and check-in, and sends reminders. Klaviyo has no event tool.

Can I run surveys with Klaviyo or Constant Contact?

Constant Contact lets you add polls and surveys to emails on every plan. Klaviyo's pricing page lists no survey tool.

Which one is easier for beginners?

Constant Contact, because it has live phone and chat support and a live onboarding session on every plan. Klaviyo is easy to start for free, but setting up store flows takes more time.

Where can I submit a guest post about my startup?

You can publish a guest post in one of the Fe/male Switch startup blogs, which rank in Google and in AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Get a quality backlink.

Can I use AI to write SEO articles that my newsletter can link to?

Yes. The F/MS AI SEO Tool writes articles from your keywords that are built to rank on Google and in AI assistants, with human editors reviewing them.

About the Author

Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.