Constant Contact CRM review: Is it right for your business?

In 2021, it acquired SharpSpring and rebranded it to Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM, which expanded Constant Contact’s CRM capabilities. Below, we’ll dig into everything you need to know about Constant Contact, and whether it’s a good fit for your business. All rates and fees are current as of June 5, 2024, and are subject to change. 

Constant Contact service plan overview

To sign up for Lead Gen & CRM, you must go through a sales demo so the representative has an idea of what types of features you need in a plan. Each offering is completely customized to your needs, such as an Enterprise-level plan as competitors would. Its plans start at $299 per month and can include features, such as sales reports, an activity feed, lead organization, call recordings through its Sales Dialer, Meetings, and more.

Other services Constant Contact offers 

• Sales Dialer: This lets you place outbound calls right from a contact’s details, and lets you record calls.
• Opportunity Drawer: This is where you’ll keep all your contacts organized. You can schedule tasks, create new opportunities, make and pin notes, add products, and create custom fields.
• Meetings: Connect with team members or contacts in person, via phone, or via Zoom (provided you’ve got that integrated). 
• Reports: These reports include pipeline value, opportunity health, conversion analysis, won-loss, sales performance, sales optimizer, activity, and follow-up.
• CRM migration: If you have another CRM account you want to migrate to Constant Contact, you can do so with a comma-separated values (CSV) file.

The Constant Contact platform and customer support

Finding the information you need on the Constant Contact website is a lesson in patience, especially as it relates to the Lead Gen & CRM product. While this might have been complicated by its acquisition of SharpSpring’s services, it’s been three years since that purchase and for things to be this clunky beyond its first year is a bit frustrating. 

For example, when clicking on the Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM pricing, you’re taken to a demo page that gives zero information about pricing. However, there is a menu button at the top that lists pricing on that page but, when you click on it, you’re taken to pricing for its email marketing stuff, which can be misleading as this is significantly cheaper than its actual CRM pricing. To get the price, I had to contact its chat support, which told me that everything is custom but starts at $299 per month. 

Support is available via live chat on weekdays from 3 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time. Phone support is available Monday through Saturday, although those hours vary by department. You can also search its knowledge base, reach out to its user community, watch video tutorials, or attend free webinars with live Q&A sessions for additional support. 

Is Constant Contact secure?

There is one notable breach of security with Constant Contact and several smaller account-specific breaches:

• In May 2021, Russian-linked group NOBELIUM compromised USAID’s Constant Contact account to launch a spear phishing campaign targeting over 7,000 accounts across various global organizations, including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), intergovernmental, and government organizations.
• Some users report their accounts have been compromised. For example, phishing emails disguised as legitimate invoices were sent from their Constant Contact accounts. Others say their multifactor authentication (MFA) was bypassed and the account then compromised. 

Constant Contact user reviews

Constant Contact’s CRM portion has 865 reviews on G2, with 4.5 out of 5 stars. The sentiment is that the platform is easy to use, great for email marketing, and they love its drag-and-drop features. Integrations make it easier to get things done. Some users are frustrated with Constant Contact’s customization limitations, automation features, bugs, and the restrictive pricing structure.

Compare Constant Contact alternatives

Constant Contact	Zoho	Zendesk Sell
Base monthly cost per user	Base monthly cost per user	Base monthly cost per user
Starting at $299	Starting at $20	Starting at $25
Maximum number of users	Maximum number of users	Maximum number of users
Unlimited (with premium plan)	Unlimited	Unlimited
Free trial length	Free trial length	Free trial length
0	15 days	14 days
		Learn more

Is Constant Contact right for you?

Constant Contact is ideal for a midsized business without extensive customization needs.  These businesses will find it easy to use thanks to its integrated marketing tools and support. However, large organizations that need complex automations or a lot of third-party integrations should look elsewhere. Its lack of pricing transparency is a major issue. After all, without knowing which features you’re paying for, how can you decide if you need more or fewer features to fit your budget? For this reason, it can work for small businesses but be prepared to shell out for it. 

Frequently asked questions