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Nonprofits · head to head

Constant Contact vs Mautic

Constant Contact logo

Constant Contact

Nonprofits

Email marketing and event management

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Mautic logo

Mautic

Marketing

The main open source marketing automation platform, self-hosted and GPL licensed

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Constant Contact core plan started at $9.99 per month and Plus plan at $45 per month, both scaling by contact list size rather than a flat rate (Internet Archive capture, 2022); Mautic mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.
  • They diverge on capability: Constant Contact covers Email marketing, Mautic covers Visual campaign builder.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Constant Contact and Mautic actually diverge.

Attributes where Constant Contact and Mautic differ
AttributeConstant ContactMautic
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, Mobile-responsiveWeb, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker
CategoryNonprofitsMarketing
Founded1995Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Constant Contact

  • Email marketing
  • Event management
  • Contact management
  • Automation
  • Analytics
  • Salesforce
  • Zapier
  • Google Analytics

Only in Mautic

  • Visual campaign builder
  • Contact management and segmentation
  • Landing pages and forms
  • Lead scoring
  • Dynamic web content
  • Email builder and A/B testing
  • Self-hosted data control
  • No feature gating

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Constant Contact

  • Business operationsnot Mautic
  • Productivitynot Mautic
  • Automationnot Mautic

Mautic

  • A marketing agency running automation for many clients that cannot pass on per-contact SaaS pricing at scalenot Constant Contact
  • A European university or public body whose data protection position requires contact data to stay on infrastructure it controlsnot Constant Contact
  • A company with a list of several hundred thousand contacts where SaaS per-contact pricing has become the largest line in the marketing budgetnot Constant Contact
  • A team that needs to modify the automation logic itself, not just configure it, and wants source access to do sonot Constant Contact

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Constant Contact

  • Core plan started at $9.99 per month and Plus plan at $45 per month, both scaling by contact list size rather than a flat rate (Internet Archive capture, 2022)

Mautic

  • Mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.
  • Email sending is not included: you must arrange, pay for and warm up your own sending infrastructure through Amazon SES, SendGrid or similar, and deliverability problems become entirely your problem with no vendor to escalate to.
  • Acquia owns the commercial descendant, Campaign Studio, and is the largest contributor, so the loudest commercial interest in the ecosystem benefits from a hosted product rather than from the self-hosted one being easy.
  • Upgrades between major versions have historically been disruptive, requiring database migrations and plugin compatibility checks, so a neglected instance can become expensive to bring current.
  • The interface and the reporting are noticeably behind commercial platforms, so marketing teams that came from HubSpot or ActiveCampaign will find everyday tasks slower and will need training.

Pricing, plan by plan

Constant Contact

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Basic email marketing
    • Contacts up to 100
  • Plus$45/month
    • Advanced features
    • Event management
    • Automation

Mautic

Free
  • Self-hosted communityFree
    • GPL licensed, no licence fee and no contact limits
    • All features included, no paid edition
    • You provide hosting, database, cron scheduling and email sending
  • Managed Mautic hosting$undefined/month
    • Third-party managed hosting listed by the project
    • Updates, backups and cron scheduling handled for you
    • Pricing varies by provider and is not set by the project

Which should you pick?

Choose Constant Contact if

  • You need email marketing.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Mobile-responsive.
  • You also want event management.
Constant Contact review

Choose Mautic if

  • You need visual campaign builder.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker.
  • You also want contact management and segmentation.
Mautic review

Questions people ask

Is Constant Contact or Mautic better?
Neither clearly leads. Constant Contact starts at Free and Mautic at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Constant Contact or Mautic?
Constant Contact starts at Free and Mautic at Free.
Does Constant Contact or Mautic run on more platforms?
Constant Contact runs on Web, Mobile-responsive. Mautic runs on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker.
Can I use Constant Contact for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Constant Contact best used for?
Constant Contact is most often used for business operations, productivity, automation. Of those, business operations and productivity are not what Mautic is typically brought in for.
What can Constant Contact do that Mautic cannot?
Constant Contact covers Email marketing, Event management, Contact management, Automation. Mautic covers Visual campaign builder, Contact management and segmentation, Landing pages and forms, Lead scoring.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Mautic: Is Mautic free?

Yes, GPL licensed with no licence fee and no contact limits. You pay for hosting, email sending and the staff time to maintain it.

Mautic: Does Acquia own Mautic?

Acquia acquired the founding commercial entity in 2019 and sells Campaign Studio built on it, but the Mautic trademark sits with the Open Source Collective and the project is community governed.

Mautic: What breaks most often?

Cron scheduling. If segment rebuilding and campaign triggers are not running on schedule, campaigns quietly stop sending with no alert.

Mautic: Can it handle large contact lists?

Yes, but performance at several hundred thousand contacts depends on database tuning and queue configuration, which is work you must do yourself.

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