Mailchimp and Constant Contact have been the default answer for small business email for twenty years. Here is where they actually differ — and the one thing choosing between them will not fix.
| Mailchimp | Constant Contact | Cherub | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who writes the email | You | You | Cherub drafts, you approve |
| Priced on | Contacts stored | Contacts stored | Campaigns you approve |
| Free tier | Yes, limited | No | No subscription at all |
| Support | Chat and email | Phone, well regarded | |
| POS revenue attribution | No | No | Yes, via promo code matching |
| Reports success as | Opens and clicks | Opens and clicks | Revenue at the register |
The editor is genuinely nicer, the integration library is bigger, and the free tier lets you start without a card. The flip side is surface area. Mailchimp has grown into a marketing suite with a website builder, a CRM and an ads product attached, and a shop owner who wanted to send one email a month can spend an evening working out which screen they are supposed to be on.
Constant Contact has stayed narrower and it shows. Navigation is easier to hold in your head, and phone support is the reason most of its long-term customers stay. If you have ever wanted to hand the problem to a human rather than search a help centre, that is worth real money.
Per-contact pricing means an address that has not opened anything in two years costs exactly what your best customer costs. That quietly pushes businesses towards hoarding contacts and emailing them more often to justify the bill — which is precisely how a list gets burned out. Regularly retiring inactive subscribers is better for deliverability and for your customers, and per-contact pricing gives you no reason to do it.
This is the honest bottom line. If you compare these two carefully, pick one, import your list, and then never send anything because the blank editor is still a blank editor, the comparison was not the problem. Cherub takes the other approach: it watches what sold, drafts the campaign for you, and asks you to approve it. And when there is nothing worth saying that week, it says nothing.
Cherub reads what sold, drafts the campaign, and waits for your approval. No blank editor, no monthly fee for contacts you are not emailing.
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