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On paper, the AWeber vs Constant Contact comparison looks like a coin flip — two platforms built around simplicity for small organizations — until you ask one question that settles most of it: do you run events?
Both pitch the same thing — simple, approachable email marketing for small businesses and nonprofits without a marketing department — and both deliver. Feature checklists mostly produce a tie, which is why the one structural difference between them matters more than everything else combined.
The one real difference: event management
Constant Contact ships something most email platforms simply don't have: integrated event management. You can build event pages, sell tickets, offer promo codes, set capacity limits, and take payment through Stripe or PayPal — connecting Stripe adds Google Pay and Apple Pay at checkout, and PayPal adds Venmo. Registration, reminders, and follow-up email all live in the same tool as your newsletter.
If you run workshops, classes, fundraisers, or ticketed community events, that's not a nice-to-have — it replaces a separate ticketing platform and the duct tape connecting it to your email list. For a nonprofit running three fundraisers a year, this single feature can decide the comparison by itself.
If you don't run events, the feature is dead weight, and the comparison reopens on price and everyday email work.
The pricing math, verified
As of July 2026, from AWeber's official pricing page: the Lite plan starts at $12.49/month billed annually and Plus at $19.99/month billed annually. At 5,000 subscribers on month-to-month billing, Lite is $60/month and Plus is $90/month. Note that Lite keeps AWeber's branding on your emails — removal requires Plus. Constant Contact also prices by contact count; its plans typically land higher than AWeber's at comparable list sizes, so check its current pricing page against the list size you actually expect to reach.
Where each platform actually wins
Constant Contact wins wherever events touch the calendar — and it leans hard into the small-business and nonprofit audience, with templates and workflows built for organizations that sell tickets, collect donations, and email a local community. The event stack is the genuine differentiator, and nothing in AWeber's catalog answers it.
AWeber wins on the everyday email work at a lower cost. It has spent decades focused on one thing — getting email delivered — with an in-house deliverability team managing sender reputation full-time. Newsletters, signup forms, welcome sequences, and tagging are all fast to set up, and the pricing stays predictable as the list grows. If your email program is a regular newsletter plus a few automations, AWeber does that job with less overhead and a smaller invoice.
The honest verdict
If ticketed events, workshops, or fundraisers are a regular part of how you operate, choose Constant Contact — its built-in event management saves you a second platform and the integration work, and that outweighs the price difference. If your email program is straightforward newsletters and automations, choose AWeber: it does that job simply, with a dedicated deliverability operation behind it, at a lower and more predictable cost.
Both AWeber and Constant Contact let you trial the fit before committing, and pricing on both changes with promotions — verify current numbers on the official pricing pages. Weighing AWeber against bigger platforms instead? See AWeber vs Mailchimp, AWeber vs GetResponse, and AWeber vs ActiveCampaign — or AWeber vs ConvertKit if you're newsletter-first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Constant Contact really include event management?
Yes — it's a current, built-in feature, not an integration. You can create event pages, sell tickets, offer promo codes, set capacity limits, and take payment via Stripe or PayPal. Connecting Stripe adds Google Pay and Apple Pay; PayPal adds Venmo. It's one of the few email platforms with this built in.
Is AWeber cheaper than Constant Contact?
At most list sizes, yes. AWeber's Lite plan starts at $12.49/month billed annually, and at 5,000 subscribers runs $60/month (Lite) or $90/month (Plus) on monthly billing. Constant Contact also prices by contact count and typically lands higher at comparable sizes — verify against its current pricing page at your expected list size.
Which is better for a nonprofit?
It depends on whether events drive your fundraising. Nonprofits running ticketed fundraisers, galas, or workshops get real value from Constant Contact's integrated registration and payments. Nonprofits whose email program is primarily a newsletter and donor updates will usually do the same job for less with AWeber.