Cheaper/Free alternative to Constant Contact

November 15, 2021 11:44 AM

What can my nonprofit use instead of Constant Contact to email 4 different contact lists (with overlap between lists)?

I'm an officer in a non-profit membership organization and we've used Constant Contact forever. It's so expensive and I'm looking for an alternative.

We have approximately 700 total contacts split into 3 or 4 smaller subset lists based on membership type. Sometimes we just email one or multiple of the subsets. Sometimes we email all 700 contacts. We send out maybe 20 to 40 emails a year. Many months have 1 or often 0 emails sent out to these lists, but a couple months have between 3 and 6 emails sent out.

We would love something free.

I've used Mailchimp previously, but looking at setting up a new account, it only allows one contact list (an "audience" in their terminology) at the free tier. Are list "segments" enough to handle the subsets of our contact list when we need to email just one of the smaller lists as I would in Constant Contact?

Reading about some of the difficulties mailchimp is going through with the recent acquisition, I don't know if it's a good idea to commit to mailchimp at the moment.

Any other good options that allow multiple lists (or at least emailing just certain subsets of the full list that I define)?

posted by msbrauer to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

I have used MailPoet, which has a free version. But you might need to have WordPress site for the free version. According to this, the free plugin works for up to 1,000 subscribers.

It was easy to learn and use. You can send to subsets, but I never did that.

I think you can get the paid version for just $13 a month.
posted by NotLost at 12:17 PM on November 15, 2021

You can export your lists and re-import them to MailerLite, which is free for up to 1000 contacts. It's really good, I'm a fan. (It's easier to use than MailChimp).
posted by DarlingBri at 12:45 PM on November 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

I use free Mailchimp for a 1200 person list. It's all one audience and then I have the people tagged, so I can send a campaign to one or some of the tagged groups. I haven't noticed any problems since the acquisition.
posted by xo at 1:26 PM on November 15, 2021

I support a nonprofit that uses MailChimp and can report that "one audience, multiple segments" works fine. You can also use tags so that you can do custom mailings where, say, segment = volunteers and tag = a particular city, for example.
posted by Scarf Joint at 2:58 PM on November 15, 2021

Have you seen buttondown.email?

I've only used them a little, but it looks like you can "tag" your subscribers and send emails to subsets of the list based on those tags. The interface is very clean, the free tier is very functional, and the creator is very conscientious about things like transparency & allowing you to choose whether you want to collect analytics data.

I used Constant Contact at my previous job, and Buttondown is 1000% better. (Come to think of it, I'm going to email my old workplace and suggest they switch.)

In the interest of FULL DISCLOSURE: I am related to someone who is affiliated with the company.
posted by sibilatorix at 5:40 PM on November 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

You might also want to explore Flodesk— very user friendly, beautiful design, easy to use segments. Flat rate regardless of number of subscribers.
posted by misspettigrew at 10:38 PM on November 15, 2021

I switched to Buttondown from Mailchimp when Intuit bought them and I like it MUCH better. In fact, had I tried their interface previously, I would have switched from Mailchimp sooner as I think their interface is dreadful.

Note that I use the free Buttondown but their paid plan of $30 a month has multiple newsletters as an option.

You can also separate subscribers into groups with tags. I think you can even do this with the free option though the free option becomes $5 per month if you have more than 1000 subscribers.
posted by dobbs at 5:53 AM on November 16, 2021