Mailchimp is the better default for a Shopify store, mostly because of a gap between what people assume and what's actually true today. Several comparison posts still claim Mailchimp walked away from Shopify, which hasn't been true for years: its own Shopify app is alive, well-reviewed, and handles real ecommerce automation. Constant Contact is a dollar cheaper at the entry tier and gives you AI email writing on that cheap plan, which Mailchimp doesn't, but its own Shopify app rating tells a rougher story. Here's what each one actually costs, builds, and ships today, checked against their own pricing pages and Shopify App Store listings.
What does each one actually cost at 500 contacts?
| Plan | Price (around 500 contacts) | Free plan? | AI copy included? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp Free | $0 (250 contacts, 500 emails/mo) | Yes | No |
| Mailchimp Essentials | $13/mo | No | No |
| Mailchimp Standard | $20/mo | No | Yes, no extra cost |
| Mailchimp Premium | $350/mo | No | Yes, no extra cost |
| Constant Contact Lite | $12/mo | No (14-day trial only) | Yes, from Lite |
| Constant Contact Standard | $35/mo | No | Yes |
| Constant Contact Premium | $80/mo | No | Yes |
The headline numbers look close, $12 versus $13, but they land differently once you factor in what each plan actually includes. Mailchimp's free tier is a genuine product you can run a small store on before paying anything. Constant Contact skips straight to a trial that ends, and its cheapest paid plan is thin on segmentation and automation, so most stores end up on Standard at $35 a month anyway.
Does Mailchimp still work with Shopify?
Yes, and this is the part a surprising number of comparison articles still get wrong. Mailchimp's official Shopify app, Mailchimp Email SMS Marketing, is live right now with a 4.8-star rating across 1,573 reviews. Its listing advertises automated welcome and abandoned cart emails, back-in-stock alerts, product-recommendation retargeting, synced Shopify customer data for personalization, shareable discount codes, and revenue-attribution reporting tied back to campaigns.
If you've read elsewhere that Mailchimp "no longer offers a direct Shopify integration," that's stale. It may have been true during a specific stretch of Mailchimp's partner-API history, but the app in the Shopify App Store today is active, current, and has the review volume to back it up.
Which one actually has AI email writing, and is it free?
Both platforms write email copy with AI now, and the gating is where they differ the most.
Constant Contact includes its AI copy generator starting on the Lite plan, the $12-a-month tier, at no extra cost. You give it a prompt and a tone, and it drafts a subject line, preheader, body copy, and call-to-action you can edit from there.
Mailchimp's Generative AI tools are also a no-additional-cost add-on, but only once you're on Standard ($20/month) or Premium ($350/month). Stay on Essentials or the free plan and you don't get it at all. So if AI drafting on the cheapest possible plan is the deciding factor, Constant Contact wins that specific comparison, even though Mailchimp wins almost everything else.
What does each one's own Shopify app track record actually look like?
Feature lists for both platforms read almost identically: abandoned cart reminders, product blocks, basic ecommerce reporting. The gap shows up in the Shopify App Store ratings, which reflect what actually happens once each tool is wired into a live store.
Mailchimp Email SMS Marketing sits at 4.8 stars across 1,573 reviews. Constant Contact: Email & SMS sits at 2.9 stars across just 25 reviews, a thin sample with a visibly rough split. Neither company's own pricing or features page will show you that gap; it only shows up if you go look at the app listing directly.
Which one should your Shopify store actually pick?
- Want the proven Shopify app, with a free tier to start on: Mailchimp. Start free at 250 contacts, move to Essentials ($13/month) once you outgrow it, and go to Standard ($20/month) once you want AI drafting included.
- Want AI copy help on the cheapest plan available and can live with a thinner Shopify track record: Constant Contact Lite at $12/month.
- Already read that Mailchimp dropped Shopify support somewhere else: that's outdated. Its app is live, current, and the better-reviewed of the two.
- Want AI-generated campaigns built from your store's actual products and brand, not a generic prompt box: that's a different question from either platform's built-in AI, and it's the gap JetFlow fills today, for stores on Klaviyo.
The honest limit here
JetFlow pushes generated campaigns into Klaviyo today, not Mailchimp or Constant Contact. If this comparison leads you to either one, JetFlow can't automate the send step for your store yet, and that's a fair reason to look elsewhere if you've already committed to Mailchimp or Constant Contact. For stores on Klaviyo or weighing a move to it, JetFlow reads your store's products and branding and generates on-brand campaign emails and popups ready to push in, instead of starting from a blank prompt box either way.
If you're also weighing Klaviyo against these two, see how it stacks up against Mailchimp and Constant Contact directly, or check the full list of Klaviyo alternatives if you're still shopping broadly. For a wider framework on picking an ESP at your store's current stage, see choosing an email marketing app for Shopify.