I came away from a recent trade show convinced more than ever that iContact was not only a worthy challenger to Constant Contact andother email services, but may actually be a better value.

There is no denying that trying the service is easy. You don’t even need a credit card to start using iContact. And the trial itself is nothing to sneeze at:

• You can load up to 250 of your contacts
• You can send up to 500 messages
• And you have 15 days to play with the system and learn how to most effectively use it.

When I first started looking at, they had a huge number of free templates available — time tested formats so you don’t need to be a designer.  Since then, they’ve added dozens more templates and now have more than 300 different looks.   You won’t have trouble finding a template.  In fact, you’ll spend time choosing among the best of them.

The one area where iContact totally beats Constant Contact is survey creation.  When I’ve sent surveys in ConstantContact, I had to buy their survey package.   I get the survey options free in iContact, and the monthly cost to use iContact is 50% lower — less than $10/month.

I was talking recently with a friend who runs a small  business and asked about the two.  Trying iContact is a no-brainer, I told him.  You won’t have to give your credit card, you get more features and you get a free two week trial with hundreds of emails to test.  How could you not try the new kid in town?

Click here to learn all you need to know about iContact’s services.