Free autoresponders?

No - I strongly recommend that you avoid them.

That's a (very bad) hosting company, owned by EIG. Not an autoresponder.

Nobody really "needs" a free autoresponder: people just think they do!

It's easy to imagine that there'll be some long-term benefit to starting that way, and that in some meaningful sense it'll be better than not having one at all. It isn't usually so.

Aweber charges $1 for the first month and $19 per month thereafter. If you're not covering $20 in two months, the reality is that you don't have a business at all, and that's not something that using a free autoresponder is somehow magically going to correct.

In my opinion, using a free autoresponder is one of the very most ill-advised and misguided things one can do, in internet marketing.

Few people are more keen on list-building than I am, but I think for most people it's better to start without an autoresponder, temporarily, than it is to use a free one. And (unlike the situation with regard to free hosting), with autoresponders it IS specifically the fact they're free that causes the potential disasters/risks, in my view.

The question you have to ask yourself is whether it can possibly be wise to entrust the safe-keeping and security of your business's greatest, most important and least replaceable asset (your list) to a company whose business model is that of being a free autoresponder. I think that it's generally right at the start of their internet marketing careers, when people understandably have the least judgement about such situations, and the least awareness of the facts and realities involved, that such mistakes tend to be made.

I suspect that people imagine something along the lines of "Well, I can always start with a free autoresponder until I've made some money, and then make the switch to a better one". Usually, one can't easily do that. Moving established lists from one autoresponder company to another is typically hugely difficult, and very commonly results in all one's subscribers needing - at best - to opt in all over again. Many Warriors have commented here that they've lost between two-thirds and three-quarters of their lists, this way!

Some people just shrug and say "Well, you can always back it up regularly, can't you?". Easily said. What are you going to do with it, after you've "backed it up"? How are you going to import it elsewhere? Who's going to allow you to import it elsewhere, and under what conditions? (People don't always think about these problems. But the experience of Warriors who have actually had to try to do this seems to me to point to its being something of a nightmare and a disaster).

Some free autoresponders even monetize their own business partly by sending affiliate-spam to their own clients' subscribers or partly by sending their client's new subscribers (right after they've opted in) to an affiliate promotion of their own!

In the case of Mailchimp, obviously enough, the situation's very clear to anyone willing to make the effort to read their Terms of Service. In the case of other "free autoresponders" (of which there are several), it's usually very much less clear, unfortunately. Typically, those recommending one, in my opinion, are only recent list-builders themselves and may not yet be aware of some of the longer-term pitfalls.

Some of these companies even attach to every email their customers send out to their lists a clickable link advertising their own free service!

It's literally the autoresponder equivalent of having a little website advising people about <whatever> sitting at Yola, with a big clickable link at the bottom of the page advertising "Get your free website here with Yola".

How professional does that look?!

Some of these companies also don't yet have a very well established business model. Who really knows if they're still going to be there 3 years later? But if they're not, that can be an absolute disaster to your business!

If necessary, I'd make a sale or two without having a list, and then start with Aweber when one has $1 to spare.

The set-up costs even for internet marketing businesses which do everything professionally, right from the start, are absolutely minuscule ...

My perspective only - there are others who disagree, of course.

One or two of the people who disagree are owners of free autoresponder businesses.

And some others who disagree, I think, are pretty inexperienced and have maybe not yet encountered any problems - in contrast to others here whose warning-posts can readily be found with the search function, by those willing to look.

Here are some threads/posts which will convince you not to try "Mailchimp", I hope and trust, if you take the time to read them. There are a lot of other good observations about the dangers and risks of "free autoresponders" in these threads, too.

Mailchimp not to be used for internet marketing?
Mailchimp blocked my account
Best free autoresponder
If You're Wondering Whether to Use Mailchimp, This is For You
Stay away from MailChimp - Read my story
MailChimp Improved? Versus Aweber, Imnica, Get Response
FREE alternatives to aweber

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"Free" autoresponders will end up costing you more then that. You are essentially sending the autoresponder's ads to your subscribers.

A real online business requires some investment but I guess some first need to learn the real cost of "free."

No, do not. It's an affiliate link and against the forum rules.

Before considering an auto-responder, do you have a system in place, or do you intend on just emailing content and relying on emails to promote a product? Like others have mentioned, get your feet wet and get started with a reliable AR company such as GetResponse (free for 30 days) or Aweber ($1 trial).

Be sure to have an intention and ideally learn how the back-end functions via tutorials on YouTube. That way you will help kick-start and prepare yourself for how to get up and running more easily. Get your opt-in forms / squeeze pages setup before-hand then all you'll need to do is basically add the campaign number to ensure subscribers are added to that specific campaign.

Then you can set-up your auto-responder within a day (depending how many auto-responder messages you intend on using). Then you'll have the rest of that month to work with your subscribers and hopefully close a sale (depending how you're marketing) which will ideally cover the cost for next month and so on.

Work on building relationships with people right out the gate, become an influence and really work on helping them. If someone says "I've heard about building a list from adfly, what do you think?" make the effort to show them why it's not going to benefit them and give them a better solution.

Or maybe you've purchases products in the past that have really helped you and you can see whether those products are assigned to an affiliate program and recommend it.

Hope that helps.