Free alternatives to Aweber?

MailChimp has a free plan, which lets you send up to 12,000 mails per month to up to 2,000 subscribers.

Hope that helps!

You can use MailChimp, if I remember correctly. But Aweber is what most people use. They are very reliable and I'd dare to guess they are the best option to take. Besides, the first month comes for a dollar (:

Allen

In my opinion there is no free alternative to Aweber.

Mailchimp is to Aweber as apples are to oranges.Yes they are both fruit but .....

Ive been using Listwire and have a link sig.Have not had any issues with them at all.Its %100 Free.

There really aren't any free alternatives, you're smart to go ahead and try Aweber. GetResponse is also popular, but I have no experience with them so I can't say one way or the other on them.

The free ones ultimately cost more in the long run anyway - most aren't terribly reliable, and even if they were, you have to keep the image in mind - how professional does it look to be using a free autoresponder? If you're not in the IM niche you might get away with any image issues, but there'd still be the pain in the ass prospect of moving your list when you decide to invest in a paid one...

Okay look, my problem is this. I want to build a list of 10k-50k. Once I hit the 10k-50k mark (depending on how well it's progressing), I want to email a product out, hopefully making some cash that way.

Problem being, I don't want to spend $100+ a month maintaining this list for several months. That's a lot of money I don't have.

Imnicamail is a decent service. You get to build a list of 1000 with a free account and only have to pay thereafter.

The theory being that once you have 1000 subscribers you will easily afford the tiny monthly fees.

If only all AR firms did this then these threads would be a thing of the past.

I'm nodding in agreement with what Alexa and several others have said.

However, I'll also add my own experiences:

Starting with a free list service isn't a bad idea. It's staying with a free list service that can pose problems, long term. (So, if you start with a free one, be sure you can export your subscriber list.)

From my experience (and only my experience <-- disclaimer), some niches respond well to emails. Some don't. Fine artists (painters, and people selling at galleries, whether they're selling art or fine crafts) don't respond well to email lists. However, they like RSS emails via Feedburner.

On the other hand, if the art/craft is in the hobby/popular realm -- scrapbooking, for example -- those lists seem to do okay.

Mainstream New Age seems to respond well to email lists. Fringe -- including Feng Shui -- doesn't. (By "doesn't," I mean that they seem to forget they ever signed up via Aweber with a double opt-in, and they rant about spam. It doesn't matter that no products or services were promoted in the email. They just don't like regular emails. At all.)

Paranormal/spiritual audiences do best with short, to-the-point emails that refer them to a particular article at the related website.

Writers read everything, but it needs to be written journalistically and sent only when you really have something to say.

IM and SEO audiences seem happy to receive a lot of email. Whether they open them or not is another matter.

So, you may want to do a small sampling with your niche audience. See if they actually respond to emails, before launching bigger plans on paid email services.

I think Jim Edwards approaches niches on that kind of gradient. Offer your readers something free, to see if they're opening your emails and if they'll respond to them. Then, test different kinds of freebies, to see which appeal to them.

Test different Subject lines, different mailing frequencies, and so on. If you do all of this with a free service, you'll save a lot of time & money when you're ready to launch your real ($$) product.

Every aspect of online marketing requires testing. For many people, especially when you're starting out, the game is to test with as little expense as possible.

Like Alexa said, it's vital to cultivate a relationship with your subscribers. If you don't, they will forget who you are and why they should care what you say, or trust you enough to buy from your recommendations.

However, if you're just collecting emails for a later list, you can do that without signing up for any service. Just tell them there will be a later mailing, when you're ready, and provide a sign-up form on your website.

(However, most responsible email services -- including Aweber, which I like -- will balk if you dump thousands of emails onto your new/paid list, unless they've already been cleared through a double opt-in process.)

As Alexa said, it's best to establish a steady, caring relationship with your subscribers. If you don't contact them regularly -- at least monthly, but possibly more often -- they will forget who you are.

And, if it's an email from a name they've forgotten, you'll be flagged as a spammer.

Free email services are fine if you're using them within the service's terms of service, and you're simply testing what works and what doesn't. (And, as long as you have access to the list, to export it later.)

After that, I echo others' recommendations for Aweber.

I also like Constant Contact if you're promoting your own products and services, as opposed to heavy affiliate marketing.

A totally agree with Alexa for what she said about you need to make relationship and let your subscribers trust you before selling to them.

Because if you just want to sell them; you end up with high rate of subscribers that unsubscribe from your list and report you as spammer; you will lose your reputation as a result.

If you get the 30-day trial for one dollar, and you can build a decent list size quickly, then you could easily be in the positive, for as long as you have the list.

Most folks say that you should be able to earn $1 per subscriber per month.

I earn twice that consistently.

It is only $19 for 500 subscribers... In theory, you only need to have 20 people on your list to break even each month... But the trick is having the right 20 people.

In my case, I tried to gather closer to 500 people when I started, then tried to increase my open rates, in order to improve my conversion rates.

In the end, it does not matter how much it costs to have the list, so long as you profit from your list.

I wanted to test it Chris so I subscribed to your list (you can feel free to remove me) and your thank you email got spamboxed.

What kind of open rate are you getting with your follow up emails because if they too are getting spamboxed it's likely to be low.

I forgot to cancel my account with aweber, do you think I can get.a refund and this is the 2nd month?

Best Regards, Mikal Laster

@HarveyM, I followed one of your post in another thread. If the business model you are proposing in one of the other threads is what you need an autoresponder for, then i'll advise you to use either aweber or getresponse.

I have used listwire before, I built a decent amount of responsive list in a local market, and guess what, when i was ready to move to a paid alternative (in this case get response), I lost most of my list.

Of course, there is an art to moving list from one autoresponder to another, but really, why would you want to approach it that way?

Business is Business. If you are running a brick and mortar business, you'll do everything and anything just to get funds for your operational cost. Why not do same for your internet business.

If you are willing enough, smart enough and hard working enough, whatever amount you pay on your autoresponder will pay for itself at some point.

Use paid option...work hard to build your list, work on building a relationship with your list and you can start seeing result within the first one month.

Wish you best of luck.

We send our email directly from our server, but not all at once. We send them slowly over a few days, and have no problem sending say 100,000 in one week (though usually we send far less).

GetResponse, they offer 30 days free. You should check them out

Hello, Harvey....

This is anther service called "GetResponse" its free to a point, there is an monthly fee.

But if want a totally Free "Contact Form" I would use "Google Doc./Forms".

This may help you out....

Your Friend,
Richard Patterson

MailChimp is best.

Harvey, in another thread you mentioned buying an email list.

FYI, you cannot upload a list you have purchased to aweber without them requiring that everyone opt in again.

And if they get a lot of spam reports from the list, they may delete your account entirely.

It is best to either build your own list or use a service other than aweber if you buy a list.

Your options are aweber $1 trial first month (upto 500 subscribers), inmica mail also do a $1 trial but with a larger capacity and finally you could try autosenders. Don't have the functionality of the other 2 but you can have 1 free autoresponder upto 10,000 subscribers.

Rich

Why not download a free program to turn home computer into a mail server? If you are on high speed there are some of these that will send to 20,000 or more an hour.

Mailchimp will give you a free program up to 2000.

I use my own autoresponder for about 80% of my list building.

You need to start your business with good foundations, and whilst getting things for free at the beginning is OK, an autoresponder and hosting should not be among them, at the end of the day, you get what you pay for.

Good luck, hope this helps


Kevin

Listwire is a free service, however I would recommend a paid service for the very simple reason that they would ensure the delivery rate with the email providers.

In my opinion, the real question here is:

Is there a free alternative that is fit to use as you're building your list, that will let you quickly and easily migrate your list to Aweber once you've started making money?

It seems beyond obvious to me, just from looking at each provider's website and reviews, that Aweber is by far the best long term option for serious IM professionals. However, it is a little expensive if your list is still tiny and you aren't making any real sales yet. What I'd be interested in knowing is whether it's possible to migrate from MailChimp to Aweber easily without having to start your autoresponder sequence over from the beginning again for the entire list...

As it's already been posted in this thread, avoid MailChimp at all costs. They prohibit affiliate marketing and will shut you down before you can jump the gun.

I know from personal experience. And the funny thing is, my list was < 50 subscribers.

Best regards,
Ryan W. Parker

Mailchinp is awesome check them out

Mail Chimp
Mad Mimi
Get Response - Google free trial with it b/c I'm not sure if it's on the main site anymore
iContact - I believe they have a free signup now

Mad Mimi has good support & I use iContact & love it. They send you a confirmation email when it goes out and has stats in the dashboard. Haven't really used Get Response and Mail Chimp was truly a pain to figure out.

If you are serious about your business then you definitely need a services that does not place their own ads into your mailings. It cheapens your mailings. Even worse, every email from you will be a sales email, just not for your products! Hard to build trust that way.

I like and use aweber. It may be a little more but many affiliate marketers use it.
It is easy to use.

Try comm100....

I've decided against free alternatives. Thanks everyone for your time.

I will be signing up shortly Gary.

Hey Gary,

So, what's the "catch" with ListWire's free service?

What is the monetization model?

What's the difference between ListWire and EmailAces?

Thanks,
Tom

I use Imnicamail (paid) and Listwire both, no complain at all. The only cons of Listwire are the ugly optin form and the big "listwire - click here for your free autoresponder" link under the optin form . But heck, this service overdelivers, 100% free, its support forum is very helpful, and my niches are not IM, so no grudge at all about that. And with Listwire, my emails fall to my subs' inbox.

Imnicamail provides free account for 1000 subscribers. Even if you use the paid account, it's just $3/month for 1000 subs.

For me It's OK to use free autoresponder, as long as they are reliable and you can actually use it as a stepping stone. I use free autoresponder until I get stable money to reinvest and scale up to paid one. I see people here in WF keep singing you may not use free autoresponder if you want to look professional and blah blah. Free reliable autoresponder (not just "free") can be a stepping stone to jumpstart your income and that's it. Personally I don't plan to use free autoresponder forever (still using Listwire, though, for shorter term niches).......and you don't have to if you want.

But again. it's entirely your choice

Peace

Anything you will choose, for me the better is Getresponse.
I've also tried Aweber and a free option, but now I'm keeping a backup of emails on a personal hosted autoresponder I bought here on WF a year ago.

I remember a free autoresponder who closed without notice letting me lose all my list, back in 2010. So paying is always better, at least if we are talking about autoresponders.

See you,
Alessandro Zamboni

I've been using MailChimp and have to say so far I'm very happy with them... they do have stricter TOS tho so be sure to read that before signing up...

I have a free GetResponse AR account also that's pretty good, altho limited.

Guess it all depends on what your needs are.

mailchimp wil lfreeze you in many niche even on free plan. they try to milk you how they can

I use the Free service on icontact.com. Serves me well. Once a campaign or list of a certain size, and justifies a monthly fee - then I move to a paid service with Aweber - as Aweber is more versatile (and will link easily into my S2 Membership Wordpress plugin)