Email Marketing
The Best Free Email Autoresponders Compared
Are you searching for the best free email autoresponders for your company? Back in the day, there were not a lot of free choices. Most acceptable email autoresponders require some type of monthly fee.
However, times are changing, and two or three well-known email autoresponders recently added free plans for their pricing models. We now have a small number of great free email autoresponder choices to select from.
Remember that all these free programs are restricted in some way. While they’re good enough to do some simple emailing, in case you really need to get serious with your email marketing, you will eventually have to upgrade.
In this guide, we are going to take a close look at 6 of the greatest free email autoresponder options so that you can pick the one which fits your needs.
MailerLite: Free Email Autoresponders
MailerLite premiered in 2010, which makes it relatively new in comparison with other email advertising and autoresponder platforms in this listing, but it has already established itself as an easy-to-use but feature-rich alternate.
Free Plan Pros:
- It is possible to construct semi-complex automation workflows without paying a cent.
- It is possible to use the landing page qualities to develop both informational webpages and email capture pages. It’s not unusual for autoresponder tools to have popup features, and while these attributes are often reserved for paying customers, MailerLite takes another approach.
- It is free forever. The guarantee is in the title, and this provides some comfort that in the event you start building your email list with MailerLite, you won’t wake up to a sudden policy change that compels you to transfer all your information. (This happens more than you might imagine!)
Free Plan Cons:
- Every email and landing page you create on the free plan will be labeled with subtle MailerLite branding, and there is no way to turn off this without upgrading to a paid subscription.
- Fundamental monitoring and reporting is available but you won’t get access to click maps or location-based reporting — although this is not something that you need with a little list. This is possibly the biggest drawback because you are going to be limited to plain text if you don’t pay up. What is more, this was contained in the free program, then suddenly it was not. #sad
- A couple of automation features are stripped from the free plan, such as”Auto-resend” to resend an effort to readers who did not participate, and”Deliver by timezone” to time your sending based on geolocation. Running a split-test effort is (rightfully) considered an advanced feature, and it is not something you will have access to as a free user. This should be expected throughout the board.
- You can not use the live chat service.
MailerLite Pricing
The free program covers you for as many as 1,000 total subscribers and 12,000 emails each month, which equates to 12 emails per user, per month in the very top end.
Optionally, you can pay $10 a month if you would like unlimited emails and/or access to limited features, like email templates, A/B testing, and much more automation capabilities.
You can find more MailerLite pricing information here.
MailChimp: Free Email Autoresponders
MailChimp has existed since 2001, and is still one of the very popular email marketing/autoresponder platforms on the world wide web, especially for small businesses and solopreneurs.
MailChimp Free Plan Experts:
- Contains’Single Measure’ and classic’ automation. MailChimp recently revamped its free program to be more appealing, such as adding automation features that were previously only available to paying clients. Not only can you build squeeze pages but you may also publish entire sites, and of course website Analytics’ are thrown in too. Most free programs require that you use their domain names for things like landing pages and link monitoring, but MailChimp does not.
- Contains the newest Creative Assistant. This is a Beta layout feature that helps with your brand assets with the ability of AI. Very surprising to find that in the free tier.
- Enables up to 2,000 readers without forcing you to upgrade. This is extremely generous compared to most other free programs.
MailChimp Free Plan Cons:
- No behavior-based automation, which means you can not activate targeted automation when a contributor takes a particular action. Examples of this include registering for an account for the first time or wanting a new feature on your site.
- No direct scoring, or what MailChimp describes as purchase Likelihood’ scoring. This essentially tells you how likely someone is to buy a product from you depending on the activities they choose
- Just includes basic email templates. The majority of the pre-built MailChimp templates are secured behind a paywall and there is also no choice to custom code your own.
- Restricted analytics and no direct scoring features.
- Other feature limitations like social media scheduling or retargeting ad campaigns. These are considered more bonus features than a core component of the product. Every email and landing page is marked with subtle MailChimp branding that can only be eliminated via a paid subscription.
- No live chat service, and just 30 days of email support. This is quite limited compared to other freemium plans.
MailChimp Pricing
The free program covers you for as many as 2,000 total subscribers and 10,000 emails per month, and this is definitely among the maximum subscriber limits.
Paid plans begin from $9.99 for just 500 subscribers, and while this cheap, it does not scale too well in comparison to options — especially if coming from the free program at 2,000 subscribers.
You can find more MailChimp pricing information here.
ConvertKit: Free Email Autoresponders
ConvertKit reared its head in 2013, targeting bloggers and internet founders with its tagline”the power of InfusionSoft with the ease of MailChimp”. It’s since become one of the greatest players at the email marketing/autoresponder lineup.
ConvertKit Free Plan Experts:
- Endless emails. You will find that most free autoresponder plans limit the number of emails you can send per month, however, ConvertKit does not.
- Endless landing pages and forms. You also get complete use of landing pages and forms, with no limitations on how many you can produce.
- Enables custom domains. You have the choice to join your own domain name and skip ConvertKit branded URLs. This is not necessarily a luxury afforded to free users.
- Incorporates complete tagging and segmentation features. ConvertKit has always been a major advocate of tag-based segmentation so that they are not about taking such a basic feature from the free program.
- Affiliates get blamed for free accounts when they finally begin paying, providing an easy transition to the”ConvertKit funnel”, and finally increasing conversions.
- ‘Refer a friend’ system to enlarge free plan limitations. This is a special approach to the free account, letting you refer other freebie seekers so as to expand both account limits. Each referral raises your listing limitation by 100 subscribers.
ConvertKit Free Plan Cons:
- This is a fairly harsh restriction given that most choices on this list allow at least some kind of automation, especially for producing autoresponder sequences. If you’re trying to construct your own templates, then you will need to pay. This is true for nearly every free autoresponder plan you will find, however.
- No third-party integrations. There are quite a few third-party integrations offered for ConvertKit, but you won’t have the ability to benefit from these integrations on the free program. ConvertKit usually provides free migration assistance, meaning they’ll move your list on your behalf, but that is not available on free programs.
- No access to superior service. This only means you won’t have priority when calling their support staff for assistance, however, you’ll still have access to support. As is standard, your emails and landing pages are indicated with ConvertKit branding till you become a paid subscriber.
ConvertKit Pricing: Free Email Autoresponders
The free program covers you for as many as 1,000 total subscribers (up from 500 as it established ) and there is no mention of how many emails you can send a month, which could only be translated as”fair use”.
Paid plans begin from $29 for 1,000 subscribers, with strings and innovative automation being the main attraction. It is fair to say ConvertKit is not the least expensive option when comparing list size constraints.
You can find more ConvertKit pricing information here.
Aweber: Free Email Autoresponders
Close enough. This one is designed more for small companies with a strong focus on email advertising — meaning not so many bells and whistles.
AWeber Free Plan Pros
- The template library can be huge.
- Consists of basic email automation. You’ll have the ability to produce simple email autoresponder sequences but you won’t get access to the advanced automation features. (More on that below)
- Endless landing pages with the visual landing page builder, in addition to access to all templates. You could even use this to construct squeeze pages to capture more emails and build your list. This makes the free program viable for teams both large and small because it is possible to make any number of users access and manage the account. They also provide a migration service free of cost to free users that’s a wonderful touch when you’ve got an existing list elsewhere.
AWeber Free Plan Cons
- Split-testing is considered an advanced feature so you will not have the ability to use this
- No custom sections. This means that you can only send to an entire list or multiple lists rather than carving out new sections. While you obtain access to fundamental data that enjoys opens, clicks, and unsubscribes, you won’t have the ability to use advanced message analytics, audience analytics, or perhaps page tracking.
- Restricted e-commerce features. It’s possible to incorporate various e-commerce options but it will prevent you from utilizing sales monitoring and cart abandonment features.
- No behavioral automation, which means you won’t have the ability to activate automation on specific user activities, whether it be out of your emails or on your website. Every email is labeled with Aweber branding. You are also not allowed to use branded connection monitoring.
Paid plans begin from $19 a month for 500 subscribers, providing you more automation features, unlimited emails each month, better analytics, and some other tiny upgrades.
SendinBlue
SendInBlue was set in 2007, placing it somewhere in the middle if we purchased this list by business age. It’s also among the most ambitious platforms concerning feature set, going way beyond just email advertising.
SendInBlue Free Plan Experts:
- Unlimited subscribers. SendInBlue is unique in how it restricts emails per day rather than subscriber count, and this also applies to the free plan also. You get a limit of 300 emails every day. You can build anything from simple autoresponders to full-blown visual workflows with several triggers, conditions, and activities, all for free (up to 2,000 readers ).
- Total access to the template library.
- Includes website/page monitoring.
- Incorporates advanced segmentation. There are not any constraints to managing your contacts so that you can carve out new sections from existing lists using the segmentation tools on offer.
- Includes other advertising tools, including SMS advertising, embeddable live chat widget along with a complete sales CRM.
SendInBlue Free Plan Cons
- You won’t have the ability to conduct A/B testing in your emails, and it is a frequent theme among free autoresponder platforms. SendInBlue can send emails to each individual contributor based on a particular”time algorithm”, but only in the event that you update, unfortunately.
- Limited coverage. Things such as geographical and device reports, heating map reports, and innovative click reports are not available on the free tier. This should be pretty much anticipated at this time.
- Light brand in exactly the like the choices listed above. This also applies to the Lite program.
SendInBlue Pricing
The free program covers you for an unlimited number of readers because all SendInBlue programs are based on email limitations, not contacts. However, the free program provides you 300 emails each day that makes it tough to broadcast to over 300 subscribers.
Paid plans start from $25 for up to 100,000 emails per month without a daily send limitation, which is pretty competitive for medium sending frequency. You also get a couple of additional automation features and better support.
You can find more SendInBlue pricing information here.
MooSend
MooSend was set in 2011 and comes in as one of the most affordable email marketing platforms available on the industry today, and like most of the competitors, they are also expanding into a holistic suite of marketing tools.
MooSend Free Plan Experts:
- Incorporates visual automation workflows. You can build practically any sort of automation you need using the workflow builder, with no feature limitations.
- Includes subscription and signup forms to capture prospects. This also gives you access to popups such as modals and ribbons, in addition to inline forms that may be displayed inside your site content.
- Contains split-testing. This is one of those (very) few free autoresponders that permit A/B to analyze your email content and subject lines. A massive value proposition for MooSend.
- Consists of conditional content. Email campaigns can have lively segments using their”Conditional Visibility” feature.
- his can be used to show specific content simply to applicable subscribers
- Complete, in-depth campaign monitoring. This is everything from basic open and clicks monitoring, all of the way to advanced tracking/reporting like custom events, demographics and location, spam analysis, and much more.
- Total access to integrations. MooSend now has 100+ integrations and these may also be leveraged on the free program.
It is free forever. Another guarantee of longevity, so that you don’t have to be worried about uprooting your list if you’re planning to remain on the free program for some time.
MooSend Free Plan Cons:
- Once more, the landing page attribute can fall either way when it comes to the free plan. This time, however, they decided against it. If you run an internet store you are going to want transactional emails for things like cart, order status, and purchase receipts. All mails are indicated with a MooSend emblem. This one has applied throughout the board, so no surprise there. Again, this means it may take a bit longer to get a response, but, besides phoning in, you may still use the identical support channels, such as the live chat service.
MooSend Pricing
The free program covers you for as many as 1,000 total subscribers and there are no limitations on the number of emails you can send monthly, at least none that are clearly mentioned.
Paid plans start from just $8 monthly for up to 2,000 subscribers, that is the most affordable premium option on this listing. This will also unlock virtually every feature MooSend offers at that price.
You can find more MooSend pricing information here.
so what’s the greatest free email autoresponder?
As you can see, you have a lot of choices if you would like to join using a free email autoresponder.
But which one you pick depends on what camp you are in.
If you are on a tight shoestring budget who is never planning to update then both MailerLite and Moosend are exactly what I’d recommend for you.
Both of the service package lots of value in their free forever plans.
But if you’re searching for a free autoresponder that you can grow into as soon as you start seeing some results then I’d try SendinBlue or ConvertKit.
They both are really great choices once you finally upgrade to paid, you’ll unlock their full capacities.