In order to make a significant income from your online business, you need an email service. You’ll use email to make offers to your subscribers. 
But which one should you use?
Here I’ll discuss 5 email services. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of others. At the end of this post, you’ll find a table of prices.
Read through this list of email services and you’ll get an idea of what the major services offer.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is seductive, because it’s free for up to 2000 names. For this reason, this is where many people start.
Mailchimp is fairly easy to use, but it’s almost impossible to segment your list by event or free download and then send your newsletter out to multiple segments. That’s because they don’t offer you the ability to create multiple webforms that subscribe people to multiple lists.
You must use their templates, but one of them will probably be OK for you.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is free for 60 days for up to 100 contacts. This is like a free trial period. It has a business focus and excellent support. You can use their templates or your own and their templates come highly recommended.
It’s easy to use, but if you need help, they offer a list of expert “partners” in their marketplace who offer customized assistance for a fee.
Constant Contact comes with 3 free webforms that let you segment your list. For more, you need to purchase a third-party service called Formstack at $29/month.
Embedding an opt-in form on your website is a challenge but it can be done. It’s also hard to redirect people who complete your opt-in form to a custom thank-you page.
iContact
iContact’s free trial is for 30 days for up to 400 emails to up to 100 email addresses. It was recently taken over by another company, Vocus. They offer a 20% discount for non-profit organizations.
Their plans allow you to send to your total list up to 6 times per month; after that there are additional charges. You can have as many webforms and lists as you want.
AWeber
AWeber offers lots of features, like A/B testing and easy segmenting. They allow affiliate marketing, so many marketers use them. I find their system somewhat awkward to use but their support is excellent.
They offer unlimited webforms. The charge for duplicate subscribers who are on more than one list, though. And you can’t add people to a list after autoresponders are completed; this means that your new subscribers get your regular broadcast emails before you’ve fully introduced them to who you are and what you do.
MadMimi
Madmimi lets you have unlimited lists and webforms. It’s very cost effective and their service is supurb. MadMimi has a free option that you can start with. It has fewer features than AWeber — no A/B testing for example.
MailerLite
MailerLite is only a few years old but it has done well. It has great features, excellent chat-based support, and now offers a free level for up to 1,000 subscribers.
BirdSend
BirdSend is a new kid on the block but it has great features and excellent chat-based support. They’ll even help you migrate from another service. They have A/B testing, and other advanced features. There’s a 7-day free trial.
Other issues
There are many other issues to consider. How is the service? Can subscribers change their email address on their own or do you have to do it manually? Can you import HTML code? Can you do A/B testing to test email variations?
I’ve mentioned the issue of multiple webforms. I use this feature extensively, but not everyone needs it. So you have to judge the features based on your needs and how you market your online business.
Which email service do you use and why?
What do you like or dislike about the email service you use?
9 replies to "Comparing email services: Aweber, iContact, ConstantContact, MailChimp, MadMimi, MailerLite and BirdSend"
Hi Ellen, I am using Pure Leverage. I used to be an aweber customer however the additional tools and 100% affiliate commissions provided by the Pure Leverage affiliate plan make them a no brainer to me 🙂
Great article and great question,
~Coach Mark Edward Brown
Mark, I haven’t heard of that one but I have heard of GVO (it seems to be a part of that) and also of Empower Network, a competitor. If I’m right, they both seem to be Internet marketing packages that you can only join with an affiliate invitation. Affiliate programs are great (I give people my MadMimi email affiliate link) but I find that affiliate-ONLY programs are hard to judge. It’s impossible to read about the features on their website; you hear about it only from someone who is an affiliate. And when you join, the pitch is as much about making money by selling the product as about the benefits of the product itself. Am I mistaken on this?
Hi Ellen.
I’m using MailChimp. It was fairly easy to get started. Recently, I saw that Aweber is offering service that automatically converts your blog RSS to your newsletter and to Facebook posts. This sounds like a real timesaver and convenience to me. I’d then send a separate newsletter bi-weekly or monthly, in addition to the blog posts. Have you seen this? What do you think about it?
MailChimp has it too. http://mailchimp.com/features/rss-to-email/
It’s a pretty common feature. I don’t like it for a few reasons. I like to include only part of the blog post in my newsletter so that people have to click through to read the rest. It sounds mean, but I really want to get people onto my site. There they can find other posts and maybe even buy something. Also, I want to include additional content in my newsletter, such as promotions, a little personal content, a link to a second tip, etc.
Hi Ellen, wow… I think I found “Gold!!!!” I have my website and have done everything on my own… Not very techy whatsoever, and have been looking to find different necessities for client based websites… Your blog, and this post is simply awesome…I want to start out with programs that are inexpensive but still productive.. I love that you offer various options!! I will be back often, Thanks , Anthony Fazzary
[…] used MailChimp and AWeber, but those are the only ones I have first hand experience with. I found this article from April 2013 (before the MailChimp change) that describes some of the […]
Everyone loves it when individuals get together and share thoughts.
Great website, stick with it!
Am new to all this but report is helpful
Thanks for this great insight ma
Thank you so much for this article. We’re looking at a name, and then we’ll need an email service.