Autoresponders are special software that respond to emails automatically. These tools are used for email marketing campaigns and to market your products. An important thing to keep in mind while designing this software is to prevent the emails from going into spam. So the question I get asked a lot is should I go for a Paid Autoresponder or Free Autoresponder?

For the purpose of this case study, I will be comparing Aweber (Paid Autoresponder) vs Listwire (Free Autoresponder).

Email list building is an important feature of all autoresponders. They are a vital key for the success of your marketing campaigns. By using Aweber, the biggest advantage that you have is that you get step by step instructions on list building and autoresponders, email marketing, and much more.

The customer service of Aweber is commendable. Also, Aweber makes sure that no spam complaints reach your ISP. This is really important as your ISP may block your IP address if it receives too many complaints. But the fact that it is a paid autoresponder shadows all the Aweber autoresponder benefits. Aweber was a very popular email autoresponder until its free competitor Listwire came along.

List building is done by four methods. List building offers incentives to your visitors for signing up. The key to successful list building includes making the visitors believe that the information you have is hundred percent accurate and genuine. Then the visitors need a reason to remain subscribed to your services and lastly the service should be keen on developing a healthy relationship with the subscriber. This is what list building is all about and what Aweber and Listwire services offer. List building is most useful to the visitors so it can be done two ways. Firstly by sending emails and secondly through broadcasting of blogs. Both methods provide invitations to the readers with every contact.

Listwire autoresponders has most of the features offered by the Aweber services but free of cost. Aweber has a monthly subscription of $19 per month whereas you can avail all the features of Listwire for free. The numbers of subscribers are unlimited on both services but Aweber charges a bit extra for making the subscribers unlimited.

I also feel that comparing the user interface of Listwire and Aweber autoresponder is also important. While creating web forms, there are more personalization options in Aweber. There are many good templates that we can choose from. Also, in Aweber, we can remove the tag that shows that the web form is powered by which company. We do not have that option in Listwire.

An important feature that an autoresponder needs to have is that it should schedule follow ups and successfully send campaigns through email. Both the autoresponders, namely Listwire and Aweber are equally successful in this regard.

Another Listwire benefit is that it integrates perfectly with PopUp Domination. We simply have to copy paste the URL of our web form into the plug in.

These were just some of the comparison areas of the Aweber paid autoresponder vs Listwire free autoresponder. Aweber autoresponder benefits are many but when you see that majority of the benefits are available from Listwire without any charges then you tend to vote for Listwire.

Aweber is great for businesses but for new entrepreneurs, you can start off and learn a lot from Listwire.

However, bear in mind that once you have built your list to a bigger size and decide to transfer, reputable third-party autoresponder services won’t let you import your list from Listwire or any free autoresponder without having them reconfirm. You will likely to lose half to two-thirds of your list in the transfer. Also, prepare to have their own ads send out together with your outgoing emails which could be a turnoff to your list.