Why I quit Aweber and no longer recommend it
Most recently, I made the decision to leave Aweber for another service. I’ve been with Aweber for a few years now, but just didn’t break even. In fact, I made no sales with my list and Aweber was charging me as though I made a fortune – justifying their price based on what they thought I should be making, but wasn’t.
And that isn’t the only reason, in fact there are a number of good reason why I quit Aweber as mentioned below.
Subscriber policy
Whenever someone confirms a subscription to your list, they are counted as your subscriber and rightfully so. But with Aweber, and only Aweber, whenever someone unsubscribes to your list, they still count as your subscriber!
Of course you can go into manage your subscriber’s section and manually delete each one who unsubscribed if you remember to do so. But until you do, they will continue to count on your list as though they were active.
What’s the big deal? Well, say you have 490 active subscribers and 11 unsubscribed – Aweber counts it as 501. This is over the limit and will put you to the next pricing structure of $29 per month for a list that actually has 490 (which is $19 per month, or $120 per year less). Is that fair? Which brings me to my next reason.
Pricing structure
When it comes to pricing structure for smaller lists, email service providers are all over the map with what they charge and Aweber is no exception. In fact Aweber is actually not small list friendly and I consider them the worst.
To be fair, they are price competitive up to 500 subscribers, but then hit you with their next pricing level at 501. Almost all other services allow you up to a thousand or more before they hit you with their next price level – and with a small list, this does make a difference!
Aweber remains competitive for medium and larger sized email lists (who they really must be targeting). But for the majority of niche and online marketers, most of us don’t even come close to this range. You are better served with another email marketing service.
Short changed by autopay
I really dislike services who dip into your bank account at their convenience and not yours. Aweber likes to pull your next payment about a month ahead. And so if you do cancel, you lose some of your paid service time like I did which was nearly a month!
End of story, list gone, email autoresponder series gone, nothing saved – ouch! It was kind-of-like sour grapes on their part. At least I was smart enough to export my list in CVS format before I canceled.
What else happened when I quit Aweber
A nasty little surprise that I hadn’t considered was that any email I had already sent using their service became basically dead even though I had already paid them for that service.
What surprise was it? Any link that was placed in an email sent through their service becomes deactivated – dead! So if one of your subscribers clicks a link, they go to Aweber’s dead screen page, not to the linked URL.
So if you change an email service provider like I did, be sure to let your list know that you did and that your old emails to them are no longer active. This is important for retention.
Final thoughts…
There you have why I quit Aweber! Unreasonable subscriber policy, unfair pricing structure, inconvenient autopay with lost time, and dead email links when you leave them.
For those who are curious to know what I use, it is a private mailing service call Inboxing Pro. I paid a one-time fee. I’ll let you know in a future post how well or disappointed I am with this service – stay tuned!!! Good Luck!
