17/05: Choosing An Autoresponder Service Or Software - Free Or Paid

Continuing with the autoresponder and listbuilding theme of recent posts, and having read Lord Matt's interesting post regarding email management software, I thought it was time to cover autoresponders in more detail.

You have various different options:

a) Sign Up For A Third Party Service (Free or Paid)
b) Buy an autoresponder script to install on your server
c) Find a Free Script To Install On Your Server
d) Piggy Back on Someone Else's System

The first option is to whip out your credit card and splash out on the services of Aweber or GetResponse or similar. Many people will recommend this to you and there is much to be said for employing these pro autoresponder services - best deliverability, tracking, ease of use, avoidance of spam complaints, commonly easy to integrate with other services and more.

I confess that I use neither but I will benefit if you order through one of the links above as I am an affiliate - this is another reason why so many are happy to recommend the services because they can earn nice commissions from doing so. I just think that is something that should be clarified. There are several other paid services if neither of the above suit you.

Also under the umbrella of third party services come the free autoresponders. In my opinion, a possible choice for non commercial users, not so good for business or professional use. Why? Well, the services are normally paid for by advertising, meaning unwanted ads on your messages over which you have no control. Not all services are ad supported though but other limitations can often make them of little use as a professional solution.

The other problem is that free services can attract spammers. This can have an extremely detrimental effect on the service and it's domain, which will not help you or your business in the long run. I've listed a few free services below, but it is by no means comprehensive, is in no particular order and doesn't necessarily constitute an endorsement of any of them as I have no experience of using them.

FreeFollowUp.com

ResponsePilot (Limited Free Trial)

AutoRespondersForAll (No ads)

123Response.com (free with upgraded service available)

FreeAutobot.com 

SendFree Autoresponders (free with upgrade available)

The next option is to buy a script and install it on your server. The upside of this is that you pay once and don't have to worry about monthly fees and will have full control over your subscriber base.

On the downside, you need to know how to install the script properly, set up a database etc. or have to get someone to do it for you. You need to be careful so as not to fall foul of your hosting company's mailing restrictions or overloading a shared server, you may run the risk of more spam complaints, and find that undeliverable mail is a greater problem than with a paid third party service.

Kiosk.ws

Not strictly in this category but they offer unlimited autoresponder services for their hosting customers all run on their own servers, not yours, meaning no installation difficulties for you and all covered by your hosting costs. You can get a sneak peek in the free ebook The Absolute Beginner's Guide To WebHosting

Media Autoresponders

I recommend this one as it has a lot of powerful features and is reasonably easy to install, although like any script it's easier if you have a little experience. This script is hosted on your own server and requires the following as a minimum:

1.) Catch-all email
2.) POP3 access to email accounts
3.) MySQL (version 3.23 or higher)
4.) MYSQL database
5.) PHP (version 4.2.3 or higher)
6.) Crontab 

The script comes with resell rights too and includes all the sales page graphics and HTML code so it does represent pretty good value for money.

AutoResponder Unlimited

I used to sell this as a stand alone product but you can now get the script plus a lot more besides for just $10 through the above link - download the book for full details, it's free and there's no obligation to buy anything.

The third option is a free script - there are several around, some better than others. The same installation and usage issues apply of course, but if your budget is zero, and used wisely, they can be OK.

If you choose a hosting company who offer CPanel and Fantastico you could install something like PHPList which I have found useful for a couple of my mailing lists/newsletters. Even if you don't have Fantastico, you can still get the software for free but installation won't be as simple. I use it to manage things like my author newsletter from one of my article directories and would recommend it to people using Article Dashboard for example. PHPList is free and pretty configurable no matter what size of list you are managing. This means that you can control your email broadcasts without fear of overloading your server or upsetting your hosting company.

AMLM Lite - Free Autoresponder (A Newsletter Opt-In Is Required to get this one)

Finally, if you read my earlier post regarding listbuilding with no autoresponder, you could join a system that enables you to build a list through a service like MVS. The downside is that you will face certain restrictions on mailing out to your list and will not really have ownership of your own database. Full explanation in the Listbuilding Video I put up here.

These ideas will help you decide which kind of autoresponder service is going to suit your needs and budget best. Good luck with whichever solution you choose.

TCH