Aweber Review 2020: Pros, Cons & Alternatives (with a Video Demo)

If you’re looking for a thorough Aweber Review review, you’re in the right place.

So the scenario goes…

You’ve started a business and you’ve been doing some networking online and offline. You’ve figured out that people aren’t buying on your first encounter, but they look interested, and need more follow-up. As a result, you’re starting to compile this list of “potential customers”, “potential vendors”, and “potential collaborations”, and you know it would take you FOREVER to try to send emails explaining your company to each of them, or to follow up individually at regular increments, so you try to figure out what to do.

You stumble across email marketing as a solution, but there’s so many options, you’re confused about which is the right fit for you. You see Constant Contact, Convertkit, GetResponse, and others, and it gets a little confusing trying to decide which is best.

Sound familiar? 

This is the situation so many entrepreneurs find themselves in. You might be able to relate. Maybe it’s you that’s trying to figure out how to manage all of the demands of communicating with all of the business contacts efficiently.

I know how it is to try to sort thru the jungle of email marketing. The good news is…

I’ve done it for you. Email marketing isn’t as simple as one being bad and one being good. Instead, it’s more like going to Walmart to the drink isle where there’s lots of options and you have to choose your flavor. I’ve signed up for most of the email marketing services to observe the pros and cons for you, and in this review, I plan to outline them for you. I’ll do this in a way so you’ll be able to see features that might be useful for your business.

In this Aweber Review review, I will tell you:

• What it is
• How it works
• Pros and Cons
• What it does well and what it does not
• What others are saying (good and bad)
• My Recommendation
• And, Alternatives (in case you want to do some comparison shopping)

What is Aweber? An Overview

Going back to the previous scenario…

Many entrepreneurs get in the situation where they have lots of people they need to keep in contact with, but not enough time to do it manually. In this scenario, it’s best to leverage the technology the best you can by using the modern tools available to us.

With a tool like Aweber, you can:

• Automate emails
• Track analytics like open rate, click rate, and other metrics that would help you tailor ongoing communication
• And, overall, stay top-of-mind, so when prospects need your product or service, they remember you

A Little Backstory on Aweber

Aweber was founded by CEO Tom Kulzer back in 1998. Their mission is “to help entrepreneurs and small businesses create and send emails people love”. Since 1998, Aweber has grown to support over 100,000 small businesses and they have a team to support the mission.

How Does Aweber  Work?

Aweber is a software tool that stores the contacts you put in there. It also has capabilities to build automation sequences and mass email broadcasts so you can nurture the relationships with your contacts thru email.

Aweber offers you templates and tools to customize and design your messages, and they provide analytic data to you, so you can continually observe what’s working and what’s not.

How Do I Get Started with Aweber?

To get started with Aweber, you can visit their website here, and set up a 30-day free trial account (with no billing information required). With the free account, you can have access to their tools, experiment, and decide if it’s a good fit for you.

Who is Aweber For?

Aweber is best for:

• Small business owners who want simplicity
• Online entrepreneurs who want to do simple email marketing, but may practice methods (like affiliate promotions) that are not acceptable in other email marketing terms of service contracts
• Those who want to automate email marketing and get great support along the way
• Those who want to split test email subject lines, content, and send times
• Those who use software that integrates well with Aweber

Who isn’t Aweber Good For?

Customers who have been disappointed with Aweber were disappointed because:

• They were banned without warning for spam and abnormal unsubscribe rates, so if this is your practice, maybe reconsider
• They wanted the highest deliverability ratings and felt that Aweber fell short
• They wanted more email customization functionality
• Or, they wanted link triggers, tagging and automation features Aweber doesn’t offer

If you’d want to have any features not available at Aweber or you think one of these problems will be a dealbreaker for you, you should check out some of the alternatives I have listed below.

Aweber Tools & Training

Aweber has a knowledgebase, webinars, and video guides to help customers with their email marketing.

Aweber Support

Aweber offers 24/7 support by email, phone, and live chat.

What Does Aweber Do Well

• Aweber has been in the email marketing for a long time (since 1998), so they’re very familiar with the industry
• They have high customer satisfaction ratings
• Their software works to increase the efficiency of sending follow up emails or email blasts to a list
• They provide training and support to help you with email marketing

What Doesn’t Aweber Do Well

• Aweber does duplicate billing, so if you have a contact subscribed to more than one list, then it will be counted as two subscribers (which causes higher costs for some customers)
• Many customer reviews suggest there’s sometimes a difficulty when a customer unsubscribes, so it requires manual deletion

Aweber Review Roundup

Common Positive Feedback

• • Aweber is great for affiliate marketers

• Aweber is newbie friendly and very easy to figure out
• The support is very helpful
• I’ve been using Aweber for years and they’re very reliable

Common Negative Feedback

• They haven’t made necessary changes to keep up with the changing needs of entrepreneurs
• Their software is outdated
• It’s difficult to customize templates for your emails, so you’ll likely have to pay for custom email templates
• I don’t like how they count one subscriber who’s on multiple lists as several subscribers
• It’s a pain to have to manually delete users who unsubscribe when Aweber doesn’t do it for you
• It’s missing alot of the tagging and segmentation features I want in my business

Most Helpful Positive Aweber Review

What do you like best?

AWeber is a great email autoresponder program. For my individual website, it has allowed me to send automatic emails to everyone who decided to opt into receiving my emails. AWeber is easy to use, and it allows me to maintain contact with my audience. I would probably say the best part of this program is the price for what it does, and how convenient it is to use.

What do you dislike?

I dislike how the design the emails are not very professional. They seem basic and lack character, which is not that great from my perspective. I want my clients to see my emails like they’re corresponding with me individually, instead of on a list. Due to this, I find AWeber somewhat lacking sometimes.

Recommendations to others considering the product

I would say that it is a program which is easy to use. It does not offer the best design, however it is great for a starting business, and has been a great starter program to use. I would also say that after a few years, it might be worth it to upgrade to a more professional and sleek looking program.

What business problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

I use AWeber to contact my clients for my Freelance profession. I like to make crafts and sell them online, and for part of my website, it is very important to have your clients be able to hear from you. This is why I started using AWeber. It has helped me maintain contact with my clients, and has done so efficiently.

Alex Z., G2Crowd reviewer

Most Helpful Negative Aweber Review

“Aweber is outdated and has too many problems, mainly the email deliverability. “

What do you like best?

It is easy to create forms, it is also easy to see how many leads you have.

What do you dislike?
Emails go straight to spam, constant glitches, forms look terrible and are difficult to make more aesthetically pleasing, half the time phone numbers won’t come through, doesn’t work well with zapier, csv downloads don’t work, impossible to create a good looking email campaign.

Recommendations to others considering the product
Don’t use it for anything other than collecting and storing leads, use a better system if you can.
What business problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?
We needed a way to collect and store our clients leads.”

Shannon K., G2Crowd Reviewer

Aweber Review Price

Aweber starts at $19/mo for up to 500 email subscribers and the price goes up to $149/mo for up to 25,000.

My Final Opinion of Aweber

Overall, Aweber is a great software tool. Many people use Aweber and are very happy with it. It’s some missing features that typically leave some customers to look elsewhere, but if you:

• Like the user interface
• Are happy with the features
• Looking for simplicity
• Want an alternative to manual emailing
• or, you want to test it out yourself…

You can check out their 30-day free trial here.

VERDICT: Recommended

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