What Is The Best Free Autoresponder?

Running a successful online business requires much more than building a fantastic product and driving eyeballs to your website.

You need to follow up on those leads to build trust and, eventually, turn them into loyal customers who will keep buying from you. For that, an autoresponder comes in handy.

Here’s how it works…

Let’s say you run a fitness consultancy business online, your marketing is on-point, and you get lots of traffic on your website.

When visitors land on your website, complete a form with an email address and download an eBook, you’d have to follow up on these leads — and that’s where some business owners get it all wrong.

Business owners who are naïve in the online marketing environment tend to not follow up on these leads.

However, if you want to cash out, following up on a lead is the way to go. And that is where an autoresponder email comes into play.

Autoresponders are arguably the most effective and most natural ways of following up and converting onetime customers into repeat customers.

Yes, these magical tools are not the only way to follow up with your customers; you can follow up using phone calls. But there is a flip side to this strategy — phone calls make you come off as creepy.

To avoid such weird situations, you should use autoresponders. This way, you get to maintain regular communication with your customers without coming off as a desperate marketer.

The best part…

There are free autoresponders. 

In this article, you’ll discover the best free autoresponders available in the online marketing space.

Enough said! 

Here are the best free autoresponders for your business.

Best Free Autoresponders

SendinBlue

SendinBlue is a marketing software that offers a comprehensive solution for all sales and marketing needs.

The marketing software helps business owners to launch and grow a profitable email marketing and SMS marketing campaign.

Furthermore, you get to have a chat feature. The chat feature lets you engage directly with your visitors as they land on your website.

Now to the juicy part…

SendinBlue offers a sleek autoresponder. And the autoresponder is part of the free plan.

The SendinBlue free autoresponder can be triggered by lots of actions like abandoned cart, web events, and purchases.

What’s more, you can include text messages as part of the free autoresponder campaigns.

To do this, you’ve got to buy SMS credits.

Starting is pretty straightforward. You can get started for free and upgrade to any paid plans — Lite, Essential, Premium, or Enterprise.

The thing is, you can pretty much get more out of the free plan.

Pros

  • The service has a built-in visual editor
  • Users can test campaigns even before launching it.

Cons

  • There is a daily email limit on the free plan
  • There is a limit to the number of contacts in the autoresponder.

Aweber

Aweber is one of the top players in the industry. And it’s an ideal choice for small business owners.

When it comes to autoresponders, Aweber is arguably the best service in the market today.

The email marketing service is pretty impressive. 

With over 700 email templates and cool tools for crafting email designs, reporting, and split testing, you are pretty sure of generating massive results.

That’s not all…

It offers easy integration to landing pages, social media, and shopping carts. Integration to platforms like Facebook, PayPal, and WordPress is also supported by the tool.

Aweber is affordable, but you can use it for up to 500 contacts free!

See how Aweber compares to Constant Contact in our test here.

Pros

  • Superb customer support. A customer support representative is always available any time of the day to help
  • An ideal choice for folks with little or no technical skills.

Cons

  • The marketing automation and followup feature is not up to par to industry standard.

Flodesk

Flodesk is a vibrant new entry to the email marketing scene – prioritizing a smooth interface and stunning graphic design tools.

Unfortunately, Flodesk is not a free autoresponder but here’s some great news for you.

Flodesk offers a fully-featured free trial for 30 days.

After that you can get 50% off your subscription by signing up here. Not just your first month, your whole subscription.

Flodesk is new and under development, so that generous offer may not last long.

The autoresponder comes with a wide array of powerful but easy to use features including automated workflows – like resending emails to contacts who haven’t opened – and stunning landing pages and popup forms.

This is truly a email marketing service for the Instagram age.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is much more than an email marketing software. They offer other marketing services like setting up an online store, social marketing, and creating a website with built-in online marketing tools.

One fascinating feature of the platform is its intuitive user interface.

It’s an ideal choice for small business owners who are searching for an effective free autoresponder to test out before committing to a paid plan.

If you are in doubt, you can try out the software for 30 days. The 30-day free trial will help you get a feel for the various features of the service.

Unfortunately Constant Contact do require you to enter your card details in order to access the free trial.

However, when I called to cancel my account the helpful customer service staff offered me a choice of discounts or an extra free month to stay with them.

While I cannot guarantee it for everyone, it does seem like getting Constant Contact free for 60 days would not be difficult.

Aside from the 30-day free trial, you can opt for the Email or Email Plus plan.

The Email plan is ideal for small businesses that are searching for reliable ways of creating professional emails. Although the Email plan is good, business owners looking for better results can opt for the Email plus plan.

Here’s the thing; both plans are pretty good for email marketing. 

With any of these plans, you can launch professional email campaigns, send unlimited emails, get customizable templates, and access fresh reporting and tracking features.

Pros

  • Elegant and Intuitive user interface (UI)
  • Easy integration of other services like Excel and Outlook
  • Superbly easy-to-use service
  • Email automation is outstanding. There is a feature that lets you send automated emails when a customer takes action. This way, you get to have an immediate response at any time of the day.

Cons

  • No free package. Yes, Constant Contact has a 60-day free trial period. However, some services offer a free package with limited functionality
  • Pricing adds up with an increased number of contacts
  • The templates are not quite flexible
  • A/B testing. Most email marketing services allow users to compare various variables during A/B tests. However, during A/B testing, Constant Contact lets the user change only email subject lines.

MailerLite

It’s no secret that MailerLite is a fast-rising player in the industry — and for a good reason.

The tool is easy to use, and it comes with some fascinating features like forms, landing pages, and autoresponders.

The best part…

You get to access most of its features on the free plan.

One more thing…

The free plan offers a tremendous capacity of 12,000 emails per month.

With up to eight languages, you are pretty sure of not experiencing any form of language limitation. The user support is one of a kind. You’d have a shoulder to lean on every step of the way.

Also, there is a mobile app!

But the mobile app is only available for iOS users.

The fun part is the simplicity coupled with the plethora of choices when it comes to features like forms and newsletter.

All these juicy benefits can be gotten from the Free Forever plan.

Yes, you read that right!

Pros

  • Simplicity and easy to use tool
  • It’s an excellent choice for beginners
  • The upgrade can be done at an affordable price
  • The ideal choice for those with an email list of 1,000 subscribers or less.

Cons

  • There are no email templates on the free plan
  • MailerLite doesn’t come with a design or spam testing functionality.

GetResponse

As one of the industry’s leading players, GetResponse offers an all-in-one solution for all email 

Before diving right into the free autoresponder tool, here are a couple of things you should know about the platform. First off, GetResponse offers landing pages, e-commerce features, automated sales funnels, marketing needs.and webinar hosting. Having served over 300,000 customers, you are quite sure of getting into business with capable hands.

If you are still skeptical, you can start a free trial on the platform.

However, if you are ready for serious business, you can opt for any paid plans — basic, plus, professional, or max. The max plan is quite robust, and the price is dependent on your email list size and requirement. Before opting for the max plan, you should reach out to GetResponse for a demo. This way, you get to subscribe to the package that fits your needs.

The basic plan comes with built-in autoresponders. Some plans, like the Plus plan, comes with an automation builder.

The automation builder pretty much helps you to create a complex autoresponder sequence. And the sequence is designed to suit the user behavior.

A maximum of five automation can be created on the plus plan. Higher plans provide the flexibility of creating an unlimited number of automation. 

Pros

  • Competitive pricing and you get to have a 30-day free trial for any of the plans
  • Superb automation system
  • It offers comprehensive reporting system
  • Customer support is provided in various languages
  • Full integration with platforms like PayPal, ClickBank, OptinMonster, and Shopify.

Cons

  • To get more advanced features, you’d have to move to the Plus Plan.

MailChimp

MailChimp is arguably the most popular email marketing service in the world. The tool comes with lots of features to help users automate their emails.

If you are on a tight budget, you can opt for the free plan. With the open plan, you can pretty much send tons of emails (about 10,000 emails per month) to 2,000 subscribers.

Now that’s an excellent value!

Another fascinating feature is the pay as you go plan. Folks with low-volume mailing list can maximize their investment with this plan.

That’s not all…

There are lots of integration options!

Pros

  • The free plan offers simple autoresponders. It’s an excellent fit for small businesses
  • Massive integration options. You get full integration with up to 300 apps
  • There are intuitive drag and drop templates
  • Offers a one-stop solution to your email marketing needs.

Cons

  • Folks on the free plan get to have email support for only 30 days. After that, you’d pretty much get all the help you need from regular content
  • The free plan comes with MailChimp branding on all emails
  • The automation tools are not as powerful as those of other brands. It’s a huge turn off for users who are primarily interested in the autoresponder.

ConvertKit

If you are a newbie and still looking for how to build opt-in forms and landing pages, ConvertKit is the way to go.

You can start by signing up for the 14-day free trial. This way, you get to have a feel for what the service providers are offering.

ConvertKit is the ideal choice for professional bloggers, YouTubers, course creators, and podcasters.

Your plan will be upgraded automatically if you outgrow your list.

For this to happen, the list outgrowth has to be organic. That is, your mailing list increases through signups.

If, however, there is an importation of numerous subscribers to your mailing list, then the account would be paused for an approval process.

Fret not! The approval process is quick and easy.

All in all, ConvertKit is the ideal way for newbies to start building their mailing list and also automate their email marketing process.

Pros

  • ConvertKit offers different ways of segmenting your customers
  • The landing page builder helps you to create sleek landing pages. And with the 30 templates available, building stunning landing pages would be a breeze
  • Setting up an account is super fast.

Cons

  • Without inviting someone to the platform, you’d pretty much not unlock any of the free features
  • The automation feature is not enabled on the free plan, but you can use it during the 14-day free trial.

What’s the best email autoresponder for affiliate marketing?

Autoresponders are a great way to sell affiliate products because you already have warm leads who trust you.

Over time you have the potential to sell valuable products to your list. But some autoresponders do not let you use affiliate links.

Mailchimp is the most renowned for this prohibition but other autoresponders also risk losing your list if you break their terms.

On the other hand, Aweber and GetResponse are known to be the most affiliate-friendly autoresponders.

Best Autoresponder for Affiliate Marketing:

Avoid:

Free Autoresponder FAQs

Which autoresponder is the best?

There are lots of great players in the market, and it’s quite tricky to pinpoint the best autoresponder for your business needs.
Here’s the thing; all the autoresponders on this guide are great, and they pretty much offer stunning benefits.

What is an autoresponder, and how does it work?

An autoresponder is a marketing tool that lets users send a series of scheduled emails to a list of subscribers. 
Here’s how it works…
A visitor lands on a website and subscribes to the mailing list.
Emails are scheduled and sent to the mailing list (or subscribers)
The sender establishes excellent communication with the subscribers.

How do I create an autoresponder?

To create an autoresponder, you’ve got to craft your email content, create a call to action (which makes it easy for your visitors to subscribe), and optimize your emails.

How can I send an automatic email for free?

Sending an automatic email is pretty simple — all you need is a free email marketing service!
To do that, you’ve got to signup for any of the free autoresponders on the list.
After that, you’d craft your email and send it to customers on your mailing list.

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