Aweber Review 2024: Pros and Cons, Exclusive Features, and Deliverability Rate
Founded in 1998, Aweber is a popular email marketing solution known for its automation features. The platform offers landing page builders, e-commerce pages, web push notifications, and powerful autoresponders.
While Aweber has good email marketing features, its mixed reviews could make you second guess your choices.
Let us review everything about Aweber, from its pros and cons and exclusive features to honest user reviews.
Aweber Features Overview
Aweber is a cloud-based email marketing solution focusing on ease of use and good automation.
It helps users build straightforward email marketing campaigns by providing the following:
- Email lists: Aweber makes it simple to build landing pages and create sign-up forms to attract new subscribers.
- Email builder: It provides a drag-and-drop editor and a library of templates.
- Automation: Users can choose from 90% of pre-built automation templates and customize them.
- Analytics: Aweber offers split testing and email web analytics, which increase the accuracy of link tracking.
- Mobile app suite: Users can access data on the go using three mobile apps (Aweber Stats, Atom App, and Curate App).
Aweber offers unlimited email templates, pre-stocked photos, and an AI writing assistant. The smart email designer gathers logos and branding assets from all social media and websites to create ‘ready-to-send’ email campaigns.
If you send newsletters regularly, you can use their RSS Triggered Emails and behavioral automation to customize the content according to user journeys.
Another popular feature is the Autoresponders — with tagging, segmentation, and dynamic content, you can send pre-written email sequences that are automatically triggered based on customer actions.
Here’s a closer look at Aweber’s features and their uniqueness.
| Aweber Features | Uniqueness |
|---|---|
| Drag and drop email builder | ‣ Visually appealing templates without coding ‣ Easy to use, even for beginners |
| Autoresponder sequences | ‣ Advanced automation capabilities combined with easy-to-set-up features90% pre-built and customizable campaigns |
| Segmentation | ‣ Robust tagging system with beginner-friendly segmentation options |
| Analytics | ‣ Offers A/B testing and Email Web Analytics |
| Integration | ‣ Integration options with social media channels, shopping carts, CRM, content management tools, etc. |
| Landing page builder | ‣ Easy-to-use landing page templates ‣ Sign up form builder to collect email addresses ‣ E-commerce drag-and-drop button ‣ Easy to set up Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel to track and improve landing page performance |
| List management and growth tools | ‣ Streamlines list hygiene and subscriber acquisition |
| Mobile apps | ‣ Offers three separate mobile apps to track data on the go |
Aweber has several interesting features, but choosing the platform depends on your priorities in email marketing tools. Let’s hear from Aweber’s current and past users to see if the platform is ideal for your business needs.
Aweber Ratings and Reviews
We evaluated Aweber’s potential in terms of automation, email deliverability, and ease of use. Here are honest Aweber reviews from marketers and business owners.
Aweber Positive Reviews
Users praise Aweber for its good email deliverability and ease of use. However, some seem disappointed with poor customer service and exorbitant pricing, especially for larger email lists.
If you’re just starting out on an email marketing platform, Aweber might offer tutorials and videos to organize traffic and build your email list.
Aweber is also known for its user-friendliness, which allows non-tech customers to use the platform. However, once users get hands-on experience, it might not be the ideal provider for complex email marketing needs.
Aweber Negative Reviews
While there are good enough reasons to use Aweber, pricing might not be one. Users have to pay to use third-party integration apps, which could increase the overall costs.
Overall, Aweber could be a good fit if you’re looking for a beginner-friendly platform without complex workflows. Once again, you would have to pay more to merely use the basic features.
Let’s review the positives and negatives of using Aweber in the table below.
| Aweber Feature | Positives | Negatives |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | Intuitive interface, drag-and-drop builder | Lacks advanced features for complex campaigns |
| Automation | Robust autoresponders | Lacks complex automation workflows |
| Landing page builder | Create sign-up forms and landing pages with pre-built templates | Lacks design flexibility |
| Integrations | Connects with social media and websites | Integrations are limited when compared to other competitors |
| Pricing | Competitive for small lists | Can get pricier for larger email lists |
| Email deliverability | Maintain a good deliverability rate | Occasional spam folder issues |
Aweber Reviews – Summary
People appreciate Aweber’s ease of use, automation flexibility, and quick tech support. They especially like the fact that they can create good-looking landing pages without coding knowledge. Users are also happy with the detailed reporting and analytics features, particularly for affiliate marketing.
However, clients are not completely satisfied with the email design — the template library is not as vast as its competitors. According to the available reviews, the landing page builder lacks customization options, making it hard to create brand-aligned content.
Other users report having too many tools, making it hard for beginners to navigate the platform. Aweber is no exception to system errors — users report occasional technical glitches, urging them to sign back in.
Overall, Aweber gets a thumbs up for customer service, a collection of email subscribers, and an intuitive interface with built-in email templates.
Aweber Pros
Aweber is well-known for its customer support and landing page creation. But that’s not all; we outline more important aspects of the platform below.
Email Deliverability
Aweber has an 83.1% email deliverability rate.
The in-house email deliverability and reputation management systems run checks 24*7 to monitor errors and risks. Aweber claims to own the full delivery stack compared to other platforms that mostly outsource deliverability to third parties.
Email Builder
The email builder is intuitive and offers Theme settings that help users define the colors, fonts, links, and other brand elements. You can make the newsletters unique by choosing a font pairing and font size.
The drag-and-drop email builder offers over 700+ email templates and HTML designs that resize automatically based on your subscribers’ devices. Aweber’s handy integration with Unsplash makes it quicker to choose an image and add your logo. Its integration with Canva helps users create everything under the same roof. You can also use their smart designer email builder or code templates from scratch.
Email Automation
Creating automation is pretty straightforward. You can use the drag-and-drop campaign builder to create trigger-based emails. Clients can also create upsells and cross-sells using behavioral automation or generate abandoned cart email campaigns.
Mobile App Suite
Aweber’s mobile suite comes with three different mobile apps, each built for a different purpose.
The Stats app lets you check email marketing campaign stats from Android or iPhone. You can also check customer follow-ups and other live updates, such as open and click-through rates.
The Atom app allows you to add subscribers on the go — you can create a mobile-hosted sign-up form and gather information from networking events or business meetings. This makes it quicker to add people to your email list even without an internet connection.
The Curate App lets users create email newsletters from their mobiles. You can edit, preview, and send simple newsletters on the go.
List Management Tools
Aweber’s list management tool allows you to segment subscribers based on different criteria and manage new subscribers with the powerful automation system.
Registration/Opt-in Forms
Aweber offers form customization options, including pop-up, in-line, and lightbox. It has integrations that allow you to add contacts from WordPress, PayPal, Wix, etc.
AI Writing Assistant
The AI writing assistant helps users brainstorm with keywords and create on-brand content right from the platform. You can select from a range of styles to suit your brand tone and email content.
Landing Page Builder
Aweber’s landing page builder comes with many templates and SEO options. Users can accept payments in 100+ currencies and pull information from Stripe. The ‘Link-in Bio’ page option allows you to link to the most important parts, such as newsletter sign-up forms, embedded promotions, and other important content.
You can connect to your existing domain or buy a new one to increase your landing page discoverability. All the landing page templates are mobile-responsive and designed for 100+ industries.
Customer Support
Aweber offers an extensive knowledge base, video tutorials, 24*7 customer services, and free account migration. Support is friendly and provides clear instructions for customer queries.
Overall, a Good Email Platform For Beginners
Users like Aweber for its simplicity, extensive email templates, and 24/7 customer support. Some users believe the free plan for up to 500 subscribers is a good bet for their money.
Clients appreciate the email and landing page builders and robust automation features.
Aweber Cons
According to reviews available online, Aweber has steep pricing and an unfair subscriber count. Here are other disadvantages.
Lack of Advanced Features
Aweber lacks most of the advanced features present in similar marketing platforms, such as advanced segmentation, automation, and spam and design testing.
Difficulty Managing Multiple Lists
As a beginner, it can be challenging to differentiate between tagging and separate lists. There are not many advanced filtering options to identify subscriber lists. Some users report a lack of nested lists or folders to categorize main lists, making it difficult to manage high-volume email lists.
Lack of Advanced Tracking
While Aweber offers basic reporting and analytics, some clients say there’s a lack of advanced sales or conversion tracking. It might not capture detailed e-commerce tracking like product purchases or customer behavior.
The platform tracks clicks but misses out on providing advanced click-tracking features, such as where users click within your website after following a link. Some users also feel the platform could have more integration options with a modern user interface.
Free Plan Limitations
Although Aweber offers a generous free plan for up to 500 subscribers, it limits some of its functionalities. Upgrading to unlock essential features can quickly scale your costs.
Overall, an Expensive Platform For Small Businesses
Aweber could be pricier compared to other email service providers with similar attributes and pricing, especially considering some of its limitations.
Aweber offers a free plan for up to 500 subscribers, 1 email list, automation, and a landing page. However, the monthly costs increase as your subscribers increase, meaning your costs will increase as your list grows.
Compared to other solutions out there, the platform is more on the expensive side, particularly for small businesses, considering the lack of complex automation, integration, and reporting.
Aweber Pros and Cons Overview
Based on user reviews on trusted platforms, here’s a comprehensive view of Aweber’s pros and cons.
| Aweber Pros | Aweber Cons |
|---|---|
| User-friendly interface | Expensive pricing structure for larger email lists |
| Extensive template library | Lack of advanced automation and segmentation features |
| 24*7 customer support | Steep learning curve for beginners since the interface changes occasionally |
| Good segmentation features | No complete control over template customization |
| Reliable email deliverability | Lack of comprehensive reporting and analytics |
Aweber Pricing Reviews
Aweber charges based on the number of subscribers. Its pricing system gets mixed reviews — users with less than 500 subscribers can benefit from its free plan. However, the costs can quickly increase for bigger email lists.
Since the pricing is tiered, users with larger email lists will have to pay more, even for unsubscribes.
Other users feel that Aweber’s paid plans, despite increasing the email list, don’t offer a corresponding increase in advanced features.
| Aweber Pricing Plan | Price/month | Features Included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | ‣ Up to 500 subscribers ‣ 1 email list ‣ 1 landing page ‣ 1 automation ‣ Basic email support |
| Lite | $12.50 | ‣ Unlimited subscribers, additional subscriber fees apply ‣ 1 Email list ‣ 3 Landing pages ‣ 3 Email automation ‣ 3 Users ‣ 1 Custom segment ‣ 24/7 Support ‣ Advanced message analytics |
| Plus | $20 | ‣ Unlimited subscribers, additional subscriber fees apply ‣ Unlimited email lists ‣ Unlimited landing pages ‣ Unlimited email automation ‣ Unlimited custom segments ‣ Unlimited users ‣ Priority 24/7 support ‣ Advanced reporting and analytics ‣ Advanced landing page features ‣ Sales tracking and low transaction fees ‣ Remove AWeber branding |
| Unlimited | $899 | ‣ Unlimited subscribers, single fixed price ‣ Unlimited email lists ‣ Unlimited landing pages ‣ Unlimited email automation ‣ Send 12x subscriber volume, monthly ‣ Personalized account management ‣ Advanced reporting and analytics ‣ Advanced landing page features ‣ Sales tracking and low transaction fees ‣ Remove AWeber branding |
Considering the increasing costs, Aweber doesn’t sound ideal for growing businesses. So, we unpack Aweber alternatives to help you make an informed decision.
Aweber Alternatives
Here are the top 3 Aweber alternatives:
- MailerLite
- Campaign Monitor
- Campaign Refinery
Let’s examine how each of these platforms compares to Aweber as an alternative.
MailerLite: Scalable Email Marketing Platform
MailerLite is a cheaper Aweber alternative for freelancers, writers, and small to mid-sized businesses. Its interface is pretty easy to use and has interesting features such as landing page creation, AI generators, pre-designed templates, and a solid email marketing system.
Campaign Monitor: Email + SMS Marketing Solution
Campaign Monitor is an Aweber alternative that offers a comprehensive suite of tools. Users can access detailed visual analytics, straightforward UI, and 120+ email templates. It allows you to send SMS and email marketing with an intuitive email builder.
Campaign Refinery: The All-in-One Email Marketing Solution
Whether you’re a small or large business looking for premium features and transparent pricing, Campaign Refinery is the ideal choice.
The platform helps you reach your desired email marketing goals through:
- Automatic email list cleaning tool: Campaign Refinery wipes out inactive and harmful email addresses from your list.
- Engagement Gamification: You can reward subscribers for every action they take on your emails, such as opens and clicks.
- Evergreen flash sales: Clients get an opportunity to send time-sensitive emails promoting urgency and driving sales.
- Advanced automation: Users get access to robust tagging, segmentation, and automation features to exceed their email marketing revenue.
- Powerful analytics: Access every campaign metric from a single dashboard.
- Transparent pricing: Buy a set of credits and use it to clean email lists, send emails, and perform other actions. Campaign Refinery allows you to send emails to unlimited contacts.
- Strict vetting process: We work with the most responsible and safe senders to maintain a pool of top senders.
Every client that onboards with us is required to undergo mandatory domain authentication to safeguard their sender reputation and email deliverability rate.
Sign Up For the Best Aweber Alternative
Campaign Refinery prioritizes email deliverability through safe sending methods. This means we urge our clients to refrain from sending cold emails or using illicit email marketing practices to increase subscriber count. These actions are strictly forbidden on the platform, and user accounts will be terminated without notice.
We follow email marketing best practices to keep your sender reputation and inbox placement rates at par. Clients notice a 600% increase quickly after they’ve joined us.
Ready to take your email marketing to the next level?
