If you are a smart business owner, then you are probably always on the lookout for ways to make certain chores a lot quicker and easier. After all, if you save time doing the menial tasks, you can then concentrate on more important topics like how to expand your business.
So how can you save yourself time when it comes to marketing?
You get yourself an email marketing service that provides you with an autoresponder! But if you don’t have the funds to throw at marketing just yet, then don’t worry – we have found 7 of the best email marketing service providers with autoresponder tools that are available for free!
Why You Need An Autoresponder
Autoresponders are a great tool to use to keep in touch with your customers – but what are they and how exactly do they work?
Well, autoresponders refers to a sequence of automated emails that are sent to a subscriber. These emails are usually triggered by an event – like a special deal you have decided to run on your website, or a holiday.
For e-commerce businesses, this also includes emails to confirm product purchases or to remind a customer they have an abandoned cart.
What makes autoresponders so valuable to businesses is how they just run on their own. Once you have set them up, you can just kick back and relax while the autoresponder does all the hard work for you. You will no longer have to manually send every email to a customer – the autoresponder does that for you!
This means that you can spend more time focused on other parts of your business, helping you to build your business up while still maintaining a good relationship with your customers.
Autoresponders are also a great way to turn customers into subscribers as those first few autoresponder emails are probably how most customers will get to know your business. If those emails are done properly, they can entice a customer to stay permanently and subscribe.
Must Have Features And Bonuses
It goes without saying that your ideal email marketing service provider needs to offer email automation and autoresponder in their free plan, but these kinds of services come with a range of other features that can help you build up your business.
An important detail to look at is how many emails a free plan allows you to send, and how many subscribers it lets you have. A free plan usually caps how many emails you can send per month, with a number also including daily limits too.
This is to help you avoid spamming your subscribers to the point of frustration and anger, as this could damage your business’s reputation. However, there is no point going with a free plan that does not offer you enough email send allowance.
Before committing to an email marketing service provider, check how many subscribers you can have and emails you are allowed to send with the free plan.
We have covered the send allowances and subscription limits in the companies we talk about below, but if you find a company that is not mentioned here that you like the look of, make sure you know what the limitations are first.
As for other useful bonus features that you can use to your advantage and help grow your business, there are so many on offer that it is tricky to narrow them down to the most useful. Of course, it all depends on what you need more support with.
Do you think your emails need to look more professional? Well, some email marketing services offer a range of templates to help you design your emails.
Landing pages are also incredibly important when it comes to inviting new customers. These pages are where visitors land after clicking on a link, and can be used to make them feel more welcome.
A good relationship with visitors can turn them into regular customers and subscribers to your business, which helps you grow and generate more income.
With all this in mind, let’s have a look at some of the best free autoresponder tools available through email marketing services!
MailerLite is a solid option when it comes to email marketing services. Although they have only started to become more popular in recent years, MailerLite still offers a lot of handy tools and marketing services for free all across the world.
They are a very trusted name in the email marketing sector, and they send over a billion emails every month.
Their free plan deal offers you the basic autoresponders and automation that you need, with a sending limit of 12,000 emails per month for up to 1,000 subscribers, but automation like auto-resends are only available with their premium plans.
Despite this, MailerLite’s free plan is still pretty generous, and this service will allow you to send a bunch of different emails automatically for free. For small businesses, this sending allowance is more than enough for you to try out email marketing, although you may want to switch to a competitor with an unlimited sending allowance once your business grows.
But this does not mean you should disregard MailerLite’s generous free plan as it also comes with a bunch of tools and bonus features that can help you increase your subscription numbers.
This is because MailerLite’s free plan also includes landing pages and pop up subscription forms. These are incredibly useful tools when it comes to convincing customers to transition into subscribers and help grow your business, so the fact that they are included for free is an absolute win.
Pros
Automation and autoresponders are included in their email marketing service for free.
They also offer incredibly useful tools like landing pages and pop ups to help encourage your customers to stick around and subscribe.
A very generous sending allowance of 12,000 emails per month to 1,000 subscribers.
Cons
More advanced automation tools, like auto-resends, are not available for free and only included in MailerLite’s paid premium plans.
If you have looked into email marketing services before, then you have probably already heard about Mailchimp.
Mailchimp is a provider that has been around for decades and has always aimed at offering affordable and useful services to small and growing businesses. They are very business-friendly, no matter what kind of industry you work in – e-commerce, blogging, anything!
As for their free plan, Mailchimp offers a generous email marketing service of 10,000 emails per month for up to 2,000 subscribers. However, there is a daily limit of 2,000 emails – so be aware how often you can email all of your subscribers simultaneously.
Despite this, Mailchimp’s free plan still has a good send allowance that makes it a favorite with a lot of businesses.
As for their autoresponder features, Mailchimp offers a lot of good options for free. You will be able to send automatic welcome emails and date-based emails, as well as more advanced emails related to e-commerce and tag-based emails. Overall, you have a lot of autoresponder options available with Mailchimp.
However, we found that their autoresponder editor was a little difficult to use and was more complicated than some of their competitors. However, if you are a little more clued up when it comes to automation and autoresponders, then setting up your autoresponders should be a breeze for you.
Pros
Mailchimp offers a lot of autoresponder options, ranging from basic to advanced.
Their free plan allows you to send a lot of email per month and has a high subscriber cap.
They are a very well known company with a very good reputation, so you know that you are using a reliable email marketing service provider.
Cons
The autoresponder editor is not as easy to use as Mailchimp might claim it is, meaning that you will have to watch a few tutorials first before you start creating your own automations.
Another company that has a very good reputation as an email marketing service is Sendinblue. Sendinblue is a European company and is one of the fastest growing in the email marketing sector. Today, they help over 175,000 businesses maintain a good relationship with their customers.
Their free plan also offers a good range of advanced autoresponders including page visits, e-commerce, welcome, and even anniversary automated emails. Their automation features are also amazing, allowing you to make simple automation workflows for up to 2,000 contacts.
Speaking of contacts, Sendinblue’s free plan comes with an unlimited number of subscribers so you don’t have to worry about going over your subscriber cap and being hounded to upgrade to a paid plan. You can also send up to 9,000 emails per month with a daily limit of 300 emails.
This really low daily limit can be a bit of a pain – especially if you want to contact all of your subscribers at once with some important news or information.
Despite this, Sendinblue is still a really good choice for you as their software is really easy to navigate and you have access to a ton of professional templates and support to help guide you to make good business decisions to keep your customers happy.
Pros
Their free plan allows you to have an unlimited number of subscribers, which means you don’t have to worry about going over a cap and end up being pushed into a paid plan.
Sendinblue offers a lot of autoresponders to suit every business’s individual needs.
Their websites and software is easy to navigate and use so making your emails and setting up your automations is simple and quick.
Cons
The very low daily limit on email sends means that getting information out to all of your subscribers at once is a difficult task.
If you like to get a lot for your money (even if you aren’t spending anything!), then you will want to consider going with Moosend. Their free plan is incredibly generous and gives you so many features for absolutely nothing – it’s very easy to see why companies like Gucci and Vogue use Moosend when they give so much to its customers.
Their free plan has almost everything you need. It starts out with unlimited emails (Yes! Unlimited emails!) for up to 1,000 subscribers. This amazing freedom with how many emails you can send to your subscribers means that you can maintain a really good relationship with your customers.
Also, these emails don’t contain Moosend branding! A lot of these email marketing services will force their branding to appear in your emails unless you pay for one of their premium plans. Moosend, however, does not do this. Your emails are your emails, whether you pay for them or not.
As for its autoresponders and automation, Moosend also includes many related features in their free plan as well. With Moosend, you can send everything from welcome emails and date-based emails, and even more advanced options like abandoned cart and upselling emails for e-commerce businesses.
It is just a shame that Moosend does not include landing pages in their free plan, as landing pages are a really useful feature to have to help turn customers into subscribers.
However, thanks to the range of other features including autoresponders and their unlimited send allowance, Moosend is still a very attractive email marketing service provider for a lot of different kinds of businesses.
Pros
Unlimited send allowance for emails, so you don’t have to worry about reaching your monthly email limit early.
The free plan offers a lot of workflow options for automation and autoresponders.
Moosend is a huge company with a lot of big brand customers like Vogue so you know that Moosend is reliable and provides a very good level of service.
Cons
The free plan does not include landing pages, which is a shame because they are so useful.
Another email marketing service provider that has a lot of huge customers is Sender. They provide services to a lot of companies like Disney, HP, WWF (World Wide Fund For Nature), and over a hundred thousand other companies.
Sender is a great email marketing service because they cater for both large businesses and small businesses. They also have a very, very generous free plan that allows you to send up to 15,000 emails per month to up to 2,500 subscribers.
This is great if you expect your business to grow really quickly, as you can stay within this free plan as you gain more and more subscribers.
Their free plan also offers a wide range of autoresponders for you to make good use of. Their range includes welcome emails, anniversary emails, date-based emails, and even ecommerce options like abandoned cart emails. With so much on offer for autoresponder tools alone, it is easy to see why a lot of companies choose Sender.
However, Sender does have some room to grow and places to improve upon where their competitors already have nailed down. Most email marketing services offer a knowledge base in their free plans to help out small businesses understand the jargon and complex processes that come with email marketing.
While sender does offer this feature, their knowledge base is nowhere near as good as some of their competitors. But hey, nobody’s perfect and this is a feature that is often overlooked anyway, but it is a nice comfort to have nonetheless.
Pros
Sender offers a very generous free plan with a monthly send allowance of 15,000 emails!
They are a huge and reliable company who provide high quality services to a lot of huge brands and businesses.
Advanced autoresponders that are simple to build.
Cons
Lacking in other useful features like an in-depth knowledge base to help new businesses who are not familiar with email marketing.
For e-commercial businesses, Omnisend is an email marketing software that is specifically built to meet your needs. They have been providing high quality services to e-commercial businesses ever since 2014, with a range of plans including their very own free plan.
Omnisend’s free plan allows you to send 15,000 emails per month (with a 2,000 daily cap) and allows you to have an unlimited number of subscribers! This is an amazing feature that appeals to all businesses and not just e-commerce companies, and it keeps Omnisend in the race when it comes to email marketing services.
As for autoresponders, Omnisend provides pre-built autoresponders and some automation features. They are mostly designed for e-commerce businesses, including abandoned cart emails and product purchase emails. You also have the ability to create campaigns for new buyers, repeat buyers, and of course – subscriptions.
Omnisend also includes features that will appeal to other kinds of businesses too, such as their wide range of email templates and having access to their advice team at any time of the day.
So, Omnisend is not a email marketing service just for e-commerce businesses, but for anyone who wants to keep a good relationship with their subscribers and encourage their business to grow through increasing their subscription rates.
Pros
A very generous free plan with a 15,000 monthly email allowance and limitless-free subscriber cap!
Pre-built automations and autoresponders that appeal to e-commerce businesses.
Support with building emails through templates and an advice team available 24/7.
Cons
For more advanced autoresponders and automation, you will have to upgrade to Omnisend’s paid plans.
SendPulse offers a good free plan with a monthly send allowance of 15,000 emails, but this is dragged down by the low subscriber limit which is capped at 500. It’s a shame that the subscriber limit is not higher, so it is likely that your business will outgrow this plan rather quickly.
However, the free plan also offers a good amount of autoresponders – subscriber, date-based, and trigger-based. Even resends are even included in the free plan!
However, there are some more advanced forms of automations that are only available with the paid plans, but the core ones are available for free.
SendPulse also offers a bunch of added bonuses that make them a real stand out against their competitors. Their most interesting feature is the option to have SMS marketing as well. This means you can send texts to your subscribers and reach them in a different medium and across multiple devices.
SendPulse also offers an easy to use email builder with a range of professional and stylish templates on offer so you can present your business to subscribers with full confidence.
Pros
Basic autoresponders and automation features are included in their free plan, including the very useful resend emails.
SendPulse offers SMS marketing to reach your subscribers across multiple devices.
Cons
The low subscriber limit means that you cannot have more than 500 subscribers – a limit you may quickly reach.
Conclusion
And those are our top picks for free autoresponder tools available through email marketing services.
Like we said earlier, autoresponders and automation with your emails makes marketing so much easier to do and gives you more time to concentrate on other aspects of your business.
Without the worry of manually sending email out to all of your customers and subscribers, you can focus on growing and improving your business in other ways.
Also, email marketing services come with a bunch of other benefits as we discussed above, so it makes complete sense to choose one of these providers to help you maintain a strong relationship with your subscribers without taking up your valuable time.
So save yourself time (and cash) with a free email marketing service now!
Frequently Asked Questions
What Kind Of Emails Do Autoresponders Send?
Autoresponders can be used in email marketing to send two main different emails: triggered emails, and dated emails. Triggered emails happen when a subscriber has done something, so your autoresponder software sends an automatic email as a response.
This includes sending single welcoming emails whenever a new subscriber joins, or a confirmation of purchase email after the subscriber has bought something from your page. The dated emails can be programmed to send emails on specific days.
This allows you to send emails to celebrate certain dates like a subscriber’s birthday or a Black Friday sale, or a reminder for the subscriber to renew.
Hi, my name is Mark Matthews, and I help to run several businesses through managing their mailing services.
I have a clear and good understanding of what a company or person should consider when choosing between options. I also have a lot of experience when it comes to managing businesses in general, from the best organizational and scheduling apps to use, to teaching owners how to create engaging emails.
