Email subscribers are your blog’s number one asset. With that in mind, it bears thinking carefully about which email marketing service you use for your blog.

Broadly speaking you have two options: free and premium. In this post I want to give you a clear overview of what you can expect of the best free and premium options available, so that you can make an informed decision as to which path to go down.

Once you’re finished, I’ll direct you to tutorials where you can get started with one or the other. Enjoy!

The Pros and Cons of Free Email Marketing Services

For the purpose of this article I am going to focus on what I consider to be the best free email subscription service solution: Jetpack’s Subscriptions module. While there are other options, I figure it would be far easier for you if I focused solely on the best and disregarded the rest.

The biggest benefit of using Jetpack’s Subscriptions module is that it is a piece of cake to set up. You really can be up and running with signup forms on your site within a couple of minutes. If you don’t believe me, check out our comprehensive tutorial on how to get started with Jetpack’s Subscriptions module.

What functionality it does have is very slick indeed too. Blog readers can choose to subscribe to your posts by email (so that they’ll be emailed a copy of every new post that’s published) and/or subscribe to new comments on any given post.

And (of course) it’s free. You can’t beat free!

That’s really where the pros end though – this solution does bring with it a number of weaknesses. They are outlined in the above tutorial, but I’ll reproduce the five main weaknesses here for convenience:

1. There is no way for you to export your full email list. You can export the email addresses of people who signed up using their email address, but you will not be able to export anyone who signed up using their WordPress.com account. You never truly ‘own’ the email list, in a sense that you can’t fully access and edit every email address.
2. You have limited control over what is sent out. All you can determine is whether a subscriber receives a full post via email or an excerpt of the post (with a link to the full post on your site). If you publish five posts in a week, subscribers will receive five emails. If you publish one post, they’ll receive one email.
3. You can’t send out one-off emails (or ‘broadcasts’) to your list. Your sole means of communication with your email list is through the blog posts that you publish.
4. You can’t set up an autoresponder series. If you’re going to get serious about blogging, you’ll definitely want this functionality.
5. You can’t customize signup forms. While you can change the headline, text and submit button text of your forms, you can’t easily change colors, fonts, etc.

Essentially, you’re sacrificing control and functionality with this free option. Jetpack’s Subscription module does what it does very well, but it definitely has its limitations.

The good news is that if you’re just dipping your toe in the water, you can start off with Jetpack and upgrade to a premium solution when the time is right. You’ll lose any subscribers who signed up via WordPress.com in the process, but that’s something you can take into account when making your decision.

The Pros and Cons of Premium Email Marketing Services

As with Jetpack above, rather than confuse you with a huge number of premium email marketing services, I’m going to give you one option: AWeber.

I suggest this service alone for two reasons:

1. I use it. You’ll never find me recommending something that I don’t either use myself or have used and find to be excellent.
2. It’s the best email marketing solution I know of. As someone who’s worked on a number of blogs for various clients, I have found myself using most (if not all) of the mainstream premium solutions out there. AWeber remains my clear favorite.

I’ll start with the cons. There are really only two:

1. It costs money. AWeber is just $1 for the first month, but after that it’ll cost from $19 per month, depending upon the number of subscribers you have – $19 enables you to have up to 500 subscribers. Check out the AWeber website for more pricing information.
2. It is more powerful. This is also a pro, but more power does mean more complexity. Having said that, we’ve got you covered with straightforward tutorials all the way, so this really shouldn’t be an issue.

As for pros:

1. Ownership. Your email lists are yours. You can view, import and export every single one of your email subscribers without restriction. This is not possible with Jetpack.
2. Greater flexibility. You can set up more than multiple email lists and play around with them as much as you like.
3. Greater functionality. AWeber offers more features than you can shake a stick at. Most notably, you can set up an autoresponder series (a must-have feature for any serious blogger), send one-off broadcasts, segment your lists and send only certain emails to certain subscribers, and much more.
4. Customizable email forms. You have an enormous list of signup form designs to choose from, and you can customise them to suit your needs and tastes.
5. Superb email delivery rate. Put simply, AWeber’s system ensures that your email reaches as many of your subscribers as possible (without getting lost in the ether).
6. Drag-and-drop editing and email templates. Create awesome-looking email templates with ease.
7. Tracking. You can track the performance of the emails you send (open rate, click rate) and also the performance of your list as a whole.
8. Customer support. Beyond our help and support, AWeber has a fantastic US-based customer support team available by phone, email and instant chat.

In short, there’s a lot to love about AWeber.

My Recommendation

On a personal note, with AWeber’s premium email marketing solution starting from $1 for the first month, I figure that starting with premium is a no-brainer. It’s what I did back in 2012, way before I made a penny from blogging.

However, I want you to make the decision that’s right for you. If you’re not ready to open your wallet, go with the free option and see how you get on with it. But if you are at all serious about blogging, I’d highly recommend the premium route.

If you’re ready to start with AWeber then check out our tutorial series – it’ll get you up and running in no time:

1. How to Signup to AWeber and Create Your First Email List
2. How to Add a Sidebar Signup Form to Your Blog With AWeber
3. How to Send a Broadcast Email in AWeber
4. How to Setup an Autoresponder Series in AWeber

Photo Credit: Unhindered by Talent