AWeber

What AWeber actually is

AWeber is email marketing software — and it's one of the genuinely old guard. Google its founding date and you'll find 1998, confirmed in AWeber's own site code and its "Copyright © 1998–2026" footer. That's 27 years of running email infrastructure, which matters more than it sounds: deliverability (whether your emails actually reach the inbox) is largely a function of sender reputation and IP history, and that's something you can't shortcut. AWeber essentially invented the modern autoresponder, and a lot of the follow-up-sequence conventions the whole industry uses today started there.

In 2026 the product is a full stack rather than just a sender: a drag-and-drop email builder with hundreds of templates, newsletters, RSS-to-email, dynamic content, AMP emails, email automation and behavioural triggers, a landing page builder (including video landing pages and domain purchase), sign-up forms with split testing, web push notifications, a link-in-bio page, and AWeber Ecommerce for selling products, subscriptions and payment plans directly. There's an AI Subject Line Assistant on every plan, plus AI email writing and an AI sign-up form builder. It connects to 750+ tools — Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, PayPal, Facebook — and offers a public developer API. Support runs on chat, email and phone.

Pricing in 2026 — what you'll really pay

The lineup is now Lite, Plus and Done For You. (If you read an older review mentioning an "Unlimited" plan, it's out of date — that tier no longer exists.) Pricing tiers on your total subscriber count:

• Lite — $15/month at 500 subscribers, or $150/year ($12.50/month). AWeber's own card rounds this to $12.49. Includes 1 email list, 3 landing pages, 3 automations, 3 users, and sends up to 10× your subscriber count monthly (5,000 sends at 500 subs).
• Plus — $30/month at 500 subscribers, or $240/year ($20/month). Unlimited lists, landing pages, automations and users, custom segments, behavioural automation, and a 12× send multiplier (6,000 sends at 500 subs).
• Done For You — $30/month ($240/year) plus a one-time $79 setup fee (currently discounted from $599). AWeber's team builds your template, two landing pages, a sign-up form and a welcome series within 7 days, with a 1:1 call and 30 days of unlimited edits.

Both plans scale with your list — Lite runs $15 → $920/month between 500 and 150,000 subscribers, Plus $30 → $1,050. Above 150,000 you talk to sales. Ecommerce carries a transaction fee: 1.0% on Lite, 0.6% on Plus.

The offer, explained honestly

Here's the part worth reading twice, because the marketing does some work.

The 14-day trial is real — Lite and Plus both offer it. But it auto-converts into a paid subscription when it ends, billed on the plan you picked at signup and your subscriber count. Set a calendar reminder for day 13 if you're only testing. And note: AWeber no longer runs a free-forever plan. It used to — a genuinely good 500-subscriber free tier that built its small-business reputation — and that's gone. You'll still find a stale "Get AWeber Free" button on their site pointing at what is now just the trial. If a free plan is what you actually need, Brevo, MailerLite and Sender still offer one.

"Up to 4 months free" is AWeber's public annual offer, printed on its own pricing page — not a secret affiliate perk, and the "up to" is load-bearing. We ran the numbers against AWeber's own tier tables: 4 months free only materialises on Plus at the 500-subscriber tier ($30 × 12 = $360 versus $240 annually — a genuine 33% saving). On every other tier, and on all of Lite, annual is exactly 10× the monthly price, which is 2 months free, or 16.7% off. Still worth taking, just not a third off. Lite at 500 subscribers, for instance, saves you $30 a year — real, but modest.

So the honest summary: start the trial, and if you're staying, take annual. If you're on Plus at a small list, that's a genuinely strong 33%. Otherwise, budget for 16.7%.

AWeber vs Mailchimp, GetResponse and the rest

AWeber is most often shortlisted as a Mailchimp alternative, and there's a real case for it: it's cheaper at the entry tier, its deliverability pedigree is longer, and its support (chat, email and phone) is more accessible than Mailchimp's. Against GetResponse, AWeber is simpler but shallower — GetResponse pushes harder on webinars and funnels. Against Constant Contact, AWeber is better value. Against ConvertKit/Kit and ActiveCampaign, AWeber's automation builder is noticeably less deep — if complex conditional branching is your core requirement, those win. And against Brevo, whose pricing is based on sends rather than list size, AWeber gets expensive fast if you keep a large but quiet list.

Where it shines

Reliability and simplicity. Twenty-seven years of sender reputation is not a marketing line — it's the reason AWeber's emails land. The product is genuinely easy to learn, the 750+ integrations mean it slots into an existing stack without glue code, and phone support is rare at this price. Plus is unusually generous for $20/month: unlimited lists, automations, landing pages and users, plus ecommerce with a low 0.6% fee, which is a legitimately complete small-business marketing stack rather than just an email tool. And split testing is on every plan, not paywalled.

Where it falls short

Four honest caveats. The free plan is gone, which removes the thing AWeber was best known for and leaves it behind Brevo, MailerLite and Sender at the entry point. Lite is more limited than $12.50 suggests — one list, three automations, three landing pages, no behavioural automation, a 1% ecommerce fee, and, most annoyingly, you cannot remove AWeber's branding from your emails or landing pages even though you're paying. That alone pushes a lot of people to Plus. The annual headline is softer than it reads, as covered above. And pricing scales on total subscribers, not engaged ones, so a large, lightly-engaged list gets costly — Plus at 25,000 subscribers is $250/month.

Who should buy

AWeber suits small businesses, bloggers, creators and course sellers who want dependable email with autoresponders, landing pages and simple ecommerce in one place — and who value deliverability and real support over automation gymnastics. Start the 14-day trial through the link on this page, and pick your tier deliberately: go straight to Plus at $20/month if you care about removing AWeber branding, behavioural automation, or more than one list — which is most people, and it's also the tier where the 4-months-free offer actually pays. Lite is fine for a single simple newsletter. If you need a permanently free plan or deep conditional automation, look at Brevo or Kit instead — this one won't be your fit.