Are you a blogger looking to start offering email subscriptions to your blog? Trying to find the best service without paying a lot? Here’s some information about what I think are the Best Free Services for Email Subscriptions in 2022!
Which Free Service for Email Blog Subscriptions is Right For You?
Before choosing an ESP (Email Subscription Provider) for your blog, you need to consider the following:
a) How many email subscribers does your blog have?
b) How many emails a day/week/month you intend to send and what kind of emails? Newsletters, scheduled RSS post updates, automations or funnels?
c) Do you want to build a larger email list going forward?
d) How much money are you willing to spend on an email subscription service for your blog (I’m assuming as little as possible.)
e) How much you are willing (or able) to comply with FTC anti-spam laws?
Let’s Talk About CAN SPAM – not the food, the Act of 2003!
Many of these ESPs, to comply with the CAN SPAM act of 2003, require that emails sent through them include a mailing address. This doesn’t have to be your home address; it can be a PO box or work address.
We can all agree that spam is bad, but for security reasons many bloggers don’t want their home address out there. These laws apply only to commercial emails so if your blog is 100% hobby with NO money made, you could get some legal advice and see if you need to comply.
Some people say that you get what you pay for BUT they might be wrong about that as free email subscription services really do vary. I will run down some of the main contenders and their pros and cons.
Before we dive in, find out how many email subscribers you have right now.
Note: this number will probably go down in the export and import process but you need to know a rough number to compare plans.
Here’s my rundown of the best FREE services for sending out blog emails in 2022:
Guys, I’m updating this post again in May 2022. Times are tough for those of us trying to blog on a budget. Free plans with features are getting harder to find!!
MailChimp
Mailchimp is probably the most well-known player in the email subscription and email marketing space. I used them for a couple of years, right after moving to WordPress.
PROS to the Mailchimp Free Email Subscription Service:
They are a solid contender with a good track record and a great free plan. The Mailchimp free plan lets you have up to 2000 subscribers and send up to 10,000 total emails a month with a maximum of 2,000 a day.
CONS to the Mailchimp Free Email Subscription Service:
If you have problems, they direct you to their “help library” but yeah …. you will have to Google a solution and troubleshoot it yourself.
Your emails do need to include a mailing address. Here are MailChimp’s suggestions about alternate addresses you can use, but they also seem pretty firm that you must use a physical address you can receive mail at.
TMailchimp (and most other services) prefers you use a domain email address. What is a domain email address? It’s exactly what it sounds like: an email @ your blog URL, as opposed to a Gmail etc. Most email subscription services don’t seem (?) to require it but, as they explain, if sent from one, your emails are less likely to end up in spam.
If you’re willing to spend $11 a month (which is actually pretty reasonable as paid plans go, you can have more features and chat support.
IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MAILCHIMP FREE AND LOW COST PLANS FOR MAY 2022:
According to a commenter, MailChimp no longer allows RSS emails from a free plan. I looked on their site and it’s really hard to figure out. Here is the comparison of plans page on Mailchimp. NEITHER The free plan nor the $11 plan offers email scheduling or automation, which is (I think) be what they consider RSS to be. So to get that, you’d need to pay $17 a month, which is lower than some competitors, but still not cheap!
So let’s see what the other options are…
ConvertKit
PROS to the ConvertKit Free Email Subscription Service
ConvertKit is another big name in email marketing. The ConvertKit free plan used to only allow you to have 100 subscribers (?!?) but they have more recently bumped that to 1000. There doesn’t seem to be a cap on the number of emails you can send.
With the free Convertkit plan you get “community” support, which might just mean crowdsourced help. But if you get to over 1,000 subscribers, you have to pay $29 a month, which is a LOT more than the $10 MailChimp paid plan.
CONS to the ConvertKit Free Email Subscription Service
There’s a BIG con (for me) to the Free Convertkit Plan: it does NOT let you set up RSS emails on the free plan. NOTE: Triviatic, a very helpful commenter on this post, noted this and sure enough, this article from ConvertKit confirms it. So that would be a dealbreaker for me.
It also looks like, according to this article, you aren’t allowed to do automations or sequences.
ConvertKit also wants you to follow the CAN SPAM rules to use their service (fair enough!) BUT they allow you to use their mailing address. That is SUPER nice of them, right? I think so. I’m not sure if they require a domain email address, so if you figure that out, let me know.
AWeber
AWeber is another big player and they do offer a free plan. For a blogger with under 500 subscribers, it could be a good FREE fit.
PROS to the Free AWeber Email Subscription Service
AWeber’s free service allows automation and 24/7 email and chat support. You can have up to 500 subscribers and automation and integrations are allowed. I’ve never used their service, but this seems like a good deal. If anyone has experience with them, please give us your take in the comments!
CONS to the Free AWeber Email Subscription Service
After you hit 501 subscribers, you will have to pay $29 a month. Also they require a mailing address on emails to comply with CAN-SPAM.
SendInBlue
Based in France, SendinBlue is a newer contender.
PROS to the Free SendinBlue Email Subscription Service
They seem to be getting good reviews. They allow an unlimited number of subscribers and the free plan lets you send 9,000 emails a month. They could be a good fit with a big IF:
CONS to the Free SendinBlue Email Subscription Service
The HUGE catch to the Free SendinBlue plan is their DAILY email sending limit, which is 300. So if you have over 300 subscribers and want to send all of them an email, you’d have to break the subscribers into groups and email them on different days.
Some people DO segment their lists to test different emails etc. But for me, this was a dealbreaker. If you want to send more emails than that, you pay $25 a month for a basic plan. Which is a lot more than Mailchimp’s free plan.
There’s another service called Benchmark that has a free service with the same problem: it only allows you to send 250 emails A MONTH. If you want to send more, you pay $13 a month for a basic plan.
Also a newer kid on the block, MailerLite is based in Dublin.
PROS to the MailerLite Free Email Subscription
Disclosure: this is what I’m currently using. I get nothing for recommending them. They are working fine for me so far. I like that they allow you to have up to 1,000 subscribers and send 12,000 total emails a month. They don’t seem to have a daily sending limit. RSS emails and automations are included. Their customer service has been very responsive and helpful so far.
CONS to the MailerLite Free Email Subscription
You need to “apply” and be accepted, but that’s not as scary as it sounds. They are just making sure you’re not a spammer.
Their FAQ says that if you do NOT have a domain email address, they ask you to apply as someone without a blog. I emailed their support team and asked about this. They said to tell them in your application that you are a blogspot blogger without a custom URL, and give them your Blogspot URL and there should be NO problem.
They do PREFER that you use a domain email address (to keep your emails out of spam) but that does not seem to be required. And Offbeat YA is using them without a mailing address. I believe she just puts her country on there and they haven’t said anything.
If I get to more than 1000 subscribers, I will have to pay them $10 a month, which at that point, I’d possibly switch back to MailChimp to have the bigger name.
Sadly, according to a commenter, RSS feed emails are no longer allowed on the free plan. I can still send them from my free plan (so far).
MAY 2022 UPDATE TO MAILER LITE FREE EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION PLAN:
In spring 2022, MailerLite completely upgraded their platform. You can stay on the “classic” platform or switch to the new one, which is supposed to be improved but has new pricing. At the moment, there is no way to migrate your automations or templates but they say they are working on that. I’m keeping an eye on this, since this is who I use, and will be updating this post in June or July 2022 with new information.
LATE ADDITION:
There are also some smaller, lesser-known email subscription services that you can research. The intrepid Offbeat YA does NOT want to use a mailing address OR a have a domain email address and is testing a service called Moosend. She reported that they had trouble processing her feed, though that could be due to her layout. She signed up with MailerLite and her emails look great and seem to be working fine.
Some other smaller, newer options: Zoho and Omnisend. Triviatic reported in comments that they have tried Follow.it and Feedio. Feedio is free up to 100 subscribers.
As for Follow.It, most of my commenters have not had good experiences with them. You can read the comments but I will summarize the points that people made:
On the plus side: it’s a post notification service rather than an email subscription service and you don’t seem to have to do much to set it up.
The downside of Follow.It: 1) No customization, as in you can’t change the subject line of your emails or do any design (this is somewhat comparable to the WordPress following system). 2) Also, beware if you’re on WordPress as Jana @That Artsy Reader Girl said the Follow.It plug-in really messed up her blog. 3) Katherine, another commenter, said that Follow.It emails contain advertising that you have no control over. And 4) Irene said that most of her notification emails to her subscribers were bouncing, possibly as she doesn’t have a domain email address. Sigh, nothing is really “free” or “easy,” is it?
If you have feedback on these – please tell me and I’ll add it to this post!
Which Free Email Subscription Service is Right for Your Blog?
Again, here are the main questions I’d ask yourself:
How many subscribers do you have?
How many emails do you intend to send out every week or month?
What kinds of emails do you send? Do you need templates? Do you need to be able to advance schedule your emails/send RSS emails?
Are you willing to do without customer support?
How do you plan to collect subscribers’ emails going forward AND do you want to build your email list?
Do you have a domain email address and/or a mailing address you’re willing to use?
Okay, so you are ready (or have to) try a NEW email subscription service. First, pick one.
HOW SHOULD YOU PICK? HELP!
If you have over 1000 subscribers, you could try the Mailchimp FREE plan and upgrade to the Essentials if you feel like you want or need the additional support and features. It’s a good, safe choice and what I did when I first left Blogspot.
If you have 500-1000 subscribers I’d decide between MailerLite or FREE Mailchimp. If your list is closer to 1000 and you’re reasonably tech-savvy, you might want to go with Mailchimp, so you don’t have to pay (or switch) if you list tops 1000. BUT if you want to sent RSS emails, these will no longer be an option.
If you have a smaller list, you have the most choices (yay!) I’d decide based on how tech-savvy you are and how aggressively you want to grow your list. If you want to try to grow the list and don’t want to have to switch AGAIN to avoid paying, you could go with a service with a higher cap, like MailerLite or Mailchimp.
If you have fewer than 500 subscribers and need a free plan that lets you send RSS emails, you could use AWeber. Or if you have fewer than 300 subscribers, it looks like SendInBlue does allow Integrations (which is what they consider an RSS email) on the free plan.
If you don’t have a domain email address, or do not want to use your mailing address, MailerLite seems flexible about that.
NOW WHAT?
How to Try Out a New Email Subscription Service
The first way you can do this is just set up the new service, subscribe to it yourself as a single subscriber, and set up an email to go out. Try the new service for a few weeks and if you like it, import the rest of your subscribers.
Another PROTIP: ALWAYS be a subscriber to your own blog emails so you can see if there are problems (email not sent as scheduled, wonky images, etc.) All of these glitches have happened to me and I’d have never known unless I was a subscriber. (This JUST happened to me – I left my campaign in draft mode by mistake and was like: why didn’t I get an email?)
If you are ready to switch OR want to test out the new service with ALL your subscribers, here’s how:
- Download a CSV file of your subscribers. Every service will have a way for you to download a CSV file of your current subscribers, which is what you will need.
- Temporarily turn OFF your current service. Otherwise your subscribers will get two emails!
These are excellent instructions of how to set up Mailchimp in Blogger, and every other Email Subscription service should have similar ones. Basically the steps are:
- Sign up for an account.
- Upload your subscribers (time to use that CSV file).
- Set up a “campaign” which can be a single email or an RSS feed email on a regular schedule.
- Design what you want your email to look like (for an RSS email, you only have to do this once.) ARE YOU STUCK ON THIS PART? HERE’S HOW TO SET UP AN RSS EMAIL IN MAILCHIMP.
- When you think you’re set, send yourself a test email – most services allow this and it’s pretty helpful when you’re doing a new design.
- Tweak the format and then schedule the email to go out – don’t forget to temporarily pause the old service.
- Evaluate: did your email go out as scheduled? Do you like the way it looks on both desktop and mobile? What is your open rate?
Okay but what about collecting new subscriber emails going forward?
Great question.
DON’T FORGET to add a new subscription form (the place on your blog that allows visitors to your site to sign up for your email list) and delete any old ones.
Before you sign up with a new email subscription service, research what forms they offer and how they are installed on the type of blog you have.
WordPress users can usually find a plug-in to help with this.
For Blogger you can 1) create a form on the new service and then past the HTML into a widget OR 2) use services like AddThis (which integrates with MailChimp and AWeber) or Hello Bar (which integrates with MailChimp, AWeber, ConvertKit and MailerLite/Zapier) to make a HTML coded form for your site that will collect new subscribers’ emails and add them to your brand new list. Don’t forget this part, as you want to grow your list going forward!
Here is my embedded MailerLite form on my (defunct) old website. It does work on Blogger!
Then I subscribed myself and: IT WORKED!
That’s it! Any questions, comments, advice? Have you tried one of the services above and have feedback? PLEASE leave a comment and let me know! Also, if you want to follow the discussion and get feedback from others trying new services, be sure to subscribe to comments on this post – you can unsubscribe at any time!
Want more blogging tips? Check out all my article on blogging here!
Wow, Jen! Thanks for putting this together.
I hope it is helpful!
Thank you, Jen! I’ve been putting off the research I needed to do ever since I got the email from Feedburner about the discontinuation of service. And now I don’t have to because you’ve done it all for me! ๐ I’m saving this post because I know I’ll want to refer back to it. Big, big thanks!!
So glad – I had to do the research when I left Blogger so might as well share. It’s a bit of work, but you can do it!
Hi Jen! Thanks so much for putting this together. I am going to safe your post. I am so ridiculously idiotic with technology and saw the blogger feed notice and had no clue what to do!! Now at least I have a backup to follow.
Thanks Jen!
<a href=”https://elzareads.blogspot.com/”>Elza Reads</a>
I am glad. I’m going to try to do a little more research on sign-up widgets for Blogger and add that.
This is so helpful! I just moved to WordPress from Blogger this week. I am still using Feedburner but know that I have to make a decision very soon. I have over 1,000 subscribers which makes the decision more difficult. I kind of want to use the free WordPress email but I don’t think that I can import my subscriber list. The good news is that I have a few months to figure it out.
As far as I understand it, a WordPress “subscription” to your blog might be something slightly different. You can subscribe to other WP blogs through WP and you will get emails sent by WP but you don’t have any say in what’s in them – it’s more of a notification of new posts. And no, I don’t think that you can shift your Feedburner followers over. If you read this WordPress article, they just direct you back to Mailchimp, etc if you want to do a newsletter style email.
With 1000 subscribers, that is a tough call: pay or do a free service. You will probably lose some subscribers in the merge (I did and can’t remember exactly why, but I did lose about 15% or so. Maybe because they have to opt-in to stay on the list?)
Some subscribers are no longer interested and don’t take the time to unsubscribe. That could be a big part of your 15%.
Hi Wanda
That is definitely true. But my research suggests that the portion of subscribers “lost” in a transfer are unconfirmed subscribers – either they didn’t do double verification or it’s a fake or dead email address.
The people who don’t open your emails are inactive subscribers and that’s a whole other blog post. Supposedly you are supposed to try to win them back and if that doesn’t work, delete them.
This post is gold! I had barely started to look for free email services, but I was feeling lost already LOL. Also, I LOATHE the work…fist the GDPR, then the new Blogger interface messing with half of my past posts, and now this. It never ends! Sigh.
Now, I have a couple of questions…
1) I liked the sound of Convertkit, but the free plan doesn’t allow “free migration from another tool”, so I assume I should import all my contact manually into it? Is it even possible?
2) I thought of setting up a normal Blogger widget (so that it would integrate seamlessly with my blog’s look) AND embedding the email subscription code into it, as opposed to using the widget generated by the email subscription service I choose. Again, is it even possible? To the best of your knowledge, that is, since you’re using WP now…
Thank you so much!
I think the “Free email migration” is a concierge service for people with a lot of subscribers. But the process is really easy. Yes, you should research the Blogger widget situation (I’m not as familiar with that aspect as I haven’t been on Blogger for a few years now). I think most of these services will help you set up a HTML subscription widget that you can put on your blog, but you’d definitely want to check that aspect out.
thank you! SO much work LOL ๐ญ.
OK…it’s official – I don’t understand how these things work LOL. Basically, what should I do to have my email service of choice send blog updates to my subscribers without having to design an email template? Like, my post goes live and it gets picked up and delivered without my input, the way it happened with FeedBurner? I thought that’s what I was doing with Mailchimp, but I got a void email. I’m going mad. Don’t tell me I have to copy and past my new content into the email template every time… ๐ฒ I was thinking of trying ConvertKit, but I’m afraid I’ll have the same problem. Can you explain it to me like I was 5 years old? Because the more articles I read, the more confused I become. Thank you in advance, and please bear with my stupidity…seriously, to date I’ve figured my way out of any blog impasse, but this time it beats me…
Hi Jen! I got your email – thank you so much! It turns out I was missing a crucial passage LOL. I’ll try again when I have time and let you know how it went! Thank you again for being my mentor ๐.
I am happy to help! This is not intuitive but it’s also not the hardest thing in the world. You can do it!
“The intrepid Offbeat YA”
๐
More like, the stubborn ๐.
You are the only one I know of who actually read my post and was like “I’m going to do this.” And did it!
That’s great information, thanks. I have very few email subscribers so I’m just going to let the widget go and not sign up for anything else.
And that is completely fine too! You don’t have to do anything.
Thanks so much for this, Jen! I’ve been on WordPress for years, but I still have a few hundred people who follow me via Feedburner’s email service, and I’ve been dreading figuring out what to do about that. I didn’t even know Feedburner was dying until I saw something about it on another blog. I’m definitely going to check out ConvertKit,, and I appreciate your instructions on downloading my subscriber list.
I’ll be sure to share this in my next Sunday Post so that others can benefit as well!
Thanks so much for the share – I hope you are able to figure it out! If not you can direct those people to just follow your feed on Feedly or even WordPress.
Ah, so that’s what the hoopla was about for Feedburner. I got the email, but I didn’t pay attention to it. I do recall them saying multiple times over the years they would give it the ax… (And honestly starting to get concerned about when Blogger could be next since they shut down Google Reader years ago as well.)
I’ve been using Mailchimp before I moved to WordPress (I think it was after their last threat back then or something) but then I ended up switching to MailPoet, which as much as I like it, I’m not a big fan of it really? Especially since I don’t recall them having an export option when switching to a new host. I COMPLETELY forgot about Zoho though! Thanks for reminding about that one since my email is hosted with them.
If you try Zoho let me know how it works. The smaller services might have less functionality (for things like exporting contacts and apparently for accommodating different layouts) but would love a report if you have one!
Question – when I go to FEEDBURNER.GOOGLE.COM it does not take me to a screen that has the option to click on PUBLICIZE. That option is not on the screen. I have been searching for my subscriber list to download and have had no luck. Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. THANKS!
Hi Kelly, I hope you subscribed to comments. When you go to Feedburner.Google.com, do you see a red bar that says Feed Title, and then the name of at least one feed? If you don’t see that at all, maybe you never “burned” your feed and you may not have existing email subscribers to worry about at all. Let me know if that helped. I added another photo to show the red bar and the feed title.