Email marketing tools have become increasingly popular among businesses to increase profits. In this article, two popular email marketing platforms are reviewed and compared.
One of them is AWeber and the other is Drip. AWeber was the most popular email service tool used by bloggers. It is still quite popular even today. But it is surpassed by many newer email marketing tools feature-wise. It has been there since 1998.
On the other hand, Drip is a newcomer in the field of email marketing. It has powerful capabilities for email automation. It is more of an e-commerce CRM that is designed to build profitable and personal relationships.
Drip vs AWeber – Email Templates
Templates are already designed email formats that are built-in to the email service provider. They have many uses. They help the user save time.
Templates save the trouble of designing custom emails from scratch. People with no know-how of coding can easily compose good and meaningful emails using email templates.
AWeber has email templates that are excellent that can be integrated with other programs as well. There are more than 700 email templates that are responsive. The email templates are customizable. The templates may seem a little outdated though.
AWeber has a drag and drops editor for the email templates. If you are looking for a customized email template for your business the AWeber team could get one done for you but you will pay a higher price for it.
Drip has a liquid templating system. It has custom email templates. Drip has visual email builder templates. These features help users that are new to build emails quickly and helps experienced users to organize the email templates in one place.
You can organize and design the email templates in the templates section. Then you can select colors, brand logo email structure, and fonts. Once you have created the email template, then you can use it in any email campaign, broadcast, or automation email.
There are text email templates too which you can design using the text builder. A preview of the template is available. You can use it to see the look and feel before mailing it. There is also an HTML tab to modify the HTML code.
Drip vs AWeber – Pricing
Drip has a plan that’s completely free if the subscribers you have are under 100 in number. This is a great way to try out the email services that this platform has to offer. Any Drip user who uses it for some time will need to upgrade from this plan as he will have more subscribers. Drip has a refund policy in place. No credit card is required for a trial plan. A free demo is available.
At every price point other than this free plan, AWeber is much more affordable than Drip. Drip does give two months free if payment is done yearly vs monthly.
Drip offers a 21-day trial that’s free while AWeber offers a 30-day trial that’s free.
AWeber gives a one month free plan. Then, if you purchase an annual plan and if you want to cancel and stop your subscription 6 months in, you will get a refund that’s prorated of the unused months. It has a refund policy. No credit card is required for trial.
The way AWeber bills the users is confusing. The emailing service of AWeber works on email lists created by the users. If a subscriber is present on more than one email list, on every email list that the subscriber is present, he will be treated as a new subscriber.
AWeber charges for duplicate entries for subscribers in different email lists. Even the people who have unsubscribed continue to be on the email list and you are charged for them. All of this bloats up subscriber count.
For up to 500 subscribers the pricing of AWeber is $19 per month. For the same amount of subscribers, Drip charges $49 per month. Here we see the big difference in pricing in the first starting pricing plan itself.
The next level is up to 1000 subscribers. Here AWeber charges $29 per month while the price of Drip remains the same at $49 per month. The next level higher is up to 2.5k subscribers. Here both the tools remain at the same cost as their previous levels. That is, at $29 per month for AWeber and $49 per month for Drip.
For up to 5k contacts AWeber pricing is $49 per month while Drip pricing is double at $99 per month. At 25k subscriber count, AWeber costs $149 per month while Drip costs $ 254 per month.
After crossing the number of 25k subscribers you will have to get a custom quote from the AWeber team. Drip has pricing plans till 100k contacts.
Which is Better – AWeber vs Drip
AWeber is simple and straightforward when it comes to the automation of eCommerce marketing. It has an interface that is easy to use. From the first login, the application carries you through the whole process that it is supposed to do.
AWeber has a drag and drops campaign and email builder which is very intuitive. The autoresponder of AWeber is easy to configure and set up. This removes all guesswork for new bloggers. You just have to set it up and then use it without hassles.
However, if the business you are running scales up quite significantly and needs advanced automation features, you might want to consider Drip. Drip helps you automate workflows and rules that are action-based and triggered by customer behavior. These are not an action that contacts take when they engage with emails alone but more.
Drip has an integrated CRM for e-commerce. Automated workflows are great assets that guide your customers automatically towards a goal. It doesn’t matter whether they are signing up to subscribe to a newsletter, or making purchases, or webinar registration. They can be created to adapt to the actions of a subscriber without you having to do anything. You can check our detailed article on AWeber vs Constant Contact.