Almost every online marketer is using email marketing platforms to increase their profits. Email marketing software helps users save a lot of time and effort. Users can use this time saved to concentrate on other areas of their business.
Small businesses and blog writers find ESPs (email service providers) a great solution to keep in touch with their subscribers. Email services automate most of the work of sending emails.
This means that users just have to set up the email marketing tool and then it works on its own as it is automated. In this review we have compared two ESPs, one is iContact and the other is AWeber.
iContact vs AWeber – Email Templates
Email templates help to save a lot of effort and time. if you need to send an email to a subscriber you have to compose the email, add media, and have a particular format. You may also need to add your company logo to it. Email templates are ready solutions for this.
iContact has an extensive library consisting of email templates. Companies can create their messages for marketing using these. These templates are compatible with different email clients.
There is a feature called Message Builder. You can use this feature for the standard templates or you can customize them depending upon your requirements. If you have experience coding in HTML then you can use the Message Coder to develop your HTML templates for emails.
The iContact team keeps on adding new features and improving the email marketing tool. There are numerous options with themes and templates that are remade or you can always add your own.
AWeber on the other hand has efficient management of campaigns for email marketing. It offers to create and mail customized newsletters through email in no time. You have access to over 600 different templates that can be used for your emails to suit varying needs.
The delivery methods used includes social network delivery, emails, triggered campaigns, and monthly newsletters. The AWeber email marketing tool also offers automatic creation of emails from blog posts and also sign-up forms.
iContact vs AWeber – Pricing
iContact has three types of pricing plans. Here you have the option for an annual prepay or monthly billing. Prices vary according to the plan chosen by you and the number of subscribers that you have for that particular plan.
Email Marketing
- 500 subscribers – $11.90 annual prepay or $14/month
- 2,500 subscribers – $27.20 annual prepay or $32/month
- 5,000 subscribers – $44.20 annual prepay or $52/month
- 10,000 subscribers – $67.15 annual prepay or $79/month
- 15,000 subscribers + – $99.45 annual prepay or $117/month
Package includes:
- Reliable Sending
- Autoresponders
- Responsive Email Templates
- Social Media Sharing/Posting
- Live Customer Support
- API Support
- Custom Design Work
- A/B Testing
- Multiple Folders
- List Management
- Campaign Tracking
- Google Analytics Feature
- Multiple Users
Pro Automation
- 500 subscribers – $84.15 annual prepay or $99/month
- 2,500 subscribers – $84.15 annual prepay or $99/month
- 5,000 subscribers – $109.65 annual prepay or $129/month
- 10,000 subscribers – $160.65 annual prepay or $189/month
- 15,000 subscribers + – $211.65 annual prepay or $249/month
Package includes:
- All Email Marketing features
- Triggered Messages
- Engagement Tracking
- A/B Testing
- Behavioral Targeting
- Social Monitoring
- Onboarding Advice
- Workflows
- Landing Pages
- Funnel Reports
- Live Customer Support
- Custom Objects
- Multiple Profiles
- Google Analytics Feature
- Zapier Integration
Premier – Contact the vendor directly for enterprise pricing details
- Chosen platform features
- Email Marketing Audit
- Dedicated Strategic Advisor
- 90-Day Action Plan
- Custom Design Services
- High Volume Sending
- Email Design Testing
- Custom In-depth Reporting
- Advanced Email Analytics
- Deliverability Advocacy
- Lead Scoring
- Inbox Troubleshooting
- Salesforce Sync
- Personalized Hands-On Training
- API Support
- Premier Customer Support
AWeber email marketing pricing plans come with a wide range of tools and features including, unlimited emails, email creation tools, sign-up forms, autoresponders, simple automation, and industry-grade deliverability. There are even more features but here are a few prominent ones. There is a free trial for those who want to try out AWeber.
The pricing plan you need to purchase for it depends upon the number of subscribers who are active in your email lists.
Here are the details:
- Up to 500 subscribers – $19/month
- 501–2,500 Subscribers – $29/month
- 2,501–5,000 Subscribers – $49/month
- 5,001-10,000 Subscribers – $69/month
- 10,001–25,000 Subscribers – $149/month
- 25,001+ Subscribers – get a quote
These two email marketing platforms IContact and AWeber have different pricing plans. AWeber does not have a tiered system of pricing for the features it offers. All the features are available for the user irrespective of whichever pricing plan he/she purchases.
Pricing depends only on the number of subscribers that are currently active. However, in AWeber, you have to pay for duplicate entries of subscribers too. Each entry of a subscriber in more than one email list counts as a subscriber. So if you have 1 subscriber in 3 different mailing list, AWeber software will count it as 3 subscribers.
Even so, AWeber pricing is highly competitive and its features suit small and medium-sized businesses and bloggers.
IContacts pricing on the other hand is fairly complex. The email marketing plan is competitively priced and has basic features that you would need from an email marketing tool.
The Pro Automation plan has the features of the Email Marketing plan plus many more features. It is more suited for larger organizations and those looking for advanced automation features. The Premier plan is suitable for large enterprises
Which is Better – iContact vs AWeber
These two ESPs have features to suit your email marketing plan. iContact is a business solution. It makes automation for email marketing cost-effective and simpler. It is an advanced suite for marketing automation with features like high-end tools for email marketing, CRM functionalities, advanced segmentation, engagement tracking, tracking, land page creation, and social media posting.
iContact has helped many small and medium-sized businesses achieve their goals. It is also scalable to serve clients that have the needs of high-volume email sending and enterprises.
AWeber is still popular among email marketers. It has superior autoresponders that make customer interaction and engagement easy. AWeber has advanced options to integrate to leading business systems and tools like WordPress, Zendesk, Salesforce, PayPal, and LeadPages.
The customer support that AWeber offers is one of the best. There are live webinars conducted regularly for training and instruction to those new to email marketing. You can check our detailed article on Drip vs AWeber.