Could You Save Some Money on Your Aweber Subscription?

| by Paula Brett |

I’ve been meaning to post this little bit of information for a while now, but it keeps getting pushed down my list of blog topics…..

Did you know that you could be paying more for your Aweber subscription than you need to?

Did you know that when people unsubscribe from your list(s), Aweber DOES NOT remove them?

Did you know that undeliverable emails – e.g. perhaps someone subscribed and changed their  email address – are not automatically removed from your list of subscribers?

Yes, of course, when you send out a broadcast or add an autoresponder message to Aweber, those who have unsubscribed or who have an undeliverable email address are not included in the `send out’ but THEY ARE STILL INCLUDED in your list of subscribers as far as Aweber’s billing is concerned.

Take a look……

You might have 513 subscribers, but 15 have unsubscribed, leaving you with 498 subscribers, but you won’t be paying $19 a month…. no, you will be paying an extra $10…. those 15 unsubscribes are still attributed to your account and therefore your bill, even though they unsubscribed and you can’t send emails to them.

What about if you know you have 5,050 subscribers, but you know that over the past few months, 50 of those on your list have become undeliverable? You will still be paying $69 instead of $49, that’s an extra $20 for having people on your list with undeliverable email addresses.

So here’s where you need to do a bit of housekeeping in your Aweber account - you need to regularly spring clean your lists and rid yourself of all those people that unsubscribe or become `undeliverable’. And here’s how you can do it…

1) Login to your account and choose which list you are going to start with from the drop down menu (if you only have one or two lists, this won’t take too long, but if you have loads, it could take a little while)

Click on the Leads tab

2) Select Unsubscribed Leads from the drop-down menu (it’s the one at the very bottom!)

3) You’ll see a bit of whirring going on and then your unsubscribed details will appear

Simply check the Erase box to check all the boxes, then click Save – that’s it… GONE!

If you’ve got a quite a few unsubscribes that have built up over time, you may have a number of pages with details to erase.

4) To do the same for the undeliverable leads, go back to point 2) and select Undeliverable Leads from the drop down menu and repeat the same process

If you have loads of lists, or indeed a large amount of subscribers and have built up a mass of unsubscribes and undeliverables over a long period of time, an alternative method is to telephone Aweber, or contact their support desk and ask them to remove all your unsubscribes and undeliverables.

Et voila… I hope you’ve saved yourself a bit of cash, and if not, well… it’s something to keep an eye on as you grow your lists.

Edit 21st Aug 2008: To answer the question that John asked in the comments section below:

I contacted Aweber and asked them if they charged on a monthly average subscriber count or the number on a cut-off date?

Their reply was that they billed retroactively (after the fact), on the number of leads in your account when you reach the cut-off number.

Aweber: Backstage, Behind The Scenes