AWeber alternatives

Reachkit, my company, makes cold email software, so it’s not on this list: it writes to prospects who never subscribed, and AWeber’s job is mailing people who subscribed. All prices below come from each vendor’s own pages, read in October 2026. When a vendor publishes only its entry price, I say which review site supplied the bigger tiers.

AWeber still does a lot right: its homepage promises phone, chat and email help around the clock, every tier price up to 150,000 subscribers is public, Free holds 500 subscribers, and every plan, Free included, gets six AI tools, one of them an MCP server so Claude or ChatGPT can read your lists and save drafts. Choose by what’s missing:

• A lower bill at 10,000 subscribers: EmailOctopus, $480 a year against $1,000 on AWeber Lite.
• More room on a free plan: Sender, 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month.
• A cheaper start: MailerLite, from $12 a month.
• A large list mailed once or twice a month: Brevo, billed by emails sent.
• Courses or affiliate offers without a cut of each sale: systeme.io.
• Webinars, with no cap on sends: GetResponse.
• Automations that branch on behavior: ActiveCampaign.
• Texts, events and social posts next to email: Constant Contact.
• Segments that predict who will buy: Mailchimp Standard.

AWeber itself: Free covers 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails a month; at 500 subscribers Lite is $15 and Plus $30 a month (October 2026).

Entries 1 to 4 cost less than AWeber for the same list, or give you more on a free plan.

EmailOctopus is email marketing for newsletters and small businesses, launched in 2014 and run by Three Hearts Digital Ltd, a UK company. Its page for AWeber users is headlined “We’re up to 50% cheaper than AWeber”.

Price, October 2026: the free Starter plan takes 2,500 subscribers and sends 10,000 emails a month, with one user and EmailOctopus branding. Pro is $10 a month at 500 subscribers ($9 on yearly billing). Its blog gives yearly-billed Pro prices of $12 a month at 1,000 subscribers and $40 at 10,000; Tooltester reads 10,000 at $44.50 month to month. There’s no trial.

Strengths:

• Contacts who unsubscribed, bounced or complained aren’t billed, and Pro has no seat limit.
• With “Optimise plan pricing” switched on, a shrinking list drops to a lower tier at the next billing period, with no support ticket.

Drawbacks:

• It has neither AI writing tools nor an official MCP server, and AWeber has both on every plan. Tooltester also finds no A/B tests.
• Like AWeber, it counts a person once per list, and it checks every new account before the first campaign goes out.

Versus AWeber: at 10,000 subscribers on yearly billing, $480 against $1,000 for AWeber Lite and $1,350 for Plus. Trustpilot reviewers give it 4.8 (340 reviews). EmailOctopus profile

Sender is email and SMS marketing for growing businesses, run from Vilnius by UAB Sender.lt since 2012, with transactional email included.

Price, October 2026: the Free Forever plan stores 2,500 subscribers and sends 15,000 emails a month, with one user and Sender’s logo. Paid plans at 500 subscribers are $9 (Standard) and $15 (Professional) billed monthly; new customers get 30% off a first year paid upfront. Standard has 3 seats and 12 sends per subscriber a month. At 10,000 subscribers, Sender’s pages disagree: $57 in a September 2026 cost guide, $69 for Standard in its calculator. Pay as you go costs $29 for 5,000 emails, with no subscriber limit and no logo.

Strengths:

• No plan has a daily sending limit, and Free accounts get round-the-clock live chat as well.
• Rated 4.9 on Trustpilot across 1,572 reviews.

Drawbacks:

• Each account passes a quality review before it sends, and Sender can ask for proof of opt-in. Most of its few one-star reviews (2%) describe suspensions, and it refunds only if it ends your service without cause.
• Phone support is Enterprise only.

Versus AWeber: the free plan holds five times AWeber Free’s subscribers and five times its emails. Credits suit a list you mail a few times a year, which AWeber bills for every month. Sender profile

MailerLite is email marketing for creators and small businesses, launched in 2010 and owned since 2022 by Vercom, a Polish company. Next to newsletters and automations it builds forms, landing pages and websites, and sells digital products and paid newsletters.

Price, October 2026: the free plan stops at 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month. For 500 subscribers, Comfort is $12 and Power $25 a month, 10% less on yearly billing. Review sites read bigger tiers off its slider: $19 and $39 at 1,000 subscribers, $89 and $129 at 10,000. Comfort caps sends at 10 times your tier; Power’s are uncapped under fair use. The 14-day trial takes no card, and AWeber’s rolls into a paid plan on its own.

Strengths:

• Ease of use and support are what reviewers praise most, and the Trustpilot score is 4.1 (3,390 reviews).
• HeyLite AI tools come with the paid plans, and an MCP server with every plan, though Free can’t send through it.

Drawbacks:

• New plans on June 16, 2026 raised prices: review sites put the entry plan at 1,000 subscribers at $19, up from $15. Most of the 20 newest one- and two-star reviews on Trustpilot (October 2026) are about accounts frozen or shut down.
• Comfort adds live chat only from the 50,000-subscriber tier.

Versus AWeber: a little cheaper at each size compared, $89 against $100 at 10,000 on the entry plans, with the same 10-times send cap. AWeber’s free plan is twice the size. More in the MailerLite profile and MailerLite alternatives.

Brevo, called Sendinblue until 2023, is a Paris-based marketing suite with email, SMS, push, live chat and a CRM in one account.

Price, October 2026: Brevo charges by monthly email volume. Free allows 300 emails a day and keeps up to 100,000 contacts, with Brevo branding. Paid plans start at 5,000 emails a month, $9 on Starter and $18 on Standard, and the three smallest volume tiers also limit stored contacts (500, 1,500 and 2,500). From the 20,000-email tier ($32 Starter, $69 Standard) that limit is 500,000. Yearly billing takes 10% off. Dropping the logo from Starter adds $12 a month per the price list, or $9 per a help article.

Strengths:

• A monthly newsletter costs the same at 3,000 or 15,000 contacts, because both land on the 20,000-email tier.
• Every plan includes transactional email over the API and SMTP.

Drawbacks:

• Phone support starts on Professional at $499 a month.
• Brevo’s Trustpilot score is 3.8 (7,249 reviews), and suspensions come up in 8 of the first 20 one- and two-star reviews there (October 26, 2026).

Versus AWeber: one newsletter a month to 15,000 people is $32 on Starter ($44 without the logo) against $150 on AWeber Lite. Mail weekly and you climb Brevo’s email tiers, so the gap shrinks. Brevo profile

Entries 5 and 6 fit people who sell through their list. AWeber names coaches, course creators and affiliate marketers among its users.

systeme.io is an all-in-one platform from an Irish company: funnels, email, websites, courses, communities, webinars, affiliate management and a checkout behind one login.

Price, October 2026: the free plan keeps 2,000 contacts, with one course and 3 funnels. Paid plans are set by contact count: 5,000 on Startup ($17 a month), 10,000 on Webinar ($47) and no cap on Unlimited ($97). On yearly billing you pay for ten months, so $170, $470 or $970. No plan limits how much email you send.

Strengths:

• 0% transaction fees through Stripe or PayPal, where AWeber keeps 1.0% of each sale on Lite and 0.6% on Plus.
• A free migration with Unlimited or any yearly plan (17 days on average), and 4.9 on Trustpilot from 8,716 reviews.

Drawbacks:

• Plans aren’t refundable, and a paid plan that passes its limits gets 3 days before an automatic upgrade. Free stops taking payments after $10,000 in lifetime sales.
• Reviewers on G2 and Capterra find its email design options basic and its reports thin. Affiliates earn 60% of each sale, so many reviews you’ll find online are affiliate pages.

Versus AWeber: 10,000 contacts cost $47 a month, against $100 on AWeber Lite and $135 on Plus, with no send cap and no fee on sales. systeme.io profile

GetResponse started in Poland in 1998, the same year as AWeber, and is based in Gdańsk. Next to email it runs landing pages, funnels, webinars, courses and paid newsletters.

Price, October 2026: for 1,000 contacts, Starter costs $19 a month, Marketer $59 and Creator $69, with 18% off prepaid yearly. Creator adds webinars for up to 100 people and courses. Free takes 500 contacts and 2,500 newsletters a month, with a GetResponse badge; the 14-day trial needs no card. At 10,000 contacts the pricing page lists the plans at $79, $114 and $134.

Strengths:

• Paid plans are priced on contacts alone: “We do not charge for the number of messages you send.”
• Support is the usual subject of its five-star Trustpilot reviews (4.2 from 1,045), and since October 5, 2026 every account can use its MCP server for free.

Drawbacks:

• GetResponse gives no refunds, and billing is the topic of most recent low-star reviews (15 of the newest 20).
• Like AWeber, it counts a contact on two lists twice, and contacts deleted later in the month still count. Starter allows one automation workflow.

Versus AWeber: at 10,000 contacts, Starter’s $79 is below AWeber Lite’s $100, and Creator’s $134 matches AWeber Plus at $135 while adding webinars and dropping the 120,000-email monthly cap. GetResponse profile

Entries 7 to 9 each go past AWeber in one direction: automation, channels beyond email, or predictive data.

ActiveCampaign, a Chicago company dating from 2003, sells marketing automation with email at its core and a sales CRM as an option. A flow can begin when someone signs up, clicks or buys, then split depending on their next move.

Price, October 2026: the pricing page quotes 1,000 contacts on yearly billing but loads its prices by script; review sites read them as $15 a month for Starter, $49 for Plus, $79 for Pro and $145 for Enterprise, and Starter at $19 billed monthly. There’s no free plan; the 14-day trial skips the card. At 10,000 contacts, Venture Harbour puts Plus at about $189 a month, in line with yearly billing; Email Tool Tester has $239 billed monthly.

Strengths:

• On Pro, emails can go out at each contact’s likely best time, show content by condition, and track attribution.
• Through its MCP server, Claude or ChatGPT can create contacts, read campaign results and send campaigns. AWeber’s stops at drafts.

Drawbacks:

• On accounts created from November 3, 2025, every stored contact is billed, unsubscribed and bounced ones included. AWeber doesn’t bill unsubscribes.
• The Trustpilot score is 2.7 (1,451 reviews), with recent reviewers struggling to reach support. Starter caps each automation at 5 actions.

Versus AWeber: at 10,000 contacts, Plus is about $189 a month billed yearly against $112.50 for AWeber Plus, or about $239 against $135 month to month. You pay for automation depth. ActiveCampaign profile

Constant Contact, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, says it has served small businesses, nonprofits and franchises for over 30 years (its About page still says 25). Alongside email it covers texting, social posts, event signups and, on Standard and Premium, ads.

Price, October 2026: for the smallest list, Lite starts at $12, Standard at $35 and Premium at $80 a month, or $10.20, $29.75 and $68 when you prepay 12 months. The pricing page stops there; outside checks from September 2026 have 10,000 contacts at $120, $160 and $275. There’s a no-card trial but no free plan.

Strengths:

• Even Lite comes with phone and chat support.
• Going over your send allowance doesn’t stop anything: each extra 1,000 sends costs $2. AWeber moves you up a tier instead.

Drawbacks:

• Lite is limited to one user, one segment and one automation template. To move down a contact tier you phone Billing, which Constant Contact describes as “a one-time courtesy”.
• Trustpilot reviewers (4.0, 2,116 reviews) keep raising refunds and cancellation, the same themes as AWeber’s.

Versus AWeber: it costs more at 10,000 contacts, $120 on Lite against $100, so move for texts, events or social posting, not for the bill. More in the Constant Contact profile and Constant Contact alternatives.

Mailchimp, owned by Intuit since 2021, lists 300+ integrations and is known for store automations and in-depth reports. Google’s questions on AWeber pricing and reviews both ask “Is AWeber better than Mailchimp?”

Price, October 2026: the free plan allows 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. Paid plans at 500 contacts begin at $13 (Essentials) and $20 (Standard), and Premium begins at $350 with 10,000 contacts. At 10,000, outside pricing tables have Essentials near $110 and Standard at $135.

Strengths:

• Standard can segment by predicted behavior, like how likely someone is to buy or what they’ll spend over time.
• In the US, Canada, the UK and Australia, you can run Mailchimp from an app inside ChatGPT or Claude.

Drawbacks:

• Contacts who unsubscribed stay on your bill until you archive them; AWeber leaves them out. Only Premium includes phone support.
• Its Trustpilot score is 2.5 (1,554 reviews), and the complaints are about bugs, slow help and charges people didn’t expect.

Versus AWeber: AWeber Free holds twice the contacts and six times the emails, and AWeber Lite is $100 at 10,000 against about $110. Emailtooltester finds Mailchimp easier to use and AWeber “very slightly more affordable”. More in the Mailchimp profile and Mailchimp alternatives.

Start from why you’re leaving, then price the tool at your real list size:

• The 2024 price change hit you hardest. EmailOctopus, or MailerLite.
• Your list fits a free plan. Sender or EmailOctopus (2,500 subscribers each), or systeme.io (2,000 contacts) if you also sell a course.
• You mail a large list once or twice a month. Brevo.
• You sell courses, coaching or affiliate offers. systeme.io, or GetResponse Creator if webinars matter.
• Your automations need branches and predictive sending. ActiveCampaign Plus or Pro.
• You want texts and events next to email. Constant Contact.
• You want segments that predict purchases. Mailchimp Standard.

Before you move, merge overlapping AWeber lists into one list with tags, since EmailOctopus and GetResponse also count a person once per list. Ask who moves your account: systeme.io migrates you free on Unlimited or a yearly plan, Sender on yearly plans from 20,000 subscribers. Then cancel AWeber and keep the confirmation, because the cancellation only counts once AWeber confirms it.

I wouldn’t leave AWeber over the entry price alone. At 500 subscribers the saving is a few dollars a month, and a promise of 24/7 phone support is worth something. I’d move when the bill at your real list size hurts (EmailOctopus costs less than half at 10,000), when you sell courses or affiliate offers (systeme.io), or when your automations need to branch (ActiveCampaign).

None of these tools will email people who never subscribed: AWeber bans purchased leads, and so do the nine above. Writing to prospects is cold email, which runs on its own domains and inboxes; I built Reachkit for that (what the setup looks like).

Related: the AWeber profile, MailerLite alternatives and Mailchimp alternatives.