Note: It looks like INinbox is struggling to get the award ‘The Worst Email Marketing Company Ever’. Due to their changes, this review has been updated four times. Date of last revision: October 1, 2015.
For some bloggers and email marketers, the high price is one of the main reasons not to use Aweber or another premium brand in the email marketing industry.
For other marketers, the price wasn’t an inconvenience. But at the end of the day…
Their income reports showed that using a top service while not generating almost any money isn’t the wisest decision.
The common sense suggests that you don’t need to pay more for the same service, again and again, unless you’re a star or something.
Some companies offer free plans indeed. But these free plans include some limitations. For example, MadMimi‘s and MailChimp’s free plans don’t include the autoresponder.
For those of you who are looking for a more affordable email marketing service, I tried to find out an alternative…
1. INinbox – The Cheapest Paid Email Marketing Service
I’ve searched for the cheapest paid plan. And here it is…
3rd & 4th Updates – February 25 & October 1, 2015: Back in May 2014, when this review was originally written, INinbox was the cheapest paid email marketing service. Their prices were 5-15 cheaper than AWeber’s prices. The old prices aren’t valid anymore. So I added the 2015 row to the pricing table below.
| 0-500 subscribers |
501-2,500 subscribers |
2,501-5,000 subscribers |
5,001-10,000 subscribers |
10,001-25,000 subscribers |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aweber 2014-15 |
$19/mo | $29/mo | $49/mo | $69/mo | $149/mo |
| INinbox 2014 |
$3.95/mo | $3.95/mo | $3.95/mo | $9.95/mo | $9.95/mo |
| INinbox Oct 2015 |
$9/mo | $9/mo | $20/mo | $39/mo | $87/mo |
I guess you’ll ask me, “The prices are great. What’s the catch?”
Well, the competition is fierce in the industry. It’s not easy to fight against old & established brands. Almost everyone offers more or less the same services. So you have to do something out of the ordinary to get a better piece of the pie ;-)
By the way, speaking about everyone offering more or less the same services, that’s true also in the case of INinbox. That’s why I won’t bore you by writing about common features such as the autoresponder’s availability, and then free email templates, split testing feature, email tracking analytics, list segmentation and so on.
Further on I would like to write about something that many reviewers hide…
2. No Email Marketing Service is Perfect. What Are the Cons?
Ok. I’ve tried to discover the weak points. Some of them are common to Aweber, but let’s see them anyway, without any further reference to Aweber…
Each and every broadcast has to be approved by INinbox support. According to INinbox, this practice ensures higher email deliverability but takes time. This feature can be disabled if you prove that you send quality emails.
INinbox is one of the few email marketing companies that charge for unsubscribes. I didn’t find this piece of information posted on their website, but I got it while chatting with Jelle Mostert, INinbox Relationship Manager.
If you want to import contacts to a double opt-in list, your subscribers need to re-confirm their subscription. Importing contacts to a single opt-in list is disabled and it has to be approved by INinbox support.
Prohibited content: MLM, work at home jobs, services or content that offers ways to “build wealth” or become “financially independent”.
For double opt-in lists, if you want to change the text of the message that requires your prospects to confirm their subscription you need to contact INinbox support.
PayPal payments aren’t accepted. You have to pay using a credit card.
(update: for more cons, keep reading – check the sub-headline 4)
3. INinbox Goodies Bag: Good News to Make You Forget the Cons
Refer a Paid Customer, Get a Pair of INinbox Headphones
The refer-a-friend promo works really simple. Refer one paid customer and you receive a nice gift: the INinbox Limited Edition Headphone. INinbox pays for the shipping costs too.
Actually there is more… If you refer at least 5 paid customers, INinbox will send you a second pair of headphones.
And there is even more…
15% Off for the First Month – Coupon Code
If you enter the coupon code letsgetstarted15 when you buy any INinbox email marketing plan, you’ll get it for 15% off for the first month.
Not Convinced Yet? What About a Free Plan?
You can test everything for free and no credit card is required. Upload up to 2,000 contacts and you can send 20,000 emails. No time limit for using your credits.
You can take advantage of the refer-a-friend offer mentioned above even if you have a free account.
And there’s more… For each person who clicks and creates a free account, you get 1,000 email credits.
4. INinbox Looks Good. Is There Any Catch Though?
Even if some of the cons revealed above may not make you very comfortable – for example the fact that every broadcast has to be approved by INinbox support, the overall impression is that INinbox looks good.
That’s why I used it, and even promoted INinbox for some months. Here’s what I found out in the meantime…
99% deliverability? Nah, just kidding!
I subscribed to their own newsletter. Here’s what I got…
So… their “experts” review each and every broadcast their customers send in order to have a top-notch email deliverability. Their banners claim a 99% deliverability…
The reality is so sad: their newsletters landed in my spam folder. In addition, you may notice that the last newsletter was sent twice on the same day – annoying for a subscriber, isn’t it? That says something about their professionalism or about how great their system works.
Customer support? You can wait, what’s the hurry?
Maybe I’m unlucky, who knows? Anyway, here’s a short recap of an email conversation with Jelle Mosters, INinbox Relationship Manager. To make it as short as possible, I removed the biggest part of the conversation, but check the dates…
Email #1 – July 10 – Me: “the affiliate links don’t work again”
Email #2 – July 15 – INInbox: […]
Email #3 – July 15 – Me: […]
Email #4 – July 17 – INinbox: […]
Email #5 – July 17 – Me: “I checked my INinbox aff link and again it wasn’t working”
Email #6 – July 23 – INinbox: “We understand that it’s not ok to do business this way and it’s our responsibility to make the affiliate program work.”
Email #7 – July 23 – Me: […]
Email #8 – July 25 – INinbox: “We don’t send warnings every time the program is suspended. Every time we notice we directly activate the system again so it doesn’t make sense to send you an email. However, I don’t think the program will be suspended anymore since we took some measurements.”
Email #9: July 27 – Me: “according to ShareASale the program is suspended since yesterday and it still doesn’t work.”
Email #10: July 28 – Me: “13 more hours have passed and the program is still down and my link still doesn’t work.”
My last two emails were never answered…
The worst affiliate program I have ever seen
The first product I ever sold online wasn’t mine. Affiliate marketing. The year was 2001… Believe me, I have seen quite many affiliate programs during all these years.
INinbox affiliate program is by far the worst one…
The affiliate links were down 2-3 days almost every week. These were the weeks when the affiliates were lucky…
In August the affiliate links were down from August 7 to August 17. I was quite sick of it and I didn’t check whether it was down again or not after August 18.
But in September I checked it again. See the pic on the left side. It’s a screen capture from my ShareASale account.
Now you might say that you’re not interested in their affiliate program anyway, so you shouldn’t care about these big issues. Think twice! Someone who treats the affiliates like this…
I could add two or three more red bullets about promises not kept and more, but I’ll stop here. And I’ll remove myself from INinbox affiliate program.
I won’t add any further conclusion. Yeah, INinbox is the cheapest paid email marketing service, but…
To your email marketing success!
Adrian Jock
P.S. This review was first updated on September 10, 2014. That’s the reason why some comments below don’t match very well the review. I do apologize to everyone whom I recommended in the past INinbox email marketing service.
P.P.S. 2nd Update – November 25, 2014
More than two months passed and… Nope, nothing changed. The screen capture above is taken today from Angela McCall’s blog. Her INinbox affiliate link doesn’t work and she posted that warning. That’s not how affiliate marketing works! :-( As I already mentioned above, this is the worst affiliate program I have ever seen. Removing myself two months ago from this affiliate program was a good decision indeed.
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“GetResponse is head and shoulders above the rest. I call it my email marketing secret weapon!” – Neil Patel, Kissmetrics
Epic comparison: AWeber vs GetResponse
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Hi Adrian,
just a couple of minutes ago I was looking at ininbox as well, I even have the website still open in another browser tab.
From what I read on their site and what you also described in your post it really seems to be a great alternative to the premium brands.
I am going to put them to use for a project that is coming up soon and will test how they can compete.
Cheers,
Torsten
Torsten Müller recently posted: 9 Hot Strategies To Drive Free Traffic To Your Website
Hi Torsten,
It looks like I published this post right on time :)
Thank you for your comment and share!
Hi Adrian
Although it sounds a good deal it’s a bit late for me. I’m already spread across no less than 3 auto-responders (Aweber, GVO and GetResponse). Too long a story to bore to with and mainly due to the fact that some of the programs I was in integrated directly with them.
Wish I’d found InInBox a few years ago and I wish you luck with it.
Joy
Hi Joy,
I use more autoresponders too :) Thank you for your comment!
Hey Adrian…
Thanks for the information. Had never heard of InInbox before. Sounds to me like a great alternative.
Thanks again!
~ Louie
Louis Foussard recently posted: Old School – St. Paul Marketing Expert’s Approach to Client Relations
Hi Louie,
Welcome to my blog and thank you for the comment :-)
Do you think that affiliate marketing would be under their “not supported” list. I think aff marketing gets misunderstood as a “biz op” but it’s also in the “make money online” niche. I’m guessing it’s not allowed, as most usually er on the side of caution with these things.
Indeed Adrian…
Thank you.
Louis Foussard recently posted: Old School – St. Paul Marketing Expert’s Approach to Client Relations
Hi Nathaniell,
No, they don’t prohibit affiliate marketing. Actually the email marketing services that prohibit affiliate marketing in their ToS – like MailChimp – allow it under certain circumstances.
MailChimp is even very funny regarding the affiliate marketing. They prohibit it in their terms, but then one of their help articles claims that the rumors regarding the fact that they prohibit aff marketing aren’t true ROFL
Adrian Jock recently posted: The Truth About Solo Ads Testimonials
That’s hilarious. I had never heard that. Aweber is so expensive and I’m not that great at email marketing, so right now it’s basically burning cash for me.
Do you know anything about the delivery rates for ininbox?
They claim that they deliverability is 99%. That may be true – re-read to the first con mentioned in the article (“What Are the Cons Though?”). From a certain perspective that is a con, from the deliverability perspective that is an advantage.
In addition, they’re certified by Return Path and that certificaton definitely improves the deliverability of the emails sent via their servers.
Coming back to that con I mentioned =>
They check each and every message sent via their servers. If their team considers that there might be a deliverability problem with one of your messages, then they don’t approve the broadcast but send you suggestions on how to correct the things. That’s good for email marketers who aren’t that great at email marketing ;-)
If you don’t like InInbox for whatever reason, another good option is MadMimi. I use them and I’m very happy with their services. Regarding the deliverability, I can tell you that for one of my ezines usually I get a 45-50% CTR. The CTR doesn’t directly depend on them but proves without doubt that the people get my emails ;-)
Adrian,
Looks like you have almost convinced me to try something other than Aweber :-) especially since the last blow.
I have had the mentality of “Why fix something which isn’t broken”. But, if I can save 50% or more on my monthly email marketing expenses, why not do it? Why throw money away….
Hmmm… I will pick your brain about them on Twitter soon and may be, consider trying them for a month or so because it’s a NO-RISK trial anyway.
Thank you for sharing. Valuable information as usual.
Regards,
Kumar
Kumar Gauraw recently posted: How About Having A Not-To-Do List?
Hi Kumar,
Thank you for your comment. Looking forward to getting your questions via Twitter :-)
Hi Adrian,
In as much as Aweber has being making lots of waves in this internet area, I think it will be prudent to consider inibox as well as from your review it is 5 times cheaper than Aweber but at the end does the same job.
Luckily, I was grandfathered in with Aweber under the $19.95 price tag. No matter how high my list gets, I pay that price.
However… cheaper doesn’t always mean better. You might pay less per month with another service, but how well does it deliver your mail?
Do they get through the ISP barricades? Does the email land in a spam folder before it reaches the intended party?
So many variables to consider – not just price.
Hi Bonnie,
Thank you for your comment. I will ask you a couple of questions myself…
1) Did you know that Aweber is 10 times cheaper or even more than other email marketing services? Just an example: Infusionsoft. “Cheaper doesn’t always mean better,” you said… Following your logic, shall I understand that Aweber’s deliverability isn’t good just because other services charge you way much more? ;-)
2) I already discussed the deliverability. See the first con included under the sub-headline “No Email Marketing Service is Perfect. What Are the Cons Though?”) and also this comment.
3) As for Aweber’s deliverability, let’s talk about facts, not about what you assumed or heard. Check the image below.
I am one step behind yet, considering buying my own dot com. Choosing the email service will be the following one. Thanks for the alternative info.
Adrian, thanks for bringing this service to attention. Competition in the marketplace is good!
I am satisfied with Aweber, but I know of many people in my network looking for a less costly alternative and this might suit them, despite some restrictions.
The main issue I’ve experienced with other cheaper or in-house autoresponder services is a much poorer delivery rate. I’ve tracked, for example, that the delivery rate on cheaper or free services is around 60%. Send out an email to ten people, and only 6 receive them in their inbox or spam folder, despite having opted in.
Compared to 9 out of 10 receiving them in their inbox via Aweber and maybe one of those goes to a spam folder.
If 30 to 40% of emails are not being delivered at all, or all go to spam, which is my experience, there is a huge hidden cost.
Even if my commissions did not offset my cost at Aweber, I would stick with them because of the reliability factor.
I don’t rely on the Aweber delivery stats alone. I go mostly by the click-thru stats on the tracked links in my emails.
When that changes, I will be looking around.
~Jude
Jude Banks recently posted: Herbalife: Documentary Against The Multilevel Marketing Giant
Hi Jude,
Thank you for your comment. I don’t know what other services you have tested, but many free services aren’t reliable indeed. And there are strong reasons for that…
1) There are no restrictions and anyone can send any kind of content via their servers. The users are happy with such a policy, but at the end of the day they will suffer the consequences.
2) If the owner doesn’t get paid, she or he has no interest in taking care of the service, maintaining relationships with ISPs and so on.
As for the deliverability of the emails sent via INinbox, I already discussed it (see the article itself and some of the previous comments).
Very timely post, Adrian. I’m humming and ahhhing about starting a new list with a partner, whether to use my existing Aweber account or start a new one totally.
Great info and one to take to the table.
Jan Kearney recently posted: Article Writing Challenge – June
Thank you for your comment, Jan. I’m quite disappointed with AWeber. Tomorrow I will reveal my reason in a new article ;-)
Sorry, I am with many of the others. Cheaper doesn’t make it better, or just as good. You’ve made a good case for the service no doubt.
They must approve every message? Seems a bit extreme to me. What if they get backed up with verifying? Overloaded with messages or a verifier calls in sick.? Do your messages sit and wait? Not going out when you want them to? just seems odd to me.
Ron Killian recently posted: Profitable Blogging Blueprint
Hi Ron,
There’s absolutely no prob if you’re with “many others” :-)
Here’s my response:
1) While cheaper doesn’t make it better or just as good, the same is valid for an expensive or more expensive service. The prices don’t always reflect the quality, but many other factors that are involved.
2) The con you’re referring to… is added under the cons, so I don’t argue that it’s a good thing. However, it’s not a very bad thing. It prevents the newbies sending messages that may jeopardize the deliverability of YOUR broadcast sent from the SAME server ;-)
3) Many email marketers schedule the messages in advance. So they don’t bother if these messages aren’t sent on the day they were submitted ;-)
4) If you prove that you know what you’re doing, they agree to skip the approval.
This is a very interesting post. I am adding this to one of my Related Articles Across the Web.
Thanks,
Angela
Hi Angela,
Thank you for adding the link to my article on your blog.
I see that you’re one of INinbox fans. I’ve been in your shoes some months ago, but then I woke up ;-) Take care!
You get what you pay for! Cheaper does not mean better.
I have to say that perhaps I am missing something with your review. I did not get the impression that you were recommending them yet many of the person that commented seem to believe that you endorsed the service. Perhaps I am missing something.
My own personal experience with ininbox is that they are amateurish at best. They may offer low pricing but their service is terrible. And yes, every single email must be approved first by support. The last one that I sent was a simple text only email that I was testing to my list and this email was rejected 17 hours after I submitted my campaign. You got that! 17 hours. In today’s environment, money loves speed. And unfortunately 17 hours is an eternity.
My opinion is that persons interested in an autoresponder service should stay far away from ininbox.
Hi Jerome,
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Re: “Perhaps I am missing something” – Yes, your impression is correct but you missed the P.S. It explains everything ;-)
Adrian Jock recently posted: MadMimi, a Cheaper but Professional Alternative to AWeber
ININBOX service is terrible I would not recommend it no anyone! EVEN FOR FREE. I added my contact list and this was 2 months ago, they don’t reply to emails and do not activate my account, now basically I lost the contacts address and I cannot use the service, I thought it was trustable but no, it is the worst service I have ever used to email marketing. They don’t even bother to answer!
I was going to create an account on Ininbox but now I am thinking! I am confused!
Why are you confused, Ajay?
Adrian Jock recently posted: SendinBlue Review: Affordable Email Marketing for Bloggers
Great review! I personally have had experience with ininbox.com and it was the worst experience ever! I was attracted to their free service because I wanted to try before I buy. But it was infuriating me that everytime I created a broadcast and clicked on ‘send’ I would have to wait 24 to 36 hours before I got the broadcast approved or not. And oftentimes my simple email was ‘rejected’ because of design opinions. Holy crap! They prevented me from sending my blast because they felt that I should change the template for better deliverability. Who gives a ‘rats xxx’ about their opinion. I was not targeting them! They are by far the worst of the lot in my view.
Anyway, nice review and sorry for my rant…
Partnered with Ininbox over a year ago, now they won’t even activate new accounts from my affiliate links, they won’t answer emails or Skype…. dropping them like immediately. Going to give madmimi.com a shot.