Mailchimp or CampaignMonitor or Dot.mailer for newsletter campaign?

[Minitoots]

I've offered to help a colleague's small firm produce a newsletter as they are having lots of trouble getting their hyperlinks to work on one dot.mailer.

I haven't done one before either so am looking for a basic, free version of something like Mailchimp.

any recommendations?

[Loz]

Mailchimp is free if you have a list less than 1500 (from memory).

The web interface for setting up your mailshot is a little... erm... challenging, though.

[Robert Poste's Child]

Mailchimp's fine though finessing formatting can be a bit of a pain if you're used to systems where you have more control. From memory you can't set a precise delivery time as the system decides; can't remember the exact reason for that.

[Sue]

Do not on any account use Your Mailing List Provider.

I now use MailChimp and yes it is challenging. Someone I know gave me a tutorial to start me off, and I have muddled through from there.

I'm getting used to it now, two or three months in.

You get a good number of mailouts free per month, however you cannot send two within 24 hours (this caused me some difficulty recently when I needed to correct an error).

But I have googled reviews of some alternatives, and they seem a lot worse.

There is a very comprehensive "help" section, however there is no additional customer service unless you pay.

ETA: I'd be happy to walk you through what I do if that would be useful, though it may be too basic for you.

I set up an initial template but now I just edit previous newsletters by deleting and adding text and adding, duplicating and moving sections around then editing them.

[Minitoots]

thanks for all the advice so far, and thanks for your offer of help Sue. I'll let you know how I get on as soon as I have time to try it and will send a PM if I do need help!

If anyone has experience of dot.mailer that would also be helpful as this is what the company in question is trying to use at the moment.

[Loz]

Robert Poste's Child Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Mailchimp's fine though finessing formatting can

> be a bit of a pain if you're used to systems where

> you have more control. From memory you can't set a

> precise delivery time as the system decides; can't

> remember the exact reason for that.

I suspect it's just a load balancing thing, so they can control the load on their servers and comms lines.

[Sue]

I've just found a post-it with some figures on ....

For the MailChimp "Forever Free" option you can send up to 12,000 emails per month (I think that is per calendar month)

You can have up to 2,000 people you send them to.

You can send up to 2,000 emails in any 24 hour period.

Helpfully, MailChimp provides a record of how many emails you have sent, and when, broken down by month, on one page in your account.

[mima08]

I use Mailerlite, which is free for 2000 subscribers, you can schedule, auto-schedule, do autoresponder (e.g. automatically send emails based on certain actions) and various other things that Mailchimp does. Interface very similar to MailChimp but less annoying when trying to refine the formatting. I used to use MailChimp and am much happier with Mailerlite!