How Many Subscribers Does My Blog Have

Whether you are a Blogspot blogger freaking out about that Feedburner news, a blogger looking to start offering email subscriptions to your blog, or a WordPress blogger looking for a new email subscription provider, here's some information about what I think are the Best Free Services for Email Subscriptions in 2021!

First, a bit about the Feedburner Situation

If this doesn't apply to you, just scroll down a bit!

Google's Feedburner offered bloggers an effortless way to put emails into their subscribers' inboxes. There have been rumors about Feedburner shutting down for YEARS. At least since I started blogging in 2001.

But now they are actually doing it. Supposedly.

Feedburner will no longer support email subscriptions

THE GOOD NEWS: if you're on Blogspot, you do NOT need Feedburner to send RSS feed emails. (RSS emails are emails that pull posts from your blog feed and send subscribers an email with a specified number of recent posts.)

THE BAD NEWS: if you are a Blogspot blogger and want your Feedburner email subscribers to keep getting RSS emails from you, it looks like you will have to do SOMETHING by July.

Here's one thing you should do (I did it every single time Feedburner threatened to shut down):

Step one: Export the email addresses of your blog subscribers. Exporting doesn't erase them! It just makes you a copy of all of them. You will need this file no matter which email solution you choose. Go to Feedburner.Google.com.

You should see a red bar and under that will be your feed(s). Here's what mine looks like below (I don't have subscribers there anymore because I switched to WordPress a few years ago).

First, click on the name of your feed (in blue). Then click on the Publicize tab, then Email Subscriptions, then Subscription Management, then View Subscriber Details, then Download to CSV file.

After all that, you want to get to a page that looks like this (below):

How to export your Feedburner subscribers

Then click Export: CSV. A file of all the addresses of your subscribers will download for you. All done! Hang onto that downloaded file for now.

Now, Which Free Service for Email Blog Subscriptions is Right For You?

That depends MAINLY on:

a) how many subscribers you have

b) how many emails a day/week/month you intend to send and what kind of emails

c) if you want to build an email list going forward

d) $$$$ – how much you want to spend (I'm assuming as little as possible, preferably ZERO.)

e) how much you are willing (or able) to comply with FTC anti-spam laws (we all want to follow the law BUT do you have a mailing address you're willing to put on all your emails and do you have a domain email address (if you have a custom URL for your blog, i.e. your URL is NOT blogspot.com, you probably do.) Don't panic – more on that later!

Some people say that you get what you pay for BUT they might be wrong about that as free email subscription services really do vary. I will run down some of the main contenders and their pros and cons.

Before we dive in, find out how many email subscribers you have (you can see my number in the photo above.) Note: this number will probably go down in the export and import process (something about verification) so don't panic if that happens.

Here's my rundown of the best FREE services for sending out blog emails in 2021:

MailChimp

Mailchimp is probably the most well-known player in the email subscription and email marketing space. I used them for a couple of years, right after moving to WordPress.

PROS to the Mailchimp Free Email Subscription Service:

They are a solid contender with a good track record and a great free plan. The Mailchimp free plan lets you have up to 2000 subscribers and send 10,000 total emails a month or 2,000 a day.

CONS to the Mailchimp Free Email Subscription Service:

The biggest downside to me about Mailchimp is that they offer free users NO support or help at all. If you have problems, they direct you to their "help library" but yeah …. you will have to Google a solution and troubleshoot it yourself. If you're willing to spend $10 a month (which is actually pretty reasonable as paid plans go, you can have more features and chat support. But $10 a month does add up … to $120 a year.

Another downside to MANY of these services is that you now have to think about:

As pointed out by Offbeat YA), MailChimp, to comply with the CAN SPAM act of 2003, requires that emails sent through them include a mailing address. This doesn't have to be your home address; it can be a PO box or work address. We can all agree that spam is bad, but some bloggers really don't want their address out there. These laws apply only to commercial emails so if your blog is 100% hobby with NO money made, there is probably a way around that. Also, you don't have to use your home address. Here are MailChimp's suggestions about alternate addresses you can use, but they also seem pretty firm that you must use a physical address you can receive mail at.

There's one more thing (sorry!) Mailchimp (and most other services) prefers you use a domain email address. What is a domain email address? It's exactly what it sounds like: an email @ your blog URL, as opposed to a Gmail etc. Like Katniss@Katniss.com Most services don't seem (?) to require it but, as they explain, if sent from one, your emails are less likely to end up in spam.

So let's see what the other options are…

ConvertKit

PROS to the ConvertKit Free Email Subscription Service

ConvertKit is another big name in email marketing. The ConvertKit free plan used to only allow you to have 100 subscribers (?!?) but they have more recently bumped that to 1000. There doesn't seem to be a cap on the number of emails you can send. AND you get free email support, which I like. But if you get to over 1,000 subscribers, you have to pay $29 a month, which is a LOT more than the $10 MailChimp paid plan.

CONS to the ConvertKit Free Email Subscription Service

There's a BIG con to the Free Convertkit Plan: it does NOT let you set up RSS emails on the free plan. NOTE: Triviatic, a very helpful commenter on this post, noted this and sure enough, this article from ConvertKit confirms it. So that would be a dealbreaker for me. RSS emails are the easiest way to set up an email subscription because they send automatically. Otherwise, you have to design each individual email. If you like doing that kind of thing, ConvertKit could work for you.

ConvertKit also wants you to follow the CAN SPAM rules to use their service (fair enough!) BUT they allow you to use their mailing address. That is SUPER nice of them, right? I think so. I'm not sure if they require a domain email address, so if you figure that out, let me know.

AWeber

AWeber is another big player and they do offer a free plan. For a blogger with under 500 subscribers, it could be a good FREE fit.

PROS to the Free AWeber Email Subscription Service

AWeber's free service allows automation and 24/7 email and chat support. You can have up to 500 subscribers. I've never used their service, but this seems like a good deal. If anyone has experience with them, please give us your take in the comments!

CONS to the Free AWeber Email Subscription Service

After you hit 501 subscribers, you will have to pay $29 a month. Also they require a mailing address on emails to comply with CAN-SPAM.

SendInBlue

Based in France, SendinBlue is a newer contender.

PROS to the Free SendinBlue Email Subscription Service

They seem to be getting good reviews. They allow an unlimited number of subscribers and the free plan lets you send 9,000 emails a month. They could be a good fit with a big IF:

CONS to the Free SendinBlue Email Subscription Service

The HUGE catch to the Free SendinBlue plan is their DAILY email sending limit, which is 300. So if you have over 300 subscribers and want to send all of them an email, you'd have to break the subscribers into groups and email them on different days. Some people DO segment their lists to test different emails etc. But for me, this was a dealbreaker. If you want to send more emails than that, you pay $25 a month for a basic plan. Which is a lot more than Mailchimp's free plan.

There's another service called Benchmark that has a free service with the same problem: it only allows you to send 250 emails A MONTH. If you want to send more, you pay $13 a month for a basic plan.

Is MailerLite the best Email Subscription Service for you

Also a newer kid on the block, MailerLite is based in Lithuania.

PROS to the MailerLite Free Email Subscription

Disclosure: this is what I'm currently using. I get nothing for recommending them. They are working fine for me so far. I like that they allow you to have up to 1,000 subscribers and send 12,000 total emails a month. They don't seem to have a daily sending limit. RSS emails and automations are included. Their customer service has been very responsive and helpful so far.

CONS to the MailerLite Free Email Subscription

You need to "apply" and be accepted, but that's not as scary as it sounds. They are just making sure you're not a spammer. Their FAQ says that if you do NOT have a domain email address, they ask you to apply as someone without a blog. I emailed their support team and asked about this. They said to tell them in your application that you are a blogspot blogger without a custom URL, and give them your Blogspot URL and there should be NO problem.

They do PREFER that you use a domain email address (to keep your emails out of spam) but that does not seem to be required. And Offbeat YA is using them without a mailing address. I believe she just puts her country on there and they haven't said anything.

If I get to more than 1000 subscribers, I will have to pay them $10 a month, which at that point, I'd possibly switch back to MailChimp to have the bigger name.

LATE ADDITION:

There are also some smaller, lesser-known email subscription services that you can research. The intrepid Offbeat YA does NOT want to use a mailing address OR a have a domain email address and is testing a service called Moosend. She reported that they had trouble processing her feed, though that could be due to her layout. She signed up with MailerLite and her emails look great and seem to be working fine.

Some other smaller, newer options: Zoho and Omnisend. Triviatic reported in comments that they have tried Follow.it and Feedio. Feedio is free up to 100 subscribers.

There's also Follow.It BUT most of my commenters have not had good experiences with it. You can read the comments but I will summarize the points that people made:

On the plus side: it's a post notification service rather than an email subscription service and you don't seem to have to do much to set it up.

The downside of Follow.It: 1) No customization, as in you can't change the subject line of your emails or do any design (this is somewhat comparable to the WordPress following system). 2) Also, beware if you're on WordPress as Jana @That Artsy Reader Girl said the Follow.It plug-in really messed up her blog. 3) Katherine, another commenter, said that Follow.It emails contain advertising that you have no control over. And 4) Irene said that most of her notification emails to her subscribers were bouncing, possibly as she doesn't have a domain email address. Sigh, nothing is really "free" or "easy," is it?

If you have feedback on these – please tell me and I'll add it to this post!

Which Free Email Subscription Service is Right for Your Blog?

Again, here are the main questions I'd ask yourself:

How many subscribers do you have?

How many emails do you intend to send out every week or month?

What kinds of emails do you send? Straight RSS emails don't need fancy templates. But if you want to send newsletters, you might want to check out the available templates. If you do automated "flow" emails or courses, not all free plans allow that. Some free plans don't let you do RSS emails at all.

Are you willing to do without customer support?

How do you plan to collect subscribers' emails going forward AND do you want to build your email list?

Do you have a domain email address and/or a mailing address you're willing to use?

Okay, so you are ready (or have to) try a NEW email subscription service. First, pick one.

HOW SHOULD YOU PICK? HELP!

If you have over 1000 subscribers, you could try the Mailchimp FREE plan and upgrade to the Essentials if you feel like you want or need the additional support and features. It's a good, safe choice and what I did when I first left Blogspot.

If you have 500-1000 subscribers and are staying on Blogger, I'd probably do MailerLite. I just did a test run and it's easy to put up a widget on Blogger to collect subscribers. If you're in this category and on WordPress, I'd decide between MailerLite or FREE Mailchimp. If your list is closer to 1000 and you're reasonably tech-savvy, you might want to go with Mailchimp, so you don't have to pay (or switch) if you list tops 1000.

If you have a smaller list, you have the most choices (yay!) I'd decide based on how tech-savvy you are and how aggressively you want to grow your list. If you want to try to grow the list and don't want to have to switch AGAIN to avoid paying, you could go with a service with a higher cap, like MailerLite or Mailchimp.

If you don't have a domain email address, or do not want to use your mailing address, MailerLite seems flexible about that.

NOW WHAT?

How to Try Out a New Email Subscription Service

The first way you can do this is just set up the new service, subscribe to it yourself as a single subscriber, and set up an RSS email to go out. Try the new service for a few weeks and if you like it, import the rest of your subscribers.

Another PROTIP: ALWAYS be a subscriber to your own blog emails so you can see if there are problems (email not sent as scheduled, wonky images, etc.) All of these glitches have happened to me and I'd have never known unless I was a subscriber. (Literally this JUST happened to me – I left my campaign in draft mode by mistake.)

If you are ready to switch OR want to test out the new service with ALL your subscribers, here's how:

Download a CSV file of your subscribers (see the instructions above for Blogger. Every service will have a way for you to download a CSV file of your current subscribers, which is what you will need.)
Temporarily turn OFF your current service. Otherwise your subscribers will get two emails. For Feeedburner/Blogger, there's an Activate/Deactivate button that looks like this:

How to switch from Feedburner to another email Subscription service

These are excellent instructions of how to set up Mailchimp in Blogger, and every other Email Subscription service should have similar ones. Basically the steps are:

Sign up for an account.
Upload your subscribers (time to use that CSV file).
Set up a "campaign" which can be a single email or an RSS feed email on a regular schedule.
Design what you want your email to look like (for an RSS email, you only have to do this once.) ARE YOU STUCK ON THIS PART? HERE'S HOW TO SET UP AN RSS EMAIL IN MAILCHIMP.
When you think you're set, send yourself a test email – most services allow this and it's pretty helpful when you're doing a new design.
Tweak the format and then schedule the email to go out – don't forget to temporarily pause the old service.
Evaluate: did your email go out as scheduled? Do you like the way it looks on both desktop and mobile? What is your open rate? (If you are the only subscriber, it can be 100%)

Okay but what about collecting new subscriber emails going forward?

Great question. Since I have left Blogger, I don't know as much about this aspect of things but:

DON'T FORGET to add a new subscription form (the place on your blog that allows visitors to your site to sign up for your email list) and delete any old ones.

Before you sign up with a new email subscription service, research what forms they offer and how they are installed on the type of blog you have. WordPress users can usually find a plug-in to help with this. I'm not as familiar with how this is done on Blogger but for Blogger you can 1) create a form on the new service and then past the HTML into a widget OR 2) use services like AddThis (which integrates with MailChimp and AWeber) or Hello Bar (which integrates with MailChimp, AWeber, ConvertKit and MailerLite/Zapier) to make a HTML coded form for your site that will collect new subscribers' emails and add them to your brand new list. Don't forget this part, as you want to grow your list going forward!

EDITED TO ADD: I am happy to report that using a MailerLite subscription form with Blogger works just fine. I just used their standard embedded form, copied the HTML code, and pasted it in a Blogger HTML widget and…..

IT WORKED JUST FINE:

Then I subscribed myself and: IT WORKED!

That's it! Any questions, comments, advice? Have you tried one of the services above and have feedback? PLEASE leave a comment and let me know! Also, if you want to follow the discussion and get feedback from others trying new services, be sure to subscribe to comments on this post – you can unsubscribe at any time!

Want more blogging tips? Check out all my article on blogging here!

NOTE: I've had to close comments on this post due to a lot of spam. If you have a question or a comment, please find me on Twitter and I will be happy to discuss there OR to open comments for you!

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Best Free Services for Email Blog Subscriptions in 2021