Over the past few years I have been doing the continual dance of Aweber vs Mailchimp. Going back and forth between which service I like more. Well, today I want to give you the title fight for 2012 of Aweber vs Mailchimp. This will be a 10 round bout with winner gets your business. Who do you have money on? Ooh.. wait they are starting!

In this corner weighing in at an Alexa ranking of 131- AAAA-Weber!

And in this corner weighing in at an Alexa ranking of 397- Mail to the MailllChimp!

Now I want a good clean fight. Go to your respective corners. And without further delay, Let’s get ready to RUMBLE! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 1

Ease of use-I personally believe Mailchimp is too complicated.  First you have to decide what type of campaign to do, then you have to fill out your campaign info,  choose one of their templates, customize the content in each box they have, do a plain text version, and then confirm the various parts of the email you created earlier. Too much!

Aweber has this all in one box arrangement for setting up emails that you can send out quickly and easily. I always felt that Mailchimp just made this too complicated. Even the Aweber web forms are easy to set up and are basically drag and click options. The only thing I do not like about Aweber is that they made their new upgrades more complicated versus less.

Edge: Aweber

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 2

Auto-responder- Aweber actually has an auto-responder with all accounts. I love the fact that you can copy and paste an auto-responder from one list into another list with just a few small adjustments. The reason I actually started using Aweber was because I needed an auto-responder series for my business.

For those who have the free version of Mail Chimp you will not have an auto-responder. However, all of the paid accounts have some level of auto-responder.

Edge: Aweber

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 3

Forms- Aweber has hundreds of different web forms that you can choose from on their site from corporate and business forms to the artistic and retail forms they pretty much have most industries covered with these forms.

MailChimp on the other hand, allows you to create an unlimited number of color variations. Other than that option, I am not that impressed with their customization features.  It is just basic features that need to be included.

Edge: Aweber

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 4

Email Templates-While both of these services have basic email templates I will have to go with MailChimp for their email templates. First- there are more of them and they are easier to customize.  Second – They do not all look they same design with just a different color.

Edge: MailChimp

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 5

Water Break!

Reporting- Aweber’s email reporting is just awesome! They break down opens, bounces, complaints, and click through rates not only by email, but also by campaign, follow up message, broadcast message and a whole slew of other options. I have never had a premium account with Mailchimp, so I am not able to state the exact difference. The one big quality with Mailchimp is that they have a Google analytics integration which allows for the detail of their reporting

Edge: Tie

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 6

Integration is a huge part of any email marketing service portfolio today. From being able to connect with social media and payment processing systems to event management and analytics. Email marketing integration is huge.

Aweber has some great ties to WordPress, Paypal, Clickbank, and membership plugins like Wishlist and S2. For example, there is an Aweber WordPress plugin

Edge: Tie

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 7

Pricing-I want to emphasize this. Pricing is important, but making sure that the service gets the job done for you is much more important. The reason I bring this up is because MailChimp has a free and paid version of their service. For a number entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping it, having a free service can be great. Just remember that you should not avoid spending money for the sake of avoiding spending money. If it is not in your budget or you want to spend money on higher returning areas of your business that is fine. Do not just choose Mailchimp, because it is free though.

Edge: MailChimp

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 8

Affiliates-This one is easy to discuss. Mailchimp has a ban on any accounts that promote affiliate and network marketing products. Aweber allows people in with open arms in those fields as long as the lists are legit.

Edge: Aweber

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 9

Split Testing- Aweber does allow split testing, but if you want to send a broadcast to multiple lists you have to create an email to split test for each list. That can be a pain when you segment your list as much as I do. I have close to 30 lists, because I divide my sign ups into so many different groups.

Mail Chimp even has a Split Test A/B email campaign that you can create. The benefit being that you can then test as much as you need with Mailchimp versus Aweber. Testing is what makes money in internet marketing. That is why it is nice to be able to use Mailchimp’s A/B test campaign option.

Edge: MailChimp

Aweber vs Mailchimp Round 10

Subscribers-This is about the policy of allowing subscribers into your list.

Aweber can sometimes have a stick up their you know whats about this policy. If you built your list elsewhere there is a 99% chance they will not allow you to move that list over to their service. They might allow you to send out an initial email requesting that your list re-opts in, but that is about it. The challenge with re-opt-ins is that the sign up rate generally will be between 15-30%(list depending). That means a list with 1,000 subscribers will shrink to 150-300.

Mailchimp allows you to upload your list into their database. However, they actually banned an account of my two years ago, because I had 5 people complain out of 1500 people complain over the course of 5 emails.

Edge: Tie

And The Winner Is….

Aweber

This concludes your special showing of Aweber vs MailChimp.

Get started with Aweber!

Please let us know who did you have money on for the Aweber vs Mailchimp match?