Did you know that Aweber does not delete the subscribers who have unsubscribed from your list (s)?
Once a lead unsubscribes, the only thing Aweber does is to put a "stop mark" on that lead, so that any email you send further would not go to THAT lead. But, THAT lead still remains on your list and still counts as part of your monthly bill, even if h/she is no longer bringing you any money!
As you know, if you are grandfathered under Aweber’s old pricing plan, you would need to pay them $10 extra as upgrade fee once you have more than 10,000 subscribers. Hmm, actually, this "10,000" number counts BOTH subscribers AND un-subscribers.
Now, how about that for a shock? ;)
If you are under their new plan, of course, you know their pricing rates already, don’t you? Probably $130 per month, if I am right. :D
You may already know all about this; if yes, you don’t need to read any further and get bored unnecessarily. But, if you don’t, then you would do yourself a favor by reading what I am going to tell you, even if you get bored in the process! ;)
As you know, aweber bills you based on the number of subscribers you have in your account. Did you know that Aweber counts even those subscribers who have "unsubscribed" from your list towards your subscriber total when calculating your bill? So basically, even if you see a 10,000 subscriber total the actual figure could well be 6,000 or so, the rest being un-subscribers! Yeah, that is, if you let the number accumulate over the years, like I did! :( That is why someone has said ‘a stitch in time saves nine’!
The other day I had a rude awakening when, during a chat conversation, the aweber support guy said that they DO count my subscribers AND un-subscribers when calculating the monthly bill, and if my subscriber total reaches beyond a certain threshold then I would be billed accordingly (billed MORE, that is)!
Talk about paying for stuff that you don’t use! Here is their explanation about why they do it!
I am more of a ‘frugal’ guy than an analytics guy, so I think I would sacrifice analytics to save some big bucks. ;)
So, here is what you need to do, if you mind paying extra for this ‘analytics’ stuff! :D
1. Log into your Aweber account
2. Select any list from the drop-down menu on the top-left corner
3. Click on "Subscribers=>Search" from the menu above
4. Under "View Segment", select "Unsubscribed"
5. On the extreme right corner, under the "Erase" column, put a check mark next to all the subscribers therein, and then click on the "Save" button!
See the screenshot below:
6. Repeat it for each and every list for which you have un-subscribers!
Congrats! You have succeeded in "terminating" all of your un-subscribers! :P
[youtube]rO2sHdDO6cw[/youtube]
If you are an extremely busy person, this is something you should definitely do at least every 6 months!
Now, if you liked this article, please click here to post a nice comment! :D
You can also link to it, tweet it or even like it on Facebook if you want to! ;)
Disclosure: ArindamChakraborty.com is affiliated to Aweber
Great post Arindam, and something I done last year when one of my lists had just took me over the 10k mark and was sitting with 700+ unsubscribed users! Im on aweber but came accross from profollow which they honoured the pricing format thankfully else I would of closed my account I couldnt be paying $130 a month for it, to be honest I cant remember the last time I mailed out on it! (apart from I am writing a broadcast at this moment while your email came in lol).
Yea…I’ve known this since last year. When I looked at my bill and noticed a price increase. After several emails with tech support I realized all I had to do was delete unsubscribers from my account. Exactly the way you explained it on this post.
I did my best to get the owners to somehow do this automatically, but never did get a response.
Maybe if more aweber customers would complain we might see a change.
Paul
How to Keep Your Aweber Bill Under Control!
Use Traffic Wave. ;)
Hi,
Long time no talky. Hope you are well.~Mark
Hehe, yeah someday I would probably make a switch LOL. :D Thanks for dropping by! ;)
Don’t you just love it when companies try to hide the fine print details? And we know why they don’t make those details more clear to customers….it’s because they know customers won’t like it…customers want good value for what they pay for.
I’m sure if aweber put in big bold red letters on their site, “Hey, we charge for unsubscribers” — do you think customers would still be just as happy to sign up for their service? lol
They offer great service, but I’m just saying companies need to start being more upfront about things with their customers…so that customers are getting the best value for their dollar.
I agree that companies should be more transparent, but rarely do I see a “big guy” who is transparent in their business (Google, eBay, etc. come to mind) and whatever transparency I see, I see it in the “small guys” who probably do it because they don’t want to mess with lawsuits (they don’t have deep pockets like those big guys). Anyway I still like Aweber; there are plenty of autoresponder services over there (some even better and cheaper) but I have not found one offering fast and decent customer service like Aweber. The one I recently checked out – their support staff replies to tickets only once everyday; and even if you reply back as soon as you get their reply, they won’t reply to you until the next day. Not fast enough for me, so I gotta stick with Aweber. :D
Aweber is not transparent about their “getting hacked” either. Fact is, my web host is much more transparent than Aweber! ;)
Hi Arindam,
Although i do not use Aweber, thank you for sharing your experience, and I enjoy the Terminator Theme song.
May be the same policy for another aoutoresponders service, this is good precaution.
And, Happy New Year! GBU.
Regards,
Achmad K W