AWeber Cost: Complete Pricing Breakdown for Every Plan

Looking for the actual numbers on AWeber pricing? Here's everything you need to know about what AWeber costs across all their plans, including the hidden gotchas that can surprise you as your list grows.

AWeber offers four subscription plans: Free, Lite, Plus, and Unlimited. Here's the quick version:

But there's more to AWeber's cost than the base prices. Let me break down what you're actually getting (and not getting) at each tier.

AWeber Free Plan: What $0 Actually Gets You

AWeber's free plan is surprisingly generous compared to some competitors. You can manage up to 500 subscribers and send 3,000 emails per month. That sounds reasonable until you do the math: if you're sending weekly newsletters to 500 people, you'll use about 2,000 of those sends per month, leaving little room for welcome sequences or promotional campaigns.

On the free plan, you get access to the drag-and-drop email builder, landing pages, sign-up forms, and even 24/7 phone support-which is rare for a free tier. However, there are significant limitations:

The free plan works for testing the platform or running a very small newsletter. Once you exceed 500 subscribers, you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Understanding the Email Send Limit on Free

The 3,000 email per month limit is where many users hit a wall faster than expected. Here's a realistic breakdown: if you have 500 subscribers and send one weekly newsletter, that's approximately 2,000 emails monthly. Add a welcome sequence (3 emails per new subscriber), and if you get 100 new subscribers that month, you've used another 300 sends. Throw in one promotional blast and you're already at 2,500+ emails. The math gets tight quickly.

Unlike competitors like MailerLite, which offers 12,000 emails per month on their free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers, AWeber's limits feel restrictive. However, AWeber counters this with better phone support and generally stronger deliverability than many free alternatives.

Who Should Use AWeber Free?

The free plan makes sense for very specific use cases: solopreneurs just starting their email list, bloggers testing email marketing before committing budget, local businesses with small customer bases, or creators validating a content idea before investing in paid tools. If you're in any of these categories and genuinely have fewer than 500 contacts, the free plan offers solid value with professional features you'd normally pay for elsewhere.

AWeber Lite Plan Pricing

The Lite plan costs $15/month when billed monthly or $12.50/month if you pay annually. This plan removes AWeber branding from your emails and increases your send limit to 10x your subscriber count per month.

However, Lite comes with frustrating restrictions that make it feel like a hobbled product:

The Lite plan pricing scales with your subscriber count:

SubscribersMonthly CostAnnual Cost (per month)
0-500$15$12.50
501-2,500$25~$21
2,501-5,000$45~$38
5,001-10,000$65~$54
10,001-25,000$145~$121

Honestly, the Lite plan feels like it exists just to push you toward Plus. The 3-automation limit will frustrate anyone trying to build proper email sequences.

Why the Lite Plan Limitations Matter

The three-automation restriction is particularly problematic for growing businesses. Consider a typical e-commerce store: you need a welcome sequence (automation 1), an abandoned cart recovery workflow (automation 2), and a post-purchase follow-up series (automation 3). That's your entire allotment gone with just basic functionalities. Want to add a re-engagement campaign for inactive subscribers? You're out of luck without upgrading.

Similarly, the three-landing-page limit constrains lead generation efforts. Many businesses run multiple campaigns simultaneously-perhaps one landing page for a free ebook, another for a webinar registration, and a third for product pre-orders. That's your limit reached. The single custom segment restriction is equally limiting for targeted marketing.

Calculate Your True Lite Plan Cost

To determine what you'd actually pay on Lite, calculate not just your current subscriber count but where you expect to be in 6-12 months. List growth is typically good news, but with AWeber's automatic tier upgrades, rapid growth means rapidly escalating costs. A business starting with 600 subscribers at $25/month could easily find themselves at $45/month within a year with moderate growth-a 80% price increase.

AWeber Plus Plan Pricing

AWeber Plus is their most popular plan and what most businesses will actually need. It starts at $30/month or $20/month with annual billing for up to 500 subscribers.

Plus removes all the artificial limitations from Lite:

The Plus plan is where AWeber actually becomes competitive with other email marketing tools. If you're serious about email marketing, you'll end up here.

Plus pricing by subscriber count:

SubscribersMonthly CostAnnual Cost (per month)
0-500$30$20
501-2,500$50~$33
2,501-5,000$70~$47
5,001-10,000$100~$67
10,001-25,000$175~$117

What Makes Plus Worth the Premium?

The jump from $15 to $30 monthly (or $12.50 to $20 annually) represents a significant percentage increase, but you're getting dramatically more capability. The unlimited automations alone justify the upgrade for most businesses. You can now build sophisticated customer journeys: welcome sequences, nurture campaigns, product education series, win-back campaigns for churned customers, and seasonal promotional sequences-all running simultaneously.

The behavioral automation features on Plus deserve special attention. Unlike Lite's basic time-based triggers, Plus lets you trigger emails based on subscriber actions: opened an email but didn't click, clicked a specific link, visited your pricing page, abandoned a cart, or made a purchase. This level of targeting significantly improves conversion rates and makes email marketing feel personalized rather than broadcast.

Advanced Reporting Capabilities

Plus subscribers gain access to sales tracking, which integrates with e-commerce platforms to show exactly which emails drive revenue. You can see not just open and click rates, but actual dollars generated per campaign, average order value from email traffic, and customer lifetime value by acquisition source. For businesses selling products or services, these metrics transform email from a nice-to-have into a measurable revenue channel.

The 12x Send Multiplier Advantage

Plus increases your monthly send capacity from 10x to 12x your subscriber count. For a list of 5,000 subscribers, that means 60,000 sends per month instead of 50,000-an extra 10,000 emails. This additional capacity supports more frequent communication without hitting limits. Many successful email marketers send 2-3 times per week to engaged segments, and the 12x multiplier accommodates that cadence.

AWeber Unlimited Plan

The Unlimited plan costs $899/month and is designed for large enterprises or high-volume senders. You get unlimited subscribers (including unsubscribed addresses) and can send up to 15x your subscriber count monthly.

Unless you're running a massive operation with 100,000+ subscribers, this plan isn't for you. At that price point, you should be talking to AWeber's sales team about custom pricing anyway.

When Unlimited Makes Financial Sense

Let's run the math: the Plus plan at 25,000 subscribers costs approximately $175/month. At 50,000 subscribers, you're looking at roughly $350/month. The Unlimited plan becomes cost-effective somewhere around 100,000+ subscribers, where the Plus plan pricing would exceed $899. However, at this scale, you're also likely negotiating custom enterprise deals with AWeber or competitors that may offer better rates.

The Unlimited plan also includes dedicated account management and personalized support-features that matter more at enterprise scale where email issues can have six-figure revenue implications. You're paying for infrastructure reliability, dedicated deliverability support, and strategic guidance.

AWeber Done For You Service

AWeber offers a unique "Done For You" service that sits alongside their standard plans. For a one-time $79 setup fee plus your regular Plus plan subscription (starting at $30/month), AWeber's team builds your entire email system in 7 days.

This includes:

The Done For You option appeals to businesses that lack the time or expertise to configure email marketing themselves. The $79 setup fee is remarkably affordable compared to hiring a freelancer (typically $500-2,000 for similar work) or spending dozens of hours learning the platform yourself.

Who Benefits Most from Done For You?

This service makes particular sense for busy entrepreneurs launching new products, service-based businesses transitioning from manual follow-ups to automation, or companies migrating from another platform and wanting a fresh professional start. The weekly newsletter drafts are especially valuable for businesses that struggle with content creation consistency.

Hidden AWeber Costs to Watch For

Here's what can catch you off guard with AWeber pricing:

Automatic upgrades: If you exceed your subscriber or send limits, AWeber automatically bumps you to the next pricing tier. You'll get notified, but your bill will increase without needing your explicit approval. Downgrades, however, are NOT automatic-you have to contact customer support to reduce your plan.

Annual billing savings: You can save roughly 33% by paying annually instead of monthly. That's significant, but it also means you're locked in for a year. The 14-day free trial helps, but make sure you're committed before going annual.

No setup fees: AWeber doesn't charge setup fees or have hidden charges. What you see on the pricing page is what you pay. They also offer discounts for non-profits and students (contact them for details).

The Unsubscribe Counting Policy

An important cost consideration: as of recent updates, AWeber no longer counts unsubscribed contacts toward your billable total. This is a significant improvement from their previous policy and eliminates the need to manually purge unsubscribed contacts to avoid overage charges. However, you're still responsible for keeping your list clean by removing bounced addresses and maintaining good list hygiene.

Understanding Automatic Billing Increases

AWeber's automatic upgrade system can create unexpected budget increases. If you're at 2,400 subscribers on a Monday and a successful campaign adds 150 subscribers by Friday, you've jumped from the $35/month tier to the $60/month tier-a 71% increase-without explicitly authorizing it. While AWeber does send notifications, these can get lost in inbox clutter. Smart practice: set calendar reminders to check your subscriber count before major campaigns and budget for the next tier up if you're close to a threshold.

The Downgrade Friction

The asymmetry between automatic upgrades and manual downgrades creates friction. If your list shrinks (seasonal business fluctuations, list cleaning, or subscriber churn), you continue paying for the higher tier until you remember to contact support and request a downgrade. This policy protects AWeber's revenue but disadvantages customers experiencing temporary list contractions.

How AWeber Compares to Alternatives

AWeber's pricing sits in the middle of the email marketing spectrum, but opinions on value vary widely. Some users appreciate the reliability and deliverability. Others feel the pricing is steep for what you get, especially as your list grows.

For context, here's how AWeber stacks up:

Direct Pricing Comparison: AWeber vs. Mailchimp

At 1,000 subscribers, AWeber Plus costs approximately $25/month annually versus Mailchimp's Essentials plan at $13/month. However, AWeber includes phone support, unlimited automations, and unlimited landing pages-features Mailchimp reserves for higher tiers. At 10,000 subscribers, AWeber charges roughly $100/month while Mailchimp Standard runs $138/month. The value equation shifts based on which features you prioritize.

AWeber vs. ActiveCampaign: Feature Depth vs. Simplicity

ActiveCampaign offers dramatically more sophisticated automation-conditional branching, wait conditions based on multiple criteria, and complex lead scoring algorithms. However, this power comes with complexity and cost. ActiveCampaign's Plus plan (comparable features to AWeber Plus) starts at $49/month for 1,000 contacts versus AWeber's $25. You're paying nearly double for advanced capabilities you may or may not need.

AWeber vs. MailerLite: Budget-Conscious Choice

MailerLite consistently undercuts AWeber on price. At 1,000 subscribers, MailerLite costs $10/month versus AWeber's $25. MailerLite's interface is modern and intuitive, with solid automation and landing page builders. The tradeoff? MailerLite offers only email support (no phone) and deliverability rates that some users report as slightly lower than AWeber's. For budget-constrained startups, MailerLite presents compelling value; for businesses prioritizing support and reliability, AWeber justifies the premium.

AWeber Deliverability: Is It Worth the Cost?

One of AWeber's strongest selling points is email deliverability-the percentage of emails that actually reach subscriber inboxes rather than spam folders. Independent testing shows AWeber's deliverability rates averaging between 81-93% depending on the testing period and methodology.

AWeber maintains dedicated deliverability staff focused on:

Understanding Deliverability Economics

Consider this scenario: you have 10,000 subscribers and pay AWeber $100/month. If AWeber's deliverability is 90% versus a cheaper competitor's 75%, you're reaching 9,000 inboxes versus 7,500-a 20% difference in actual reach. If your average email generates $0.10 in revenue per recipient, that's $900 vs. $750 monthly, a $150 difference. Suddenly the extra cost pays for itself through better delivery performance.

AWeber's infrastructure includes SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication standards, dedicated IP options for high-volume senders, and proactive list management tools that automatically handle bounces and complaints. These technical foundations matter more than most users realize.

Is AWeber Worth the Cost?

AWeber works well for specific use cases:

Good fit if:

Not ideal if:

Calculating Your Email Marketing ROI with AWeber

To determine if AWeber's cost makes sense for your business, calculate your email marketing ROI. Track these metrics over 3-6 months:

If your email marketing generates 10x or more than your AWeber subscription cost, the tool is paying for itself. Most successful email marketers see 20-40x returns on their email platform investment.

Recent AWeber Pricing Changes and Their Impact

AWeber made significant pricing adjustments in late 2023 and throughout 2024. The introduction of tiered plans (Free, Lite, Plus) replaced the previous single "Pro" plan structure. These changes increased costs for many users, particularly those who had grandfathered pricing.

Previous AWeber Pro subscribers who paid a flat rate regardless of features now face the three-tier system. Some long-time customers reported price increases of 50-150% when forced off grandfathered plans. This created controversy in the email marketing community and prompted some users to explore alternatives.

Why AWeber Changed Its Pricing

AWeber's shift to tiered pricing aligns with industry standards-most major email platforms now use similar structures. The company argues this provides better options for small businesses who don't need advanced features and can save money on Lite plans. However, serious marketers inevitably need Plus tier capabilities, making the Lite tier feel like a temporary stopover rather than a long-term solution.

Tips for Saving Money on AWeber

If you decide AWeber is right for you, here are strategies to minimize costs:

1. Pay annually: The 33% discount on annual billing adds up significantly. For Plus at 2,500 subscribers, that's $200 in annual savings ($600/year vs. $400/year).

2. Manage list hygiene aggressively: Regularly clean your list by removing non-openers (after appropriate re-engagement attempts), bounced addresses, and unengaged subscribers. A smaller, engaged list of 4,000 subscribers often outperforms a bloated list of 6,000, and you'll pay less.

3. Use segments instead of multiple lists: On Plus, you get unlimited segments but pay based on total unique subscribers. One master list with sophisticated segmentation costs less than multiple lists with duplicated contacts.

4. Apply for nonprofit or student discounts: AWeber offers special pricing for qualifying organizations. Nonprofits receive 3 months free plus 25% ongoing discount. Student discounts vary but can significantly reduce costs.

5. Time your list growth strategically: If you're close to a pricing tier threshold, consider pausing aggressive list-building temporarily until you've monetized your current subscribers, then resume growth when you're financially ready for the next tier.

6. Start with Lite if you're truly small: If you genuinely only need 3 automations, 3 landing pages, and 1 list, Lite saves $15/month over Plus. But be honest about whether these limitations will frustrate you within 3-6 months.

7. Use the free plan strategically: If you're launching a new venture and unsure about email marketing commitment, start free and thoroughly test AWeber's capabilities before upgrading. This avoids paying for features while you're still figuring out your strategy.

AWeber Cost vs. Value: The Final Analysis

AWeber's pricing represents a middle-ground option in the email marketing landscape. You're not getting the budget-basement rates of MailerLite or Sender, but you're also not paying ActiveCampaign or HubSpot's premium prices.

What you get for your money:

What you don't get:

Who Should Choose AWeber in 2026?

AWeber makes the most sense for:

Small business owners who prioritize simplicity and support over advanced features. If you want reliable email marketing without becoming a marketing automation expert, AWeber delivers.

Solopreneurs and creators with straightforward email needs-weekly newsletters, simple product launches, basic automation sequences. The Plus plan at $20/month annually offers excellent value for this segment.

Service-based businesses focused on relationship-building rather than complex funnels. Coaches, consultants, and local service providers benefit from AWeber's reliability without needing sophisticated automation.

Businesses valuing support over cutting-edge features. AWeber's phone support and responsive customer service team provide peace of mind worth paying for, especially for less technically-inclined users.

Email marketers who emphasize deliverability above all else. If your emails must reach inboxes reliably, AWeber's infrastructure and dedicated deliverability team justify the cost.

Alternatives Worth Considering

While AWeber serves many businesses well, these alternatives might offer better value depending on your specific needs:

If you need advanced automation, consider ActiveCampaign. It costs more but delivers sophisticated conditional logic, lead scoring, and CRM features.

If you're budget-constrained, explore MailerLite or Sender. Both offer generous free plans and lower paid pricing, though with less comprehensive support.

If you want all-in-one marketing, investigate HubSpot or GetResponse. They include email, landing pages, webinars, CRM, and ads management-true marketing platforms rather than just email tools.

If you're a creator or blogger, check out ConvertKit. It's built specifically for digital creators with features like subscriber tagging, paid newsletter infrastructure, and creator-friendly analytics.

If you need e-commerce integration, consider Klaviyo. It's purpose-built for online stores with deep Shopify integration, product recommendation engines, and e-commerce-specific automation.

The Verdict on AWeber Pricing

AWeber's free plan is genuinely useful for getting started. The Plus plan at $20/month (annual) offers solid value for small businesses with straightforward email marketing needs. But if you're comparing purely on features-per-dollar, you can often get more elsewhere.

The platform's strengths are reliability, excellent deliverability, and phone support across all tiers. Its weaknesses are dated automation capabilities and pricing that climbs quickly as your list grows.

If you're ready to try AWeber, start with the free plan to test the interface, or use the 14-day trial to evaluate the paid features before committing. Pay annually if you're confident in your choice-that 33% savings adds up significantly over time.

For businesses prioritizing simplicity, support, and reliable delivery over cutting-edge features and rock-bottom pricing, AWeber remains a solid choice in 2026. Just make sure you understand exactly which tier you'll need (hint: probably Plus) and budget for the higher subscriber tiers as your list grows.

Try AWeber Free →

For more on email marketing strategies and choosing the right tools for your small business, check out our comprehensive guide on email marketing for small business.

Frequently Asked Questions About AWeber Cost

Does AWeber charge for unsubscribed contacts?

No, AWeber recently updated its policy to exclude unsubscribed contacts from billable totals. Previously, you had to manually delete unsubscribes to avoid paying for them, but this is no longer necessary. However, you're still billed based on total active subscribers across all your lists, so if the same person appears on multiple lists, they count multiple times toward your total.

Can I change AWeber plans at any time?

Yes, you can upgrade your plan anytime from your account dashboard. In fact, if you exceed subscriber or send limits, AWeber automatically upgrades you to the next tier. However, downgrades aren't automatic-you must contact customer support to move to a lower-priced plan, creating some friction in the process.

Is there a long-term contract required?

No, AWeber operates on month-to-month billing with no long-term contracts. Even annual plans can be canceled, though you won't receive a refund for the remaining months. This flexibility lets you cancel anytime without penalty, though you lose access immediately upon cancellation.

What payment methods does AWeber accept?

AWeber accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover credit cards. They also accept debit cards with the Visa or Mastercard logo. PayPal and other payment methods aren't currently supported for subscription billing.

Does AWeber offer refunds?

AWeber offers a 14-day free trial for new paid accounts. If you cancel within this trial period, you won't be charged. However, after the trial ends, AWeber doesn't offer refunds on monthly or annual subscriptions. This makes the trial period critical for thoroughly testing the platform before commitment.

How much does AWeber cost for 5,000 subscribers?

For 5,000 subscribers, AWeber Lite costs approximately $45/month (or ~$38/month annually) while Plus costs approximately $70/month (or ~$47/month annually). The significant feature differences between Lite and Plus make the $25/month premium worthwhile for most businesses at this scale.

Can I get a discount on AWeber?

Yes, AWeber offers several discount opportunities: annual billing saves 33%, nonprofits receive 3 months free plus 25% ongoing discount, and students can qualify for special pricing. Additionally, new accounts receive a 14-day free trial of paid plans. Watch for occasional promotional offers during Black Friday or New Year periods.

What happens if I exceed my email send limit?

If you exceed your monthly send limit, AWeber automatically upgrades you to the next plan tier that supports your send volume. You'll receive notification of this change, and your billing will adjust accordingly for the current billing cycle. This ensures your campaigns continue without interruption but can create unexpected cost increases.