Many people making money online recognize the value of list building as a great way to earn. An automatic responder service is a must for any type of list building activity, otherwise emailing your list and tracking responses would become onerous once you reached around 10 subscribers.

There are many options available when selecting your autoresponder but the choices can be categorized into 4 types. An online paid service, an online free automatic responder, a paid software program and a free software program.

Lots of us are used to getting things for ‘free’ – it seems to have been the advertising slogan of the last 20 years. But all these free things usually come with a way of supporting the provider financially. When considering your autoresponder options is it worth paying for your service?

Although there are free and paid versions of both the first question you should answer when choosing your autoresponder is whether you need an online service or wish to use software.

The main question you need to ask yourself here is the one of reliability and ‘uptime.’ To provide a 24/7 sign-up service with a software based responder will require that your computer is permanently connected to the internet. If you have any doubts over this software isn’t the way for you.

The second is accessibility. If you need to access your list from more than one location then an online based service may prove your better option.

There are free and paid choices for the software option and if you do follow this route you should make sure that the software has the features that you need.

It is much ‘safer’ to choose an online service as these are dedicated to the auto responder service. They normally come with good uptime and deliverability rates and are backed up regularly.

Normally the main difference between a free and paid for service is that free services are supported by advertising. If you are absolutely unable to opt for a paid for service then a free service is better than no autoresponder but why would you choose to send other peoples adverts when you could send your own?

It used to be that online services didn’t have as many features as software programs, such as filtering of leads and extra information categories. Whilst software is still more flexible, with improved technology, many of the paid for online auto responder services now offer a much increased service in these respects.

The bottom line: Your list is a valuable resource and ensuring reliability and deliverability with a 24/7 sign up process should be the main priority. My recommendation would be to opt for a paid for online service and never to take any chances with my list.

If you absolutely need some features only available in a software program I would combine the 2 types of service and export leads from my paid for auto responder service.