Anne Holland

2 reasons for caution about free list hosting services

December 12th, 2001

A Sherpa reader who’d like to start an email newsletter for his company emailed in, “What are the pros and cons of using one of the free list hosting services on the Web to send my newsletter? Why should I pay for this when I can get it for free?”

I’m not against using free services (in fact Sherpa launched using a free email list hosting service, and then transferred to a paid service after we hit 1,000 subscribers in the first month) however, be forewarned that:

1. Free list hosting services such as Topica’s free version and Yahoo Groups do put ads on your newsletter when they send it out. Which may not suit your company branding.

2. Free list hosting services have a disconcerting history of either going out of business, or getting bought and merged into a different service, or switching to paid only. In fact today About.com’s free newsletter list hosting service shut down its free offering.

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