MailPoet

What do you like best?

If you don't ever plan to grow your subscriber base beyond the 2,000 mark, then MailPoet may work well for you. It's free and pretty easy to build a newsletter.

What do you dislike?

It's the first time I write a review for our subscribers and while I thought I'd share my experience to help other users avoid falling into the same trap as I did.

We have a list of close to 20k subscribers acquired over five years on a single website through an opt-in form. After we passed the 2000 mark, we were no longer able to send emails to our subscribers without becoming paying subscribers of MailPoet, which we understood.

Following a rebranding and redesign of the site, we decided to upgrade our MailPoet account as we were no longer able to send emails to our subscribers. Right after paying for the upgrade (99 euros / $120), MailPoet asked us to fill a form to explain how we had acquired those subscribers. After completing the form, we were told that our MailPoet account would be subject to approval.

I found the practice of charging a customer first, then requesting the user to go through an approval process borderline unethical. Why not be upfront and ask those questions before charging your customers? We were really disappointed by such business practices so we decided to cancel our subscription straight away. Little did I know that I couldn't do so during the approval process. So you pay for a month of subscription but can't use the service. I emailed the support team to cancel my subscription immediately. I got a response 9 days later. I was informed that our account was not approved and that I would be refunded of my payment.

A month later, not only have I not been refunded of my canceled subscription but worse, we have been charged for another month! With no way to cancel the subscription. What a joke!

Recommendations to others considering the product:

Don't use if you plan to have more than 2,000 subscribers

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

We were trying to send a newsletter to our 20k subscribers