List Size:
< 100

Empl:
one

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 4

Ease: 3

Country:
AU

Strengths: Excellent filtering and incoming mail handling. Ability to send htm and text and act as a mail server direct from desktop. Data is in a simple delimited form which is easy to manage

Weaknesses: List handling feature is not intuitive and needs some fiddling to learn. The schedule program does not allow for enough flexibility

Missing? Edit program to write newsletters and email messages that allow for control of line length and basic html

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 2

Qual: 4

Ease: 3

Country:
Canada

Strengths: Ability to personalize the email inexpensive in the long run as once its purchased there are no monthly fees.

Weaknesses: It can take hours to send 5000 HTML emails

Missing?

List Size:
< 100

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
15 hr

Cust Serv: 2

Qual: 3

Ease: 3

Country:
US

Strengths: KGHK

Weaknesses: ITY

Missing? ITYI

List Size:
100 to 1K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
5 hr

Cust Serv: NA

Qual: 2

Ease: 1

Country:
UK

Strengths: price

Weaknesses: difficult to use doesn't give good error messages requires manual editing of lists

Missing? better help

List Size:

Empl:

Training:
hr

Cust Serv:

Qual:

Ease:

Country:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
one

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 4

Qual: 4

Ease: 3

Country:
US

Strengths: Fairly easy to use handles large lists with a one time fee I have full control and I don't have to worry about the host (as in online email host) going down or changing their fees etc.

Weaknesses: It is challenging to figure out the filters so that addresses are removed automatically if needed for bounced mail.

Missing?

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
one

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 1

Qual: 1

Ease: 4

Country:
Canada

Strengths: Relatively simple program to use and does allow personalization of e-mails.

Weaknesses: Didn't live up to its hype - can only send out e-mails that have been extracted into ASCI delimited format from a database. Slow and doesn't have its own database.

Missing?

List Size:
< 100

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
hr

Cust Serv:

Qual:

Ease:

Country:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
hr

Cust Serv: 2

Qual: 3

Ease:

Country:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 1

Qual: 2

Ease: 4

Country:
UK

Strengths: simple no nonsense system.

Weaknesses: Managing returns is poor holding data and passing data back to the database is poor

Missing? se above.

List Size:
100 to 1K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 2

Ease:

Country:

Strengths: lifetime upgrades

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 5

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: ease of use efficiency

Weaknesses: I have not found a weakness

Missing? This program is available by download only. When my system crashed I had to reload and it took a LONG time. I'd like to see it released on disk.

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
40 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 5

Ease: 2

Country:
US

Strengths: Mailloop has a feature that's called Act Like A Server. When I send my emails I split the list and send html to everyone except AOL customers. The Act Like a Server doesn't work for AOL so I have to use one of my domain's mail servers the process is VERY SLOW. But when I send the rest of the emails I use the Act Like a Server and it is VERY FAST. I love it. I only wish it worked for AOL customers but for some reason if I use that feature those emails never get delivered. I also love the database features it will split the list for me and clean out bad email address. The ability to add to your exclude list helps also.

Weaknesses: I took me a long time to figure out how to use it because at the time (it may not be the same today) there were no written help files only movies that you have to download. I didn't have the patience to download and watch movies since I am very literate at the computer I just needed a little help that I could read quickly it wasn't there. Also the fact that the Act Like a Server feature doesn't deliver to AOL and that no one told me. I went for months using it to send out my AOL emails before I found out that they weren't getting delivered. It probably cost me a lot of business. They should have give me a warning or maybe they don't know???? Also I upgraded recently but the first time I tried to use the upgraded version (5.0 I think) it didn't work. Tech support told me that it was maybe my list needed to have a .lst extention and I was using .txt. Well la di da I don't have time to move backwards in the upgrades 4.0 worked with .txt why wouldn't 5.0? So I still use 4.0 until they get it fixed. And they never let you know when a new version comes out I just happened across it one day and saw that they had a new version. Maybe that's because I bought it with free upgrades and to notify me would not make them any money.

Missing? I'm not sure I've never used anything else to compare it to.

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 3

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: This program filters the information from certain emails into separate data bases. It also will send autoresponder newsletters to subscribers. I like the ability to merge outgoing email letters.

Weaknesses: The most frustrating thing to me is when mailing out newsletters it is very slow. A list of 3000 newsletters can take 4 or more hours. If it has problems with any email addresses it stops the whole process and you must go in manually delete the addresses that were mailed to correcty save the un-mailed emails to another file and restart the newsletter program. To make sure everything goes smoothly you almost have to have someone monitor the program the 4 hours while the program does it's thing. They have a faster system (Act like a mail server) but the emails will often be stopped by anti-spam systems in Yahoo AOL and others. If you are using the merge feature or want to add a unique subject to each weeks (or what ever timeframe) newsletter you must use the out going email processor. When you get bounces in this program they then must be manually removed from the data lists. One problem that is not mailloops is the multitude of bounced or undelivered mail messages that you can receive.

Missing? In version 4.6 the newsletter program only allowed you to have an 8 character newsletter name to the autoresponder newsletter. This may have been corrected in version 5.0. The video tutorials are good but could have a little more debth in places.

List Size:
100 to 1K

Empl:
one

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 1

Qual: 3

Ease: 1

Country:
US

Strengths: Don't know can't get it to work

Weaknesses: There is not much of a manual. If you don't understand you're out of luck E-mail questions are answered but it's a pain to have to do this with every question rather than being able to teach yourself using a thorough instruction manual

Missing? Don't know yet All seems to be there if I could work it

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
one

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 3

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: Easy to learn. Easy to use. Good documentation.

Weaknesses: New version 5.0 still working out some bugs.

Missing? A message indicating x number of records have been deleted from the list file in response to the filters in use.

List Size:
100 to 1K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
5 hr

Cust Serv: 2

Qual: 2

Ease: 2

Country:
AU

Strengths: I'm just learning to drive it at this stage so I can't really comment!

Weaknesses: Online help is extremely minimal - I haven't yet checked the downloadable videos though.

Missing? The help menu could include a lot more detail and explanation of functions step-by-step set up procedure

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
5 hr

Cust Serv: 1

Qual: 3

Ease: 1

Country:
Canada

Strengths: able to handle multiple lists. able to pull emails out of Eudora/outlook mail boxes

Weaknesses: even though it comes with good video instruction it took me 8 months to feel comfortable with it. Not that well orgabized

Missing? good for collecting emial poor for collecting names with the email. I am using version 4.6 and have bought 5.0 but not learnt it yet so this may be addressed in the new version. Also files seem to be allover the place eg in My Docs and in the Mailloop folder.

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
5 hr

Cust Serv: 1

Qual: 1

Ease: 1

Country:
US

Strengths: I have been very unhappy with this software and upgrades have only seemed to make it worse.

Weaknesses: lack of customer support

Missing?

List Size:
2 mil to 10 mil

Empl:
26 to 100

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 4

Ease: 2

Country:

Strengths: asl²nda fena bir program diil ama ne yazmam gerekti=ini tam olarak anlamad²m san²r²m...

Weaknesses: bunu da tam bilmiyorum.... :-(

Missing? yok.

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
one

Training:
> 40 hr

Cust Serv: 4

Qual: 4

Ease: 3

Country:
UK

Strengths: Easy interface and features are kept simple yet powerful and lists are easy to manage. Customer service very responsive to problems. Good documentation including helpful videos.

Weaknesses: It suits the purpose I need it for very well however I wouldn't be confindent using it for a HUGE list.

Missing? Cheaper!

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 5

Ease: 2

Country:
UK

Strengths: Easy to install; good tutorials - on line videos - quick and friendly and helpful support when needed. Useful features.

Weaknesses: Initial steep learning curve

Missing? Umm - for me it's pretty much okay.

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
> 40 hr

Cust Serv: 1

Qual: 3

Ease: 4

Country:
US

Strengths: Mailloop is a pretty good tool. It has nice features for merging fields and is easy to use. Though I would like to find a better tool. Problems: Some mail servers use various forms of reverse-lookup and authentication techniques to ensure the email headers aren't forged (indicating spam). Because mailloop uses my computer directly as an SMTP server those same destination mail servers can't do the normal tests to my computer as it normally would to our mail relay server. This causes a few of the emails to fail when sending our newsletter out but normal email works fine. In the past when Mailloop had no way to throttle the email once it was sent it would go on to lock up both the exchange server and our Firebox. It is just hard to get the settings right and their customer service has no idea what to do about it! I mean come on... there are only a few options... they should know how to optimize their software and help you to get it running properly.. to avoid the huge fail logs. Messages like Unable to connect to any of the MX servers for the given domain. and Server is to busy to handle email. are way to common. Our firewall can only process so much information at a time. Adding several thousand emails to the equation doesn't help.

Weaknesses: see 8

Missing? see 8

List Size:
25K to 100K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
10 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 2

Ease: 2

Country:
US

Strengths: I collect addresses from a variety of sources especially from our retail store into a contact manager. I can't just delete the bounces.. these are my customers and I want to follow up through offline means. I find that the bounce management available in ALL list software sucks!

Weaknesses: These guys seem to have their routes in SPAM. collecting newsgoup addresses is part of the program. Then they built in a hosting function where you can manage newsletter for others.. but only ONE sub addresses for all of them.

Missing? bounce tracking integration with web forms better handling of addtional fields. I want to be able to allow just an email address then later add fields from questionaires other sources.

List Size:
500K to 2 mil

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
20 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 3

Ease: 5

Country:
NAm

Strengths: Simple to use.

Weaknesses: In our experience your list cannot exceed more than 50k names per sending because the program will crash. So if you have more than 50k names then you would have to do it separately.

Missing? Ability to send faster emails.

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 1

Ease: 1

Country:
US

Strengths: Can't answer that because I have uninstalled Mailloop and am currently looking for another program....am taking this survey to see what other products are out there.....

Weaknesses: Lackof Mailloops ability to personalize the emails never got the Automatic Unsubscribe to work correctly....and the Fail Logs were huge meaning that 80-90% of the subscribers NEVER received the email - hence my cancellation of Mailloop.

Missing? Ease of installation....Verrrrry confusing and difficult to activate.

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
100 to 500

Training:
hr

Cust Serv: 4

Qual: 4

Ease:

Country:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
26 to 100

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 4

Ease: 3

Country:
W Eur

Strengths: easy to use has all even small feature I need from time to time. some draw-backs though - guess it will be your next question?

Weaknesses: it's desktop program makes me have my pc online all the time to serve customers and if something's getting stuck on my pc the whole mailing business gets stuck as well (like autoresponders). i would prefer server-based prog that will be doing it all on the server side and which i can install setup and use myself. i have such a thing called art-mail by artstyle (www.artstyle.net) it will require some reprogramming but i think it's worthwhile to do it for myself and offer to the public.

Missing? mailloop is very us-egocentric. there is no way to change codeing of the letters it sends out. i need win-1251 and it keeps sending 899

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
2 to 6

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 3

Qual: 3

Ease: 4

Country:
South Africa

Strengths: Ease of use Outgoing mail abilities

Weaknesses: The subscription and unsubscribing features The facility to keep information about multiple list. At present you have to change everything when you send mail to a new list.

Missing? Multiple list management Automated scheduler for outgoing mail.

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
1 hr

Cust Serv: NA

Qual: 2

Ease: 3

Country:
India

Strengths: incoming mail processor. I have not come across other programs that do this in an easy and user friendy manner

Weaknesses: Bad interface Slow

Missing? Better interface

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
one

Training:
hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 5

Ease:

Country:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
25K to 100K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
2 hr

Cust Serv: 1

Qual: 3

Ease: 2

Country:
US

Strengths: The option to directly connect to recipient's email server or connect via smtp server.

Weaknesses: So many pages of configuration it's easy to miss checking the correct box when transmitting. Need to send a test message and be very careful before broadcasting to entire list.

Missing? The ability to send auto-format messages is missing. That is HTML RICH-TEXT or PLAIN-TEXT in one message and let the recipient's email program decide which to display.

List Size:
5K to 25K

Empl:
7 to 25

Training:
hr

Cust Serv: 2

Qual: 2

Ease:

Country:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Missing?

List Size:
1K to 5K

Empl:
one

Training:
3 hr

Cust Serv: 5

Qual: 4

Ease: 2

Country:
US

Strengths: It's ability to automatically register new opted-in subscribers. I have cable access so I'm connected 24-7. The software automatically checks for emails to subscribe@which-ever of my domains. Mailloop reads this sorts into the correct list and saves it in a comma delimited form.

Weaknesses: That it's not live all of the time

Missing? Easier to use manuel.