Congratulations on your decision to start an auto-responder for your mailing list.

I assume that you are in the process of building a mailing list (which is one of the best things about marketing online). There was a time when there were lots of “free” auto-responders available when the Internet first came about. Most of them lacked many important features and they could well be made into a case study on digital torture due to the sheer lack of style, feature set, and functionalities.

All other better solutions would be paid ones.

Today, thanks to the competition, there are well-known email marketing providers who you can consider. The best, free option (at least for starting stages up to subscribers is Mail Chimp. It comes with everything you need to have to start an auto-responder campaign. The only difference between free and paid versions is the number of subscribers you can send out emails to.

If you decide to go with mail chimp, Bill Amesse has laid out exact steps to get started with a mailing list. The following articles may help you:
How to Get Started With Email Marketing?
Mailchimp itself has tons of tutorials