Free Safelists can be effective. You just need to find the ones with responsive members. Numbers don't say everything. You can have a safelist with 1 million double opt-in members, but if none of them respond there is no use.

I did an experiment with a fairly well known mailer (I won't say the name) with over 2.5 Million members. The membership fee was reduced to a one time $40 so I thought let's give it a go. I trowed in my best ad that always get lots of clicks but all I got out of the 2.5 million was 2 clicks. Yeah, you read right 2 clicks. I thought to myself, well here's your proof. There is no law of numbers in safelist advertising. The only thing that count is how responsive are the members. Plus mass mailers are more likely to get blacklisted by spamfilters so your ad will go directly to the spam folder. Be honest, how often do you whitelist a safelist after signing up. It's like never, all you're concerned about is getting your ad out as fast as possible.

But it is true, safelists are very targeted and can boost up your sales instantly. Simple fact is people who join a safelist are mostly promoting a business opportunity so they will react if they see interesting ads in their mailbox(if they see them).

I always browse my safelist mailbox once in a while to see if there is something I can use. If there is an affiliate link I always use that, even if I have to copy and paste, because I know how much work is involved with affiliate marketing. Some people delete the affiliate id because they can't stand the thought someone is making money through them.
Although I can understand it a little bit(it's only human) I still think it's stupid. If someone did the work and brought you the information, that person should be paid. The reason why I say this is because with the new FTC (Federal  Trade Commission) rules it's not recommended to put a clickable link in your email ad. The spambots will reject those as well as emails with "$" in the title. So in some cases you can't hide your affiliate id (not all safelists have an option to put your link in a separate box).
The best way to avoid all of this, is to only use credit mailers. These type of safelists are based on the same principle as Traffic Exchanges. You get credits by clicking the link in the email you receive.

We have compiled a top 10 list of our favorite and most effective safelists. They're all free to join. Some give you free credits on signup while others allow you to send out mail periodically. Find the ones you like but remember there will be a lot of mail in your inbox. Have fun.