(copper products certainly can do the trick with some) is that a big die off can really pollute the tank. One can carry on about the dangers of introducing any poisons into a tank too.
G.G. will make a good case for using loaches (although cruising back discussions here will also unearth Scott L's warning about skunk loaches and their socially unacceptable aggression.) That is a more effective biological solution, although I have reservations if there are baby guppies in the tank because of the din-din rule. (If they can fit in somebody's mouth, they are din-din.)
One Saturday morning, when our kids were pretty small, I asked them if they wouldn't mind removing snails from our living room 40 gallon - the lower tank on the rack. 500 snails later I was rather glad I hadn't offered a dime a snail. ;)
A plant mavin has also suggested unless the snails were unbelievably out of hand, most plants (if adequately lit) wouldn't be nibbled very much. The little rams horns (I especially like the reds) and the non-live bearing cone shaped snails behave pretty well.
Caveat emptor though: The Columbian rams horn snails (2-3cm in diameter, with that classy light and dark striping) are eating machines. In a tank of fry and Najas, they are an attractive cleanup corps and probably can't keep pace with the Najas - such a fast grower that I discovered the Aquatic Gardening Crowd really dislikes it.
Also, I am one of many stung when what I was sold as the relatively benign mystery snails revealed themselves as one of the 20 some other members of their genus - all known as apple snails. Those suckers had spawned repeatedly and I actually gave a lot of the young away as Christmas presents. At the time, sponsored an aquarium club where I taught. Imagine my dismay upon returning from Christmas break to see a denuded, previously lush 20 gallon tank in the classroom. Several of the kids, who had been sent home with snails, a Java fern each. a pair of guppies or killies, and several starters of water sprite, were dismayed to be the not so proud owners of big fat apple snails. :(
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