GetResponse is a well-established email marketing and automation platform.
They have been in the market for longer than most other software. In fact, they, according to CrunchBase, were established in 1997, making them a true veteran of automation.
Being the oldest doesn’t always mean being the best, though. There’s a reason why a lot of businesses have been looking for GetResponse alternatives.
While GetResponse does provide a multitude of features, the competition in the field is fierce and a lot of alternatives have propped up. These alternatives can easily beat GetResponse in some aspects.
As such, we’ve decided to review the best GetResponse alternatives. In order to provide an objective overview of the software, we’ve decided to take stock from Capterra and a short rundown of all the features included.
But before we get into the reviews, let’s give a rundown on GetResponse themselves!
Why Do People Switch From GetResponse?
While there are numerous reasons to switch from GetResponse, the biggest reason is probably the clunky UI and not-so-great user experience. The company seems to have focused on banging out as many features as possible with fairly little regard for fine-tuning them.
As a result, there are a lot of complaints in regard to ease of use. Many customers complain that the dashboard and website are confusing and hard to use. Other features, such as the drag-and-drop editors, also seem to be broken.
Additionally, there have been complaints about customer service. It seems they take a rather long time to respond to queries. Obviously, these two issues truly compound as confusing UIs cause a lot of strain to customer service. If they lack response times, that’s often the perfect reason for people to look for an alternative.
All in all, while they do offer great features, they seem to have rested too long on their laurels. SMBs have plenty of alternatives that do not have the same issues as GetResponse and offer a significantly better overall experience.
An Overview of GetResponse
GetResponse markets itself as a marketing automation tool with a focus on emails and landing pages. As with most all-in-one marketing tools, they offer a multitude of features.
They provide three primary categories of solutions – email automation, landing page creation, and CRM. Each of these has a multitude of features, such as pop-up creation, sales funnels, a website builder, etc.
The pricing model is fairly standard for the marketing automation tool industry. GetResponse provides 5 plans in total:
- Free Forever. Free, obviously, but very limited.
- Basic. Starts at $15 per month.
- Plus. Starts at $49 per month.
- Professional. Starts at $99 per month.
- Max. Custom pricing. It can only be used if the subscriber list is higher than 5 000.
Of course, these prices are subject to change based on two primary factors. First, the list size matters. All plans scale based on the number of subscribers included in the list, starting from 1 000.
Additionally, the overall prices can be significantly reduced with annual payments. GetResponse offers discounts for those willing to purchase a subscription for 1 or 2 years in one go.
Finally, as per industry standards, the cheaper plans do not include all of the features. Only the Max plan has full advanced marketing features. The rest of the plans differ wildly in that regard.
Alternatives To GetResponse: Comparison Table by Capterra
As mentioned in the introduction, we put a lot of trust in Capterra as they provide an objective overview and ratings for many tools. In order to grant GetResponse a fair comparison, we will also write a short summary of the alternative from our own point of view.
| Sender | Mailchimp | AWeber | ActiveCampaign | SendInBlue | CampaignMonitor | |
| Easy of use | 4.6 | 4.4 | 4.1 | 4.3 | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| Customer Service | 4.8 | 4.2 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| Features | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.3 |
| Value for Money | 4.7 | 4.4 | 4.0 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.4 |
| Likelihood to Recommend | 88,5% | 72,2% | 61% | 82,6% | 85,7% | 74,1% |
Green – Winner
Red – Worst
- Sender. Best overall marketing automation platform with email and SMS functionalities. Highest rated on Capterra.
- Mailchimp. Most well-known marketing automation platform with numerous features.
- SendInBlue. Email marketing platform with additional SMS automation features.
- CampaignMonitor. Marketing automation platform with advanced audience segmentation.
- AWeber. Premium automation platform focusing on AMP emails and a hosted broadcast archive.
- ActiveCampaign. Marketing automation platform with advanced sales features.
Alternatives To GetResponse: Price Comparison
Cost comparison overview:
| GetResponse | Sender | Mailchimp | AWeber | ActiveCampaign | CampaignMonitor | |
| Up to 1000 contacts | $15 | Free | Free | $30 | $29 | $9 |
| Up to 2500 contacts | $25 | Free | $31 | $30 | $55 | $9 |
| Up to 5000 contacts | $45 | $22 | $53 | $50 | $99 | $29 |
| Up to 10000 contacts | $65 | $38 | $79 | $70 | $155 | $45 |
| Up to 25000 contacts | $145 | $97 | $200 | $150 | $259 | $89 |
| Up to 50000 contacts | $250 | $168 | $270 | $270 | $345 | $259 |
There’s fairly little pricing customization involved. GetResponse has gated all of the advanced marketing features behind the most expensive plans, which might force even smaller businesses to buy them. Since the pricing isn’t too kind to those with finite wallets, GetResponse might not look as enticing.
#1. Sender
Sender is an all-purpose automation platform that includes email and SMS marketing. They have gone an unusual route as all features are included at all stages. Even the free plan grants access to everything Sender has, making them a great alternative to GetResponse, especially for small businesses.
In fact, while they market themselves for small businesses, the extensive feature set is more than enough for enterprise-level companies. Sender’s feature set is comparable to other marketing automation tools like Mailchimp, without the finicky pricing models.
You can see how easy email & SMS marketing automation looks within Sender tool:
Thus, as a GetResponse alternative, they beat them in numerous regards. While comparatively still young, Sender has focused a lot on customer service and experience. They did not, however, slouch on releasing new features either, making both companies quite similar in that regard.
Additionally, the prices per thousands of subscribers are miles apart. Sender in almost all cases, will be several times cheaper for the same amount of contacts. Sender’s probably the most affordable yet effective tool you can get out there.
How does Sender compare to a GetResponse Competitor?
| GetResponse | Sender | |
| Key feature | Transactional emails | Email & SMS automation, responsive email templates library |
| Cons | Limited automation without PRO plan, complicated interface. | Doesn’t have dynamic pop-ups |
| Price | Starts from $15 for 1000 contacts | Start from $10 for 2500 contacts |
| Free plan | Up to 500 contacts & unlimited emails per month | Up to 2500 contacts & 15000 emails per month |
| Support | Live chat, email, phone | Live chat, email |
Price Comparison Table
| GetResponse | Sender | |
| Up to 1000 contacts | $15 | Free |
| Up to 2500 contacts | $25 | Free |
| Up to 5000 contacts | $45 | $10 |
| Up to 10000 contacts | $65 | $22 |
| Up to 25000 contacts | $145 | $57 |
| Up to 50000 contacts | $250 | $115 |
Comparison by Capterra
#2. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a marketing automation tool that has been in the market for almost as long as GetResponse. As a result, they are one of the most popular and well-known tools for email marketing.
They market themselves as an “all-in-one marketing platform”. Unsurprisingly, they have one of the most extensive feature sets out of all email automation software. They even have an appointment scheduling feature that other platforms are lacking.
Additionally, Mailchimp’s customer support is regarded as better in quality. They even provide live chat, email, and phone support just like GetResponse.
GetResponse, however, just like Sender, does have a trick up its sleeve. That is the transactional email feature. While they are behind the GetResponse MAX plan, they still excel in creating and optimizing everything about transactional emails.
Mailchimp also chooses a fairly similar pricing strategy to GetResponse. We’re not fans of either as taking away features from users is partially forcing some to pay more to get the things they want. Mailchimp, however, takes it a step further – even with the most expensive plan, not everything is available. Some features are paid for separately (like an add-on).
Finally, Mailchimp has an unfortunate pricing strategy. They add absolutely every entry to the total subscriber counts. All duplicate, unsubscribed, and erroneous emails are considered subscribers. As such, that can quickly escalate prices.
All in all, Mailchimp is a trustworthy and powerful alternative to GetResponse. They have a rather unforgiving pricing strategy.
How does MailChimp compare to a GetResponse Competitor?
| GetResponse | Mailchimp | |
| Key feature | Transactional emails | Appointments scheduling |
| Cons | Limited automation without PRO plan, complicated interface | Adds up inactive, duplicate, and unsubscribed users to the total subscriber count that increases, very limited features for standard plans |
| Price | Starts from $15 for 1000 contacts | Starts from $10 for 500 contacts |
| Free plan | Up to 500 contacts & unlimited emails per month | Up to 2000 contacts & up to 10000 emails per month |
| Support | Live chat, email, phone | Live chat, email, phone |
Price Comparison Table
| GetResponse | Mailchimp | |
| Up to 1000 contacts | $15 | Free |
| Up to 2500 contacts | $25 | $31 |
| Up to 5000 contacts | $45 | $53 |
| Up to 10000 contacts | $65 | $79 |
| Up to 25000 contacts | $145 | $200 |
| Up to 50000 contacts | $250 | $270 |
Comparison by Capterra
Also read: 10 Best Mailchimp Alternatives for 2022 (Free & Paid)
#3. SendInBlue
SendInBlue is another fairly established marketing automation platform. While they might not be as old school as GetResposne, they have a fairly strong hold on the market.
As is common, SendInBlue markets itself as an “all-in-one” platform. They provide email marketing, automation features, landing page creation, etc. Basically, everything you’ve come to expect out of such a platform.
SendInBlue has also expanded outside of regular marketing automation. Most platforms limit themselves to emails. SendInBlue provides a fully fleshed-out SMS marketing platform as well.
Additionally, one of their unique features is a shared inbox, which is really neat for larger teams. Essentially, you can connect all your inboxes into one instead of juggling between them. It’s a great time-saver for those who have large teams.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to compare the pricing of SendInBlue and GetResponse. They have taken completely different strategies, with the former basing plans on monthly emails and the latter with subscriber count.
As an alternative, SendInBlue can be great if you don’t need the sales and eCommerce automation you can get from GetResponse. While you can do transactional emails with SendInBlue, they’re not as great, and the sales-based features are quite lacking.
How does SendInBlue compare to a GetResponse Competitor?
| GetResponse | Sendinblue | |
| Key feature | Transactional emails | Shared inbox |
| Cons | Limited automation without PRO plan, complicated interface. | Limited reporting with standard plan |
| Price | Starts from $12.3 for 1000 contacts | Starts from $25 for 10000 emails. |
| Free plan | Up to 500 contacts & unlimited emails per month | Up to 9000 emails per month. |
| Support | Live chat, email, phone | Live chat, email, phone |
Price Comparison Table
While the services cannot be compared, SendInBlue has a nifty calculator that you can check out. Although it might be a bit harder to predict and compare prices, it’s still something.
Comparison by Capterra
#4. CampaignMonitor
CampaignMonitor is our final entry into the list. Unlike GetResponse, they’re much more of a newcomer to the marketing automation industry and it shows. While they provide many features, they have yet to expand into other areas.
As such, they focus on the bread-and-butter of marketing automation and emails. Luckily, they’re quite impressive at that, so it’s a great solution for those looking to focus more on email marketing.
In fact, they have a feature that professional marketers love – pop-up forms to collect visitors’ contacts & smart audience segmentation. Essentially, they bring in much more segmentation customization than nearly any other platform, allowing marketers to hyper-target audiences and squeeze out every bit of optimization.
Additionally, they provide a few unique features that could benefit SMBs such as the Link Checker. If you’ve ever accidentally sent a newsletter with a broken link, you know how painful that can be. CampaignMonitor’s Link Checker would allow you to catch and fix those outliers.
Interestingly, CampaignMonitor has much of the same drawbacks as GetResponse. They both seem to focus on pumping out features and less on making them work really well. As such, don’t get surprised if you run into clunky UIs or broken features.
Additionally, don’t expect to get a landing page editor or creator. CampaignMonitor doesn’t have these functionalities. Even their template editor isn’t all that impressive when compared to other email marketing automation providers.
Finally, CampaignMonitor starts out quite a bit cheaper than GetResponse, making it great for smaller businesses. Unfortunately, the price scales incredibly quickly and it soon matches GetResponse.
All in all, it’s a nice automation platform that works well for lone entrepreneurs or small businesses that can’t dedicate a lot of resources.
How does Campaign Monitor compare to a GetResponse Competitor?
| GetResponse | Campaign Monitor | |
| Key feature | Transactional emails | Smart contacts segmentation |
| Cons | Limited automation without PRO plan, complicated interface. | Doesn’t have a landing page builder, limited email template builder |
| Price | Starts from $15 for 1000 contacts | Starts from $9 for 500 contacts |
| Free plan | Up to 500 contacts & unlimited emails per month | X |
| Support | Live chat, email, phone | Live chat, email, phone |
Price Comparison Table
| GetResponse | Campaign Monitor | |
| Up to 2500 contacts | $25 | $9 |
| Up to 5000 contacts | $45 | $29 |
| Up to 10000 contacts | $65 | $49 |
| Up to 25000 contacts | $145 | $89 |
| Up to 50000 contacts | $250 | $259 |
Comparison by Capterra
#5. AWeber
AWeber is an email marketing automation platform with a focus on small-to-medium sized businesses. Of course, they don’t provide only email automation. Some additional features, such as pop-up forms and push notifications, are included with all plans.
They also have two completely unique features we haven’t seen anywhere else (although, these features can exist elsewhere) – AMP emails and a hosted message broadcast archive. Of course, GetResponse does not provide either, making AWeber stand out in this regard.
The differences, however, mostly end here. AWeber and GetResponse are quite similar in almost all other regards. They even have been founded only a year apart!
A lot of the features on offer are pretty much the same. GetResponse, again, does have the transactional email automatization features we have been harping about previously, but other than that these two companies couldn’t be more similar.
In fact, even the pricing is pretty close with both mostly matching each other. AWeber does, however, get bonus points for only having two plans – Free and Pro. There’s no fancy feature hiding involved. Once you pay for AWeber, you basically get everything they have.
All in all, they are both pretty similar, however, AWeber might be a great alternative for those who don’t want to fork out a fortune for some extra features.
How does AWeber compare to a GetResponse Competitor?
| GetResponse | AWeber | |
| Key feature | Transactional emails | AMP emails & hosted broadcast archive |
| Cons | Limited automation without PRO plan, complicated interface. | Value for money, outdated user interface. |
| Price | Starts from $15 for 1000 contacts | Starts from $16 from 500 contacts |
| Free plan | Up to 500 contacts & unlimited emails per month | Up to 500 contacts |
| Support | Live chat, email, phone | Live chat, email, phone |
Price Comparison Table
| GetResponse | AWeber | |
| Up to 2500 contacts | $25 | $30 |
| Up to 5000 contacts | $45 | $50 |
| Up to 10000 contacts | $65 | $70 |
| Up to 25000 contacts | $145 | $150 |
| Up to 50000 contacts | $250 | $270 |
Comparison by Capterra
Alternatives To GetResponse: Feature Comparison Table
If you’ve glanced over the entire list, you might have noticed that some of the alternatives have free plans. While most of them are highly limited in features (except for Sender), some businesses cannot fork out money for marketing automation.
As such, we’ve compiled the three best free alternatives to GetResponse – Sender, MailChimp, and SendInBlue.
| GetResponse | Sender | Mailchimp | Sendinblue | |
| Contacts | 500 | 2500 | 2000 | |
| Emails per month | Unlimited | 15000 | 10000 | Unlimited |
| Support | – | 24/7 Live chat, email | Only first 30 days | |
| Automation | – | + | Limited | Limited |
| Email Scheduling | + | + | – | + |
| Advanced Reporting | – | + | – | – |
| Contacts segmentation | – | + | Basic | + |
| User seats | 1 | Unlimited | 1 | 1 |
| Integrations | – | + | + | + |
