GetResponse vs ActiveCampaign
Trying to choose between GetResponse vs ActiveCampaign as your email marketing software? Here's when to choose each tool – and the pros and cons to know about.
- 4.2 GetApp
- 4.2 Capterra
- 3.5 TrustPilot
Average 4 / 5
GetResponse
GetResponse is a marketing platform with 30+ features to grow your business including emails.
Pricing
Dynamic, depends on the features and list volume, starts from $13.3/month billed every two years. Monthly, annual, and biannual plans are available.
Key features
- Email marketing tools
- Autoresponders
- Marketing automation
- Website builder
- Landing pages
- Forms and popups
Support
24/7 email and live chat support in several languages
- 3.6 TrustPilot
- 4.6 Capterra
- 4.6 G2
Average 4.3 / 5
ActiveCampaign
An automation platform that combines email marketing, marketing automation, CRM, and machine learning for cross-channel management, segmentation, and personalization. It can also be used to automate sales and support processes.
Pricing
Starts from $9 a month for 500 contacts (billed yearly)
Key features
- Automation features for marketing
- Integrated CRM tools
- Integrations with various popular services
- Landing page constructor
- Intuitive email builder
Support
Availability: 9 am - 11 pm CDT (GMT-5) Communication in the chat or via email
General info about company
GetResponse
GetResponse was founded in 1998 in Gdansk, Poland, and it focuses on newsletters and marketing automation.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign was founded in 2003 by Jason VandeBoom. Hubs in Chicago, Sidney, and Dublin.
Difficulty
GetResponse
Beginner-friendly
ActiveCampaign
No coding or design skills are required as there are plenty of automation recipes available. The system itself is comparatively complex, though, and needs some getting accustomed to.
Best for
GetResponse
E-commerce businesses, solopreneurs
ActiveCampaign
Businesses that plan to scale their email marketing up to include CRM, e-commerce integrations, and diverse automation schemes.
Free plan
GetResponse
Free plan includes:
- 2,500 emails/month
- Contact list limit of 500 contacts
- Landing pages
- Sign-up forms
- Website builder with a 5GB bandwidth
- Connect a domain
There’s also a 30-day free trial for all paid plans.
ActiveCampaign
No free plan. Has a free 14 days trial with up to 100 email sends to 100 contacts. The features available within the trial match the Professional tier of features.
The trial is limited to 1 user and doesn’t include:
- Predictive Sending
- Predictive Content
- Sending auto-responder campaigns
- Custom fields in forms
- Using “Email Results” in subscription forms
- SMS credits or sending
- Adding a domain to a landing page
Pricing
GetResponse
GetResponse includes 4 pricing tiers, depending on the features, contact list, and extra services.
Email Marketing: starts from $13.3/month for 1,000 contacts billed biannually and includes
- Newsletters
- AI email generator
- Autoresponders
- AI campaign generator
- Website and landing pages
- Signup forms and popups
- Email and live chat support
Marketing Automation: starts from $41.3/month for 1,000 contacts billed biannually, includes Email Marketing features and
- Marketing automation
- Event-based workflows
- Webinars
- Advanced segmentation
- Contact scoring
- Sales funnels
Ecommerce Marketing: starts from $83.3/month for 1,000 contacts billed biannually, includes Marketing Automation features and
- Ecommerce integrations
- Quick transactional emails
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Promo codes
- Product recommendations
- Web push notifications
GetResponse MAX: starts from $999/month billed biannually for contact lists larger than 100,000, includes E-commerce Marketing features and
- Dedicated, priority support + phone and Slack support
- Dedicated infrastructure
- Personalized onboarding
- SMS marketing
- AI recommendations
- Transactional emails
- FTP contact imports
ActiveCampaign
Marketing + CRM
For 500 contacts, billed yearly/monthly:
- Lite $9 / $15
- Plus $49 / $70
- Professional $149 / $187
- Enterprise — individual pricing
Other pricing features:
- 2-year price lock
- Billing pause for 12 months with the account and campaigns intact.
- Only charges for the contacts the client actively markets to, no matter how many lists they’re on.
- A 20% discount for nonprofits.
- Free 14 days trial.
Support
GetResponse
All paid users and users on a free trial have access to 24/7 support:
- Email — in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, Polish, and Italian.
- Live chat — in Polish or English.
GetResponse MAX users have access to dedicated priority support via the same channels, and also phone and Slack support. Free plan users have no access to support.
ActiveCampaign
Working hours: 9 am – 11 pm CDT (GMT-5)
Either live chat or email requests
Aside from online support, ActiveCampaign offers:
- Free online training
- Community and forum
- FAQ website section
- Study Hall — in-person learning classes
Features
GetResponse
- Email builder with templates
- AI email generator
- AI campaign generator
- Send time optimization
- Autoresponders
- Automation workflow builder with pre-built templates
- Web events and advanced triggers
- Pop-ups and forms
- Other channels: SMS, web push notifications, live chat management
- Segmentation
- List management
- Lead magnet and conversion funnels
- E-commerce features: transactional emails, promo codes, recommendations, abandoned cart emails
- Website builder with AI wizard
- Paid ads: Google, Meta, goal-focused
- Webinars
- Reports and analytics
- A/B testing
ActiveCampaign
- Marketing automation
- Landing page builder
- Built-in CRM for small-medium-sized businesses
- Many service integrations
- Drag-and-drop email designer
- Free migration from other services
- SMS marketing
- Site messages
- Live chat and automated chatbot workflows
Templates
GetResponse
150+ free email templates categorized by purpose and industry:
- Business
- Education
- Events
- Holidays
- Sales
GetResponse offers templates for transactional and triggered emails (like cart abandonment), company newsletters, different types of promotional emails, and more.
ActiveCampaign
125+ templates
No-code dynamic content available
Email template recommendations and guides
Templates for:
- Abandoned Cart
- Conference Event
- Customer Service
- Holiday
- Newsletter
- Reviews Feedback
Video/screenshots
GetResponse
ActiveCampaign
Integrations
GetResponse
291 integrations with e-commerce tools like Shopify, landing page builders like Instapage and Leadpages, website builders like Squarespace, and more.
ActiveCampaign
Facebook, Google Analytics, WooCommerce, WordPress, Shopify, Unbounce, ClickFunnels, Salesforce, Zapier, and more
Devices
GetResponse
Web app, fully functional mobile apps for iOS and Android, including separate mobile apps for webinars and live chat management
ActiveCampaign
- Website
- Email extensions for Chrome and Outlook
- Mobile app for Android and iOS (possible to review email reports, track customer activity, and manage CRM data).
- No installable solution
Languages
GetResponse
English
Polish
German
Spanish
Portuguese
Italian
French
Russian
Vietnamese
Indonesian
Dutch
ActiveCampaign
Czech
Dutch
English
French
German
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Slovenian
Spanish
Danish
Finnish
Simplified Chinese
Turkish
Vietnamese
Automation
GetResponse
GetResponse offers a visual automation workflow builder with behavioral conditions and pre-made templates for welcome messages, retargeting, win-back campaigns, and more. You can also build your own sequence from scratch.
ActiveCampaign
800+ automation recipes for email and other marketing channels.
Offers the whole customer experience automation:
- Links different integrated services (like Shopify or Facebook) into cohesive scenarios.
- Collects broad data on each customer, so it’s possible to customize segments based on almost any parameter.
- Helps to choose the best content, send time, and delivery channel for each individual customer.
- Has AI advice on improving the marketing strategy.
Pros
GetResponse
- Good updated email builder
- Customizable dashboard
- Very easy to use
- A lot of marketing channels available at one place
ActiveCampaign
- Hundreds of automation options even for sophisticated purposes
- CRM features
- Mobile app
- A dedicated email deliverability specialist checks the client’s email for compliance before sending
- Automation of 1:1 communications to customers on the website or social media
Cons
GetResponse
- Trouble accessing customer support
- Can be slow and buggy, some reviewers report an outdated UI
- Can get expensive and many cool features are only available on high tiers
- Limited website and landing page builder
ActiveCampaign
- High price and no free plan
- Customer support is often unavailable or slow
- Complicated automations system
- Steep learning curve
- Reports aren’t great (not enough information, no real-time results, visually unappealing, etc.)
Reviews from experts
GetResponse
GetResponse is one of the few newsletter tools we’ve tested that’s truly built for inbound marketing. It offers flexible signup forms, their basic landing page editor, Google Analytics integration, and sophisticated automation for segmentation and emails, allowing you to both capture and nurture new leads. On top of that, it’s even possible to host live and on-demand webinars with them. Their Conversion Funnel feature allows you to do all of this in an organized manner and easily track where’s converting best.
I found the platform very disjointed and difficult to navigate. You also need to be very careful of their cancellation policy. If you cancel it removes your access to your account immediately. So if you want to continue to use the service for the entire time that you have paid for you cannot cancel. However, if you miss canceling before the renewal date, they absolutely will not refund you. They also do not provide notice that they are about to renew your account. Let that be a warning to you of the kind of business they are. Not the one you should do business with. Especially since there are many other more reputable and better-featured email marketing providers.
ActiveCampaign
“ActiveCampaign is a solid choice for your email marketing needs. There are few flaws (though they matter), and if you want a service you can integrate into almost any tool chain, ActiveCampaign’s feature-packed plans have few equals.
While its decent feature set could potentially be let down by the rather high prices on more expensive plans, ActiveCampaign still provides good value for your money”.
“So do we recommend ActiveCampaign?
As this ActiveCampaign review highlights, it’s really tough to fault ActiveCampaign, not only do they offer almost everything you need within an email marketing platform, but they do it very well.
The reporting offers you insight into almost all facets, such as page visits, geo-tracking, openers, ecommerce and more. One area that is slightly lacking is the email builder, not offering an experience as slick as other services out there, with a few niggling features that could be done better (like the revision history)”.
*This information is current as of 02/15/2024. While we regularly update our articles, it`s possible that this article may not contain some of the latest information.
