GetResponse Review: The Pros and Cons, Pricing, Who It’s Best For & Who Should Avoid It

Last Updated on 15th October 2024

GetResponse is one of the most popular pieces of email marketing software out there.

It goes without saying, there’s quite a bit of hype about it.

I personally also use to use GetResponse several years ago. I didn’t have a problem with it, but I moved away as I needed a more cost-effective solution at the time.

Interestingly, GetResponse has not only added more features to their service, but they’ve also re-adjusted their pricing, and it is now far more competitive than it was when I use to use it.

This got me curious…

How can they ADD more tools, and reduce the entry price?

If you have some experience working online yourself as an affiliate, you’ll know that it can be quite hard to find the right autoresponder.

While some have powerful features but aren’t affiliate marketing-friendly, others just don’t perform well.

It can be quite a task to find an autoresponder that can provide everything you need, be easy to use, AND have great deliverability rates.

As you’ll see later in this GetResponse review though, it is by no means a platform only for affiliates. In fact, most GetResponse users are regular business owners. They just also happen to be affiliate-marketing friendly.

GetResponse: Pros and Cons

What’s Unique About GetResponse?

GetResponse promises to be an all-in-one marketing solution for all kinds of businesses, large and small.

Compared to another market leader Mailchimp, it claims to have more advanced marketing automation features, as well as fairer pricing and more flexibility.

Interestingly, GetResponse has avoided being pigeonholed as “just another autoresponder”, by providing additional features like their conversion funnels and hosted webinars, which I will go into more detail on later in this article.

It can help you to do a lot more than just build an email list.

From my own experience using GetResponse, I also found it very easy to use, which is a big plus in my book.

GetResponse now also has a Content Monetization platform that allows you to use AI features to create and sell courses, sell premium newsletters, and both live and pre-recorded webinars.

Who Is GetResponse Best For?

GetResponse serves businesses in a huge number of categories. However, it seems that a lot of people from the following industries are drawn to GetResponse:

• Agencies
• Affiliate marketers
• Ecommerce businesses
• Content creators
• Info-product sellers
• Service-based businesses

The reason it works so well for all of these businesses is that it allows them to stay connected with their customers.

All industries benefit from staying connected with people who have previously purchased from them, as it helps them generate repeat sales.

GetResponse helps its users do this with its advanced automation and CRM features.

Plus, nowadays, GetResponse also helps its customers much more with front-end tasks like collecting emails, for example, through their landing page feature.

To add the icing on the cake, it’s also very affordable and has great deliverability rates.

Who Is GetResponse Not For?

GetResponse can be used for a huge variety of online businesses. It would be quite hard to pick a type of business where GetResponse wouldn’t be a good fit, in my opinion.

What I will say is that, if you’re just looking to send broadcast emails, then there are probably more cost-effective solutions out there, like Aweber.

While you can send broadcast emails with GetResponse, I feel like paying for all the other features it has (even on the lowest plan) is not your best option, if you’re purely looking for the newsletter function only.

GetResponse Compared To The Competition GetResponse vs ActiveCampaign GetResponse vs Aweber GetResponse vs ConvertKit GetResponse vs Send In Blue SendLane vs GetResponse

Ease of Use

GetResponse didn’t use to be as user-friendly as it is now.

They had a huge update to their user interface a few years ago, and since then the user dashboard has become much easier to navigate.

The intuitive functioning that GetResponse provides means that you will be able to save time on tasks, and actually enjoy the process of working with the dashboard.

This is one thing I particularly like about GetResponse.

If you have a VA working for you and you want them to manage the email marketing side of your business, you should be able to train them pretty quickly on the tasks you need them to do.

“As an online entrepreneur, anything that will save users time always gets extra plus points!”

Creating Webforms & Landing Pages:

Creating web forms and landing pages with GetResponse is very easy and there isn’t really a learning curve at all.

It’s actually pretty self-explanatory and my cat could probably do it. Well, that’s just silly, but you get what I mean. It’s dead easy.

https://gph.is/2c530WC

The forms and landing pages can easily be edited with the drag and drop editor, meaning you can simply select the elements and change them to how you want them to look.

If there is one thing that could be a little easier it’s editing forms and landing pages in the mobile view.

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but when I edit the pages for mobiles, I find it a little harder to edit.

Adding Contacts

Adding contacts on GetResponse is also as easy as it gets.

You can add them manually by adding in the fields like name, email, etc. or you can simply upload a .csv file to bulk upload your contacts.

And of course, you can also collect emails using forms or landing pages which then automatically get added to the list you select.

Creating Automated Campaigns

Creating automation workflows with GetResponse is also easy, probably the easiest of all autoresponders I have used so far.

You select the trigger and drag the next steps into the campaign. There are even some templates available, so if those suit the goals of your campaign, you can use those too.

I find it quite fun and easy to build these from scratch as this way I have more control over my campaigns.

List Segmentation

List segmentation is something that I also love about GetResponse.

Not only is the segmentation features extremely advanced, but they are also very easy to use.

You shouldn’t run into any trouble with list segmentation, as the features are quite easy to understand.

GetResponse Features & Benefits

GetResponse was originally just an autoresponder when it first launched in the very early 2000s.

Today, it’s more of an all-in-one marketing suite for businesses of all sizes.

GetResponse has a huge list of features that help marketers and entrepreneurs with various marketing tasks that are needed in most businesses.

On top of this, you can also test out the software without needing to enter your credit card. You can do this with a GetResponse 30 day free trial.

Autoresponders

The first and probably one of the most basic features of GetResponse is the autoresponder.

It’s a basic autoresponder that lets you send emails on days of your choice after the lead has joined your email list.

Make sure that you are not confusing this feature with automation workflows though.

The autoresponder is the function that lets you send certain emails on days that you choose after the lead has joined your list. Automation workflows, on the other hand, let you segment your list based on the actions of your subscribers, but we’ll talk more about that in a moment.

GetResponse has both of these features anyway.

All you need to do is select an email template, write up the email, and choose the day on which you want the email sent. The process is quick and easy.

Marketing Automation

The second feature inside of GetResponse is a big one, marketing automation, and includes the following important features.

Automation Workflows

Let’s start with the email automation sequences or workflows.

GetResponse comes with a visual automation builder and a huge selection of triggers as we have discussed earlier.

You can build custom automation workflows that put your leads through sequences with custom emails.

There aren’t any limits on what types of sequences you can build and I have not found any type of trigger that is missing.

To give you an idea of some of the triggers, here are just some that you will find in GetResponse:

• If visited page you configure using pixel
• Purchased
• If abandoned cart
• If contact was added to pipeline
• If link clicked, message opened, etc

There are many more as well, I just wanted to give you an idea of some of the triggers that you will find inside of GetResponse.

CRM Automation

The automation workflows also combine well with the CRM, as using them together you can see exactly how close you are to converting your leads.

Using this tool inside of GetResponse you can also have a clear overview of your contacts and sales in your pipeline.

Of course, not everyone will need a tool like this, but it’s still nice to have the option available to you in case you ever need it.

It’s also nice that you won’t need an external piece of software, as you can manage your sales processes straight from your GetResponse dashboard.

You can also add notes to each lead which is pretty cool, as it can remind you of any special requirements for each lead.

And, you can also sort the importance or activate triggers based on the deal value which could be useful, as it allows you to only focus on the deals that matter the most.

Recap of GetResponse Marketing Automation

Overall, GetResponse has some pretty good marketing automation features.

Here’s a quick recap of what GetResponse marketing automation has to offer:

• Advanced, yet easy to use automation workflows
• Advanced Triggers
• CRM with easy to use sales pipelines and automated tasks

GetResponse Email Templates

As you would probably expect from an autoresponder with the caliber of GetResponse, you also get some sweet email templates too.

GetResponse comes with a huge selection of templates, and by huge I mean… over 500 email templates. That’s the most I’ve ever come across in an autoresponder service.

The templates also have a nice variety and range, from templates tailored towards cooking to B2B templates.

“The template selection does not disappoint, to say the least.”

Having said this, I often avoid using colorful templates with complex structures. These can sometimes have heavy picture HTML code which can cause the email to get siphoned into the promotions folder.

Of course, that is not always the case, but it is worth noting if you are going to use templates.

This is the case for all autoresponders by the way, not just GetResponse.

Analytics

GetResponse has comprehensive analytics, not just for the broadcasts, but also for pretty much any feature you can think of.

They also have this cool feature that allows you to track the ROI of an email.

I like this feature because it just saves so much time when counting the numbers of your email marketing campaigns.

Another thing that I like about the analytics of GetResponse is that the data it displays is very visual which makes it much easier to gain a clear overview of how your emails are performing.

Again, overall GetResponse performs quite strongly in this aspect as it gives you a lot of data in a clear overview.

Split-Testing

When using GetResponse, you can split-test almost any component of your campaign. This is a very important feature if you want to improve your open and conversion rates.

For example, this includes your landing page, your subject lines, and the content of your emails. You can configure an automatic winner based on percentages to help you save time.

For example, you can split-test an email with 3 variants and configure an automatic winner based on the number of your contacts who have opened the email. You can also set up custom percentages to pick winners.

This is extremely useful to help you pick a clear winner. Doing so will help you tweak to make your email campaign convert at its best.

Landing Page Creator

The landing page creator inside of GetResponse is quite slick too.

It comes with over 150 landing page templates that can easily be edited through the drag and drop builder.

The builder itself also has a lot of elements allowing users to build many types of pages.

Some examples of elements include:

• Videos/Images
• Carts
• Paypal buy buttons
• Share buttons
• Custom HTML

I was also really surprised to see that the GetResponse page builder also allows you to use important conversion tools such as countdown timers and even one-click-upsell pages!

Usually, a person would need to also invest in a third-party page builder like ClickFunnels or SamCart to get these types of features.

Having said that, I haven’t tested the conversion capabilities of a GetResponse landing page compared to one of these third-party services, but it’d be a great test to find out how it performs!

With engaging templates, an easy-to-use drag & drop builder, and a great selection of templates, I think it’s fair to say that GetResponse has a solid page builder.

You can see more info about the GetResponse landing page creator here.

Webinar Hosting

GetResponse also lets you host both free and paid webinars.

As I did mention in the cons section at the start of this review, there is a limit of 300 webinar viewers, unless you are on the max plan, which is the plan with custom pricing.

On the max plan, this limit is between 500 and 1000 viewers.

Either way, it’s likely that even 300 viewers will be enough for most small businesses.

What I like about GetResponse webinars is that they also have built-in polls and tests which make it easy for your webinars to get a little more engagement.

You can also promote your products or services and add files to the webinars for your attendees to interact with. This would be useful if you are selling your higher-ticket products on the back end of the webinar.

Another thing that’s cool about the GetResponse webinars is that you can set it to stream on YouTube or Facebook as well which will help you expand your reach.

There is also a range of other cool webinar features including:

• Screen sharing
• Interactive white-boards
• Storage up to 20 hours
• Multiple presenters
• Add Facebook pixels for retargeting
• Automated nurturing campaigns

The GetResponse webinar feature offers everything a normal webinar software would do too.

Having this available on the same dashboard as your email marketing and CRM tools is pretty nice, and gives you an easy way to integrate your webinars with your autoresponder.

Conversion Funnels

Finally, we’re onto probably my favorite feature inside of GetResponse, the conversion funnel feature.

This feature was also formerly known as the “auto funnel” feature. This GetResponse feature is a template to help you build your entire marketing funnel.

Basically, it takes all of the other GetResponse features and structures them in a way that makes it easy for you to get a clear overview of what you need to.

Not only that, but you can also track the ROI of your funnel which is also very important. After all, if you don’t have clarity on what’s working for you in your business then it can be hard to scale.

This has been one of my favorite new features, as it can help you to have both a clear overview of how you need to have things structured and a deeper insight into what’s working the best for you.

Funnel builders can be expensive, so having this feature built into your autoresponder is a huge bonus, in my opinion.

If you want to compare the GetResponse conversion funnel with other builders in the marketplace then you can take a look at my comparison article of the best sales funnel builders here.

GetResponse Deliverability

When I used GetResponse, I found their deliverability to be very good. In fact, it has one of the better deliverability rates among all the autoresponders I have tried so far.

Of course, deliverability is important for all types of businesses and should be one of the main concerns when choosing an autoresponder.

When it comes to affiliate-friendly autoresponders though, sometimes their deliverability rates can suffer just because some of your emails contain affiliate links. However, in my experience, this didn’t seem to be the case with GetResponse.

According to SenderScore.org, GetResponse has a 99% deliverability rate across all tests. You can find more information on that here.

However, I did also find another 3rd party test by emailtoolstester.com (1) where GetResponse only performed around the average with a 75.6% rate, which is about an industry average.

Given my personal experiences with GetResponse, and this other test by emailtooltester.com, I’m not sure how accurate the SenderScore.org test is, but I thought I would mention it just to give you a full picture.

Plus, if you follow the best practices for getting your emails delivered you shouldn’t run into any issues.

Web Forms

Just like most pieces of email marketing software, you can also create web forms directly in your GetResponse dashboard.

If you use WordPress, then you’ll be happy to know that these forms are also very easy to integrate with this content management system. However, you can also just as easily grab the HTML code of the forms to embed them into any page you wish.

The forms are nice and easy to create using the drag and drop editor as we did mention earlier. Other than that, there isn’t too much to say about them, as they are quite standard for autoresponders.

Segmentation

GetResponse lets you segment your list in numerous ways to help you send more targeted emails.

This includes:

• Custom fields (i.e basically anything that you configure)
• Behavior (in automation sequences)
• Demographics
• Product preferences
• Engagement
• Geography
• Website Activity
• Purchase frequency

By segmenting based on these factors, you can send much more targeted emails to your customers.

For example, if it’s thanksgiving, you can send everyone from the US, who visited your thank you page but didn’t purchase, an email with a discount offer.

That’s just an example, but there are some really creative ways you can use the segmentation feature that GetResponse has to offer.

If you were to think about how you could use this feature in your own business, I’m sure you, like me, can easily see how you could leverage this feature to send more targeted offers to your list and increase your revenue.

Tags & Custom Fields

Tags also help you segment your list. You can apply them at the start of a campaign, or further down the line. They’re a great way to split your list based on whether the customer has a certain tag.

For example, you can apply a tag named “purchased X product” to every customer who has purchased from you.

Then, later on, you can send everyone who doesn’t have that tag an offer with a bonus without annoying the people who have already purchased this particular product from you.

This is a basic example of this feature, and GetResponse lets you tag on many more events including abandoned carts.

Of course, it goes without saying that using tags in this way is another great way to increase your revenue by getting some of your customers to return to their shopping cart and complete a purchase.

Custom fields are what you use when you need your customer to submit custom requirements on their orders. For example, if you are selling T-shirts using GetResponse, you might need your customer to submit their T-shirt size which they can do with this feature.

Integrations

GetResponse also has a pretty big list of integrations.

This list includes over 140 external software apps including the most popular E-commerce platforms, landing page builders, membership area platforms, and so forth.

If an app that you want to integrate with is not on the list then GetResponse also integrates with Zapier. Once you’ve connected to Zapier, you can pretty much connect to anything you want to.

For advertising, you can also hook up your GetResponse account with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Besides YouTube, it also directly integrates with Vimeo and Wistia, too. This can be useful if you want to assign tags based on video watch time, and see clearly exactly how much of a particular video your leads have watched.

For example, you can set these tags on a sales video and find out exactly how much of the video gets watched.

If you discover that a lot of people seem to switch off at a certain point, then you know you need to make a change to that video to improve the watch time, and ultimately, the conversion of that particular video.

GDPR

If your business operates out of the EU, or if you serve EU customers, then you’ll be pleased to hear that GetResponse is also committed to having a GDPR-compliant platform.

They do this by providing you with special fields that help their users stay compliant.

If you want to know more about GetResponse and GDPR, you can check this resource on their site here.

Support

GetResponse support is quick and easy from my experience. Even though they don’t offer phone support unless you are on the max plan, they do have a very responsive team on the other end of live chat 24/7, 365 days of the year.

Personally, whenever I needed to reach out to their support team, I never needed to wait more than a minute or two for someone to jump on and help me out.

While having the option of phone support is nice, it’s not a big deal not to have it in my opinion if they have 24/7 live chat support in place.

Basically, whatever plan you’re on, you do always have access to help, and you can get it quickly if you need it.

What Other Users Say About GetResponse

It’s all very well reading my opinion here in this GetResponse review, but I’m sure you, like me, also want to hear about what other people have to say as well.

From what I have seen, they are mostly positive overall, with an average Capterra (a review site) rating of 4.1/5.

Some of the 1-star reviews seem quite questionable in my opinion, as many of the users state themselves that their actions went against the T&C’s.

Other than that, there are mostly just 5-star reviews of users explaining what’s great about the software.

Besides reading customer reviews, you also get the additional safety net of the GetResponse 30 day free trial without needing to enter your credit card details if you do decide to try them out for yourself.

What I Like About GetResponse

What I like about GetResponse is that it offers an all-in-one marketing platform for businesses of all sizes.

It’s not the cheapest autoresponder you can find, but it’s also by no means the most expensive. It’s actually very affordable, especially considering all the features they offer.

GetResponse also has a solid deliverability rate, so you know that the majority of your emails will actually end up where they’re supposed to.

I also really like the fact that GetResponse is affiliate-friendly. There are not many autoresponders that are high caliber, that provide such great features, are affordable, and also allow you to place affiliate links directly in your emails.

What I Don’t Like About GetResponse

There isn’t a lot to complain about GetResponse, in my opinion. Overall, it does what it does extremely well.

The two cons that I mentioned at the beginning of the article (300 webinar attendees & no phone support on the lower plans) are not things that matter to me.

Other than that, the only thing that I would say is the editing of landing pages in mobile view. I feel like it could just be a little easier to use, but then again, maybe that’s just me.

GetResponse Pricing

So, how much does GetResponse cost? The pricing mainly varies based on the number of contacts that you have.

It’s a sliding scale, so for the full pricing details based on your number of subs, you can check out their website here.

Below, are the plans for up to 1,000 subscribers, if you pay monthly.

On the [official website], you will also find annual discounts for up to 30% if you don’t mind paying upfront.

Personally, I’d use them for a few months first on the monthly plan, then, if you’re happy to stay with them, opt to pay for the year upfront and get the additional discount.

Basic, $15 per month

Included in the basic plan are the following features:

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GetResponse Alternatives

To give you a better choice, I also want to cover a few GetResponse alternatives that might be better for you.

Aweber

First of all, you might also choose Aweber which is another popular autoresponder, but compared to GetResponse, it’s quite basic.

It has basic automation workflows, basic landing pages, forms, and segmentation.

Aweber is also affiliate marketing-friendly and they even have a free plan.

If you’re on a budget or are just looking for basic email automation features, it may be an option to consider.

I’ve used Aweber before and have been very happy with them. They’re cheaper than GetResponse and they also have excellent support.

You can check out Aweber’s pricing here.

SendLane

SendLane is another affiliate-friendly autoresponder.

It’s quite similar to GetResponse as it offers features like ROI and conversion tracking.

The pricing plans start at $99 per month (5K contacts), so it’s a bit more expensive than GetResponse. Having said that, they do have an attractively priced starter plan for new customers.

That being said, the cost of the plans is pretty reasonable considering the value they offer.

If you want to know more about this platform then you can read my in-depth review of SendLane here.

Alternatively, you can check out SendLane’s page here.

MailerLite

Lastly, we have MailerLite which is NOT affiliate marketing-friendly, so make sure to keep that in mind if affiliate marketing is a core part of your business.

MailerLite probably has the best free plan on the market, as even the free plan comes with automation sequences. That’s pretty rare.

It doesn’t have quite as advanced features as GetResponse or SendLane, but it does have the basics.

I think MailerLite could be a good option if you perhaps have an eCom business, promoting affiliate offers is not a core part of what you do, and if you don’t need the advanced features that GetResponse and SendLane offer.

You can check out MailerLite’s pricing here.

If you still want to check out more email marketing solutions then I recommend you read my article on the best email autoresponder services next.

Final Thoughts

Finding an autoresponder that is powerful, low-cost, and has a good deliverability rate can be quite hard. Depending on the complexity of your business, there can be a ton of things to consider.

This is especially the case if you’re in the affiliate marketing business as you also need to make sure that the platform you choose will not shut you down for including affiliate offers in some of your emails.

The problem is that if you don’t have an autoresponder that fits the bill, your business will probably not reach its full potential as email marketing is so important.

GetResponse doesn’t only fit the bill for most businesses, it also does what it does extremely well. It has arguably the most powerful automation features on the market, strong deliverability, and also comes at an affordable price.

I must admit I’m a big fan of it and so are 350,000 other customers. If you would like to check it out for yourself, you can get a 30-day free trial here.