ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse: Which is Best?

Last Updated on April 22, 2023 by Ewen Finser

Today we’re going to be looking at ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse, two email automation and marketing automation tools that you can use to communicate with your customers in a way that will make them actually want to buy from you. 

Bottom Line Up Front: Overall, our top pick is ActiveCampaign here, due to more flexible pricing tiers, entry points, AND expandability to a FULL CRM if needed. The only exception here is if you are doing heavy WEBINAR marketing, in which case GetResponse is more capable here.

A while back, there was a rumor going around that email marketing is dead. Well…I think most email marketers know that’s just not true! 

But I can see where the saying came from. There was a time when some businesses were sending out spammy unsolicited emails to lists that they had obtained through questionable methods.

Thankfully, things have evolved, and the rise of email marketing automation software has allowed businesses to communicate with their customers in a personal, genuine way that actually grows their businesses. 

Email marketing has a huge ROI of 3,800% on average. That’s $38 for every $1 you spend on your email marketing campaigns, BUT… that’s only when it’s done in the right way. 

And to make sure you’re marketing your business in the most effective way possible it’s well worth investing in a suite of marketing automation tools.

In this comparison review, we are going to look at all of the features that ActiveCampaign and GetResponse offer, as well as each of their pros and cons, the pricing, and any other useful information you need to know about the software to help you decide which of the two is best for your business marketing needs. 

Let’s take a look… 

Before we start the main review we are just going to take a look at the main differences between ActiveCampaign and GetResponse, so that if you’re in a rush you can grab the important information you are looking for. 

Main Differences Between ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse 

The Main Differences Between ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse are:

• GetResponse allows you to build landing pages, whereas ActiveCampaign does not offer this feature.
• GetResponse has a built-in webinar feature, whereas with ActiveCampaign you would need to use a third-party integration for this. 
• GetResponse only allows you to contact your subscribers by email, whereas ActiveCampaign allows you to contact your subscribers by SMS and site messaging
• GetResponse enables you to sell products and take payments through it’s landing pages, whereas this is not possible with ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign Review 

ActiveCampaign is a full suite of advanced email and marketing automation tools that have been designed to help you communicate with your customers, grow your business, and manage your customer information all from one place.

The main features are email marketing platform, CRM, marketing automation, and chat/messaging.  

Together these tools can help you build relationships with your customers and followers, and grow your business. They also offer a number of other useful tools that you can use to collect data and engage with your audience: let’s take a look at exactly what’s on offer. 

ActiveCampaign Email Marketing Feature & Marketing Tools

• Email marketing service
• Subscription forms (form builder)
• Dynamic content 
• Email segmentation 
• Split testing 
• Marketing platform automation 
• Site tracking
• Event tracking 
• Automation goals 
• Automation map 
• Attribution 
• Split action
• Sales & CRM 
• Gmail extension for Chrome 
• Contact and Lead Scoring 
• Mobile apps 
• SMS
• Site messages 
• Facebook custom audience 
• Conversations 
• Machine learning 
• Win probability
• Predictive sending 

Now that we’ve seen all of the features on offer, let’s delve a little deeper into the main offerings. 

Email Marketing Campaign Building with ActiveCampaign 

ActiveCampaign’s Email marketing features allow sending a range of different emails to your contacts, including: 

• Broadcast emails 
• Triggered emails 
• Targeted emails 
• Email autoresponders
• Email funnels (sales funnel)
• Scheduled emails 

It’s very easy for anyone to get started using ActiveCampaign, so there’s no need to worry if you don’t have any prior experience using this type of software.

The email builder uses a drag and drop interface, so you can easily create beautiful emails to send to your subscribers. If you don’t want to create your emails from scratch then you can choose one of the pre-made email templates.  

All of the pre-made templates are mobile-friendly, and you can customize any of the elements to suit your branding, including the fonts, colors, images, and more. 

The segmentation and dynamic content features allow you to send different emails to different customers within the same campaign based on actions they have taken before, such as whether or not they have made a previous purchase.

You can customize different areas within the email, such as the contacts name, their city, location, purchase history, or any other information you may have collected from your contacts that you can enhance the email.

There are reporting features that let you see how your email campaigns are performing, and with this data, you can take advantage of the A/B split testing to continually optimize your campaigns and help you to achieve more opens, clicks, and purchases. 

ActiveCampaign integrates seamlessly with most popular apps, so you can connect your email marketing to your Facebook, WooCommerce, or Zapier accounts, or choose from over 250 other apps to integrate with. 

Marketing Automation 

ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation features save you hours of time each week by automating your entire marketing process.

You can schedule a welcome email series to be sent as soon as someone signs up to your list, and based on any actions they take (such as making a purchase) you can trigger follow up emails.

Since all of the emails can be personalized and targeted, the customer will feel like they are receiving a personal email service, and will be more likely to open emails from you. 

It’s easy to build your own automation using the drag and drop automation campaign builder, which lets you visually see what stages in your automation, and set up an automated visual workflow (automation editor and automation workflow) with just a few clicks. 

The segmentation features allow you to ensure that the subscribers are receiving information on what is relevant to them, making them more likely to respond positively to the email.

If you are ever unsure about the automation you are building, there is lots of information on hand, including training guides, videos, and live one on one support. You can also take advantage of the pre-built workflows available, and use them as they are or customize them to your exact requirements. 

Sales and CRM 

ActiveCampaign has built-in Sales and CRM features that allow you to keep track of your leads and customers, and use automation to enhance your sales process.

Sales automation can help you sell more with less effort by automatically nurturing your leads, and identifying any prospects who are ready to buy, so your sales team can use their time in the most effective possible way.  

From the moment a new lead signs up to your list, an automation process will be triggered that sends them a welcome series, notifies your team, and monitors their actions to the right follow-ups can be sent. Based on the customer’s actions, different actions will be triggered, so every lead is taken care of and nothing gets forgotten. 

ActiveCampaign’s CRM lets you manage all of your contacts in one platform, so you will always know where each contact is in relation to the sales funnel, and an accurate record of details and important information is kept in one place. 

There is also an app that lets you manage your contacts, view any upcoming appointments, and close deals on the go, so you always have all the information you need to manage your deals wherever you are. 

Messaging 

ActiveCampaign’s messaging features allow you to reach your customers wherever they are, making it the perfect solution for delivering any time-sensitive messages or offers that you need to get out there.  

SMS marketing lets you send text messages to your customers, so you can reach them wherever they are. You can send reminders, and notifications, as well as online marketing messages such as alerting them to a last-minute sale that expires soon. 

You can use Facebook ads to reach your audience, and show them messages that will persuade them to buy from you based on their previous visits to your website. 

You also have the option to message customers directly while they are browsing your website by using the Site Messages feature. You can choose to automate your site messages if you wish, and even customize them based on existing segmentation data. 

Machine Learning 

Active Campaign has machine learning and AI capabilities which you can use to your advantage. Win probability allows you to see which leads are most likely to convert so that your sales team can allocate their time in the most effective way.  

There is a predictive sending feature that automatically sends your automated emails at exactly the right time. It learns what time your customers are most likely to open and read their emails, and then makes sure they are always sent at the customer’s preferred time to increase your open and click-through rates. 

The Benefits of Using ActiveCampaign 

• ActiveCampaign is a powerful marketing automation tool with all the features you need to send personalized campaigns to your customers, and manage your sales process
• Although ActiveCampaign is powerful, it is also very easy to use, so anyone can use this software even with no previous experience
• ActiveCampaign has high email deliverability rate, so you can be sure as many emails as possible will arrive safely in your customers’ inboxes
• If you are moving over from another email marketing service or CRM, ActiveCampaign will migrate all of your contacts and data over for free
• You can automate a majority of your sales process with Active Campaign’s marketing automation features
• Machine learning helps your sales team to figure out how to use their time most effectively with the probability feature

The Downsides to Using ActiveCampaign 

ActiveCampaign has a lot of features on offer, which may be overwhelming for some smaller businesses who only really need a simple email marketing tool.

There is also no landing page builder included, which would be useful, but you can integrate with a third-party landing page builder such as Leadpages. 

GetResponse Review 

GetResponse is an email marketing platform that also has marketing automation features to help you scale your business in the most effective way.

It includes an inbuilt CRM, as well as other useful features such as landing pages so you can effectively collect new leads and grow your business. 

GetResponse Key Features 

• Email marketing
• Autofunnel (sales funnel)
• Landing pages 
• Ecommerce (transactional emails)
• Traffic generation 
• Marketing automation
• Webinars 
• CRM 
• Forms and surveys 
• List building and management 
• Analytics and optimization
• Account and campaign management 
• API and native integrations 

Email Marketing with GetResponse 

GetResponse has powerful email marketing software that lets you build and send professional emails to your audience.  

To build your emails you can either start from scratch or choose to customize on the pre-built email templates from the template library.

You can drag and drop all of the elements you need to wherever you want within the page builder, and smart image editing allows you to quickly and easily resize, scale, and crop any images you are using until they fit perfectly. 

You can send any type of email out to your audience, including: 

• Newsletters 
• Autoresponders 
• Automated email sequences (autoresponder service)
• Segment-specific sends 
• Automated blog digests 

Any emails you send out to your audience will arrive in their inbox at the perfect time, by using GetResponse’s Perfect timing and time travel email delivery tools, and what’s more, they have a proven delivery rate over 99%!

You can create personalized campaigns by including custom and dynamic content within your emails. You can include different CTA’s, images, offers, and wording based on any actions your customers have taken in the past, such as making a previous purchase. 

GetResponse has advanced email analytics that let you track the performance of your campaigns, and continually work to optimize and improve them by using the A/B testing features.

You can track email opens, clicks, bounce rate, mobile views and much more to give you an insight on how your customers and subscribers are engaging with your emails. 

GetResponse integrates with most popular apps, so if there’s an extra feature you need, such as PayPal, WooCommerce, Stripe, Social Media, or something else, you can easily connect it to your GetResponse account. 

Marketing Automation Capability

GetResponse includes marketing automation software that lets you create both simple and advanced automation by using their drag and drop automation builder. This lets you visually see the automation you are building, so you can understand exactly what the subscriber will be receiving and make any changes quickly and easily if required. 

The automation builder uses ready-made blocks that you drag and drop into place, with options for conditions, actions, and filters, so there are no limits to the types of funnels you can create for your business. 

The marketing automation tools can also tag and score contacts based on their actions, which gives your sales team a good idea of how likely these leads are to convert. These insights let you easily see any areas you can improve to boost your conversions. 

CRM 

GetResponse’s CRM lets you organize all of your contacts and your sales pipeline in one place. You can keep track of all of your leads and see their place in your pipeline so no one falls through the cracks.  

You can drag and drop leads into the next stage of the pipeline when they are ready, so you always have a visual overview of which stage each customer is at. 

You can easily add notes to all of your contacts to help you remember what you have already spoken about. This also makes it easier if you are working with a team, as it enables any other team member to assist a customer, as they can see exactly where they are in the sales process, and view any important information.

Landing Pages 

You can easily create beautiful, high converting landing pages using GetResponse’s landing page builder. You can choose from hundreds of responsive landing page templates, and customize them with your own content, images and branding.

If you don’t have your own images you can choose from 5,000 Shutterstock images, and use the inbuilt image editor until your page is looking exactly the way you want. 

There are a variety of page types for you to choose from, including sales pages, email opt-in pages, free downloads, and more. You can even include special features such as a countdown timer to drive urgency and increase your conversion rates. 

You can view the analytics for your landing pages, and optimize them using A/B testing to see what works best for your business. 

Webinars 

GetResponse offers a complete webinar solution, so there is no need to try and integrate with a third-party plugin to offer webinars to your audience. 

There are lots of features to keep your audience engaged while the webinar is happening, including live polls, chat, screen sharing, whiteboards, and more. You can also choose to simultaneously live stream your webinar on Facebook or YouTube for more exposure. 

There is also the option to offer paid webinars, as well as free webinars to your audience, for any special content that you want to share exclusively. 

You can record your webinars, and they will be saved in high quality for download or replay when requested. 

Once your webinar is complete you can go back and view the data and analytics to see how many people participated and engaged, allowing you to optimize your future webinars. 

The Benefits of Using GetResponse 

• GetResponse offers powerful marketing automation features that let you easily build automated funnels using the drag and drop funnel builder
• Landing pages are included at no extra cost, enabling you to easily collect data from your web visitors
• Webinars are included, with lots of advanced features available, so there is no need to use third-party service to provide webinars to your audience
• Comprehensive reporting and analytics features, combined with A/B testing allows you to continually optimize all areas of your marketing
• Free 24/7 support is included with all GetResponse plans
• GetResponse offers excellent value for money when you consider all of the features that are included

The Downsides to Using GetResponse 

The only downsides we can see to GetResponse is that SMS messaging and chat aren’t included, and the updated interface is slightly cluttered, but nothing that would stop you from using the software. 

Pricing: ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse 

To view the pricing comparison fairly we have looked at the pricing for both ActiveCampaign and CampaignMonitor based on 1,000 contacts paid for on a yearly basis.

However, if you would like to view pricing for a different number of contacts you can do this on their respective websites by using the contact slider. 

ActiveCampaign Pricing 

ActiveCampaign offers four different pricing plans to suit businesses of all sizes: Lite, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise. 

The Lite plan is just $17/month for 1,000 contacts. This plan includes unlimited sending, email marketing, email newsletters, marketing automation, chat and email support, and up to 3 users on the account. 

The Plus plan is $49/month for 1,000 contacts, and includes everything from Lite, as well as CRM, contact & lead scoring, deep data integrations, custom user permissions, custom branding, one on one training, SMS marketing, conditional content, and up to 25 users per account. 

The Professional plan costs $129/month for 1,000 contacts, and includes everything from Lite and plus, as well as Site messaging, attribution, predictive sending, win probability, split automation, and up to 50 users. 

There is also an Enterprise plan which costs $229/month, and includes everything from the previous plans, as well as custom reporting, custom mail server domain, custom domain, dedicated account rep, in-depth onboarding, free design services, free social data, phone support, uptime SLA and unlimited users. 

If you would like to try ActiveCampaign, you can take advantage of their free trial here. 

GetResponse Pricing 

GetResponse has four pricing plans: Basic, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise. 

The Basic plan costs just $12.30/month for 1,000 contacts and includes Email marketing, autoresponders, unlimited landing pages, unlimited automation templates, sales funnels (1 funnel), unlimited lead funnels, Facebook Ads, and the ability to Sell e-products. 

Next up is the Plus plan, which costs $40.18/month. This plan includes everything from Basic, plus: Automation builder (5 visual workflows), Webinars (max 100 attendees), Simple CRM, Contact scoring & tagging, Sales funnels (5 funnels), Work together (3 users), and Webinar funnels (5 funnels). 

The Professional plan costs $81.18/month and includes everything from Plus, as well as Paid webinars, Unlimited automation builder, Webinars (max 300 attendees), Unlimited sales funnels, Unlimited webinar funnels, and up to 5 users. 

Finally, there is the Enterprise plan which costs $839/month and is suitable for businesses with lists of more than 100,000. 

GetResponse offers a 30 day free trial with no credit card required if you would like to test drive their features before committing long term. 

FAQs About ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse

ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse – Which Marketing Automation Tool is Better? 

Both ActiveCampaign and GetResponse are highly effective marketing automation tools that will enable you to communicate and build relationships with your customers, and build automated marketing funnels that will grow your business on autopilot.  

However, one of these marketing tools will suit you better than the other, due to the different additional features they each offer.

If you’re looking for an affordable email and marketing automation tool that will allow you to host webinars, then GetResponse is the tool for you. GetResponse gives you an entire marketing solution and CRM in one place, and it is currently the only marketing automation software provider that has webinars included.  

If you don’t need w ebinars or landing pages, then ActiveCampaign is a great option for you, as it has fantastic marketing automation, is incredibly easy to use, and includes SMS messaging features to let you contact your subscribers with any urgent messages. 

Bottom Line: Overall, our winner is ActiveCampaign due to the more flexible pricing tiers, entry points, AND expandability to a FULL CRM if needed.

If you would like to try GetResponse and all of the features they offer, you can sign up to their 30-day trial for free, with no credit card required, and if ActiveCampaign would suit your business needs better, you can try it out for free here.

Further Readings:

• GetResponse vs ConvertKit: Which is Best? Looking for an email marketing tool that can help you build your priceless email list? Check out our review of Convertkit vs GetResponse to see which one would be the best fit for your needs!
• GetResponse vs Constant Contact Compared
• GetResponse vs Sendinblue Compared
• GetResponse vs Sendlane Compared
• GetResponse vs iContact Compared
• GetResponse vs Mailchimp Compared
• GetResponse vs Campaign Monitor Compared
• ActiveCampaign vs ConvertKit Compared
• ActiveCampaign vs Campaign Monitor Compared
• ActiveCampaign vs Hubspot Compared
• ActiveCampaign vs Aweber Compared
• ActiveCampaign vs SharpSpring Compared
• Autopilot vs ActiveCampaign: Which is Better?
• Mailchimp vs Constant Contact: An Email Marketing Showdown Email marketing tools are designed to ensure that you carry out a successful marketing campaign. See who wins between MailChimp vs Constant Contact!
• Best Alternatives to Ontraport
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• MailerLite Review
• How to Find the Best Email Marketing Software for Your Business Learn about 6 types of business emails you can send to your customers and features to consider before choosing your own email marketing software.