GetResponse vs Mailchimp – Things To Know

In this comparison guide we will cover everything you need to make your decision on Getresponse vs. Mailchimp for you email marketing needs.

Both GetResponse and Mailchimp are really good they rank 1st and 4th in our list.  There are only a few points between them, but depending on what you need, little things may make a difference.

We’re going to dive in and look at the differences and compare GetResponse vs. Mailchimp services, in a number of categories, to help you better decide which one is right for you!

So, who are these guys?

Good question, although I expect you might already have a pretty good idea of the basics if you’re reading this post.

GetResponse is a Polish-based, internationally successful newsletter service, offering many pro features for pretty competitive prices. Their focus is on ease-of-use, while also offering some niche features such as a landing page editor. You can read a full review of them here.

MailChimp is probably a service you’ve heard of. Even though they are an email marketing heavyweight, they still have a useful freemium plan you can sign up to when first starting out. This is a great way to try out most of their features and templates with no risk. You can read a full review of them here.

Now let’s set them against each other, head-to-head, across several categories to see who comes out on top.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: What do they do

Getresponse and Mailchimp are email marketing tools that allow you to:

• create (or import) a mailing list and capture email addresses onto it

• design HTML e-newsletters (emails containing graphics, photos, branding etc.) that can be sent to your subscribers

• automate your emails to subscribers via ‘autoresponders’

• monitor statistics related to your email marketing — open rates, click-throughs, forwards and more.

Over the past couple of years, Getresponse has evolved into more of an ‘all-in-one’ marketing solution, and as such now has some features which are not to be found in Mailchimp, namely:

• webinars

• built-in e-commerce features

• ‘conversion funnels’

Mailchimp increasingly also aims to be an all-in-one ‘marketing platform’ that offers selling / CRM functionality, and has changed its pricing model accordingly.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Ease of Use

Ooh, a close one to begin with! Both GetResponse and MailChimp do a decent job with their usability. Easy navigation, due to clean design and menu structures, and only a few small gripes that wouldn’t affect the majority of users. Both sport a simple drag & drop editor, with minimal complications.

If we were really pressed to choose one, though, I’d probably say that GetResponse is slightly easier to use.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Template Design and Flexibility

GetResponse has a lot of choice when it comes to templates. The majority of them are responsive too, allowing them to look good on smaller devices. We found a couple of small issues with template flexibility when adding columns, but no deal-breakers.

MailChimp’s email templates generally offer quite a lot of choice. They clearly delineate between drag & drop templates and classic templates, with only the former being responsive.

In our eyes, MailChimp’s the winner of this round, but only by a nose.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Automation

Both newsletter services offer marketing automation. Ideally, this allows you to create workflows based on actions, such as email opens and clicks. MailChimp offers a few triggers: for example sending emails after someone subscribes, abandons a cart in your store, or even if someone visits a specific URL on your site.

GetResponse also offers very similar options, with the addition of a visual workflow view, lead scoring, and a tagging feature. The latter is very useful to send out interest-based newsletters.

The major difference between the two, as briefly mentioned above, is within the layout. GetResponse’s workflow displays an attractive network of connections and triggers. This allows you to drag connecting lines to other actions with ease. It makes perfect sense to users as it’s designed in a way that’s easy to follow.

On the other hand, MailChimp’s automation is displayed as a dry list of triggers, without a sense of flow, or connection to others. You also have to dig around to find these options, making it extremely unintuitive.

GetResponse wins this round without a doubt!

GetRespond vs Mailchimp: List Management

Being able to easily move subscribers to, and from, separate lists can be quite important for certain businesses. This is equally true for segmenting lists based on certain characteristics. MailChimp do fine with basic segmentation methods, allowing you to combine several positive or negative conditions (e.g. clicking on email links). An issue they have, though, is that you can’t manage subscribers across lists (e.g. adding a subscriber to two other relevant lists), as each one is siloed.

GetResponse, on the other hand, allows for much more complex list management. As the lists are not siloed, you can either copy contacts to another campaign, or move them entirely. Segments are also more customizable as you can add any/all conditions to users, and even groups.

Here is an example of segmentation in GetResponse with our own account:

When it comes to list sizes, you have to watch out for something REALLY sneaky in Mailchimp: the company charges you for both subscribed AND unsubscribed contacts on your lists (or ‘audiences’ to use Mailchimp’s new terminology).

Getresponse, by contrast, only charges you for active contacts.

So, for example, if you had 1500 subscribers on a list, 200 of whom unsubscribed, Getresponse would consider this to be a list containing 1,300 people. Mailchimp would consider it to be a list containing 1500 subscribers, and charge you accordingly.

This is pretty ridiculous in my view and, as with Mailchimp’s send limit issue, presents one of the more compelling arguments for choosing Getresponse over Mailchimp.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Analytics

Both services offer almost everything you’ll need: allowing you to see subscriber details for those

• who opened or clicked,
• subscriber’s email clients used (although GetResponse isn’t as clear with this as MailChimp),
• eCommerce tracking data,
• geo-tracking (where your subscribers are based, or at least where the email was opened).

Mailchimp Analytics

GetResponse Analytics

MailChimp also has social media reporting, which may be a benefit over GetResponse, depending on your needs. But it’s also slightly duller-looking if that’s something you care about. So, finally, reports and analytics for both email marketing services are pretty neck and neck.

If we were pressed to pick one, perhaps MailChimp would just come out in front, but it’s unlikely your decision will ultimately hang on this feature.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Languages

If being accessible in several languages is necessary, then this one is a no-brainer. MailChimp, although it has support available in Spanish, is entirely in English.

Whereas GetResponse’s site is available in up to 17 languages…the clear winner in this round. The only complaint: some of the translations could be better, German and Spanish for example.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Mobile Friendly Emails

Both Getresponse and Mailchimp let you create mobile-friendly versions of your HTML email, and preview the mobile version as you do so.

As discussed above however, there are currently two email editors available from Getresponse, and some emails created using the ‘older’ version are currently not displaying correctly when viewed on the Gmail app.

Accordingly, I’d opt to use the new, ‘BETA’ version wherever possible — this creates very nice mobile versions of your emails automatically that display fine on smartphones.

Send Limits

n May 2019, Mailchimp introduced (controversial) monthly limits on the number of e-newsletters you can send to your lists.

These vary according to the number of subscribers you have on your list, but for the plans and subscriber counts listed above, the limits are 10k, 500k, 1.2 million and 3 million respectively.

Now, many users will never breach these limits, but if you use autoresponders extensively or send a lot of e-newsletters, it’s conceivable that you could, particularly if you’re on one of the cheaper plans.

So, it’s an instant win for Getresponse here, because all its plans allow you to send an unlimited number of emails per month — even the entry-level one. This represents much better value for money.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Spam and Design Testing

Some email services allow you to test your campaigns for issues in how they’ll display with different email clients. These issues can sometimes lead to your emails being hightailed to the spam folder. MailChimp offers design testing from a third-party service, and at an extra cost unless you sign up to their higher plan. Unfortunately, they don’t offer spam testing at all.

GetResponse scores full points in this round, as they offer both within their regular plans. Design/inbox testing is offered, giving you a view of how your email will appear across different clients and browsers. Also, in the last step of your campaign, you receive a spam test score out of 5. The lower, the better.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Registration Forms

You’d be surprised how useful a good registration form setup can be. Yet some newsletter services still haven’t completely got it yet. Both MailChimp and GetResponse offer a pretty good variety of options, though, just in slightly different formats. MailChimp has a nice, clean section that allows you to create regular, or pop-up, forms. It can be a bit tricky to find where the registration forms are hiding, to begin with though.

GetResponse registration forms

GetResponse has a useful wizard for their forms, with a heap of templates to choose from, and it’s a lot easier to find. But you’ll have to look at the list builder ‘apps’ to find novel styles of forms, such as exit pop-ups. HTML is also available on both systems, and you can integrate them within your services and websites a number of ways.

Due to the high number of templates, and extra app options (e.g. scroll forms or shake boxes), GetResponse wins this round.

Support

When it comes to support, both have thorough knowledge base. GetResponse’s is harder to navigate, though, opening up a lot of unnecessary tabs. They also both offer email and live chat, although chat is only available on premium MailChimp plans. And, even then, their service can sometimes be a bit on the slow side when compared to other newsletter tools.

GetResponse, though, offered fast and friendly support on both mediums, and this makes them our winner for this round.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Extras

MailChimp does have a large number of integrations, apparently over 800 (not that I’ve counted them all). And while GetResponse also offers integrations, they can’t match the number offered by MailChimp.

GetResponse Landing Page editor

GetResponse does hit back hard and fast with their extras, though. They both offer a (responsive) landing page editor, allowing you to create landing pages for event registrations or even simple product info pages. However, only GetResponse allows you to create A/B tests with your landing pages. As a final nail in the coffin for MailChimp in this round, GetResponse also offers webinar hosting features. Depending on your business, this could be a great add-on.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Deliverability

Quite an important one! Do your newsletters actually make it to your readers’ inboxes? Although this is not easy to test and is subject to frequent changes, we’ve done two testing rounds so far with thousands of emails sent. The full results are available here.

Though GetResponse has a slightly higher sender score, overall, MailChimp tends to fare slightly better in this area.

Here are the average figures of how they performed in our last 3 rounds of bi-annual deliverability tests (July 2019 – Sept 2020):

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Pricing

Pricing differs between the two providers at the lower end quite a bit, as MailChimp offers a forever free plan. This is limited to 2,000 subscribers and 10,000 emails per month, and doesn’t offer some of the more advanced features (e.g. automations). But this great for someone starting out, and a good way to try their service to see if it suits.

GetResponse doesn’t have this available, and their pricing plans start from $15 per month for only 1,000 subscribers (a free trial is available). You need to get the higher tier packages to take advantage of the pro features, such as webinars and extra marketing automation features. Once you get into higher subscriber numbers, though, MailChimp’s prices surpass GetResponse’s, and so the latter becomes a better deal.

We have two winners for this round: MailChimp for the low end of subscriber numbers, and GetResponse for the higher end.

GetResponse vs Mailchimp: The Final Call

GetResponse dominates MailChimp for 6 of the 11 rounds here. By our standards, it is the clear winner. They are offering a good variety of features for a pretty good price – particularly when it gets up to the higher subscriber numbers. If you are after a free, easy to use service, though, you can always give MailChimp a try too.

To Your Success

Juan Villar

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