GetResponse Review – When (and When Not) to Use It

GetResponse is a great choice for both individuals and small businesses. It’s a powerful email marketing platform with a convenient free plan, affordable premium options, and excellent support. However, with limitations like the somewhat basic analytics board, it might not be the right choice for experienced marketers.

OVERVIEW

An All-In-One Marketing Tool (Almost)

GetResponse claims to offer “personalized tools for who you are,” whether that’s a solopreneur or a large company. A bold claim indeed. Finding it somewhat difficult to trust marketing slogans, I signed up to test it myself.

Don’t take me for a complete cynic – I’m not saying that a one-size-fits-all email marketing solution can’t be created. It’s just that in all my years in the business, I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing one.

After using GetResponse for a few months, I can tell you that for the single entrepreneur, GetResponse really does knock it out of the park. For an enterprise-sized operation, maybe not so much. And for everybody in between… well, it depends.

You see, GetResponse offers a lot of very powerful features, including 200+ templates, an intuitive email builder, advanced segmentation, and great automation tools  –  not to mention a generous free plan.

What does that mean for you? That depending on the scale of your campaigns, GetResponse just might be what you’re looking for. It’s a great service, even if it can’t do everything, which is why it got  in our comparison of the best email marketing services available today.

Now, you can learn from my experience in this GetResponse review. Don’t sign up before understanding exactly what GetResponse can and can’t do.

Features

Strong Foundations and So Many Advanced Features

As far as basic features and tools are concerned, GetResponse has you covered. Gathering subscribers, shooting weekly newsletters, and even automating actions, can all be easily done. And if you don’t mind the extra features, you can send emails to a maximum of 500 contacts for free!

Anyone who’s ever used Microsoft Word can go from zero to hero in an hour or two, as things are basically foolproof.

Email Campaigns, Templates and Personalization

Whatever you plan on sending your subscribers, you’ll be using the Email Campaigns tool. GetResponse supports sending mass emails – also known as “email blasts,” which is a cool term that we’ll stick with – to up to tens of thousands of contacts.

I found the interface extremely easy to use, and I’d say that if you’ve ever sent an email before, you’ll need only a few minutes to get a hang of things.

GetResponse features over 200 beautiful templates that give you direction and help your emails stand out. They’re all mobile-responsive, meaning that whether your reader uses a desktop computer, a tablet, or a smartphone, they’ll enjoy an optimal reading experience.

Still, remember to use the templates wisely. While it’s possible to send stunning-looking emails, packed with rich graphics and HD images, sometimes less is more.

Luckily, many of GetResponse’s templates are elegant, understated, and to-the-point. This will not only deliver your message across in the best possible way but is also the industry standard – which Gmail and the other providers are expecting. Emails that go too far (contain too much code behind the scenes, too many attachments, and the like) are not delivered into the regular inbox.

GetResponse scores an extra point for allowing users to access all of these templates on the free plan.

A really cool thing that GetResponse lets you do with the templates is to personalize them. Remember, you’ll be collecting a whole lot of information about your contacts: birthdates, names, locations, and more. Using that information within the text goes a long way into making subscribers feel like they’re getting relevant, personal messages, which in turn makes them loyal, long-term readers.

For example, imagine that you’re promoting a new swimsuit collection. “Excited for summer?” is nice, but “Hey Daisy, California summer is just around the corner! Also, don’t think we’ve forgotten about your birthday in June… expect a special present!” is so much better.

One thing that is easy to forget about, but can literally make your emails unreadable, is the issue of RTL (right-to-left) languages. That doesn’t matter much if you’re planning on sending out emails in English or another LTR (left-to-right) language, but if your language reads from right to left (like Arabic or Hebrew), you need full RTL support. GetResponse not only supports both RTL languages but also immediately aligns and structures the entire template accordingly. Choosing your language is really all you have to do, and GetResponse will take care of everything else.

Last on GetResponse’s email campaign trail is the option of A/B tests. These work just like regular newsletter campaigns but enable you to test two versions of the email and see which one converts better. It’s best to change only one thing (a cover image, the opening line, the order of elements on the page), and GetResponse will take it from there, testing both options and choosing the winner.

Unfortunately, A/B testing is currently not available on GetResponse’s free plan – but that’s to be expected.

Discover More GetResponse Features >>

Mailing Lists and Segmentation

While in its most basic form, a mailing list is simply a collection of contacts’ email addresses, modern marketing platforms have taken it up a notch. GetResponse excels in this area, offering what I feel are some of the most advanced options around.

Some numbers first. You’ll be filling your mailing lists with contacts, and it’s important to remember the number of contacts is capped – GetResponse plans start from 500 contacts and go up to 100,000. There’s no limit on the number of emails you can send to each contact – this is also true for the free plan.

Importing contacts on GetResponse is pretty straightforward. You can copy batches of addresses and let the automatic tool identify them, import a wide variety of spreadsheet file types (including XLS, CSV, TXT, VCF, XLSX, and ODS), and even integrate with your previous email marketing service to import your existing contacts.

You’ll of course be asked to confirm that you have permission to add these people – a sign that GetResponse is an honest service for honest people and not a spam machine.

When importing an honest list of contacts, I didn’t run into any problems. I was also really happy to see how flexible the import tool was. It let me import advanced columns and metadata, such as date of birth, gender, and yes/no fields, and field types were automatically identified by the service. Creating custom field types (e.g. a boolean yes/no for marriage, additional date fields) is also possible, meaning you can get as detailed with your contacts as you wish.

Next, I checked GetResponse’s segmentation abilities, wanting to see how powerful they are. If you’re not familiar with the term “segmentation,” it’s the ability to take an existing contact list and narrow it down by adding rules and criteria.

Let’s say your landing page resulted in a few hundred signups. While there might be times when you’ll want to blast the same email to everybody, other times you might want to email specific groups within the same mailing list.

With GetResponse, you can actually get specific with your segmentations. By adding rule after rule, it’s possible to get as specific as you want. It took me a few seconds to create a segment with only female contacts born after 1990, who clicked a specific link in a specific newsletter sent a few weeks earlier. That’s some powerful stuff.

GetResponse also automatically suppresses unsubscribers and labels them as “inactive contacts.” You can then export the unsubscribers list, which is crucial should you ever choose to switch services.

Landing Pages

On your long journey to having thousands of subscribers, landing pages are going to be your best friends. They’re a great way to attract potential subscribers and get them to sign up, leaving their precious contact information in your hands.

Unlike emails, where less is more, landing pages can be as flashy as you feel is appropriate. GetResponse lets you go crazy with dozens of customizable landing page templates, all mobile-responsive, and you can configure which details will be collected – just an email address, or extra fields like full name, city, age, interests, and more. Extra fields can slow down your potential subscribers and even cause them to get scared and bounce back, so be careful not to go overboard.

The landing page builder is available on the free plan, but you can only build and host 1 landing page. Those on paid plans can even add live chat to their pages. GetResponse will let you know if your SEO settings aren’t properly configured, and you can easily manage/edit meta details through Manage Pages under Settings.

Behind the scenes, you can choose the mailing list your contacts will be added to, and that’s pretty much it. 10 minutes and you’re online. Your landing page will be available on a GetResponse subdomain (“youraddress.gr8.com”).

The subdomain is not exactly optimal, which is why you may prefer to use your own domain instead. That’s easily doable, and there’s even a nifty guide to help you out. You don’t need your own hosting or anything.

Automation

Simply put, great automation lets you do less and get more. After a quick setup, new subscribers can receive personal welcome emails. You can even set intervals, so that after a few days they’ll receive a special list of recommendations, along with your passionate appreciation about their choice to sign up.

GetResponse does an excellent job here, easily outperforming well-known competitors such as Mailchimp. The entire automation interface is visual, complete with drag-and-drop functionality that enables you to plan out detailed workflows.

Not only that, but GetResponse offers premade automation templates to make your life easier. A three-email autoresponder sequence took me about a minute to set up. An automated scoring plan, based on how my contacts engaged with my emails (did or didn’t open, did or didn’t click a link), was just as easy. After letting the function run its course, my contacts’ scores were updated, allowing me to reach the most engaged ones better, and to remove some deadweight.

GetResponse also seems to avoid some common pitfalls which other services fall right into. Setting a wait period between emails is great, but even better is the ability to control the exact timeyour readers will receive the email. That’s because the newest emails are the ones read first, and if you time your blasts correctly – you’re going to come up top.

With powerful e-commerce automation such as abandoned cart and post-purchase follow-ups, I was almost tempted to award GetResonse’s automation full marks.

What stopped me was that the Email Marketing plan comes with templates only, meaning you can’t build or edit your own automation. The mid-tier plan, Marketing Automation, lets you build only 5 custom workflows, which I wasn’t too happy about either. If you’re a free user, you’ll have to upgrade to a premium plan to access this feature – automation isn’t available on the free plan.

Sale Funnels and E-commerce Functionality

You heard that right. For simple e-commerce needs, GetResponse can actually replace a dedicated e-commerce solution, saving you a lot of money and hassle. Again, as long as your needs are simple.

What do I mean by “simple?” Let’s say you want to offer your readers a guide or an ebook you wrote on some tantalizing subject like gardening in New Mexico. That can be set up and easily integrated into your emails. They will direct your readers to a sales page, where a purchase can be made. How about a whole catalog of drop-shipped goods? Nope. That’s too much. There are no inventory-keeping tools, no advanced shopping carts, and no customer satisfaction tools.

Basically, think about it this way – if you’re selling only a few different items (physical or digital), and you offer your readers a chance to buy them as part of some promotion (“Stand out this Halloween! Here’s a great collection of my celebrity pumpkin carving ideas!”), GetResponse’s e-commerce functionality could be all you really need.

For more advanced situations, GetResponse can work with dedicated e-commerce solutions. I was happy to see that it integrates nicely with standalone platforms such as WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and more. Integrations with WooCommerce, for example, are done via plugin and can be used to send abandoned cart messages and follow up on promising leads.

Other Notable Features

GetResponse’s ever-expanding feature set is impressive, and I can’t possibly cover everything here. That said, here are some more noteworthy features that stand out:

• AI email generator. This GPT-powered tool can help you write whole email sequences in minutes with the help of AI (in multiple languages!). Just describe the content, tell it a bit about your business, choose the tone of voice, and it does all the work for you. You can customize your generated email further until you’re 100% happy with it.
• Website builder. That’s right, GetResponse doesn’t just help you design landing pages – it also offers an AI-powered website builder. Although not as powerful as some of the most well-established website builders, it can help you create a decent, albeit simple, website. GetResponse’s website editor is as intuitive and easy to use as its email editor. If you’re unsure, the best news is that it’s available on the free plan, so you can play around with it before you commit.
• Mobile app. GetResponse allows you to take your email stats with you wherever you go. You can easily manage your contacts outside the office, keeping tabs on open rates, deliverability, landing page views, and more. And it’s available on Android and iOS.

Deliverability

Not a Home Run, but Pretty Close

We’ve established that at its core, the GetResponse service is quite alright, but there are more questions to answer. One important question is this: After setting up lists, automations, and campaigns, will your emails actually reach your subscribers’ inboxes? Will they get marked as spam, or get put under the dreaded “Promotions” tab?

Some review sites try to answer this question with a percentage figure. As in, “83% of emails sent through service X will reach the inbox, and we know because we’ve been checking for 5 years.” However, when you look at the big picture, these claims are pretty much meaningless. Read my full explanation on why “deliverability tests” are completely unreliable. You’ll also find some handy tips there on how to increase your deliverability rate.

So, what can us honest folk do to ensure deliverability? The first thing you can do is authenticate your GetResponse account with your domain. Only one person or organization can register a single domain name (“@toursontheseine”, for example), but any email message, anywhere, can be easily modified into showing that domain as the sender. This is a type of identity theft.

Your first line of business is to get authenticated, and to prove beyond any possible doubt that you own the domain and address you plan on sending emails from. A simple form of doing that would be for GetResponse to send that address a confirmation email, and for you to log in and confirm it. But that’s also pretty weak.

The golden standard in the industry today is to authenticate your domain and email marketing service using tokens. Big acronym alert – the two popular options are SPF and DKIM, with DKIM being the one you really want to have.

Advanced DKIM authentication can easily be implemented on GetResponse, proving beyond any possible doubt to Gmail and other providers that you’re really who you claim to be. That makes them trust you, and deliver your emails straight to the inbox.

I followed GetResponse’s simple tutorial on activating DKIM authentication and sent out an email blast to check that it was working. Indeed, all was well.

The second thing you can do to increase your deliverability is to make sure the service you choose is actively fighting spammers who can ruin your sender’s reputation, and check that it takes a clear stance in its terms of use on spam and affiliate marketing.

Next, I checked how GetResponse handled all things spam, by attempting to import a short contact list full of gibberish, spammy-looking email addresses like kjasnf@gmail.com and hhnvfd@gmail.com. I was immediately notified that my import was pending further checks, and in a few hours it ended up being rejected completely.

GetResponse rejected my spammy-looking test contact list. That’s a very good sign.That’s excellent news because if a service lets other users send out spam, your deliverability rates are going to be negatively affected. To ensure a good deliverability rate, all users on the server have to play nice, and GetResponse is making sure that’s exactly what happens.

Affiliate marketing is allowed on GetResponse, which would normally be a cause for concern – affiliate marketers are known for bombarding their contacts with endless product suggestions. That could become your problem, because you share an IP address with them, meaning email service providers like Gmail group you together. Still, GetResponse’s terms of use are very clear on the subject, and its active monitoring should ensure that nothing gets out of hand.

The best thing you can do to improve your deliverability rate is to send your emails from a private, dedicated IP. With GetResponse, unfortunately, this option is only available with the most expensive plan.

A really cool feature called Perfect Timing does help out a bit – activating it will make GetResponse learn your subscribers’ behavior, and send each one emails at the time when they’re most likely to read them.

Analytics & Reporting

Decent but Could Be Better

GetResponse’s analytics get the job done. You can easily see how many contacts opened, clicked, bounced, or unsubscribed. Aside from these basic stats, GetResponse tracks complaints and email domains (i.e., which email provider contacts use to open your messages). There’s also a live map with location information – crucial for international brands.

I particularly like how GetResponse tracks user engagement. If you click on a specific recipient, their profile will pop up with all kinds of useful stats about them, including their total engagement score, in-depth information about emails they’ve opened in the past, and last location details.

One of the best features available to paying users is comparative reporting. With a few clicks, you can quickly compare how your newsletters perform against each other. That’s crucial to understanding what kind of messages do well with your audience – and what content you need to avoid.

When you link your e-commerce store with GetResponse, you will gain the capability to monitor orders, revenue, average order value, and the effectiveness of product recommendations you have provided. However, please note that access to these reports requires being subscribed to the premium Ecommerce Marketing plan.

That said, there are still a few key stats that GetResponse doesn’t provide, including which device was used to open the email, the operating system used, and advanced link heat maps. And although you can export your reports, there isn’t too much in the way of customization. These hiccups aren’t deal breakers, but they do mean GetResponse’s reporting capabilities are outshined by competitors. For example, AWeber’s excellent reporting suite has everything GetResponse lacks – and more!

Support

Professional Assistance Is a Live Chat Away

GetResponse’s support team is great. Professional, courteous, and readily available.

There’s no phone support, but seriously – who cares? I, for one, never want to talk on the phone. I know that once a year I need to call the NYTimes and ask for the half-price discount again, which saves me $70 a year and takes only 10 minutes of my time, but that’s pretty much my limit.

GetResponse makes sure that you’ll get the help you need, and you can request it in three different ways – live chat, available 24/7; email support, available in 8 different languages (English, Russian, Spanish, and more); and a super-detailed knowledge base.

Average time to get an answer on live chat? About 3 minutes. Sometimes even faster. And no matter which option you choose – all conversations are saved, logged, and available for reference later on.

I was asking about the limit on contacts and emails and got a response right away.

Asking about segmentation was just as easy, with the agent sending me the exact knowledge base article I was needing and also explaining the process herself.

Same when I was interested in activating DKIM authentication.

What can I say? These agents know their stuff. You can rest assured that whatever problems you run into, GetResponse’s team has got you covered.

Do keep in mind, however, that if you’re a free user, you’ll only have access to the knowledge base via the Help Center.

Pricing

Fair and Affordable, but Make Sure You Pick the Right Plan

Generally speaking, GetResponse’s Email Marketing plan is what I’d consider cheap, even great value for money. The other plan prices are closer to what other services are offering, while still remaining competitive.

Don’t forget that the GetResponse model is limited contacts, unlimited emails. That means you can send as many emails as you want to a limited number of contacts.

Even if you’re good with the contacts model, GetResponse’s pricing is tricky, because one little thing can mean a different plan tier. For example, if the automation templates are enough for you, the Email Marketing plan might be all you need. Then again, if you require more customization, and wish to build your own automated workflows – that’s going to cost you more than three times as much for 1,000 contacts.

Not only that, but the whole idea of scoring and tagging contacts is not available on the Email Marketing plan. That pretty much relegates it to simple uses and small audiences only – newsletters with a manageable contact list that doesn’t need too much tinkering with.

On the upside, if you do need more contacts (up to 100,000), the price difference between plans becomes negligible. And if you want to delve a little deeper into what you do and don’t get, we’ve put together a full breakdown of GetResponse’s pricing plans.

If you’re getting started with email marketing and you want to give GetResponse a try, the free plan might just do it for you. The free plan will let you design and send 2,500 emails to up to 500 contacts, and that’s pretty much it – most of the advanced features we’ve discussed here (e.g., automation, segmentation, sales funnels), won’t be available to you.

There’s also a 30-day completely free trial (no payment information necessary) you can take advantage of to check out the paid features, but keep in mind that almost everything’s going to be open for you. That can be deceiving. Don’t go trying out features only available on the Ecommerce Marketing plan if you’re not willing to spend at least $41.12 a month.

You can only pay using a credit card. The payment intervals are monthly, yearly, or every two years, with discounts available for longer subscription periods. If you’re a non-profit organization, you could be eligible for additional discounts. Please don’t hesitate to contact our team if this is relevant to you.

GetResponse REVIEW: BOTTOM LINE

Great for the Involved Business Owner, but for the Professional Marketer – Not So Much 

I wanted to really love GetResponse, and it almost had me. Until I sent my emails, checked the analytics, and realized that something was missing. That does not mean that GetResponse is off the table, just that like most things around – it’s not perfect.

With GetResponse, the most glaring weak point is in the analytics department. You might have a hard time breaking down your email reports in interesting ways, which severely caps the potential of your marketing adventure. Still, there are workarounds.

I would say that the Email Marketing plan, for its price, is worth your time and money, if the provided features cover your needs (there are automation templates only, and no contact scoring). If you’re only looking to blast emails every now and then, it’s a viable option.

The free plan, although stripped down, is also a pretty good choice for new marketers who just want to send out a few emails – and don’t mind the extra features.

FAQ

How much does GetResponse cost?

GetResponse’s pricing depends on two factors: the plan (Email Marketing, Marketing Automation, Ecommerce, Max), and the contacts limit. The free plan is limited to 500 contacts, while Email Marketing starts at $13.24 a month. Add more contacts, or choose a plan with added features – and the price goes up.

What is GetResponse used for?

For the dependable delivery of high-volume email blasts, whether they’re newsletters, e-commerce transactional emails, or others. Additional features include landing pages that can act as sales funnels, a basic e-commerce platform, and various extras such as customizable surveys and forms.

Can you build a website with GetResponse?

Absolutely. GetResponse has its own website creator – it doesn’t just do landing pages. That said, you shouldn’t expect too much from it as it lacks advanced features. Sure, it’s cool to have everything in one place (website, email marketing tools, CRM), but if you need to build a robust website, dedicated builders like Wix will serve you better.

Which is better: AWeber or GetResponse?

They’re both fantastic services, no doubt about it, and you can’t go wrong with either – that’s why they’re on our list of the top email marketing services for 2024. I will say that GetResponse’s pricing plans are cheaper, and shines a bit brighter in everything features-related, especially with regards to ecommerce. But AWeber is no chump: its analytics board is vastly superior to any other on the market, including GetResponse’s.