AWeber and GetResponse are two of the most well known and established email marketing solutions available. While they have many similarities, there are also some significant differences between the two tools. Depending on your preferences and business goals, one will serve your needs better than the other.
What do AWeber and GetResponse help you accomplish?
AWeber and GetResponse are marketing solutions that allow you to connect with your audience using various features.
Both are similar in that they provide the ability to:
- Import and host a mailing list
- Capture subscriber information
- Create newsletters
- Create individual emails
- Create email sign up forms
- Create landing pages
- Automate messages to subscribers
- Report and analyze results
In this comparison you will also find detailed information about:
- General overview
- Pricing plans
- Import and migration services
- Email message editors
- Types of email messages
- Email templates
- Split testing options
- AMP for email
- AWeber Smart Designer
- Integrations
- Customer support
- Team member access
- Summary
AWeber overview
AWeber is a powerfully-simple marketing solution that makes it easy and fun to connect your small business or passion project with the world. Unlike overwhelming and complex marketing 'platforms' that are daunting and contain features that you will probably never use (or need weeks of training to figure them out), AWeber is simple, intuitive, and always designed with small businesses in mind.
From one powerfully-simple web-based solution, you can manage your lists of people, send them amazing-looking emails, create stunning landing pages, and analyze your email marketing efforts' performance. Backed by the best 24/7 available Customer Solutions team in the business, AWeber is your one-stop-shop partner in making sure your small business or passion project gets off the ground and grows quickly. Founded in 1998, AWeber has over 20 years of proven success in helping businesses connect with their audiences.
GetResponse Overview
GetResponse was also founded in 1998 and has over 20 years of experience helping small businesses grow with online marketing. GetResponse offers a suite of marketing solutions for small and large companies, including an all-in-one marketing platform that helps entrepreneurs build targeted subscriber lists, send newsletters, emails, follow-up campaigns, and create social media ads.
They offer marketing automation, an email builder, landing page creator, webinar features, ecommerce tools, and reporting options. They market themselves as the world's easiest email marketing platform. GetResponse is available in 27 different languages.
While they may seem similar, they both have very different approaches. Are you ready to do a deep dive comparison of GetResponse and AWeber? Awesome, let's get started!
Who is better: AWeber or GetResponse?
Each solution aims for a simple sign up process and dashboard navigation. To create an account, both providers collect your basic sign-up information without a credit card requirement. AWeber has the sign up form right on the homepage. GetResponse requires a few clicks to get to the form to enter your contact information.
AWeber Home Page
GetResponse Home Page
AWeber is all about providing a powerfully-simple email marketing and landing page solution, so our dashboard is simpler to navigate. There is a smaller learning curve to get started with AWeber than GetResponse. While everything is very straightforward with AWeber, it comes packed with customization options.
AWeber Dashboard
Since GetResponse is an all-in-one marketing solution, the dashboard is more complicated to navigate. GetResponse may have more features depending on your subscription level, but more features come with an additional price. So you need to consider if you are going to use all the features included.
GetResponse Dashboard
Pricing Plans
For many small businesses choosing a marketing solution, the decision comes down to AWeber vs GetResponse pricing. AWeber offers Free and Pro plans. GetResponse offers a 30-day free trial but no free plan. Both AWeber and GetResponse offer discounts if you pay quarterly or annually.
AWeber Free allows you to use most of AWeber’s features while you are building your audience up to 500 subscribers. You are given access to the bulk of AWeber's powerfully-simple functionality entirely free. AWeber does not want you to break the bank while launching a passion project or starting a new business.
Compare AWeber Pro to GetResponse Paid Options
AWeber Pro
AWeber prides itself on keeping its offering across the board powerfully-simple, including the pricing for it's paid Pro tier. All features are included in the Pro plan no matter your subscriber count. You get all AWeber Pro features from day one, so you do not pay more for individual features like you need to do with GetResponse. The cost is based entirely on the number of subscribers in your account.
If you have less than 500 subscribers, AWeber offers a free plan that will cost you absolutely nothing to get started. The plan is very rich in features, and you can upgrade at any time if you have over 500 subscribers or want to use an advanced feature.
GetResponse Paid Plans
GetResponse offers 4 different paid plans, but the offering is a bit confusing. Each plan provides a different set of features. If you want a feature not included in a plan, you need to upgrade to one of their higher-priced plans.
The GetResponse pricing page lays out the costs of the different plans and the features offered with each. However, if you have more contacts than the number of contacts listed as available for that specific tier, your price will increase. So make sure you use GetResponse's calculator to determine your actual cost.
For comparison, if you have 2,500 subscribers, AWeber's cost is $29 a month for full functionality. By contrast, 2,500 subscribers in the GetResponse Basic package is $25 a month, but with extremely limited functionality. GetResponse Plus is $59 a month, Professional is $119 a month, and GetResponse Max does not have an option if you have less than 100,000 users.
It is important to note that many of GetResponse’s key features are only available at higher premium level plans:
- Unlimited account users
- Phone support
- Email automations
- Advanced segmentation
Importing your email lists
If you already have subscribers, you need to import your subscribers and other marketing assets into your new provider. This is one part of the process that differs significantly between the two providers.
AWeber Import and Migration Options
AWeber offers flexible options to import your contacts: you can either do it yourself, or AWeber will migrate your contacts over for you.
If you are doing it yourself, simply import lists using excel sheets, CSV files, or copy and paste the contact information into the import subscribers sections. During the import process, you will be asked to map the information submitted to their list fields.
AWeber also offers free migration service for your marketing assets for both AWeber Pro and AWeber Free. AWeber will do all the heavy lifting for you at no cost, whether that includes:
- List creation
- Tag application
- Subscribers
- Multiple email templates (up to 3)
- Sign up forms & Landing pages
- Your campaigns and automations
GetResponse Import and Migration Options
GetResponse allows you to import contacts using excel sheets or CSV files. Similarly, GetResponse requires you to map the information submitted with their list fields.
Unlike AWeber, GetResponse does not offer any concierge migration services to move over your other marketing assets for paid or free accounts.
Email Sign Up Forms
To build your audience quickly, you need to have an engaging sign up form. It is an essential component of any small business's marketing strategy.
AWeber Email Sign Up Forms
AWeber sign up forms are fully customizable. You can add custom fields and tags, create your own design, or use a pre-made template. Create awesome-looking, mobile-responsive sign up forms in just seconds. AWeber signup forms are automatically available on any WordPress.org site with AWeber’s WordPress plugin.
The sign up forms can be embedded into your website, shared via social media, and AWeber will even host the form for you.
GetResponse Email Sign Up Forms
GetResponse offers similar features to create sign up forms. Similar to AWeber, you can embed sign up forms on your blog or website, shared via social media, and GetResponse will also host the form for you.
Email Message Editors
Email newsletters and individual email autoresponders are an essential element of your email marketing strategy. Regularly emailing your audience helps you stay top-of-mind and helps build remarkable connections with your audience. The big question when choosing a marketing solution is: how do you edit your newsletters?
AWeber Email Marketing Tools for Editing and Formatting
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so AWeber includes everything you need to create amazing-looking emails in the AWeber Free and Pro plans.
You will get unrestricted access to a huge library of professionally designed templates and stock images at no extra charge, full access to our drag and drop editor, AWeber's AI-powered Smart Designer that creates amazing-looking branded emails in just seconds, or use AWeber's HTML Editor to create your own custom HTML templates.
GetResponse Email Marketing Tools for Editing and Formatting
GetResponse also has a drag and drop email editor, but you get significantly fewer email templates to choose from in GetResponse. Similar to AWeber, GetResponse also lets you create your own HTML templates.
Types of Email Messages
Both AWeber and GetResponse allow you to send newsletters, single autoresponders, and RSS to email. Autoresponders are a series of emails about a specific topic, sent at specific time intervals that the sender defines. RSS to email is an auto newsletter that sends an email with a link to your latest blog post to your audience.
If you send a series of autoresponders in timed-intervals, or if you want to automate the process of sending a series of emails at timed intervals, that is where the two plans differ dramatically.
Marketing automation is similar to autoresponders in that they are automatically triggered. But there are various ways to set up automations — behaviors, tag triggers, purchases, or even abandoned carts. Assigning triggers and flows to your emails ensures you deliver the right message to the right person - at the right time.
AWeber allows you to create a series of "time-based" and "trigger-automated" emails on both the AWeber Free and AWeber Pro plans. AWeber also grants both AWeber Free and AWeber Pro users unlimited access to a campaign marketplace that contains pre-built automation for specific needs.
GetResponse limits automations based on your plan. For example, in the GetResponse Basic plan, you do not have access to the automation builder. There are no custom workflows for GetResponse Basic and only 5 custom workflows for GetResponse Plus. If you want unlimited custom workflows, you must be on one of GetResponse's two most expensive plans, either GetResponse Professional or GetResponse Max, which are significantly more costly than AWeber. Make sure you read the fine print to understand what is included in the different GetResponse plans.
GetResponse has recently launched a new feature called Conversions Funnel. Within the Conversion Funnel feature, you can build three types of funnels: sales, list building, and webinars. Each funnel takes you through the necessary steps to automate the funnel process.
The GetResponse Conversion Funnel can be a handy feature, but it does come with restrictions based on your subscription level. To have unlimited access to all of the funnels, you need to be on the two most expensive plans, Professional or Max. GetResponse Basic users do not have access to the webinar funnel, and only get access to one sales funnel. GetResponse Plus users are limited to five webinar funnels and five sales funnels.
All of the funnel steps can be accomplished in both AWeber and GetResponse without using the Conversion Funnel feature.
Email Templates
AWeber and GetResponse provide a library of email templates. Both are mobile-friendly and responsive to automatically resize for optimal experience on a mobile device. They also have a 'mobile preview' mode to see how your email will look on a mobile device. Each also provides a variety of email templates to suit different business objectives and industries.
AWeber offers a more extensive library with over 700 email templates. GetResponse's library is more modest with just over 200 email templates. Each has a design suite that allows you to customize the layouts.
Split Testing
Another essential email marketing tool to set you up for success is split testing (also known as A/B testing or multivariate testing).
Split testing your emails gives you the chance to see what kind of content your audience prefers. Insights gleaned from split testing can help you significantly improve your open and click-through rates. Refining your emails based on the data you have can lead to more engaged readers, better click-through rates, and more sales.
For example, you could send out an email with two different subject lines to 25% of your subscribers, analyze the results (open and click-through-rates), and send the email with the subject line that performed better to the rest of your list.
Split testing is another differentiating area between AWeber and GetResponse.
AWeber understands the importance of split testing, and they don't just limit split testing to subject lines. You can — and should — test many variables in your emails, including calls to action, headline text, personalization, button colors, imagery, content, and more. AWeber Pro allows you to conduct multivariate email split tests.
GetResponse only enables you to split test email subject lines.
AMP for Email
AWeber stands apart from GetResponse as a thought leader in new email technologies. AWeber is the first small business email service provider to support the new AMP for Email technology.
Historically, email was a static communication medium. Once an email was delivered to your inbox, it could not be changed or updated in any capacity. AMP for email changed that.
AWeber enables customers to send powerful email messages that engage subscribers through interactive and dynamic content. Interactive content allows you to send more engaging emails in which subscribers can take action directly in an email without having to visit an external website.
Interactive emails are messages that your subscribers can click on to change or alter the content within the email itself — even after the message is delivered to the inbox. The content can also update each time they open the email. Interactive emails act like a webpage.
You can include extra content in your emails without overwhelming subscribers, and your subscribers can interact with the email to get additional information if they need it.
Here, we can see an AMP-powered yes/no poll within an email. These results are displayed in real-time and reflect others' responses that have previously engaged with it, even after the email has been delivered into your inbox.
The AWeber Smart Designer
The AWeber Smart Designer allows content creators and small business owners to automate email template design and create your own branded email template in seconds.
AWeber's Smart Designer analyzes your website or social media account for logos, imagery, and colors. It then automatically builds a gallery of ready-to-use, custom email templates for your business.
Branded email templates establish brand consistency across your marketing assets, which means more subscribers will engage with your content and click-through to your landing page or site. You will also get instant brand recognition and achieve brand consistency across your marketing assets with free, auto-created custom email templates built exclusively for your business.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are a feature available in all plans for both AWeber and GetResponse. Each offers a selection of professionally designed landing page templates, integrated sign up forms, and can easily be created in the landing page editors.
It is easy to incorporate a landing page — also referred to as a lead page or squeeze page — into your marketing strategy. It will help you not only attract new visitors but collect their information so you can start to build a relationship with your new subscriber and connect with them through email.
Whether you're looking to drive sales, sign ups, or downloads, a landing page is an awesome way to create a highly targeted message that communicates the value you offer your subscribers. Landing pages tend to capture contact information more effectively than forms placed on websites since there are fewer distractions. According to a report by truelist.com, a landing page tailored to your customer's needs can increase conversion by 300%.
AWeber Landing Pages
AWeber's landing page builder is a bit easier to use and has a more user-friendly interface than GetResponse’s landing page builder. AWeber also includes a Smart Content element that lets you embed interactive content into your landing pages and supports over 700 apps transforming your landing page into a dynamic and interactive experience.
AWeber Smart Content instantly turns hyperlinks into embedded rich media — polls, slideshows, music, live video, forms, gifs, infographics, RSS feeds, audio playlists, products, maps, and more.
Landing pages are included on all plan levels for both AWeber and GetResponse. GetResponse offers a landing page A/B testing feature that helps to identify the best performing option.
GetResponse Landing Page Example
Integrations
AWeber and GetResponse both integrate with many of the most popular business, e-commerce, and social platforms. Both have comprehensive lists of applications that they support.
AWeber has the upper hand with some website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, Blogger, and Weebly. GetResponse does not offer any integration with these providers.
Integrations are a critical component to growing your business, so you will want to double-check that your email provider supports the business solutions you use. Both AWeber and GetResponse have tools on their public site that let you search for the integrations they include to confirm that the integrations you use are supported.
AWeber Integrations Page
GetResponse Integrations Page
Reporting
Analyzing and measuring your campaigns' success and your marketing efforts is as important as sending out engaging content to your audience.
Both AWeber and GetResponse provide you with detailed reporting and quick stats on the performance of your emails. The reporting capabilities are similar, and both do an excellent job of providing dashboards and reports that are easy to read. The reports highlight the essential data and provide meaningful insight so you can take the needed steps to grow your business.
AWeber Report Example
GetResponse Report Example
Customer Support
The reality is that passionate entrepreneurs and creators don't always thrive on a 9-to-5 schedule. If your business is a side hustle, you don't have the luxury of working traditional hours. Questions with any marketing solution will come up no matter what your skill level.
AWeber is committed to helping you succeed around the clock. AWeber's phone support is available 8 am - 8 am ET, Monday to Friday. AWeber's live chat and email support are available 24/7 for both Pro and Free users.
GetResponse used to offer phone support but now only offers phone support on their most expensive premium plan. But premium translates to a premium cost. To get access to phone support with GetResponse Max, you need to have at least 100,000 users and plan on spending at least $1,199+ a month. GetResponse does offer 24/7 chat and email support on all of their subscription plans.
AWeber is the clear winner when it comes to customer support since it does not limit support based on your subscription level.
Team Member Access
Do you have multiple team members that need to access your account?
AWeber includes unlimited team member access with each account. Team members have their own account credentials and permission options on all AWeber plans.
GetResponse restricts team member access, depending on your subscription plan. There is no team member access for GetResponse Basic, a 3 team members limit for GetResponse Plus, a 5 team members limit for GetResponse Professional, and a 10 team member limit for GetResponse Max.
Summary
AWeber and GetResponse are both reliable, well-established marketing solutions that have been in business for over 2 decades. Which one is right for you? It depends on the features that matter to you and fit your budget.
Are you looking for a powerfully-simple marketing solution that makes it easy and fun to connect your small business or passion project with the world? In that case, AWeber is the better alternative.
AWeber is simple, intuitive, and always designed with small businesses in mind. From one powerfully-simple web-based solution, you can manage your lists of people, send them amazing-looking emails, create stunning landing pages, and analyze your email marketing efforts' performance. Backed by the best 24/7 available Customer Solutions team in the business, AWeber is your one-stop-shop partner in making sure your small business or passion project gets off the ground and grows quickly.
Some businesses may have the budget and the need for an all-in-one marketing platform that includes webinar tools, social media ads, and ecommerce tools. If that is your business, then you may want to consider GetResponse. Just make sure you read the fine print since you may be paying for features you don't use.
AWeber is the best free email marketing software
Our mission is simple: to deliver powerfully-simple email marketing tools to help small business owners and entrepreneurs — like you — grow your business.
AWeber Free is our completely free email marketing and landing pages plan — perfect for those who are just getting started or kicking off a passion project. We'll give you everything you need to start building your audience today.
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