GetResponse is one such tool that comes with advanced eCommerce and Marketing features. It has morphed itself into an all-in-one Email marketing tool over time.

But as it’s said, a jack of all trades is a master of none. 

And now you’re looking for GetResponse alternatives. Anything could have brought you here. From the buggy email editor to those non-responsive data capture forms, or the broken promise of an interactive drag-and-drop UI. 

So if you are looking for specific functionalities that work the best for your business, several GetResponse alternatives are available.

These alternatives can provide great lead capture and scoring, a high email deliverability rate, an interactive interface, and better integration with other services.

We can’t compromise our Email Marketing excellence when we have an opportunity to nail it with other tools. 

Let’s get the ball rolling!

Our Top 7 Alternatives to GetResponse

In this section, we’ve picked the top 3 email marketing alternatives to GetResponse and discussed several aspects like features, deliverability, automation builders, and also pricing.

If you stay till the end of this post, hopefully, you’ll be able to make the right decision.

#1. ConvertKit

ConvertKit(review) is a simple yet highly powerful email marketing and marketing automation software keeping bloggers, course, and other creators in mind. Many top affiliates and creators like Pat Flynn, Ramit Sethi make use of ConvertKit to grow their online business.

ConvertKit account consists of three ways to segment the audience

• Forms
• Segments
• Tags

You don’t need to create and manage lists.

I particularly found the tags functionality provided by ConvertKit very helpful. It helps you hyper-target your audience when it comes to marketing automation.

It also comes with a landing page builder, that’s fairly flexible. It has all the essential customization options, but we can’t expect it to be as powerful as other WordPress WYSIWYG page builders.

You also have the option to create various opt-in forms like popups, slide-ins, and also inline. But, I would still use a good plugin like Thrive Leads or any other lead generation plugins similar to Optinmonster.

Even without using any of the WordPress plugins, there are enough customization and trigger options for you to play with.

It comes with the ability for you to conduct A/B split testing between the email subject lines.

If you are looking to migrate from your existing email marketing software to ConvertKit, they offer free concierge migration options.

And unlike ActiveCampaign they allow affiliate marketing although they’ve strict policies.

They have plans based on the number of subscribers you have. All the plans come with all the features they have got to offer.

However, free concierge migration is available if you have a 7,500+ bigger list.

Pros

• Super-easy to learn – built with simplicity in mind
• Very refined and fluid UI and UX
• It comes with a dedicated WordPress plugin that allows you to integrate ConvertKit with your WordPress site without touching a line of code
• Support of tagging and segmentation for powerful personalization
• Good deliverability than GetResponse
• Powerful integrations

Cons

• You can A/B test only the email subject lines not the entire emails
• It does not come with fancy email templates (it has its own upside as well – more deliverability)
• Comes at a premium price

#2. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is an email marketing platform built keeping CRM and sales in mind. If you’re into agency business or lead generation, ActiveCampaign is a no-brainer for you.

In ActiveCampaign, the subscribers are called as “contacts”.

You can segment your contacts as,

• Segments
• Tags

Similar to ConvertKit, the tags are one of the most powerful features offered by ActiveCampaign.

With ActiveCampaign you can build a deal pipeline which helps you easily visualize the sales process rather than a complex process. You can build multiple pipelines to your various audience segments.

When it comes to automation builder, it has a very powerful automation builder – even better than Drip and ConvertKit. The split testing is available even in the automation emails.

Another powerful feature that ActiveCampaign announced lately is its goals. You can add goals inside the automation sequences and the reports section lets you analyze how much time a subscriber took to achieve a goal.

These goals can be people taking a certain action on your site, signing up for a trial, attending a webinar, etc.

However, the major downside with ActiveCampaign is that according to their terms and conditions affiliate marketing is not allowed in their platform.

ActiveCampaign comes with three different plans. The Lite plan comes with all the essential features with basic automation builder.

However, the Plus plan which is the most popular comes with features like CRM, Lead Scoring, Deep Data Integrations, and others.

Whereas, the professional plans come with site messaging, and machine learning features like predictive sending and win probability.

When you choose any of these plans, the pricing depends upon the number of contacts you have.

Pros

• Extremely powerful automator
• Site tracking – that allows you to track the behaviors of contacts on your site
• Flexible plans if you don’t want some features (like say lead scoring)
• Powerful integrations
• Good deliverability

Cons

• Messy interface and email builder is quite slow with less-refined UI and UX
• Does not allow affiliate marketing
• No landing page creator
• Comes at a premium price

#3. Drip

Drip(review) is an email marketing software specially geared towards eCommerce owners. It helps you understand the whole story of user interactions on your store, and helps you tailor your emails to them.

This platform was recently acquired by the guys behind Leadpages.

Similar to that of ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign, it also comes with a tag-based system.

It comes with Visual Builder and HTML Builder.

Drip does not come with a landing page builder like that of ConvertKit. It comes with a form builder that’s lacking some design customization options. However, if you are using any 3rd party plugins for lead generation, that won’t be an issue.

When it comes to A/B testing, you have the ability to test the subject lines, from the name and also the delivery timings.

However, similar to ConvertKit, you can’t split test the content of the emails.

Drip also integrates with popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and others and enable you to create automation rules containing cross-platform triggers and actions.

You can trigger the automation emails when a new checkout is created or the customer added to the cart and didn’t make a purchase.

Added to this, they have got a dozen of automation workflow templates that you can customize and use.

Their automation builder is very fluid and powerful and doesn’t feel like barebones. The automation builder of Drip is as powerful as ActiveCampaign.

Drip has plans for you based on the number of subscribers you have similar to ConvertKit. All their plans come with all the features they’ve got to offer.

Pros

• Site tracking
• Advanced automation
• Native integration with FB lead ads (in others you need Zapier)
• eCommerce CRM
• Integrations with WooCommerce, Shopify, ThriveCart, etc.

Cons

• Cost is high
• It has a steeper learning curve
• No email composer inside the automation builder

#4. Moosend

Moosend is an email marketing tool that lets you customize your templates easily. The interface is user-friendly and that makes it a good GetResponse alternative. Not clunky and so interactive in comparison.

You can create welcome emails, cart abandonment, and many more using a visual workflow builder without any glitches.

Managing contact lists is pretty straightforward. In short, it offers powerful email marketing solutions for small businesses without costing you an arm and a leg.

And I have to mention their advanced automation that helps you send highly relevant and personalized emails.

Check out this Moosend vs.GetResponse review to get all the goodies.

Pros

• With its drag and drop builder, you can create and send emails within minutes.
• Moosend lets you view real-time analytics of each campaign including open rate, bounce rate, and location tracking.
• It has pre-built workflows called ‘recipes’ with specific triggers to make your automation simpler.
• Phone support available.
• Free forever plan.

Cons

• Sign-up forms are basic and could use more customization features.
• You may not get all the features you need to run an eCommerce store when using the base plan. For instance, you miss out on the custom reports on email campaign performance which come in handy when making your marketing decisions.
• They also lack landing pages meaning you’ve got to use another marketing tool for this.
• They have limited native integrations making them unsuitable for larger companies.

Pricing

Moosend has a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers. It has 2 other plans: Pro and Enterprise. They come with monthly and yearly pricing.

Monthly pricing starts at $8/mo but this plan lacks a custom reporting feature.

#5. MailerLite

MailerLite is an affordable email marketing solution with great workflows.

From building a simple welcome email to more elaborate and complex workflows, the stage is yours. You can build landing pages, sign-up forms, and even mini websites.

I love that you can host websites with MailerLite as well and the landing page editor lets you optimize the SEO settings too.

It is a great GetResponse alternative because of its clean interface. The interface and drag-and-drop editor is super user friendly and very simple to use.

And above all, its automation tools are a great value-for-money. It’s even cheaper than Mailchimp so that counts for something.

Pros

• MailerLite has 60+ modern and responsive email template designs.
• You can A/B test emails, send them according to the subscriber’s time zone, and embed YouTube URLs. The videos appear in the form of an animated gif which is super cool.
• Dozens of integrations like with Shopify, Bigcommerce, Facebook, Google, WordPress, Wix, Zapier, and many more.
• The subscriber management is solid. You can segment them in a variety of ways. It also has an option ‘Clean up inactive’ that removes inactive subscribers of more than 6 months.
• Free forever plan.

Cons

• Basic reporting.
• You can’t use their automation for elaborate full-blown complex workflows.
• Newsletter templates not available in their free plan.

Pricing

MailerLite’s pricing plans depend on the number of subscribers. However, it is free for 1,000 subscribers at 12,000 emails per month. If you want unlimited emails you need to pay $10/mo.

#6. SendPulse

SendPulse is an email marketing solution that lets you communicate over multiple channels with your customers. It helps you harness the power of different marketing platform conversion rates.

They have a wide range of sleek email templates and an easy to use drag-and-drop email editor.

In fact, even a newbie can use their clean dashboard with ease. It’s a great GetResponse alternative thanks to their A1 autoresponder capabilities and lead capture.

You can easily create popup forms, embedded, or floating to capture your leads.

Plus if you need instant connection with chatbots and web push notifications, SendPulse is the place to be.

Pros

• SendPulse lets you engage and nurture all your leads through robust email campaigns. It combines email tools, SMS, web push, and chatbot under one dashboard to make one powerful multi-channel automation platform.
• They empower you to increase conversions by using the ‘Resend to UnOpened’ feature.
• Awesome lead capture and tracking features.
• Details analytical reports including open rate, bounce rate, unsubscribers, geographic stats, and more.
• Integrations with 40+ apps including all the major eCommerce stores like Shopify, Woocommerce, OptinMonster, PrestaShop, etc.
• 24/7 live chat and phone support available.

Cons

• They can delay your email campaigns by taking ages in the approval process. It’s great that they vet your emails but the additional step should be flawless.
• Outdated UI. The interface can be frustrating to work with as you have to do some things manually. For instance, every time you send a campaign you have to set the metrics to be tracked.

Pricing

SendPulse is free for up to 500 subscribers. The pricing increases as the number of contacts increase. It also offers a 20% discount on yearly billings.

I would say it has competitive features as compared to other affordable email service providers.

4. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a popular email marketing platform built for small-to-medium businesses. It offers some perks in their affordable pricing structures and this makes it a great GetResponse alternative.

You’ll also get SMS campaigns and transactional emails very similar to GetResponse in this regard.

I love that it allows you to create multiple audience lists increasing your engagement. But what makes it better is the ability to create and track Facebook Ads performance.

They don’t have hundreds of email/form templates but that’s not a deal-breaker as you can use code. I hope they can improve on their templates. The interface, email editor, and drag-and-drop workflow builder are fast and simple to use.

Pros

• Sendinblue is equipped with a simple drag and drop editor to create beautiful and responsive emails.
• You get basic reporting features in its free plan as well. But advanced features like heat maps, geography, and device stats are only available in Lite and Premium packages.
• Sendinblue lets you automate transactional emails over many customer actions (purchase, subscription, sign-up, cart abandonment, etc).
• Ease of use.

Cons

• CRM is just bare-bones.
• Limited design functionality.

Pricing

Sendinblue has a free forever plan for up to 300 emails per day. The pricing increases as your business scales up and needs more emails per day.

But even then, its pricing doesn’t shoot up like other competitors. No wonder, they have the tagline, ‘Pricing for everyone’.

Why do you need to search for GetResponse alternatives?

Clunky drag and drop builder

GetResponse drag and drop editor used to crash at times. Though they improved quite a bit in their regular updates, the email editor is still clunky and buggy. You don’t want to spend time finding options like a hungry cat for food.

Buggy interface

GetResponse promises an interactive and intuitive interface. I have to say they are just blowing their own trumpet. The interface is not so interactive nor is it user-friendly. If you’re not patient, you’ll be cursing while working on it all day long.

No phone support

GetResponse has a huge range of features and not every person is tech-savvy. Many times you need phone support to contact a customer representative to talk through any complications you face. You can’t communicate everything through chat. And so if phone support is important to you, you need to look at its alternatives.

Glitch in integration

Though GetResponse has a wide range of third-party services, most of the time you need Zapier to connect to them which is not smooth at all times. Moreover, most of the times you have to pay for the additional integration costs.

What to look for in GetResponse alternatives?

Affordability

The loaded question is: can you sustain it in the long-term? While all the features of an email marketing tool may be mouth-watering, you need to make a strategic decision while choosing your platform. It is not a one-night game. You’d be using it for the years to come to build relationships with your customers. Shifting to an entirely new tool causes disturbance both for you and your business and so you need to make an informed decision from the start.

User-friendliness

Well, you don’t want to move from the frying pan into the fire. Nope! You are looking for an interactive and highly-responsive interface and email editor. Keep this in mind while searching.

Newsletter templates

You need to make great-looking campaigns to attract your prospects. And so you need to have a variety of customizable templates. Dull and repetitive designs can bore your customers, and you don’t want that.

Automation

Email automation is the key to growing your business. Automated emails are hyper-personalized, timely, and relevant to your target audience. Therefore, their open and click rates are high driving more revenue to your business. You can’t afford to ignore automation capabilities.

SMS marketing

SMS marketing helps get your message across the community. People keep their mobile phones in their hands most of the time. That means, investing in software with SMS marketing automation can increase your customer engagement.

Deliverability tests of top email marketing software

The below test is performed with the same variables, using the same tool, and with a mixture of plain text emails, and emails with hyperlinks.

Know more about the deliverability experiment here.

In the above test, ConvertKit didn’t participate as they offer SPF/DKIM certificates only for higher plans.

As you can see the GetResponse has really bad spam rates.

Although Drip has great deliverability, it’s most suited for eCommerce and priced really high to consider it a GetResponse alternative. On the other hand, Aweber lacks a lot of features.

Akshay recommends:
1. MailChimp vs Drip: An In-Depth Email Marketing Showdown
2. Moosend vs ConvertKit: 12 Aspects Compared In-Detail
3. MailChimp vs ConvertKit: 12 Aspects Compared
4. Ontraport vs ActiveCampaign: 13 Aspects Compared In Detail

Conclusion

These are the best GetResponse alternatives in the market today. Most of them have free trials, give them a shot to see what best suits your business.

But:

• If you’re running an eCommerce store and you need all your leads and data under one roof, go for SendPulse. Otherwise, Drip is the go-to platform for all your eComm needs.
• If you’re a blogger or a creative person who wants simplicity, 5-star automation, and value for your money, go for ConvertKit. However, for creators who are on a tight budget Mailerlite will do.
• If you have a small business or a marketer and automation is the key, go for ActiveCampaign. And if the funds are tight, go for Moosend.

What’s your choice?