AWeber vs GetResponse [2020] – The Definitive Guide
So you are wondering which email tool is better for your business?
There are so many different options, pricing, ease of usage, and features that make picking one overwhelming.
This comparison post digs into the differences between Aweber and GetResponse so you can make an informed decision for your business.
One can make you thousands. One can scale your business. One is an ‘all-in-one’ package.
But which one?
Let’s find out.
What do AWeber and GetResponse do?
AWeber and GetResponse are email tools for:
- hosting your mailing list
- creating attractive email templates
- sending e-newsletters out to subscribers
- automating communications to subscribers via ‘autoresponders’
What is an Autoresponder?
An autoresponder allows you to “set and forget” your marketing campaigns.
Traffic lands on your site, they sign up for your email list, and they are automatically dumped into your autoresponder.
You can use sign-up form integrations for almost any platform.
Autoresponders are a follow-up email series that allows you to develop connections and engagement with your following automatically. Meaning, you don’t have to manually send hundreds or thousands of emails to your list.
Autoresponder emails come in many forms, such as:
- Welcome emails
- Coupon emails
- Abandoned cart emails
- Video content emails
- How-to emails
The list goes on and on, but you get the point. The main concept is that you need to be adding value to your audience and not just pitching them.
The more value that you create for them, the more often they will engage. Not only will they engage more, but they will be more likely to pull out their wallet in the long term.
Taking a lot of boring email work off your plate sounds pretty awesome, right?
But how much will this cost you?
[Click Here to Get Proven Sales Email Templates That Convert]
GetResponse Pricing vs AWeber Pricing
GetResponse Pricing
There are four GetResponse plans:
Basic Plan – Up To 1,000 Subscribers$15 / MonthPlus Plan – Up To 1,000 Subscribers$49 / MonthProfessional Plan – Up To 1,000 Subscribers$99 / MonthEnterprise Plan – Over 100,000 Subscribers$1,199 / Month
Confused yet? Lol.
GetResponse’s plans are based on the features that you want.
If you have a list larger than 100,000 email subscribers, you qualify for GetResponse’s Enterprise Plan. These plans START at $1,199. The price is dependent on your needs and email list size. To find out how much this plan will cost you, you’ll have to call GetResponse and negotiate your pricing plan.
If you are marketing for a non-profit organization, GetResponse will provide you with a discounted price. To find out what your discounted rate would be, you’ll have to contact GetResponse directly.
Not all email autoresponse companies give discounts, so this would be a great company to work with on this.
AWeber Pricing
AWeber pricing plans are determined by the size of your list. Each plan comes with a full suite of features. There are 5 plans in total, as follows:
Up To 500 Subscribers$19 / Month501 – 2,500 Subscribers$29 / Month2,501 – 5,000 Subscribers$49 / Month5,001 – 10,000 Subscribers$69 / Month10,001 – 25,000 Subscribers$149 / Month
If your list is larger than 25,000, you’ll have to contact AWeber directly to negotiate the pricing plan for your company.
If you work in a non-profit, AWeber have generous pricing plans. Non-profits get 3 months free and 25% off your monthly price after that. If you are a student, you get 20% off of AWeber’s monthly prices.
GetResponse vs AWeber Pricing
When it comes to comparing AWeber and GetResponse features, they are very similar for the basic plans.
In the ‘Starter,’ or smaller plans, GetResponse is the more cost-effective solution.
If your email list is 500-1,000 subscribers, you are looking at $14 / month.
No matter what your list size is, GetResponse pricing will be cheaper than AWeber by $4 / month.
List SizeGetResponseAWeber0 – 500$15$19501 – 2,500$25$292,501 – 5,000$45$495,001 – 10,000$65$6910,001 – 25,000$145$149
GetResponse Discounts
GetReponse’s pricing plan discounts are pretty hefty if you pay upfront for their services.
Paying for 1 year upfront gets you an 18% discount. Paying 2 years upfront gets you a 30% discount. If you are a non-profit, you can save 30% – 50% on GetResponse’s pricing plans. The amount saved is dependent on you adding the GetResponse logo to your site to promote them as a partner.
1 Year Upfront Payment18% Discount2 Year Upfront Payment30% DiscountNon-Profits30% – 50% Discount
AWeber Discounts
AWeber’s pricing plan provides you with discounts if you make a quarterly or 1 year upfront payment. If you pay quarterly, you can save 14%. If you pay annually, you can save 15%.
When it comes to pricing, GetResponse wins. As a small business owner, you can save up to 30% with GetResponse compared to a 15% discount from AWeber.
But you shouldn’t look at ONLY the price.
Let’s take a look at features.
AWeber vs GetResponse Features
Similar Feature On Both Platforms
GetResponse and AWeber offer similar core features, the key ones being:
FeaturesGetResponseAWeberMailing Lists
Pre-Designed TemplatesAutoresponderEmail StatsSending Blogs to SubscribersEmail BuildersCRM, App, and Website Integrations
GetResponse Features
So, now that price is out of the way, what really should affect your decisions are the features that you business needs to operate more efficiently.
Remember…
These tools can help make your life easier, which can allow you to scale your business.
Let’s see what each platform has to offer.
GetResponse Features
GetResponse Auto Funnels
With GetResponse’s AutoFunnels, you can generate high-quality traffic from Facebook and Instagram with the Facebook Ads creator, capture their email address on your landing page, nurture with automated emails – and prepare them to buy.
GetResponse Webinars
Are you interested in monetizing your knowledge? Webinars are live streamed videos connecting you with an audience and share your knowledge.
With GetReponse’s Webinar features, not only is setting up your webinars super simple, but you can build it within the GetResponse ecosystem.
That means you can drive funnels to your webinar, send emails and reminders, record and replay your webinars, collect data and polls about your audience’s engagement, and make it easy for your audience to connect with you.
[Click Here to Get Subject Lines That Drastically Increase Open Rates]
GetResponse CRM
Tired of needing 13 different softwares just to operate your business?
Do you miss leads, appointments, follow ups, and notes?
The GetResponse CRM allows you to track every lead and every action from one place, so no deal falls through the cracks.
You can define a lead owner, closing date, and deal value. Easily sort and monitor your deals to spot the quickest wins at a glance. Then drag-and-drop them forward in the pipeline.
GetResponse Landing Page Builder
Need to convert traffic?
GetResponse’s Landing Page Builder is designed to convert.
That means more money in your pocket.
You can do anything from email capturing, countdown timers, A/B testing, ads integrations, and payment integrations.
Not only that…
Your landing pages are mobile optimized. With roughly 60% of searches being on mobile, this is a game changer.
Responsive Email Templates
The email templates provided by both GetResponse and AWeber are now all responsive.
Responsive emails mean that the emails will adapt to the device they are viewed on.
When you are designing your email, GetResponse gives you a mobile preview in real time.
This may or may not matter to you. For me, I personally don’t find it that useful for our business. We ‘preview’ our emails while we build them and then, when we are done, we use the previewer to check how everything looks.
If you’re using the design templates, usually everything turns out just fine on mobile.
The only preview feature that GetResponse has that AWeber does not is that GetResponse allows you to preview portrait and landscape modes. AWeber only allows you to preview portrait mode for mobile.
For responsive email templates, neither platform really outshines the other.
Autoresponders
Autoresponders are commonly called drip campaigns.
You have a lead magnet on your website that captures emails.
Here’s an example of Backlinko’s.
This email is then routed to AWeber or GetResponse and is added to a marketing list.
Then the drip campaign starts. It can be set up in any way you would like, but an example is:
Email TypeSend DurationWelcome EmailImmediatelyAbandoned Cart EmailWithin 24 HoursCoupon Email2 DaysBenefits of Product Email4 DaysProduct Demo Video Email6 DaysTestimonial Email8 DaysBundle Offer Email10 Days
…and so on.
Now, you have set up this drip campaign and leads flow through it automatically. This allows you to scale your business as it runs its course automatically without your involvement.
But how to AWeber and GetResponse compare on this?
The AWeber Autoresponder system is really easy to use. It’s intuitive. Things are easy to find and set up. You can easily segment lists and build campaigns.
It’s just easy.
The GetResponse Autoresponder system is more versatile. Meaning, you can make it as complex as you’d like.
You want to send someone on a specific campaign when they sign up on a specific page? Done. You want to send special emails someone comes in through a Facebook Ad, they added a specific item to their cart, and they abandoned cart? You can do that too.
But, with complexity comes issues. You can make it as confusing or easy or lucrative as you’d like.
For me, simplicity allows me to stay out of the rabbit holes and allows me to easily figure out where I screwed up when things inevitably go wrong.
Which program you like better for this comparison is determined on your funnel building and marketing skill levels.
Marketing Automation
Getresponse recently introduced a new feature called ‘Marketing Automation’ which takes autoresponders to a much more sophisticated level.
Not only is it more sophisticated, but it’s very user friendly to set up and build.
They have implemented a drop and drag system, which allows you to visually see the sales funnel that the prospect will travel through.
This system is built of “Trigger.” These triggers are events that happen which then move the prospect to the next event in your funnel. The main ones include:
- Email opens
- Link clicks
- Product purchases
- Abandoned carts
- URLs visited
This means that you can build custom sales funnels for your prospect to go through. As easy as this is, don’t forget that it can create complexity in your business if not done properly.
Here’s GetResponse’s manual on how best use the marketing automation tool.
At the moment, GetResponse is significantly ahead in the area of workflow based automation.
AWeber offer something similar with their ‘Campaigns’ tool. This tool is not nearly as sophisticated as GetResponse’s. To use it, you have to tag the people on your list, which allows you to drop them into specific campaigns that you have set up.
If you want easy workflow automation, GetResponse is the route to go.
Email Integrations
Why should you care about email service integrations?
When you have an email service that doesn’t integrate with the other platforms that you use (think Amazon, PayPal, Salesforce, Facebook, and your CRM), you have to use a third party integration tool like Zapier.
While Zapier is actually a really great tool, things can get fishy behind the scenes. Setting up Zapier requires a lot of patience. Like any entrepreneur, you probably are running short in that bucket.
A good integration system allows you to seamlessly tie all of the software that your business uses together. This means you don’t have to keep up with lead information in your CRM, appointments in your Calendar, follow up in your email, advertising in your excel sheets…
You get the point.
Everything is in one spot.
So, which one is better?
AWeber has integrations set up with hundreds of other programs. GetResponse has integrations with ‘only’ about 150 other companies.
So, just by shear convenience, AWeber is the clear winner in the category.
Split Testing Emails
Split tests allow you to find out what content in your emails are the most effective in converting.
When you split test, you want to target what you are testing. You don’t want to compare two completely different emails to each other. This won’t allow you to figure out what’s actually working or not working in either email.
Instead, test one thing at a time. For example, start with have the same email, but testing the click thru rates of different email subject lines. Do this about 5 times and then move on to testing different opening paragraphs in your email.
And so on…
GetResponse allows you to test up to 5 variations of an email against each other. This may mean that you get to test 5 different subject lines for one mailing. This can allow you to speed up your time to test.
AWeber allows you to test up to 3 variations of an email against each other. While it’s not as many, it’s still really good. Remember, simplicity is a good thing.
Which one is better? It really depends on your preferences here.
Email Data Segmentation
So for some funky reason you want to send an email ONLY to the people on your list who own a Frenchie AND a hairless cat (my wife for some reason would love a hairless cat).
But…
Your lists are segmented into Dog Owners and Cat Owners. Then you have them tagged with the types of dogs and cats that they own.
With GetResponse, you can easily select the people who own Frenchies and a hairless cat. You simple select the relevant segments and hit send.
With AWeber, it’s not quite that easy to split up your lists. Yes, you do have segments. Meaning, your lists can be split up by Frenchies or Hairless Cats. But, you would have to create an entirely new segment for people who own both. So, it’s a very manual process.
Thinking ahead, which one would be more useful for your business? GetResponse may be a better choice in general for data segmentation even if you don’t use it right now. Just knowing that you can easily implement it later on will make life a lot easier.
The same rules apply to excluding segments from your mailing. Want to exclude everyone who owns a Frenchie and Hairless Cat from the mailing? Plan an afternoon of email management if you don’t have GetResponse.
Landing Page Creation
Your landing page is meant to do one thing.
Convert.
You spend hundreds or thousands of dollars driving traffic to this page. It better be providing you with an ROI or you’ll be out of business fast.
Now, landing pages may be selling something or collecting money. Either way, those conversions will eventually turn into income.
GetResponse provides you with a landing page creator out of the box. They provide you with pre-made templates that you can tailor to suite your business.
[Click Here for HubSpot’s Free Landing Page Builder]
GetResponse’s Landing Page Creator is a drag and drop editor for creating ‘squeeze pages.’ You can build an unlimited amount of landing pages.
Used in conjunction with GetResponse’s A/B Split Testing, you can easily see which landing pages are performing the best.
This means that you are maximizing profits in your business.
But with AWeber?
You have to use third party integrations to have landing pages work on AWeber. This doesn’t mean that AWeber is a terrible option. It just means you need to pay for a service like LandingPages
But, you can plug in
You can also make use of landing pages with Aweber, using a variety of third party integrations / apps or by manually coding your landing page and inserting an Aweber form. You can also split test individual Aweber sign-up forms, so that may provide some sort of a workaround too.
Ultimately however, using landing pages in AWeber is not as straightforward as GetResponse, and if you rely on third party software, it can potentially get expensive.
For example, using landing page creators LeadPages will set you back a minimum of $25 per month respectively). But, having a dedicated landing page software may be the best option. This means they are great at building landing pages and aren’t a jack of all trades.
Landing PagesMonthly PricesLeadPages$25 – $199Instapage$149Unbounce (20% Off Code)$99 – $199
GetResponse Webinars
GetResponse now offers GetResponse Webinars. If your business runs on webinars, you’ll love how nicely this features integrates with the other features of GetResponse, like the CRM, Emails, Landing Pages, etc. It’s a one stop shop for your business.
Thinking of trying out webinars?
Why spend hundreds of dollars just to test something out in your business?
GetResponse Webinars come as part of the Professional Plan.
How does this compare to the other email providers? I know we have been comparing AWeber and GetResponse, but literally no other email provider has rolled this out yet.
If you want to roll webinars into your email ecosystem, sign up for GetResponse today.
By purchasing a GetResponse plan, you gain the ability to run webinars directly from within your GetResponse account.
Since webinars are typically used as a lead generation tool, integrating them closely with your email marketing application is a very good idea.
Not does GetResponse ‘just’ have a webinar package…
They have a pretty beefy one too.
Key features include:
- a multiple presenters option
- chatroom
- whiteboards / presentation design tools
- screenshares
- webinar recording
Now, if you’re a monster webinar host with thousands of attendees, you need something beefier.
GetResponse has limits to their available seating on the webinar.
GetResponse PlanSeating CapacityPlus100Professional300Enterprise500
So, with AWeber, you’ll need to use a third party webinar system.
But, if you audience is larger than what your GetResponse plan allows, you’ll probably have to buy a webinar plan anyways.
So, this is where the AWeber integrations come into play.
If you are having to purchase a third party webinar package, you’ll want to make sure that the email provider you choose actually integrates with that webinar program.
Email Send Time Optimization
Ever wonder what the best time to send that email blast is for the highest ROI?
Stop worrying about it.
But most importantly…
Stop losing hundreds or thousands of dollars on emails NOT being opened.
GetResponse is an email data collection machine. It knows when the best time to send emails to get the highest click thru rates is.
Their feature called Perfect Timing allows you to let GetResponse’s algorithms to figure out what the best time is to send your emails.
GetResponse Perfect Timing boasts a 23% increase in open rates and a 20% increase in click-thru rates.
Award Winning Customer Support
I’ve used other email service providers for my businesses.
Think about the largest players (if you’re wondering who it is).
Their user interfaces was super difficult to use. Their support webpages were garbage at explaining anything.
Their phone / chat / customer support?
Non-existent.
It’s frankly some BS. We’re dropping $150 / month for an email service. You would think there would be ANY support there. But nope.
So you can imagine how awesome it was when we switched to GetResponse and AWeber to check them out.
First, we checked out their chat systems. They patiently answered all of our questions very thoroughly. That was a check.
We called them. Both had great phone service that was super helpful. Check. (We realized after writing this that GetResponse recently removed phone support.)
If you like phone support, go with AWeber. They both have stellar customer support. If you are a ‘dadgum millennial’ and prefer to stay off the phone, you can literally pick either one and have great success.
AWeber & GetResponse Free Trials
Afraid of committment?
Us to.
That’s why we love the free trials that AWeber and GetResponse have.
Get AWeber for one month free. You can have unlimited subscribers that you send emails to in AWeber.
In reality, you can start generating revenue from AWeber before you even pay for it.
Get GetResponse for one month free. With GetResponse, your free trial is limited to only 1,000 subscribers. For a business that’s just starting out, that may be perfect.
If you want a free trial of AWeber, you should note however that you’ll need to enter credit card details before you can avail of it.
The free trial of GetResponse, on the other hand, doesn’t require your card details in advance.
So, GetResponse vs AWeber?
If you want a more “all-inclusive’ package, GetResponse is the way to go.
If you want simpler, stick with AWeber.
But if you’re still undecided, let’s recap the features.
FeatureGetResponseAWeberEmail (duh)Landing Pages
WebinarsWorkflowsAutoFunnelseCommerce ToolsCustomer SupportData SegmentationDrip CampaignsEmail Templates
Well…
This is awkward.
Get GetResponse for FreeGet AWeber for Free
Over to You…
We’re always going to miss something.
What’s your favorite feature about EITHER platform?
How does it help you grow your business?
Let others know your tips and tricks in the comments.