GetResponse vs AWeber

GetResponse and AWeber are two of the most popular email marketing services on the market.

But, which one should you use?

In this post, I’ll share my experience using both and compare them to help you decide which one is right for you.

AWeber and GetResponse are email marketing software at their core.

What does this entail?

  • Collecting email leads via a sign-up form
  • building and managing an email list
  • Sending your email subscribers a series of emails using an autoresponder or a regular newsletter

So it makes sense to first compare their core email marketing features. Because if they offer subpar email marketing features, their other features aren’t worth considering.

Let’s begin comparing GetResponse vs AWeber.

featured image for the GetResponse vs AWeber comparison article showing a keyboard with a blue email button

Autoresponder

An autoresponder is an email marketing tool that lets you send out automated emails at a set time to your subscribers on your contact list. You can use autoresponders to send out regular newsletters, keep in touch with customers who have purchased from you, and even generate sales leads.

GetResponse

It’s very intuitive and straightforward to create an autoresponder series in GetResponse.

You can choose when each email should be sent:

  • At the same time, your subscriber signed up
  • A specific time
  • Waiting a specific amount of time before sending

You can also toggle whether or not there are specific days of the week you don’t want any messages to be sent.

Then you can create your subject line and design your email content.

Then it’s just a matter of deciding tracking options.

Track link clicks in your emails.

Or set up more advanced eCommerce tracking to track subscribers’ actions on your website (product views, purchases, etc.) after clicking an email.

 

a graphic depicting how GetResponse's autoresponder feature works

AWeber

AWeber’s autoresponder is just as easy and intuitive to use as GetResponse.

To create the autoresponder, you just double-click or drag the “Send Message” action in the menu on the left. Create the email and subject line. Then click or drag the “Wait” action to schedule how long the autoresponder should wait before sending the following message.

An example of a automation campaign in AWeber

It’s difficult to pick an outright winner in this category because they both work as they should. However, GetResponse edges it slightly with the additional tracking options.

AWeber vs GetResponse Autoresponder Winner – GetResponse

Next, we’ll compare the sign-up forms.

Sign Up Forms

GetResponse and AWeber’s sign-up form creators are both easy to use. You can create them from scratch or choose from a range of templates to customize to your requirements.

Both have a variety of form styles such as:

  • in-line
  • lightbox
  • pop-ups

And you can add custom fields to both.

AWeber has a mobile app that lets you collect leads in person at networking events and conferences. This is useful for consultants and local businesses.

No clear winner in this category.

Email and Newsletter Editor

Both services are pretty much the same for email and newsletter editors.

They both:

  • have a built-in free stock image library
  • are mobile responsive
  • let you preview your emails and newsletters
  • are easy drag and drop creating

They also have a wide variety of templates you can use and customize. AWeber has a more comprehensive email template range. But in my opinion, it’s not that important because you’re not going to be changing the style of your newsletter frequently enough for it to matter.

The big difference here is GetResponse has a built-in spam check.

The spam check will analyze the content of your email to see if there’s a chance it will be flagged as spam. And as you know, making sure your emails are delivered and not flagged as spam is crucial. For this reason, GetResponse is better.

Since we’re on the topic of making sure your emails don’t end up in the spam folder, let’s look at deliverability next.

Email Deliverability

There’s no way to check the official deliverability stats for every email marketing service. So I can just base it on my own experiences.

GetResponse and AWeber both claim to have 99% deliverability. I believe that because I haven’t experienced any inboxing issues with either service when sending an email campaign.

Here’s a screenshot of an affiliate campaign I’ve started recently in GetResponse. As you can see, no deliverability problems at all (I haven’t run any recent campaigns in AWeber to compare).

Ease of Use

As I’ve mentioned earlier, AWeber and GetResponse are both easy to use. They both have a clear dashboard, and it’s easy to navigate and find what you’re looking for.

Price Comparison

In addition to paid plans, GetResponse and AWeber also have a completely free plan, with a few restrictions.

Free Plans

AWeber

The free plan allows you to add up to 500 subscribers and send a total of 3000 emails every month.

AWeber gives you access to all their features except split testing, automation, and advanced tracking and analytics.

You’ll also have AWeber’s branding in your emails and landing pages which cannot be removed.

GetResponse

GetResponse’s free plan also allows you to add up to 500 contacts. However, unlike AWeber, you can send unlimited emails and newsletters on the free plan. You also get access to sign-up forms, one landing page, and one website builder with hosting included.

The biggest drawback to the free plan is that there is no autoresponder feature. And GetResponse branding will be in the emails you send.

Although you can send unlimited emails, not having an autoresponder in the free plan is a pretty big negative, in my opinion. For this reason, the AWeber free plan is better.

Free Trial

GetResponse offers a 30-day free trial giving you access to all their premium features. AWeber, unfortunately, does not provide a free trial.

Moving on to the paid plans

Paid Plans

AWeber

AWeber has one paid Pro plan. On the AWeber Pro plan, you have access to all features, and you can send unlimited emails. The Pro plan is based on the number of email contacts you have. The lowest Pro plan starts at $19.99 a month ($16.15 if you pay annually) and steadily increases as you add more subscribers.

You can see Pro plan pricing below.

 

AWeber's 2 monthly pricing plans

GetResponse

GetResponse has four paid plans.

  • Basic
  • Plus
  • Professional
  • Max

You choose between one of the four plans based on the features you want. After that, the pricing increases as your list grows.

You can see a breakdown of the pricing and features in each plan below.

A screenshot of the different GetResponse pricing plans

Now let’s look at the advanced features, starting with marketing automation.

Marketing Automation

GetResponse

GetResponse offers automation in the form of a visual workflow builder. The workflow builder is a highly intuitive way to create automation because it’s all visual and drag and drop.

The automations are based on events and triggers.

You can create simple and advanced automation workflows based on your subscribers’ behavior like link clicks, cart abandons, etc.

For example, if a contact didn’t open an email, you can build an automation to wait a few days and then resend the email. If they don’t open the next mail, your automation can remove them from your list and place them in a non-responsive subscriber list.

 

AWeber

AWeber’s email automation, on the other hand, is very basic. You can assign tags to each email in the autoresponder. It’s nowhere near as advanced as GetResponse.

AWeber vs GetResponse Marketing Automation Winner – GetResponse

a visual representation of how GetResponse's marketing automation works

Segmentation

Both services offer similar segmentation features. You can segment your contacts by opens, clicks, sign-up forms they used to sign up, data, and more. It’s all the usual segmentation options here.

They both work well and do what you’d expect when segmenting, so there’s no clear winner here.

Email Split-Testing

GetResponse allows you to split test up to five variants of either subject lines or email content.

You can configure the size of your testing group of up to a maximum of 50% of your recipients. You can set either the open rate or click rate to determine the winning variant. You can choose how long to wait to determine the winner. And when to send the winning variant to the rest of your list.

AWeber lets you split-test up to three variants, and unlike Getresponse, you can mix and match subject lines with email content. You can also configure the testing group to any size you want, and you’re not limited to 50% like GetResponse.

AWeber vs GetResponse Email Split-Testing Winner – AWeber

a graphic showing an example of split-testing capabilities and reporting inside of GetResponse

Optimizing your email sending

Finding out when the best time is to send your campaigns is essential in email marketing.

Getresponse has a Perfect Timing feature that analyzes the past data for each of your subscribers to see when they are most likely to open your emails and click on links. When enabled, it will then send your emails to each of your subscribers when they are most likely to open and click.

Back in July 2015, beta testers of Perfect Timing found an increase of 23% to their open rates and an increase of 20% to their clickthrough rates.

So it definitely helps.

Unfortunately, AWeber has nothing similar to GetResponse’s Perfect Timing feature.

Winner – GetResponse

Integrations

AWeber and Getresponse both have a wide range of integrations with most popular eCommerce platforms and marketing tools. But AWeber has more.

Winner – AWeber

Landing page creation

Creating landing pages in Getresponse and Aweber is easy to set up and customize. Getresponse has around 198 templates, including thank you pages, while AWeber has approximately 41.

With GetResponse, you can split test up to 10 variants of landing pages.

However, you can’t split test your landing page with AWeber even though you can split test sign-up forms.

Winner – GetResponse

Reporting and analytics

Both services have easy to understand and interpret reports showing all the essential email marketing data such as:

  • emails delivered
  • clickthrough rates
  • open rates
  • bounce rate
  • spam complaints
  • unsubscribes
  • You can also easily link your email campaigns to Google Analytics.

GetResponse also gives you a breakdown of your subscribers by the devices they’re using and their email providers (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.)

They also give you the engagement level of each subscriber’s interactions with your emails. This engagement score is based on email opens and clicks so you can quickly see who your most active and engaged subscribers are.

Customer Support

AWeber and Getresponse both offer email and live chat support. However, AWeber also provides phone support.

The support staff for both services is friendly and knowledgeable, and they’re quick to respond, especially to live chat tickets.

In addition to support, they both offer plenty of resources and step-by-step tutorials. These tutorials will help you get through most issues and ensure you’re getting the full benefit of the features.

Although both services offer excellent support, I have to award this category to AWeber because of their phone support.

AWeber focuses exclusively on email marketing, so they don’t have any additional features outside of that scope. GetResponse does.

So I’ll quickly show you some of these features, so you know exactly what else you’re getting with GetResponse.

 

Webinars

GetResponse has built-in webinar software.

It comes with all the features you’d expect from top-quality webinar software like recordings and live chat. And it integrates seamlessly with the email marketing tool inside GetResponse.

Conversion funnels

This feature lets you build complete sales funnels without the need for external tools.

Starting from generating traffic with paid ads all the way to getting paid from your payment processor (and everything else in between); this all-in-one tool helps you quickly build sales funnels that convert.

Live chat

You can host customizable chat windows in your landing pages and even in your emails.

This makes it even easier to connect with your audience.

Paid Ads

GetResponse has a built-in ad creator for Google and Facebook ads.

GetResponse vs AWeber: Final Verdict

AWeber and GetResponse are excellent email marketing tools, and they are both affiliate-friendly autoresponders.

Personally, I prefer GetResponse and think it offers more value and is the better tool.

However, if you’re only looking to use the free plan, AWeber is the better choice, simply because GetResponse doesn’t offer their autoresponder on their free plan.

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