This article will peel back and give you our opinion on valuable tools you may have never heard of before. This useful tool makes it easy to create pages, send emails to customers, and automate your marketing.
It is well known that this software called GetResponse has been used by many successful email marketers and online business bloggers for many years.
GetResponse, established in 1998, claims to be the most user-friendly newsletter tool to use, with many premium features.
Although the user base is not as large as other email marketing tools like Mailchimp, the Polish company is present in 182 countries and claims to reach over a billion users through email!
Would you mind reading to the end as we will show you the pros and cons of using the GetResponse platform for your business, especially email marketing?
What is GetResponse?
GetResponse is an email marketing or autoresponder solution that allows you to:
- create email lists to organize your contacts
- create newsletters that can send to subscribers on your mailing list
- automate your emails: send automatic sequences of emails
- consult and analyze statistics relating to your email marketing campaigns - open rates, clicks, redirects, etc.
Recently, however, GetResponse has changed direction considerably: the product is now intended to be more of an “all-in-one” marketing solution than a simple email marketing tool.
Likewise, to email marketing, GetResponse now offers e-commerce functions, webinar hosting, landing pages, and automated sales funnels.
What is the price of GetResponse?
What are the prices? GetResponse has 4 price offers.
- Basic - from $15 per month to send an unlimited number of emails to up to 1,000 subscribers
- Plus (most popular) - from $49 per month for a maximum of 1000 subscribers
- Professional - from $99 per month for a maximum of 1,000 subscribers
- Max - the price is custom on request
If you have more subscribers you want to add to your list, the higher the costs. For the plan of a base of 100,000 emails, it is $450, $499, or $580 per month for the “Basic,” “Plus,” and “Professional” plans.
For the "Max" plan, the exact price depends on the needs and size of your email list. If you have decided to go with this plan, you will need to contact GetResponse to schedule a product demo, discuss your needs and negotiate the price.
Significant offers are available if you pre-pay for 12 or 24 months of service (18% and 30% discounts).
In addition to the paid plans, there is also a 30-day free trial available, which you can access through this link.
This is ideal for helping you to create your automated campaigns.
The different pricing plans
All of GetResponse's pricing offers to cover the basics of email marketing that you need - key features include:
- the ability to import, develop and host a mailing list
- a selection of themes to use for sending your newsletters
- autoresponder to manage your transactional emails
- Easy to use a builder
- Detailed statistics
- RSS / blog to email functionality
- Contact management and segmentation of your lists
- social sharing tools
There are several differences between the “Basic,” “Plus” and “Professional” plans, but for us, the main ones are as follows:
- Automation Marketing - The main function of GetResponse, the automation builder (which allows you to create automatic email-sending sequences based on user behavior)
- Available in the “Plus” or higher formula (you can create up to 5 automation in the “Plus” formula or an unlimited number in the other formulas).
- Sales funnels - All GetResponse tools and templates for creating automated sales funnels are available as part of the “Plus” offer (limited to 5 tunnels).
- Webinars - This feature is not available at all on the “Basic” plan, and the number of webinar participants is limited to 100, 300, and 500 respectively for the “Plus,” “Professional,” and “Enterprise” plans.
- Team management - Only one user account can have for the "Basic" plan; however, you will have 3 for the “Plus” plan, 5 for the “Professional” plan, and 10 for the “Enterprise” plan.
- E-Commerce - Abandoned order recovery function is only available from the “Plus” plan.
How is the price of GetResponse justified compared to its rivals?
As long as you're pleased to use one of the entry-level "Basic" plans, GetResponse monthly-priced plans are overall cheaper than those offered by many of its major competitors, especially if you have a significant number of email addresses in your list.
When it comes to small contact lists, GetResponse's prices are quite competitive: you can host a list of up to 1,000 email addresses for $15 per month with GetResponse, compared to $29 per month on Aweber and ConvertKit.
The price of Mailchimp's “Standard” offer, which is broadly comparable, is $14.99 per month, which puts it on the same level as GetResponse.
The more you move upmarket, the cheaper GetResponse remains. For example, if you have a mailing list with between 9,000 and 10,000 contacts to which you want to send an infinite number of emails per month, you will find that hosting this list with GetResponse's "Basic" plan costs $65 per month.
If we compare with the autoresponders on the market with a basic plan:
- $15 per month cheaper than Aweber and ConvertKit
- $39 per month cheaper than Mailchimp (standard plan)
- Considerably similar price per month with MailerLite
There are other things to know about the competitor's price front:
Some competing vendors - notably Aweber, Mailchimp, and MailerLite - offer free accounts for users with a small contact list (but they don't offer the marketing features found in a paid plan).
Some solutions (Mailchimp is an example) charge you for hosting subscribed and non-subscribed contacts, which can turn into high hidden costs.
On the other hand, GetResponse is great because they only charge you for your active subscribers.
If you are prepared to pre-pay for 1 or 2 years, you can benefit from attractive discounts with GetResponse that other competitors have not offered yet.
The bottom line is that GetResponse is the cheapest on the market for these reasons.
But what about the features?
The main features of GetResponse
Compared to its competitors, GetResponse is one of the complete autoresponders around.
Not only does GetResponse provide all the features you ask for from an email marketing platform - hosting lists, templates, autoresponders, analytics, etc.,
But also recently expanded its functionality to become an all-in-one marketing and e-commerce solution.
We will see later if GetResponse is a real Swiss Army knife or, on the contrary, it is only a marketing package.
1) An all-in-one auto-responder
Autoresponders allow you to create automatic sequences of emails.
For instance, you can configure them so that your lead receives a welcome message from your site immediately after someone signs up for your mailing list.
A week later, she might receive a discount offer for some of your products or services. Then, 3 weeks later, she might receive encouragement to follow you on social media. And so on.
The autoresponder feature from GetResponse is a key selling point. The product provides one of the most comprehensive auto-response features on the market.
You can send time-based or action-based messages; time-based options involve cycles similar to the sample above, and action-based messages can be triggered by actions or user information, for example:
- email open rate
- number of clicks
- subscriptions to specific lists
- changes to contact preferences
- operations carried out / objectives accomplished
- birthdays
- changes in user data
2) Marketing Automation
GetResponse recently released a new version of its new autoresponder feature called "Marketing Automation," or Marketing Automation.
You will be able to automate your email campaigns according to the actions carried out by a user. This can be the sending of a welcome email following the registration of your newsletter, for example.
This feature allows you to create automated workflows using a drag-and-drop builder:
You create an "automation flowchart" that tells GetResponse what scenarios to do based on user actions. (Just sent you an email, click on the link...)
This type of functionality goes far beyond what is traditionally offered by autoresponders. It allows you to create a personalized user journey to an advanced degree to manage your email campaigns.
3) GetResponse newsletter templates
GetResponse has Newsletter templates, templates that save time in designing marketing emails.
The models are grouped into a few categories focused on fundamental objectives (promotion, education, sales, etc.).
4) Responsive design emails
Obviously, the emails created by GetResponse are responsive. That is to say; they automatically adapt to the device on which an email is read ( mobile, tablet, desktop, etc.)
If you want to see a preview of the feature, it is available for you to see how your newsletter will show up on each of them.
5) Analytics feature
GetResponse provides a good range of analysis and reporting options. Of course, you get all the basics:
- open rate
- click-through rate
- churn rate
- etc.
How in addition to that, some very nifty reporting functions deserve special mention, namely
- "one-click segmentation": the option to identify people who have not participated in an emailing campaign and to place them in a subscriber segment. You can then relaunch your contacts with a new email campaign.
- metrics over time: you can distinguish exactly when most of your subscribers are responding to your emails and plan future outings based on that information
- The return on investment of your mailing: by adding a tracking code to the after-sales page of your site, you can determine the effectiveness (or not!) of your emailing campaigns to stimulate sales and calculate your return on investment in email marketing.
- User Info: You can click on any of your subscribers and see where they signed up from, where they are, and what emails they opened in the past.
- E-newsletters performance comparison - you can compare the performance of two e-newsletters side by side very easily.
Mailchimp and Aweber offer similar reporting features, especially when tracking sales, but GetResponse's reporting tool is one of the most comprehensive around.
6) GetResponse included web fonts and Google Fonts
The great news is that the new GetResponse email builder allows you to use web fonts - you can use a massive selection of Google fonts in your newsletters: more than any other competing tool we have. tested to date.
This wide selection of web fonts is very interesting because - given the predominance of Google Fonts in corporate branding nowadays - it will allow many users to create newsletters that are very closely aligned with their needs. Mark.
It's crucial to remember that not all email programs support the use of web fonts - you can specify a "fallback font" in GetResponse to take them into account - but in those that do, the Emails created by GetResponse's new email creator have the potential to look great.
7) AB testing / Split tests
AB testing involves sending variations of your newsletters to certain people on your mailing list, monitoring the performance of each one, and sending the “best” version to the rest of your list.
Traditionally, GetResponse's functionality in this area is much better than that provided by multiple competitors, as it allows you to separately test up to five different messages against each other (using subject header as variables, field, content, and sending time). Its main rivals usually allow you to work with 2 or 3 variants.
Unfortunately, they have decreased the functionality of the new GetResponse models with this split testing feature. However, you can still test up to 5 variations of your posts against each other, but only using different subject headers.
We asked the GetResponse support team if this situation is likely to change, and it looks like we will decide based on how many users request the re-introduction of this feature.
8) Landing page creation
Online advertising campaigns that use capture pages typically generate many more leads. Instead of just directing visitors to a website full of information, they direct users to engaging "landing pages" with information: clear information and a clean, well-designed data entry form.
GetResponse provides something very useful in this regard that many of its competitors don't: a capture page builder (which is also mobile-friendly).
Not only can it be used to make compressed pages, but you can also try out the conversion rate of those pages as opposed to each other in real time and deploy the best performance.
Similar products often require a third-party landing page builder like Unbounce or Instapage to achieve this kind of functionality. (Mailchimp recently introduced some capture page functionality, but it's not that sophisticated at GetResponse yet).
Should note that landing pages are available on all plans. Compared to solutions like Unbounce and Instapage, which cost a minimum of $80 and $199 per month, there are considerable savings in this area.
Get your business online with the GetResponse now Free-Forever plan.
9) Webinars
Recently, GetResponse has introduced the ability to host webinars on the platform.
Since webinars are usually used as a lead-generation tactic, the idea of having your email database and webinar tool in one place is appealing.
The tariff is also very competitive compared to regular webinar solutions. For instance, one of the leading webinar services, Gotowebinar, charges $ 59 per month for hosting webinars for up to 100 attendees. You can do as well - and more - with GetResponse for $49 per month.
10) Sales funnels
GetResponse recently introduced a new “Sales Funnel” feature, representing a radical change for the product. Indeed, to some extent, GetResponse has gone from being an email marketing platform to being an eCommerce platform.
The idea behind this functionality is that you can do the following things without ever leaving the GetResponse environment:
- Create a product catalog
- Create and manage advertising campaigns on Facebook
- Make landing pages
- Add subscribers to an automatic response cycle
- Direct users to sales pages (also created in GetResponse)
- Accept payment for products
- Send abandoned cart emails if necessary
GetResponse aims to serve you with an easy and simple way to create funnel sales without any other app needed. A wide variety of templates are provided to help you with this task.
You can access this function on all plans - although the version available on the "Basic" plan only grants you to make one funnel and does not permit you to use the abandoned cart recovery function (which sends an automated email to people who have added an item to their cart asking them not to complete their purchase).
This feature is probably best suited for “solo entrepreneurs” who want an all-in-one option to build all the resources they need to create a funnel, right down to the conversion of subscribers to customers.
E-merchants with large product catalogs and significant e-commerce needs will likely be better able to use a specialized e-commerce platform like Shopify.
11) GetResponse's a Free Plan?
GetResponse Free is a solution for all businesses looking for ways to get their online sale. There is a plan that is free forever and doesn't require a credit card. Visit this page to learn more about GetResponse Free.
Advantages and disadvantages of GetResponse
Below is our overview of the pros and cons of GetResponse.
Benefits of using GetResponse
- GetResponse is cheaper than many of its major competitors (in some cases, significantly) while still offering as many or more features as them, as long as you're happy to use a "Basic" plan.
- When you pay upfront for 1 or 2 years of service, you have a very advantageous reduced price compared to its competitors.
- The interface of its Marketing Automation on GetResponse is really excellent for its marketing campaigns.
- The segmentation of data is much more flexible compared to platform emailing, particularly Mailchimp.
- A webinar with a friendly user experience
- A very useful “Sales Tunnel” builder for e-merchants who wish to manage their marketing in the same software.
- Reports and statistics are comprehensive.
- GetResponse is transparent about deliverability rates, posting numbers on its website, and providing statistics on the deliverability of the newsletters you send.
- All of GetResponse's plans come with a useful (albeit tricky) capture page builder that makes A / B testing easy - which could save you a ton of money.
- Custom DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is provided on all plans.
- They provided support in a wide variety of languages. (25 languages)
- You can test all the features of GetResponse free for 30 days without having to enter your credit card details.
The disadvantages of using GetResponse
- The drag-and-drop UI (User Interfaces) for building landing pages and forms is tricky to learn and improved.
- Could make improvements to how data entry forms work so that users have the choice of switching them on or off on mobile devices.
- There is no two-factor authentication when logging in.
- There is a 500 webinar attendees limit.
- No phone support is provided (unless you are on a "Max" plan).
Conclusion: Is GetResponse the best autoresponder in 2021?
GetResponse is more than an autoresponder. It is a full-fledged marketing solution to develop your online business.
It allows email marketing, automation, capture pages, useful functions for e-commerce, sales funnels, and webinars to be grouped under one software.
It is an excellent value for money to manage your marketing and host your database of contacts in the same sending software.
It's hard to have a competing email marketing solution today that offers this “full” proposition, and its free 30-day trial period is also great for getting a Response review.
GetResponse really has a proven track record, offering both the functionality and ease of use that most other newsletter tools don't.
The excellent automation mechanisms for list management, along with the easy-to-use automation scenarios, make it a powerful marketing tool.
Email Marketing will grow your business faster than any other marketing medium!
We use and recommend GetResponse.
