GetResponse vs ConvertKit: Which Is Better in 2023?

An email marketing platform makes life a lot easier when leveraging your contact list.

Since so many solutions are available today, figuring out which email marketing tools will give your business what it needs can be hard.

Two of the most popular email marketing software on the market are GetResponse and ConvertKit. The tools may appear similar at first glance, but it’s worth looking at each in more detail to understand their strengths and limitations.

So this article will be the GetResponse vs ConvertKit comparison you need to make an informed decision.

ConvertKit vs GetResponse: Overview

Topic	ConvertKit	GetResponse
Free Trial	14-day free trial	30-day free trial
Pricing	Starts at $15/month for 300 subscribers	Starts at $19/month for 1,000 contacts
Free account	Capped at under 1,000 subscribers	Capped at 500 contacts
Marketing Automation	Yes	Yes
Email Builder	Yes	Yes
Landing Pages and Forms	Yes	Yes
Paid Ads	No	Yes
SMS marketing	No	Yes
Web push notification	No	Yes

1. GetResponse

Overview

GetResponse is an email marketing software designed for businesses of all sizes. Its goal is to provide affordable tools to help you engage with customers and improve your efforts.

They offer a variety of marketing tools that can help a business with all of its promotional and even sales needs, such as creating sales funnels, email campaigns, web push notifications, landing pages, and even paid ads.

 Key features

User experience

GetResponse is a reasonably easy-to-use email marketing tool. We got the sense the platform was designed to help beginners easily set up their first email campaign, as the process felt very intuitive.

The tool also offers many ready-made email templates to fill your content in seconds.

They opted for a rather minimalist design that feels simple despite being jam-packed with features. With GetResponse, you can access a webinar marketing tool, many landing page templates, a form builder, automation workflows, and more.

Overall, we think most people can learn to use GetResponse easily, even if they’ve never used a similar tool before.

Pricing

GetResponse currently has five pricing tiers. Their pricing depends on the number of contacts you need and whether you opt for the monthly, yearly, or 2-year plan.

Here are the prices for the monthly plans:

You can adjust the Email Marketing, Automation, and E-commerce Marketing based on the number of contacts you have in your email list.

Bottom line

GetResponse is a beginner-friendly platform with many advanced features. Its free plan is a fantastic tool for small businesses to get started, build a list, and increase their sales through email.

It offers a variety of tools like marketing automation, web push notifications, landing page creation, and many customization options.

However, given the small contact limit on the basic plan (only 500 contacts), it’s easy to outgrow it. Overall, though, GetResponse’s email marketing services are affordable, especially considering how many automation, eCommerce, and transactional features you can use.

2. ConvertKit

Overview

ConvertKit is one of the most popular email marketing tools for influencers, content creators, and small businesses.

It’s optimized to help you reach your subscriber’s inbox and engage the community you build around your brand.

The platform keeps things simple and doesn’t offer many features. But you get essential email marketing capabilities, basic email templates, automation workflows, drag-and drop-sequence editor, a landing page builder, and several third-party integrations.

Key features

User Experience

While ConvertKit is easy to use, the platform itself feels a bit outdated. Its competitors provide drag-and-drop email builders, but ConvertKit keeps things simple and offers something more similar to a Google Doc.

This isn’t necessarily bad. New content creators can easily set up an email with no significant learning curve to speak of.

ConvertKit even argues that plain text emails perform better than busier newsletter types, though you can create your own custom HTML email templates if you want to send more complex emails.

So while the user experience isn’t necessarily bad, it does feel like it needs an update.

Pricing

ConvertKit provides three types of plans, and they base their pricing on the number of subscribers and monthly or yearly payment plans.

Here’s the rundown on the monthly ConvertKit pricing:

You can change both the Creator and Creator PRO plans to include more subscribers if necessary. 

Bottom line

ConvertKit is an excellent email marketing tool for content creators and smaller businesses that don’t have lots of subscribers yet.

ConvertKit doesn’t have as many advanced online marketing features as some of its competitors. Still, it does have the right mix of tools to help you grow your audience, such as opt-in forms, landing pages, and an automated customer journey builder.

GetResponse vs. ConvertKit: Common Questions

Each email marketing platform provides its unique set of features to help your business grow.

But to truly see which one outperforms the other, we need to look at them side-by-side:

Which Email Builder Is Easier to Use?

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is the easiest email builder, despite lacking a drag-and-drop email editor. But it’s essentially a Word document. You can write your copy in the builder or copy-paste it, and the email is almost complete.

ConverKit also has great options for personalization, so your messages can be tailored to each subscriber. However, with ConvertKit, you can mostly make plain text emails and upload photos. They don’t offer more complex email templates.

GetResponse

GetResponse is more visually driven than ConvertKit. It’s the better choice if you need to make visually-appealing emails.

The platform also has many email templates you can personalize with your logos and text. These can be a good starting point for building your campaigns.

But even if you build it yourself, the drag-and-drop builder is highly intuitive and provides a lot of precision when designing your email content.

Verdict

Both CovertKit and GetResponse have simple email builders. However, ConvertKit is, by far, the easiest to use, considering its plain-text email approach.

So if you need a tool for quick text emails, ConvertKit is the way to go. For more advanced and visually stunning ones, you should consider GetResponse.

Which Provides Better Marketing Automation?

ConvertKit

ConvertKit uses an intuitive visual builder to allow you to set up your automation. You use building blocks, which are called events, to create custom workflows and subscriber journeys.

They also have a template library that can be used as-is or as a starting point for custom automation. The automation workspace is intuitive and easy to use, specifically designed for people without much marketing experience.

GetResponse

GetResponse has a drag-and-drop automation builder where you can set up custom automated workflows.

Like ConvertKit, you can choose between building your automation from scratch or using pre-built templates. Each step of the automation needs to be configured to fit your specific goals.

While GetResponse is a bit more tricky to use initially, it’s still a very intuitive platform. It is a much better option if you’re looking for more advanced automation rules.

Verdict

GetResponse provides better marketing automation features than ConvertKit. It allows you to create custom customer journeys that can be directly calibrated to your business needs.

Even if ConvertKit’s automation is easier to learn, you have more possibilities by opting for GetResponse.

What Are Their Tagging and Segmenting Features?

ConvertKit

With ConvertKit, you can tag subscribers based on an action. First, you build a tag and an action trigger and assign them to a flow.

Once a subscriber completes that action, the tag is placed on their contact.

ConvertKit also lets you tag subscribers in bulk, which can be helpful if you need to divide your audiences quickly.

GetResponse

GetResponse also allows both automated and manual tagging as part of a workflow. But its segmentation abilities are more advanced.

You can use the platform to create segments based on customer behaviors and engagement with your content.

After setting up your tags, you can send a highly personalized email sequence through GetResponse’s dynamic content features.

Verdict

While both platforms offer similar tagging and segmenting capabilities, GetResponse might be more beneficial based on what it allows you to do after segmenting your contacts.

Which Has the Best Landing Page Builder?

ConvertKit

ConverKit provides a landing page builder designed for people without web design abilities.

You can customize your favorite landing page template by adding or removing fields as necessary. The tool is easy to use and can create landing pages in just a few minutes.

You can add the finished page to your website using ConvertKit’s integration feature. Even if your content management system isn’t connected to ConvertKit, that page can be included on your site with just a line of code.

If you don’t have a website, ConvertKit can host your landing page, although their domain name will be visible.

GetResponse

GetResponse has a more advanced landing page builder. It’s still intuitive, so don’t expect anything too complicated, but it provides a larger template catalog.

The templates are also more specific to the type of landing page you might want to create, such as a free download page, an opt-in page, and more. In total, you have over 200 templates to choose from and the option to start with a completely blank canvas.

GetResponse’s landing page builder lets you edit how the page looks on mobile devices versus desktops separately.

Verdict

GetResponse has a better landing page builder since it provides more templates to personalize and the ability to start from scratch if necessary.

However, if visuals are vital to you, the ConvertKit templates are better. Considering you can customize them to your liking, it might be better to build custom landing pages on something that already meets your visual expectations.

Which Provides the Best Analytics?

ConvertKit

ConvertKit has some built-in analytics, but the service doesn’t provide too much information about your digital marketing performance.

You can view stable metrics like your emails’ open rate and CTR—also, the daily graphs of your subscriber sign-ups.

But unfortunately, ConvertKit can’t tell you much on its own. You will need to connect with another analytics tool to access more information.

GetResponse

GetResponse gives you a lot more details about your digital marketing performance.

You can get reports on your overall efforts, email marketing performance, eCommerce stats, website visitors, and list growth statistics. And you can set up custom reports if you need to track a specific metric.

GetResponse can also connect with third-party analytics tools and gather all that data in one place.

Verdict

GetResponse is the clear winner here. ConvertKit provides a decent view of your email and marketing performance but doesn’t compete with GetResponse, which doesn’t need third-party integrations to provide comprehensive metrics.

Which Offers the Better Free Plan?

ConvertKit

ConvertKit’s free plan is capped at 1,000 subscribers. You can access key features like the landing page builder, opt-in forms, tagging and segmenting, and creating email campaigns.

However, the free plan doesn’t include any marketing automation features apart from content snippets and API documentation.

Overall, it’s a good plan for new influencers beginning to build their list. But without more advanced email marketing tools, ConvertKit’s free plan doesn’t provide much room to grow, which may impact growth rates.

GetResponse

GetResponse’s free plan offers more features than ConvertKit, but the caveat is that it’s capped at 500 contacts.

This can be useful for small businesses initially, but we think you will likely need to upgrade to a paid version sooner rather than later.

Like ConvertKit, GetResponse doesn’t provide any automation features in its free plan. But you can use the email campaign builder, create landing pages, and segment your audience.

Verdict

We’re going to call this one a draw. Both platforms lose points for not allowing third-party integrations on their free accounts, significantly limiting your customization options.

But they both offer good email marketing features for small businesses or content creators starting to build their email lists.

Which Has Better Customer Support?

ConvertKit

If you’re on a free plan, you can access community support and ConvertKit’s extensive resource library and documentation. They also provide training courses and podcasts to deepen your understanding of the platform.

ConvertKit provides live email and chat support, but it’s only available for users starting with the Creator plan. If you’re a Creator PRO holder, you get priority support from the ConvertKit team.

Overall, ConvertKit has basic customer support features that focus more on its free resources and tutorials.

GetResponse

By comparison, GetResponse has many additional ways to provide support to their customers, although the majority of them are only available for Max 2 account holders.

Through the free account, there isn’t a lot of help from the GetResponse team. However, you can access their resource library and learn how to use their platform. More comprehensive service comes with the Email Marketing plan, where you have 24/7 chat support and email support.

Max2 accounts get more help, like one-on-one onboarding, help with development strategy, and phone and Slack support.

Verdict

This one’s another draw. While GetResponse has some unique support features, they are only available for Max2 accounts.

For most of their users, the platforms provide email and live chat support. Unfortunately, free account holders must make do with the free documentation and tutorials.

GetResponse vs ConvertKit: How to Decide Between Them

To make the best decision, it’s worth taking into account a few key factors, both about the email marketing software and your business:

Tools and Features

Consider which platform offers the tools your business needs to grow.

Both ConvertKit and GetResponse have excellent email marketing capabilities, but if you look beyond that, their features are vastly different.

GetResponse is calibrated more toward the needs of small and medium businesses. It offers advanced automation features to save time, in-depth analytics, a website builder, and many eCommerce integrations.

ConvertKit addresses the needs of content creators through subscriber growth, engagement features, and ways to monetize your content to increase your revenue.

Budget

Both platforms are affordable, especially for smaller businesses and creators who don’t have lots of contacts yet. But as your list grows, you may need to start spending more, even if you won’t be changing the type of plan. 

GetResponse costs $19 monthly for 1,000 subscribers. But if your list grows to 2,500, you’ll spend $29 per month.

With ConvertKit, its most affordable plan starts at $19 per month for just 300 subscribers. Reach 1,000, and the cost goes up to $29 per month.

It’s best to factor in the cost of these platforms by looking beyond how much they cost now. Consider how much they may take from your budget in the future as your subscribers or email list grows.

Team Skills

You should take into account the skills of your marketing team. Both platforms are designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, but GetResponse has a higher learning curve than ConvertKit.

The latter can help almost anyone set up an email sequence and create landing pages. The design tools are simple and don’t require a lot of technical know-how.

Conversely, GetResponse offers a lot more advanced features. Users will need time to familiarize themselves with the ecosystem before effectively leveraging the tools.

Luckily, both platforms offer extensive documentation and tutorials that can be helpful. But the question is whether you can allocate enough time to help your team learn a more complex tool like GetResponse, or are better off with something simpler like ConvertKit.

Business Goals

Outgrowing email marketing software can be a problem. In these cases, you’ll need to find other solutions that suit your needs and create a migration plan.

This can lead to a lot of unnecessary obstacles. The better approach is to consider where your business is headed before choosing digital marketing solutions.

For instance, will you need more advanced marketing automation features or paid ads? Then you should invest in GetResponse, as it can be linked to many eCommerce platforms and provides a wider suite of tools.

Or will you start selling directly through email? ConvertKit can help you monetize content like albums, eBooks, and coaching sessions.

Test Before You Buy

While both ConvertKit and GetResponse offer free plans, we recommend another way to test each platform’s capabilities because they have limited features.

GetResponse has a free trial period of 30 days, while ConvertKit only gives you 14 days to try it out.

Still, both will offer full access to their features. You can leverage this opportunity to peek behind the curtain and see how the tools perform in practice:

• If you or your team find them simple to use
• If the features are calibrated to your specific needs
• If you can connect your existing third-party apps like a CRM tool
• If it’s ultimately worth it to sign up and pay either subscription

Free trials are an opportunity to test the strengths and limitations of each platform as they relate directly to your business.

Final Thoughts

Both GetResponse and ConvertKit are excellent tools to enhance your marketing efforts. However, deciding between them should ultimately come down to the unique needs of your business.

ConvertKit works for small content creators or businesses that need a simple solution to start building their contact list. The platform is straightforward, and its marketing automation features are designed to support beginners.

GetResponse is more suitable for small to medium-sized businesses that also need more advanced digital marketing features. This ecosystem is more diverse and can provide the tools you need to streamline your marketing and sales departments.

We recommend using our short guide to start writing down your specific needs and platform expectations. This way, you can confidently determine which of the two email marketing platforms is right for you.

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

What are some other Email Marketing platforms?

There are many other platforms like Constant Contact, AWeber, and ActiveCampaign.

For a more complete list, read our Best Mass Email Marketing platforms article.

Does GetResponse have a free trial account?

Yes, GetResponse offers a 30-day free trial account. Follow these login steps to start a free account.