Did you know that 90-95% of your visitors leave and never come back?
Ouch. That’s a statistic that’s rough to read.
As a business owner, you need to make the best choice for your bottom line. You need to find customers and keep them.
What’s more, you know that every single dollar counts, and it’s your job to spend wisely.
If you’re looking to win and keep customers, you need to utilize email marketing. It’s been around for a while, but email marketing is not dead. Far from it, in fact.
According to Constant Contact, the average return on investment from email marketing is $42 on the dollar.
Here’s where it gets tricky. You could fire off an email now and then when something comes to mind, but that won’t bring the results you’re looking for.
To tap into the potential of email marketing, you need an email marketing service that will help you establish a connection with your audience.
Mailchimp and GetResponse are two of the most well-known email marketing services out there, but choosing between the two can be challenging! There’s no one size fits all solution.
That’s why in this review, we’ll break things down with a clear comparison that will help you choose the email marketing option that’s right for you and your business.
Mailchimp vs. GetResponse: What is the Difference?
Mailchimp and GetResponse have a lot in common. That’s what makes choosing between them so tricky. First, let’s take a look at what they do.
Both Mailchimp and GetResponse allow you to…
- …import an existing email list.
- …build a new email list.
- …design email newsletters that include graphics, links, and branding.
- …use “autoresponders” to automate your emails.
- …keep track of email marketing statistics, including click-throughs and open rates.
- …send broadcasts to your subscribers.
In addition to these basic email marketing abilities, both Mailchimp and GetResponse aim to be all-in-one marketing tools in their own ways.
What does that mean?
GetResponse is a marketing automation software. In addition to the email marketing abilities we mentioned above, GetReponse allows you to…
- …host webinars.
- …create marketing funnels.
- …take advantage of built-in ecommerce features.
- …lots more.
Mailchimp also aims to be an all-in-one tool, but their angle is a little bit different. The main focus of Mailchimp besides email marketing is customer relationship management.
Mailchimp vs. GetResponse: In-Depth Comparison
Now that you’ve got the thousand-foot view let’s take a closer look at how GetResponse and Mailchimp compare.
Ease of Use
Whenever you’re choosing a new tool for your business, ease of use is uber important. Business owners don’t have spare time to learn unnecessarily complicated systems. With that in mind – how do GetResponse and Mailchimp compare?
Both Mailchimp and GetResponse offer a clean interface and a natural drag and drop editor. All in all, they’re both user-friendly.
It’s hard to choose, but in a pinch, we’d say Mailchimp edges out GetResponse by just a smidge as the GetResponse editor can be a little finicky at times.
Also, the Mailchimp dashboard and navigation are a bit better, in my opinion.
Here’s a screenshot of Mailchimp’s dashboard (I don’t use Mailchimp anymore, but I still have the free account):
On the right, you can see a straightforward menu allowing you to navigate through the entire platform. Super user-friendly.
Email Templates
Now let’s take a look at the email templates available with GetResponse and Mailchimp. As a business owner, you want your emails to look clean and professional. People get hundreds of emails each day. Your emails need to stand out.
Both Mailchimp and GetResponse have numerous templates to choose from. Though it’s worth noting that, in my opinion, the Mailchimp templates are a bit more modern and professional. GetResponse has a lot of choices, but some of them are a bit dated.
Mailchimp also has a nice feature that clearly shows which templates are editable and which are fixed. In my opinion, this makes Mailchimp the better option regarding email templates.
However, I highly recommend checking out all GetResponse templates and all Mailchimp templates by yourself.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are an essential part of email marketing as they help you grow your email list by getting potential customers to sign up. Let’s take a look at how Mailchimp and GetResponse help you make that happen.
Mailchimp just recently added landing page functionality to their software, and to be honest, it doesn’t seem like it’s their priority. Their landing page builder is a bit limited, with no ability to do A/B testing and only a few templates to choose from.
Here’s how it looks:
GetResponse, on the other hand, provides a complete functional landing page builder.
With hundreds of templates to choose from and the ability to do A/B testing, GetResponse is the clear winner here.
Automation
Both GetResponse and Mailchimp allow you to automate certain parts of your email marketing. This takes the pressure off you as you can rest assured that the right emails are getting to the right people at the right time.
Mailchimp covers the automation basics – offering email triggers. For example, you can have an email go out when someone abandons their shopping cart or becomes a new subscriber. Unfortunately, that’s all you can do with Mailchimp.
GetResponse offers similar features but has powerful additional features, including a visual automation builder, lead scoring, and a tagging feature. The visual automation builder makes it intuitive to build marketing automation.
Here’s how it looks:
With GetResponse’s visual automation builder, it’s easy to get the right emails to the right people at the right time.
Comparing GetResponse’s excellent automation builder to Mailchimp’s trigger list puts GetResponse in the lead.
Conversion Funnels
Both Mailchimp and GetResponse offer lots of valuable ways to integrate your email marketing with leading ecommerce platforms.
What GetResponse has that Mailchimp doesn’t is a marketing funnel builder. This feature allows you to build entire marketing funnels and integrate them with your ecommerce platform.
You can even sell your products directly through GetResponse without the need for a third-party platform like Shopify.
Pretty cool if you ask me.
List Management
Getting the right emails to the right people is the crux of email marketing. With this in mind, you need to segment your email lists.
Both Mailchimp and GetResponse allow you to do basic segmentation – sorting subscribers based on several conditions.
However, Mailchimp lets you down because you can only create five email lists (unless you purchase the highly expensive Premium Plan!!), while GetResponse enables you to create as many as you’d like.
That said, GetResponse enables much more complex list management. This causes GetResponse to pull ahead once more.
Analytics
Both Mailchimp and GetResponse have analytics covered. Both tools allow you to check…
- …which email client subscribers are using.
- …who opened or clicked.
- …geo-tracking data.
- …ecommerce tracking data.
The one thing Mailchimp offers that GetResponse lacks is social media reporting, but it’s up to you if that’s genuinely a necessary feature.
Social media reporting aside, Mailchimp and GetResponse offer nearly identical analytics features.
Forms and Pop-ups
It might not seem like a big deal, but opt-in forms are essential for adding subscribers to your list. Thankfully, both Mailchimp and GetResponse offer some pretty good options.
Mailchimp has a clean interface that allows you to create pop-ups or standard forms.
GetResponse has a ton of templates to choose from and an excellent form wizard to help you personalize them.
Here are some GetResponse examples:
One beef here is that GetResponse does not allow you to turn off pop-ups on mobile devices.
Yet, even with the minor pop-up frustration, GetResponse is our top choice here because the variety they offer far outpaces the few options you’ll find with Mailchimp.
Webinars
Webinars are helpful in various ways, and until now, you’ve had to use two platforms simultaneously: one for webinar hosting and one for email marketing. However, GetResponse provides both a webinar feature and email marketing.
The GetResponse webinar tool allows…
- …you to host webinars without using an extra tool.
- …participants to join and download files
- …recording webinars.
- …video sharing and screen sharing.
- …to store files online.
- …using PowerPoint.
It’s worth noting that the webinar tool is not available on all GetResponse subscriptions, but if it’s something you regularly use, their tool is comprehensive and affordable.
What about Mailchimp? They don’t even offer a webinar feature, making GetResponse the clear winner.
Deliverability
This is a big one! As a business owner, you need to know – do your emails make it to your customers’ inboxes?
Third-party testing shows that Mailchimp edges a bit ahead here. But only a bit.
Mailchimp had a deliverability rate of 86.9% as of March 2021, and GetResponse wasn’t far behind with 83.8%.
Pricing
Mailchimp and GetResponse differ quite a bit when it comes to pricing plans, especially at the entry-level.
Mailchimp offers four pricing plans:
- Free – a slimmed-down version that features an advertisement for Mailchimp at the bottom of every email newsletter.
- Essential – starts at $9.99 per month and gives you the ability to send emails to 1500 subscribers.
- Standard – starts at $14.00 per month and allows you to send emails to 2500 subscribers.
- Premium – starts at $299 per month and gives you the ability to send emails to 10,000 subscribers.
Mailchimp edges ahead for businesses that are just starting with its Free Plan. The Essential Plan doesn’t offer advanced features like automation, but it’s great for people who are just beginning.
GetResponse starts at $15/month, but they do offer a free trial, so you can make sure it fits your needs before you make a purchase.
Let’s take a closer look at the pricing tiers offered by GetResponse:
- Basic – starts at $15 per month and allows you to send an unlimited number of emails to 1000 subscribers.
- Plus – starts at $49 per month and includes email and additional marketing features for 1000 subscribers.
- Professional – starts at $99 per month for 1000 subscribers and includes more advanced features.
- Max – customized pricing for customized needs.
With both tools, more features and more subscribers come with a higher price tag. That said, as you edge into the higher price tiers, GetResponse offers more bang for your buck.
Integrations
Both Mailchimp and GetResponse integrate with a wide variety of tools, including Facebook, PayPal, and Magento.
I highly recommend checking out GetResponse integrations here and Mailchimp integrations here.
Sometimes, integration is a bit more straightforward with Mailchimp as GetResponse tends to rely on Zapier, but this isn’t a make-or-break-it issue in our eyes. Integrations are available, and that’s what matters.
Who is the Winner?
It may be a tough contest, but we have to give it to GetResponse.
It generally offers more features at a lower price tag – a definite advantage.
The additional tools like conversion funnels and webinars score significant points for GetResponse. Considering the additional segmentation features, GetResponse clearly offers more value than Mailchimp.
However, there is one thing where Mailchimp outpaces GetResponse. The Free Plan.
If you’re starting and want to know if email marketing is right for you, Mailchimp might be a good stepping stone, but once you’re into it – go for GetResponse.
