ConvertKit vs GetResponse: Which One is Right For You?

All in all, GetResponse has an email marketing tool with webinars, surveys, conversion funnels, and a CRM. Whereas, ConvertKit is a simple email marketing tool.

You can take a look at different features, benefits, and drawbacks of each one and decide for yourself if it’s for you or not.

This is exactly what I’m going to help you with, in this ConvertKit vs GetResponse head-to-head review article.

Let’s dive in.

 

ConvertKit VS GetResponse – Main Differences

Here are a few prominent differences between the two softwares:

• • The webinar autoresponder workflow builder of GetResponse makes the software stand out
  • GetResponse is a much better option if you want more sales, whereas ConvertKit is ideal for sign-ups
  • ConvertKit doesn’t charge for duplicate sign-ups, whereas GetResponse does

But, of course, this is just the top of the iceberg. An e-mail marketing or automation software is a long-term investment, so you want to dig a little deeper than this.

 

About GetResponse

GetResponse has been around since 1998, which translates to about 19 years.

This tells us that it’s easily one of the oldest players in the email marketing game.

Plus, it was one of the first ones to tell the world how to do e-mail marketing the right way.

Although the software company offers other features like landing pages and webinars, its core features revolve around e-mail automation.

 

About ConvertKit

Started in 2015, ConvertKit is a relatively new kid on the block. So, as far as experience is concerned, ConvertKit lacks a bit, especially when compared to GetResponse.

However, don’t be fooled by that; despite being a little new to email automation, the software is competing with the big guns.

Nathan Barry is its founder, who talks about how he built ConvertKit, but that’s all the info you can get about the company.

So, how is a relatively new software company started competing with SAAS giants?

They focused on a particular segment of a wider target audience: Professional bloggers.

Before going into the features, let’s compare their prices.

 

ConvertKit VS GetResponse: Pricing Comparison

GetResponse Pricing

Source: Getresponse.com

 

Similar to most SAAS software out there, GetResponse has a tiered pricing structure, which is a good thing.

This means you don’t have to pay for the premium features if you don’t want to use them.

But of course, you can always upgrade your subscription as your business grows.

The main variable would be the number of people you are able to contact in each pricing tier.

If you talk about the basic package of GetResponse, you can contact up to 1000 people at $12 per month.

Clearly, it’s suitable for people that are just starting out with email marketing.

So, it would be a good idea to first get the hang of the software with the basic package. And, when you need more features and fewer limitations, upgrade your plan.

Moreover, the basic package revolves more around email, it does offer other features like landing page templates and a little automation.

Just enough to get you started.

Plus, if you ever need to increase your subscribers’ list, you could do that on the basic package, with extra cost, of course.

GetResponse allows you to go up to 100,000 subscribers; it will cost you $450 per month. But, honestly, for the things you can achieve with that kind of email list, the amount is pretty fair.

What’s more, you also get a decent discount on all the packages when you pay for the whole year. If you are ready for a long relationship with the software, you can go for two years for an even better discount.

 

ConvertKit Pricing

Source: Convertkit.com

 

A majority of email marketing solutions offera free version just to let you get your toes wet. This is the case with ConvertKit.

Even when you want to try out the software, you don’t have to pay for at least one month.

This is good as you have no commitment to keep using the software after one month.

So, you could just try it for a month and see how it goes.

However; like many softwares, ConvertKit don’t show the full picture in their free plan.

So, by paying for a month, you can know every aspect of the software, which puts you in a better position to judge it.

ConvertKit offers three packages. Every tier has the exact same features except for the number of subscribers.

Here is how ConvertKit’s pricing structure looks like:

• • Up to 1000 subscribers for $29/month
  • Up to 3000 subscribers for $49/month
  • Up to 5000 subscribers for $79/month

But, of course, if you have more contacts to reach out to, you can always arrange a call with their team and get a custom package.

That was all about the pricing, let’s now dive into the features.

Taking a deeper look at every feature will help you understand what each tool is capable of.

 

GetResponse Features

There isn’t much to talk about the basic plan of GetResponse. The first tier provides the basic email marketing functionality and a tad bit of automation.

Although it doesn’t provide enough features for a growing business, you get everything you need to get started with email marketing.

Let’s take a look at its features.

 

Email Marketing

GetResponse covers every need of an email marketer with its powerful features.

One of the first things you look at in an email marketing software is how easy it makes email designing.

After all, the design of your emails plays an important role in their effectiveness as marketing tools.

GetResponse offers an extensive list of ready-made email templates (more than 500). So, you don’t have to worry about designing your emails from scratch.

You will see a template for every type of email you can imagine using for your business.

Once you select a template, you can change every little detail of that design using the intuitive drag-and-drop builder.

Even if you have never designed your emails before, you can change text, images, videos, and other elements of your emails easily.

Moreover, if you want, you can always use its HTML editor to craft text-based emails.

On top of that, GetResponse provides more than 1000 professional iStock photos. You can use them in your email and make them visually appealing.

One of the most prominent features of the GetResponse email marketing tool is its autoresponder campaigns tool.

There are a lot of benefits to autoresponder emails. Here are a few:

• • Convert your website visitors into subscribers
  • Build a long-term business relationship with subscribers
  • Use it to market your business without having to invest in advertising
  • Generate repeat sales
  • And, more

Email autoresponders are awesome because they let you utilize automation to personalize your email campaigns.

For instance, using an autoresponder, you can set up a personalized welcome email sequence every time someone signs up for your newsletter.

Plus, GetResponse shows these emails in a cool calendar view, which shows the dates on which each email will be sent to your audience.

 

Landing Pages

Getresponse.com

 

GetResponse’s landing pages stand out from the crowd, especially because the platform offers a generous number of pre-built templates.

You get landing page templates for opt-in pages, promo pages, squeeze pages, download pages, and even more.

Moreover, GetResponse doesn’t need a third-party landing page tool like Unbounce or Leadpages. You will be able to create great landing pages with their built-in landing page builder.

Whereas, to create landing pages with ConvertKit, you will have to partner up with a third-party tool.

However, if your goal is to put sign-up forms on your site only, the landing page feature of GetResponse might not be very useful.

 

Webinars, Surveys, and Forms

Collecting leads or building an email list is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing.

This is why businesses always try to come up with creative ways to capture more leads and make their list longer.

Of course, you want to collect high-quality leads to be able to convert most of them later.

In addition to landing pages and forms, GetResponse offers something unique and effective to let you attract more prospects.

These are webinars and surveys.

With GetResponse, you can host live webinars, create sign-up forms, and capture the email addresses of your audience.

The webinar feature of GetResponse is pretty powerful. During a webinar, you can write on a virtual whiteboard and create surveys and polls. Your audiences can even chat with each other during the webinar.

It’s pretty much an all-in-one webinar solution.

Not only that, but you can also create surveys with GetResponse’s survey tool, helping you collect more leads for your business.

 

CRM Tool

Customer relationship management tools, as the name suggests, help you “manage” your customers efficiently.

GetResponse’s CRM tool is more than enough to track your leads and help you make them your customers.

However, it isn’t the most feature-packed CRM.

But, it gets the job done, i.e., helping you attract leads and convert them.

The CRM lets you arrange your leads in different columns, namely:

1. 1. New opportunity
   2. Qualified
   3. Presentation
   4. Won
   5. Lost

These customizable columns help you visualize your leads at different stages of their buyer’s journey.

You can tag your leads and assign users to follow up on them within the CRM.

Moreover, the CRM allows you to add events, time-based to-dos, and notes, helping you follow up on your leads efficiently.

Marketing Automation

Source: Getresponse.com

 

Marketing automation is probably the most important reason why you are considering an email marketing software like GetResponse.

The good thing is, GetResponse checks all the automation boxes with ease.

You can set triggers based on users’ behavior and actions, which helps you target different segments of your audience effectively.

While the automation feature is similar to what ConvertKit has to offer, it’s more powerful.

Here is the reason: ConvertKit offers marketing automation only with your emails. Whereas, GetResponse lets you automate activities within its CRM and webinars as well.

As a result, you can integrate your marketing and sales funnel together, helping them convert more people.

 

Usability and User-Interface

GetResponse is more like a CRM platform rather than only an email marketing tool. Though this does make it better at providing you with helpful insights for growing your business.

But, while that’s great, here is a tiny drawback: Managing a CRM can be a little overwhelming if you are just looking for email marketing software.

This is especially true for people that are just starting out in email marketing and don’t want the extra noise.

On the other side, if you can handle a simple CRM or can learn as you go, you will be getting some additional benefits.

If you don’t need a full-fledged CRM and would prefer a light one, GetResponse will be the right fit for you.

Moreover, the navigation of GetResponse is pretty simple and menu items are pretty much self-explanatory. Even as a beginner, you will find your way around instantly.

The only thing you might find a little annoying is how GetResponse comes off a little needy for your contact list.

It asks for it almost as soon as you log into your account.

Although, of course, it’s what we are supposed to do eventually, it can be a little disruptive.

One of the most prominent things that make GetResponse a great fit for beginners is their free consultation sessions.

This is a great feature for those of us who don’t know much about using a CRM plus an email marketing automation tool.

 

Conversion Funnels

Here is why you should take GetResponse as a full-blown marketing system rather than an email marketing software:

The conversion funnel tool!

Using this tool, you could create a customized conversion funnel based on whatever goals you want to achieve.

Here is the set of tools you could use to craft a funnel that not only attracts the right people but also converts them:

• • Facebook ads
  • Instagram ads
  • Social ads creator
  • Sales pages
  • Landing pages
  • Payment processors
  • Abandoned cart emails

You would just have to pick a template. It will let you know about the elements you should be adding to each stage.

Another great thing is, you can even use a conversion funnel template and there are quite a few options to choose from as well.

Moreover, GetResponse gives you templates for each stage of your conversion funnel. For instance, if you need to build a landing page, you’ve got a lot of landing page templates to choose from and play around with.

A conversion funnel can be a game-changer for your business as it lets you track your prospects or leads on every stage of their journey with your brand.

This helps you personalize your targeting and achieve more from each lead.

As a conversion funnel lets you track every step a prospect takes, you can optimize individual parts of it for more conversions.

Before tools like GetResponse, you would need a set of tools to achieve something like this. Now, you are able to do all of that under one umbrella.

On the flip side, while ConvertKit does offer automated marketing flows, it doesn’t offer conversion funnels.

This alone can make GetResponse much more desirable to the marketers that understand the importance of tracking.

 

Blogging Features

According to HubSpot, 89% of content marketers leverage blog posts in their content marketing strategies.

GetResponse offers a set of blogging features that can help you attract more leads with great content.

These include:

• • Easy drag-and-drop email builder with templates
  • RSS-to-email tool that sends out your new blog posts to your audience automatically
  • Forms that can help you grab more leads on your blog
  • Lead magnet funnels that help you promote digital products of all kinds
  • Instagram and Facebook ads to attract more audiences to your posts
  • A social ads creator that helps you create attention-grabbing social media posts
  • Push notifications for people that want to keep their audiences updated

ConvertKit Features

The most important features you want to check in an email marketing software are:

• • How easily you can write and design emails in it
  • How effective its autoresponder campaigns are
  • In there any other automation features that can make your work easier and more effective?
  • How easy it is to manage your subscribers or leads?

Let’s take all the features of ConvertKit apart to help you understand the tool better.

 

ConvertKit Blogging Features

Bloggers created this platform, so it’s easy to presume that it would be a better fit for businesses that focus on blogging to attract leads.

If you have a regular blogging schedule, ConvertKit lets you schedule your posts for specific times and days.

You can also personalize your emails and send them out to a narrow segment of your audience.

For instance, ConvertKit lets you segment your audience using tags, date subscribed, and on a first-name basis.

The RSS feed lets you notify your audiences about any new content you post. The feed is pretty easy to customize as well.

 

ConvertKit Form Builder

With ConvertKit, there are essentially two ways to collect leads:

• • Landing pages
  • Forms

Forms are the lifeline of an email marketing strategy. You might be able to attract prospects with great content, but if your form is clunky and repelling, you can’t expect to capture many leads.

Although you do not need any fancy form designs to make them effective, they should grab users’ attention and make them give out their emails.

Now, while reviewing such important software, you need to be brutally honest. After all, it’s your money that’s at stake.

ConvertKit’s forms are limited in the sense that you only get three templates to work with. Plus, the customization options are also close to none.

So, if you are thinking of having a lot of design options and the ability to customize your emails to your heart’s content, ConvertKit might not be for you.

But, of course, it does provide the basic email marketing arsenal to a marketer to work with.

But, we are comparing it with GetResponse, which is better when it comes to ready-made templates and customizability.

Moreover, you probably want to have as many landing page templates as possible just because it makes things so much easier for a non-designer.

But, ConvertKit doesn’t offer many landing page templates either.

That said, overall, it offers the features that you need to get your business moving online.

First, you can host your landing pages and forms on ConvertKit itself. Second, you can even set ConvertKit forms on your website and set triggers for whenever you want the software to show yourform on it.

For instance, you can put your forms as pop-ups, sliders, or between text.

Plus, it lets you redirect your subscribers to a “Thank you” page. You could also send them downloadable files.

 

ConvertKitEmail Editor

Source: Convertkit.com

 

The email editor of ConvertKit is pretty basic and limited. You don’t get any templates to work with, which can be an issue if you are new to email designing.

You can just add text, gifs, and images to your email.

You can, however, change the background and color of the elements, but that’s pretty much it.

According to ConvertKit, you don’t get any email because barebone emails supposedly convert well.

But, it doesn’t even provide any design customization options like dragging and dropping email elements.

All you get is a basic email creation editor that just looks like a word processor.

ConvertKit Autoresponder

Similar to other good email marketing tools, ConvertKit’s autoresponder works great.

You can segment your audience, create a series of emails, and set your emails to be sent automatically at a certain time and day.

Moreover, ConvertKit also lets you create a broadcast. Broadcasts are one-time emails that you send to all of your subscribers.

All in all, ConvertKit’semail autoresponder offers pretty much everything you would need to run impactful automated campaigns.

One of the few thingsConvertKit lacks is the flexibility of its editor. But, if you are okay with not having multiple design choices and limited flexibility, it might work for you.

 

ConvertKit Subscriber Management

You can manage your subscribers in a single list on ConvertKit, whereas GetResponse provides you with four different columns for effective list management.

The good thing is, you can use tags and segments to divide your subscribers based on their journey with your brand.

You can also segment your subscribers based on how they behave with your brand and other metrics including their demographics.

For dividing your subscribers based on their demographics and psychographics, you can use tags.

Segmentation is the way to categories those tags to divide your target audience.

This helps you target every prospect depending on where they are in their journey with your brand, maximizing the chances of conversions.

However, as mentioned before, ConvertKit only offers a single list, so if you have multiple websites or businesses to run, it could be a problem.

In case you want to create a new list, you will have to create a new account with ConvertKit.

 

ConvertKit Automations

Email marketing wouldn’t be even tenth as effective without automation. Every email marketing tool strives to provide the best automation features for a reason.

Luckily, ConvertKit offers great automation features; everything you would need to attract, retain, and convert your prospects.

Here is a quick overview of what ConvertKit offers as an email automation tool:

• • Set up an autoresponder campaign as soon as a subscriber signs up for your list
  • Tag your subscribers and personalize your email campaigns for better results
  • Set up email flows in response to specific triggers or actions by your subscribers
  • Connect and send multiple autoresponders to your audience

Moreover, as you set up automation within ConvertKit, it handles most of the stuff on its own.

And, it’s easy as well, so you get the hang of things within no time.

 

Usability and Interface

ConvertKit is a more blogger-focused platform, so it’s easily the more user-friendly and intuitive software of the two.

You will be able to get going with the tool almost instantly.

The only coding you would be doing is making a few tweaks to the HTML code and that too is only when you want to refine your email’s design.

The interface is pretty easy to figure out and you will get the hang of it quickly even if you haven’t used email marketing software before.

Moreover, ConvertKit’s WordPress plugin makes it an attraction to many WordPress users as well.

In addition to WordPress, the email marketing software integrates with several other tools like Zapier.

Similar to any good SAAS business, ConvertKit offers a customer support team. And, it also offers regular training to help you use the automation tool effectively.

Even if you have been using another tool for a while and want to shift to ConvertKit, they offer a dedicated team to help you out.

The only condition is that you should have more than 5000 subscribers.

The customer support team can also come in handy for integrations.

 

ConvertKit VS GetResponse – Head-to-Head

Feature	GetResponse	ConvertKit
Email marketing	Yes	Yes
Drag-and-drop builder	Yes	No
Email templates	Yes	No
Email marketing automation	Yes	Yes
Landing pages	Yes	Yes
Sign up forms	Yes	Yes
Webinars	Yes	No
Conversion funnels	Yes	No
Facebook ads	Yes	No
Google ads	Yes	No
Surveys	Yes	No
Social ads creator	Yes	No
Live chat	Yes	No
24/7 customer support	Yes (Chat)	No (Email)
Web push notifications	Yes	No
Integrations	Yes	Yes

 

Final Verdict

GetResponse

GetResponse is an incredible email marketing platform that has a light touch of a CRM. You are getting a full-fledged email marketing system to attract, retain, and convert your prospects with the software.

It seems like GetResponse is more geared towards people that want to generate more sales.

Don’t get me wrong though; it’s great for marketing. But, converting the attracted prospects seems like its strongest suit.

And, of course, your goal as a business is always going to generate more sales, right?

Moreover, it’s also great at helping you build and retain a strong bond with your customers and leads thanks to its CRM.

So, GetResponse is for you if you are looking for a tool that can help you:

• • Build an extensive database of your leads
  • Follow-up on them with relevant and personalized emails
  • Convert them into your long-term customers

However, it is not just one simple tool; there are many moving parts that would require a dedicated team.

 

ConvertKit

If you are a solopreneur or sell within a narrow niche market, ConvertKit is custom-built for you. Here is what makes ConvertKit unique:

• • The software is subscriber-centric, so you are able to segment your audience and target them effectively to convert them
  • ConvertKit is relatively simple yet effective email marketing software. You won’t need a team to handle different aspects of the software. You would be able to single-handedly use the tool to its full potential
  • It’s one of the most easy-to-use email marketing software, which makes it ideal for less tech-savvy or beginner entrepreneurs
  • However, don’t expect to get a great landing page builder or a customizable email editor. It’s a basic email automation software, especially when you compare it to GetResponse
  • Plus, it’s not for you if you are looking for some CRM capabilities and want to manage your subscribers effectively
  • For that, you will have to integrate other marketing software, which would get expensive and won’t make much sense