ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse: which email platform should you use?

Both are email-first platforms. ActiveCampaign leans into deep automation and a built-in sales CRM. GetResponse leans into an all-in-one marketing kit that includes webinars.

Plans and prices change. Check current pricing on the official page: www.activecampaign.com/pricing

Plans and prices change. Check current pricing on the official page: www.getresponse.com/pricing

Verdict

If your follow-up is complex and depends on behavior, choose ActiveCampaign. If you sell through webinars and want fewer tools, choose GetResponse.

See ActiveCampaign →

See GetResponse →

How this page was made: from each provider's official product and pricing pages and its public documentation. We haven't run a formal hands-on test for this page. When we add hands-on notes, we'll label them.

Pricing structure

Both price by plan and list size, so costs climb as your list grows. Compare the two at your actual contact count on activecampaign.com/pricing and getresponse.com/pricing. We haven't listed exact figures because they change with list size and billing term.

Automation

ActiveCampaign's visual builder supports deep branching on opens, clicks, site visits, custom fields, deal stages and goals. It's one of the main reasons people choose it. GetResponse's workflows cover the common cases (welcome series, cart abandonment, tagging) and are easier for beginners, but they're less granular.

Webinars and landing pages

GetResponse includes webinar hosting on its higher plans, which saves a separate subscription if webinars are your main sales channel. Both tools include landing pages and forms.

Who it's for, and who should skip it

How we evaluated

Scores on this page are editorial scores out of 10. We built them from official product, pricing and documentation pages, checked in October 2026, using the weighted criteria below. Advertisers do not influence our ratings, and we haven't run lab-style benchmarks for this page.

How the two platforms differ in practice

ActiveCampaign and GetResponse overlap heavily on paper: both send newsletters, both run automations, both include landing pages and both integrate with popular stores. The difference shows up once you go past the basics. ActiveCampaign is built around deep, conditional automation and a built-in sales CRM. GetResponse is built around breadth, giving a small business many marketing channels and builders in one account.

Walkthrough: a welcome series with a sales handoff

ActiveCampaign approach

1. A form applies a tag and starts an automation.
2. The automation sends a welcome email, waits, then checks whether the contact clicked a pricing link.
3. Clickers get a higher lead score and a different email path. Non-clickers get educational content.
4. When the score crosses a threshold, the automation creates a deal in the pipeline and assigns a salesperson, who gets a task.

GetResponse approach

1. A form adds the contact to a list and triggers a workflow.
2. The workflow sends the welcome series with conditions based on opens and clicks.
3. Contacts who engage can receive a webinar invitation or a landing page offer, depending on your plan's features.
4. Sales handoff typically happens through tags, notifications or an integration with your CRM.

The lesson: if your process ends in a sales conversation, ActiveCampaign's native deals and scoring reduce the number of tools you need. If your process ends in an online purchase or webinar, GetResponse's built-in channels are a strong fit.

Buying criteria

Automation complexity

Write down your three most important automations before you compare. If they involve multiple branches, goals and wait conditions, test them in ActiveCampaign's builder. If they are mostly linear sequences, either tool will handle them.

Sales features

ActiveCampaign includes a CRM with pipelines and deal stages on relevant plans. GetResponse focuses on marketing; teams needing a sales pipeline usually integrate another CRM.

Webinars and extra channels

GetResponse offers webinars on selected plans and a broader set of builders. If you run regular webinars, that can replace a separate tool.

Ecommerce

Both connect to popular store platforms and can send abandoned-cart and post-purchase flows. Check that your store platform is supported natively by the plan you choose.

Pricing model

Both price by plan tier and contact count. Prices change over time, so compare the official pages using your real list size and the plan that includes the features above.

Comparison table

A 14-day trial plan

Use trials properly instead of clicking around. Day one: authenticate your domain and import a small test list. Days two to four: rebuild your main welcome automation and send it to yourself and colleagues. Days five to seven: build a landing page and form, and connect your store or website. Days eight to ten: build a report you'd actually check weekly. Days eleven to fourteen: contact support with one real question, and judge the answer. Pick the tool where you finished the most steps with the least frustration.

Migration tips

• Map lists in GetResponse to tags in ActiveCampaign (or the reverse) before you import.
• Export unsubscribed contacts and import them as suppressed so they never receive mail.
• Recreate forms on your website and test every one.
• Run both tools in parallel for a short period so in-flight sequences finish cleanly.

Our recommendation

Pick ActiveCampaign if automation depth and a built-in sales pipeline matter most. Pick GetResponse if you want email plus webinars, pages and store flows in one place. Creators who mainly sell digital products should also read our Kit vs GetResponse comparison.

Email deliverability setup, step by step

Whichever platform you choose, inbox placement depends heavily on setup you control. Work through these steps before your first campaign.

1. Use your own domain. Send from an address on a domain you own, not a free mailbox address. Free mailbox providers' policies make that unreliable for bulk mail.
2. Add SPF. This DNS record lists which services may send on your domain's behalf. Your platform's help center gives the exact value to add.
3. Add DKIM. DKIM signs each message so receiving servers can verify it wasn't altered. Most platforms give you one or more DNS records to publish.
4. Publish DMARC. Start with a monitoring policy so you receive reports, then tighten it once you're confident every legitimate sender is authenticated.
5. Warm up gradually. If the domain is new to bulk sending, start with your most engaged contacts and increase volume over several sends.
6. Make unsubscribing easy. A visible unsubscribe link and honouring requests quickly protect your sender reputation and keep you within anti-spam rules.
7. Prune inactive contacts. Periodically re-engage or remove subscribers who haven't opened or clicked in a long time.

Working out whether it pays for itself

You don't need invented benchmarks to judge value. Use your own numbers.

1. Count the tools it replaces. List every subscription the platform would retire, such as separate email, booking, forms, texting or funnel tools, and add up what you pay for them today.
2. Estimate time saved. Note how many hours a week your team spends on manual follow-up, data entry and copying leads between tools.
3. Estimate recovered revenue. Look at last quarter's leads that were never contacted or followed up only once. Even recovering a small share of those can matter more than the subscription price.
4. Add the real cost. Include the subscription, usage fees, onboarding time and any setup help you pay for.

If tools replaced plus time saved already exceed the total cost, the decision is easy. If not, the case rests on recovered revenue, so run a trial and measure it.

Questions to ask before you sign

Sales pages are optimistic by design. These questions, asked in a demo or support chat, get you the facts you need.

1. Which features in the demo are included in the plan I'm buying, and which are add-ons?
2. What usage is billed separately (texts, email sends, calls, AI, extra contacts or seats)?
3. What happens to my price when my contact count or team grows?
4. Is there a contract term, and how do I cancel?
5. Can I export all my data, including notes and activity history, if I leave?
6. What onboarding help is included, and is there a fee for it?
7. Which integrations are native and which require a third-party connector?
8. Where is my data hosted, and what security and privacy documentation can you share?

Write down the answers and keep them with your purchase records.

Migrating from another tool without losing data

1. Inventory. List contacts, custom fields, tags, pipelines, open deals, notes, files, forms, automations and integrations in the old system.
2. Clean before you move. Remove duplicates and contacts who never engaged. Migration is the cheapest time to clean.
3. Map fields. Build a simple spreadsheet mapping each old field to its new equivalent, and create missing fields first.
4. Export suppression lists. Unsubscribes, bounces and do-not-contact flags must come across so nobody is contacted against their wishes.
5. Move open deals carefully. Import active opportunities with their stage and owner, and attach recent notes.
6. Rebuild, don't copy, automations. Use the move as a chance to simplify.
7. Run in parallel briefly. Keep the old tool read-only for a few weeks in case you need to look something up.