Mailchimp vs GetResponse: It’s a Close Battle [2024 Update]

Mailchimp might be a better known email marketing service (EMS), but how does it compare to the titan that is GetResponse? To find out, I spent dozens of hours testing both the quality and quantity of their features, ease of use, and value for money.

So, is Mailchimp’s hype deserved? Well, it all depends on what you want out of your EMS. Although GetResponse is arguably more capable in terms of automation, CRM, and segmentation, Mailchimp has an intuitive interface and is easier to use.

If you’re looking for a robust EMS that can do it all, you really can’t go wrong with GetResponse. That said, Mailchimp’s tools and processes are much more streamlined. There’s even a clever AI that offers all kinds of personalized suggestions – something beginner marketers will definitely appreciate.

Ultimately, it boils down to your specific needs. Read on to discover which platform is the best solution for your business.

Features

GetResponse Offers an All-Inclusive Buffet of Email Marketing Tools

GetResponse goes above and beyond to provide its users with a slew of features. Aside from the usual stuff like hundreds of email templates and advanced automation, it offers live chat for your website, built-in stock photo and GIF libraries, and a perfect timing tool. Mailchimp doesn’t offer as many tools, but it’s still a robust email marketing tool that’s very easy to use.

First and foremost, the bread and butter of any EMS: email templates. Both offer plenty of modern, customizable designs, but GetResponse has a slight edge in numbers – 150 to Mailchimp’s 60. If you have the technical know-how, both platforms let you use your own HTML code to insert custom templates (Mailchimp restricts this functionality to the Standard plan and above.)

But quality is more important than quantity. GetResponse’s templates look great, but Mailchimp’s “themes” are a step above the competition. They feature more polished designs and look great on smaller screens. Many are also built with e-commerce in mind, which can help drive clicks and increase conversions. Some of GetResponse’s templates, on the other hand, are a bit too simple – at times, even generic.

Once you’re done designing, you need to make sure your platform can save you time by automatically sending your campaigns to the right people at the right time.

Mailchimp’s automation builder is remarkably simple. You can set up welcome emails, give discounts to users who left items in their shopping carts, highlight chances to buy related products, and more. There are more than 45 pre-built automation templates to help you get started.

GetResponse’s automation tool is more advanced. There are hundreds of templates, but what I love most is the freedom that comes with the “build from scratch” option. The color coding makes it easy to understand which paths lead where, and you can freely move all of the elements around as you test different setups.

As far as integrations go, Mailchimp reigns supreme. It integrates natively with more apps and platforms than any other EMS on the market. GetResponse has decent integration capabilities, but you’ll have to spend more time connecting your favorite apps via third parties, such as Zapier.

One feature that holds Mailchimp back is its poor segmentation capabilities. Since Mailchimp’s “audiences” are siloed, it’s impossible to create truly dynamic lists that update themselves based on contact behavior. GetResponse’s segmentation is much more robust, allowing you to send more personalized messages with dynamic segments.

After testing both EMS platforms, I concluded that GetResponse, with its expanded ecosystem of marketing tools, does more than Mailchimp.

Ease of Use

Mailchimp Doesn’t Just Look Good – It’s Also a Pleasure to Use

GetResponse’s dashboard is super easy to read, and the menu is neatly tucked away in the header so your workspace isn’t cluttered. You can also customize the blocks (or widgets) you have displayed on your dashboard, which is a nice touch.

Mailchimp’s dashboard is also pretty simple to read, even if it’s not as customizable as GetResponse’s.

However, email building is where Mailchimp really shines. Aside from its beautiful templates, Mailchimp’s editor allows you to set the email’s overall style. I didn’t constantly have to change my font size, colors, or anything else to fit my brand design. GetResponse only allows you to style the header and footer of your email, which can be pretty restrictive.

Mailchimp’s editor is much smoother to use and comes with some beginner-friendly tools that make all the difference. For example, link and merge tag errors are tracked under the “Optimize” tab, helping you stick to best practices.

And this isn’t the only place Mailchimp offers advice. You’ll find similar helpful tips under your audience dashboard, automation suite, analytics tab, integrations hub, and so on. GetResponse doesn’t have that – you’re all on your own.

That’s not to say GetResponse is difficult to use. If you’re familiar with email marketing, you shouldn’t have trouble navigating its menus and utilizing its tools. As for guides and learning resources, both platforms offer plenty of helpful articles and interactive guides to aid you on your email marketing journey.

GetResponse is easy to use, but Mailchimp is designed from the ground up with beginners and ease of use in mind. This round goes to the chimp.

Deliverability

Mailchimp Enjoys a Slightly Higher Deliverability Rate

Before I get started, I need to point out that I don’t buy into the standard deliverability tests that some other review sites use. In our research, we’ve found that these percentages don’t tell us all that much.

One of my colleagues did a fantastic job explaining why standard test results can’t be trusted and what you can do to boost your deliverability.

Let’s take a look at our first criteria: anti-spam policies.

Unless you’re paying for a dedicated IP address for your email marketing – more on that later – you’ll be sharing an IP with potentially thousands of other EMS customers. If just one of those customers uses your shared IP address to spam recipients and the IP address gets reported, you and everyone else using it can be blacklisted by email servers.

This means that your emails can get thrown into junk folders, even if they’re perfectly legit. So, whichever EMS you use needs to have a solid anti-spam policy to ensure you’re not at risk of being blacklisted.

The good news is that both GetResponse and Mailchimp do an excellent job with this. Both platforms are vehemently anti-spam and remind users of their obligations under CAN-SPAM, GDPR, or any other applicable data protection laws.

The main difference between them is that Mailchimp prohibits affiliate marketing, and GetResponse doesn’t. This might not be a dealbreaker for you, but it’s worth noting that affiliate marketing can increase the risk of an email being marked as spam.

Another key factor in deliverability is DKIM authentication. This drops a chunk of code into your email that tells email providers that your email wasn’t altered during transit. This way, recipients can be sure communications from you are legitimate.

Both Mailchimp and GetResponse offer easy-to-follow DKIM authentication tutorials to help you connect your domain name to your EMS account.

Finally, using a dedicated IP address can also improve your deliverability. It’s not a failproof solution because there are so many factors that go into deliverability, but it greatly reduces the risk of your email IP address being blacklisted for spam.

Mailchimp offers a dedicated IP address as an add-on for an additional monthly fee of $29.95. If you want to purchase a dedicated IP on GetResponse, be prepared to pay a heavy price – it’s only available on the MAX² plan, which is also the most expensive.

In the battle for deliverability, Mailchimp comes out victorious. Not only does it offer dedicated IP addresses, but it also doesn’t allow affiliate marketing on its servers.

Reporting and Analytics

Mailchimp Can Generate All Kinds of Marketing Reports

With any EMS, you’ll want plenty of information that you can use to optimize your email marketing campaigns. As GI Joe loved to tell us in the 80s, knowing is half the battle, and you need to know how your contacts are interacting with your marketing.

As we discussed in the last section, you’ll also want to know that your emails are getting to the people who signed up for them. When paying per contact, you need to know who on your list consistently bounces emails back to you.

GetResponse’s analytics dashboard is customizable but pretty basic. Sure, you can quickly see how many contacts opened, clicked, bounced, or unsubscribed, but where are the in-depth stats? GetResponse simply won’t show them to you.

Mailchimp’s dashboard isn’t as customizable as GetResponse’s, but it makes up for that by offering more information about where users clicked on your email. I really liked the click map feature, which shows you where links are and how many clicks those links had. This could be really useful in helping you to optimize your email layouts.

Mailchimp also offers geolocation and social reporting, so you can see where in the world your contacts opened your emails and even whether they tweeted your email. Geolocation reporting, in particular, is crucial – so it’s a shame that GetResponse doesn’t offer this feature.

GetResponse’s analytics offerings are likely to be more than enough for beginners. But, once you’ve gained experience and want to optimize your campaigns further, you’ll likely find Mailchimp’s tools much more valuable and insightful.

Mailchimp’s advanced reporting capabilities help it win yet another round.

Pricing

GetResponse’s Competitive Prices Make Up for the Lackluster Free Plan

Mailchimp’s free plan packs more features than GetResponse’s. As far as paid plans go, expect to pay slightly less with GetResponse – while also gaining access to certain features Mailchimp doesn’t have.

Here’s What You Get for Free

On Mailchimp’s free plan, you get 1,000 email sends a month and can host a list with a maximum of 500 subscribers, which is okay. That said, Mailchimp’s free plan comes with basic autoresponder functionality and the ability to build landing pages and sign-up forms. You can also contact the customer support team for 30 days after creating your free account. While not outstanding, these features might be enough for many small businesses.

By comparison, GetResponse’s free plan is hardly useful. Even though it has the same subscriber limits as Mailchimp and a larger monthly send limit of 2,500, there’s no automation or support. You heard that right: if you don’t pay for GetResponse, you can’t even set up simple autoresponders – and there’s no way to contact the support team either.

Here’s What You Get If You Pay

In my opinion, Mailchimp is quite an expensive service for the features it offers. First things first – there’s no such thing as unlimited email sends with Mailchimp, even on the Premium plan. That seems a bit bizarre, to be honest, as almost every other EMS only limits the size of your contact list, not your sends.

GetResponse’s plans, on the other hand, are cheaper, more flexible, and come with unlimited sends and landing pages. They scale better than Mailchimp’s and include added features such as advanced segmentation, contact scoring, and sales funnels.

It’s also worth mentioning that both Mailchimp and GetResponse will automatically charge you if you go over your contact limit. GetResponse says they’ll add a “list extension fee,” so you need to watch out for that. And with Mailchimp’s pricing structure, you’ll be charged an extra monthly fee for those contacts unless you upgrade to the next tier.

Neither EMS offers a money-back guarantee, but GetResponse’s pricing structure offers a small discount for paying yearly. With Mailchimp, you’re stuck with monthly payments.

Simply put, GetResponse offers you more value for money. You’ll also get access to webinar software and sales funnels on this plan, which Mailchimp doesn’t provide.

Let’s compare the two cheapest plans from these EMS providers:

Support

Both Platforms Feature Great Support – Unless You’re a Free User

Good customer support can make or break any EMS, particularly if you’re new to email marketing and need someone to help you figure out what you’re doing.

If you want to access customer support at Mailchimp, be prepared to pay. You can only use email support for the first 30 days with your free account, and phone support is only available on the Premium plan.For all other plans, you’ll get 24/7 email and live chat support, as well as a decent knowledge base.

Mailchimp’s email support is great. It took the customer service agent 8 hours to get back to me. That might sound like a long time but based on all the services I’ve tested (and that’s a lot) I was pleased with it.

Honestly, it’s a shame this support channel isn’t available for more than a month on the Free plan. I appreciated that the customer service agent included a quick cost evaluation and a link to the comparison tool.

Free GetResponse users have it worse. You can’t contact customer support, not even via email. Sure, the knowledge base is extensive, but it’s always good to know human interaction is an option.

Thankfully, paid users get impressively fast live chat – I got my questions answered in no time:

The email support line was just as good. I asked several questions about more advanced features (e.g., sales funnels), and I had a response to my inquiry within 7 hours. I received a list with detailed explanations, and the representative even asked questions to learn more about my businesses and help me better understand how GetResponse’s tools work together.

The win for this section goes to GetResponse. It offers super-quick customer service response times, and the inclusion of training webinars is fantastic for anyone new to email marketing.

GetResponse Has More Tools, but Mailchimp Is Easier to Use

Entering this comparison, I was aware that selecting a winner might prove challenging. Using Mailchimp is delightful, and despite its somewhat less advanced automation features compared to GetResponse, its free plan is more lenient in restrictions.

If you’re relatively new to email marketing, you’ll appreciate Mailchimp’s beginner-friendly menus and interface. As a free user, you’ll also have the chance to test the landing page builder and access landing page analytics – which isn’t often the case with free plans. As a paid user, you’ll unlock automated journeys, dynamic content, content optimization, and more.

GetResponse’s paid plans might be better if you’re looking for a feature-packed EMS. Its wide array of tools (including advanced CRM, segmentation, and automation) will help you set up more complex campaigns while staying on top of your leads’ data.

If you still can’t make up your mind, I’d recommend signing up for a free account with both platforms and testing them yourself.

Here’s a table to help you compare the two at a glance:

FAQ

Is GetResponse better than Mailchimp?

It all depends on your specific needs. To a business that just wants to keep in touch with its contacts, I’d recommend Mailchimp without a second thought. But once your needs grow and GetResponse’s extra features become relevant, it’s hard to see how Mailchimp could keep up.

Which one should I choose, Sendinblue or GetResponse?

That depends on what you’re looking for from an EMS. Sendinblue has a fantastic free plan with 300 email sends a day – perfect if you don’t have a marketing budget. However, GetResponse offers CRM, sales funnels, advanced automation, and plenty more marketing tools.

Who is GetResponse good for?

GetResponse is an email marketing and automation platform designed to help businesses and organizations of all sizes create and send engaging emails, build automated workflows, and grow their audience. Not surprisingly, GetResponse does come with a slight learning curve – Mailchimp’s intuitive interface is better for beginners.

What is the best alternative to Mailchimp?

Sendinblue’s free plan is fantastic, and GetResponse provides a more robust set of features at a better price. That’s why they both beat Mailchimp in our list of the top 10 email marketing services in 2023.