GetResponse
Email plus landing pages and funnels in one account
Free plan available
GetResponse vs AWeber
Both send email to a list you own, and that is roughly where the similarity stops. GetResponse is trying to be the whole marketing stack. AWeber is trying to stay out of your way.
We have written nothing here about inbox placement rates. Both are long-established senders, published deliverability figures are marketing artefacts, and we have not run our own send tests — your list hygiene will decide more than either vendor does.
AWeber
Long-running, simple list tooling with human support
Free plan available
Where they actually differ
Both will get a newsletter out on a Tuesday. The difference is how much product surrounds that, and whether you want it.
| Where they differ | GetResponse | AWeber |
|---|---|---|
| What it is built around | A marketing stack in one account — list, landing pages, funnels, automation, webinars. | Sending email to a list well, with as little between you and the send as possible. |
| Free plan | Yes, for a small list, and it includes enough of the builder to launch something real. | Yes, for a small list, with the core sending and sign-up forms intact. |
| How you pay | By list size, stepped by plan tier; the higher tiers are where funnels and webinars unlock. | By list size, with a simpler ladder and fewer feature gates between tiers. |
| Automation depth | A visual workflow builder with conditions, waits and tagging — mid-depth, and enough for most funnels. | Sequences, tagging and triggers. Straightforward rather than branching; you will find the ceiling if you look for it. |
| Landing pages and funnels | Included and central. Pages, forms and a funnel view that ties them to the list. | Landing pages exist and are competent, but this is not the product doing the heavy lifting. |
| Webinars | Built in on higher tiers — unusual, and genuinely useful if webinars are your channel. | Not part of the product. |
| Learning curve | More to learn, because there is more product. The builder rewards an afternoon spent in it. | Short. Import a list, make a form, write a broadcast, send. Very little ceremony. |
| Support | Multi-channel and multi-language, which matters once your list crosses borders. | Its standing reputation, and the reason it is on our shortlist: reachable humans, including by phone. |
| Deliverability posture | Established sender with its own compliance and reputation teams; the usual list-hygiene rules still decide your outcome. | Long-running sender with a conservative approach to list practice; same caveat — your list quality dominates. |
| Where it gets expensive | Growing the list while also needing the tier that carries funnels or webinars. | Simply growing the list. Fewer surprises, and fewer things to switch on. |
Which one to pick
Pick GetResponse if
email is one part of a funnel you are building — a lead magnet, a landing page, a sequence, maybe a webinar — and you would rather have one adequate tool for each of those jobs than three excellent tools to reconcile and pay for.
Pick AWeber if
the plan is to write to people regularly. You already have a website you like, you want the shortest path from list to send, and you value being able to reach a human when something looks wrong.
The honest split: GetResponse if you are building a machine, AWeber if you are building a habit. Both are competent senders, so the decision is about how much product you want standing between you and the send button.
There is a real cost to choosing the broader tool. Half of what GetResponse offers is page and funnel building, and if you already pay for a site builder you like, you are buying that half twice and getting the weaker version. That is the single most common reason we would steer someone to AWeber instead.
Going the other way, AWeber's simplicity is a ceiling as well as a feature. If you can already describe the automation you want — different follow-up by segment, behaviour-triggered sequences, a scoring rule — you will hit that ceiling within months. At that point neither of these is the answer and you should read our ActiveCampaign entry instead, which is on the shortlist for exactly this case.
What this comparison does not cover
No inbox-placement testing, no send-volume benchmarks, and no numbers on either plan ladder — both vendors revise list tiers and feature gates regularly, so read their pricing pages before you commit. The judgements here come from the products, their documentation and their published feature sets rather than from running both accounts for a year. Corrections are welcome and we will change a row that is wrong.
Not sure it is one of these two?
The email marketing & automation shortlist has one more pick on it, with the same reasoning and the same caveat for each.
- The whole Email Marketing & Automation shortlistWhat sends the emails, and what follows up while you sleep?
- ActiveCampaignThe deepest automation builder of the three