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Based on weighted criteria below
Low Pricing icon

Low Pricing (weighted 11%)

MailChimp

Forever free plan
for 0-2,000 subscribers/ 12,000 emails per month.

This plan may be all that you need when you're just starting out. It is a pretty generous free plan, but keep in mind it doesn't have access to a lot of their features.

MailChimp offers two basic types of plans (with a flexible pricing structure): list-based and send-based

Here are a few pricing examples.

List-based:

$10/month
for 0-500 subscribers,

$15/month
for 501-1,000 subscribers

$25/month
for 1,001-2,000 subscribers

$180/month
for 26,001-36,000 subscribers

$1050/month
for 225,001-232,000 subscribers

MailChimp's rates are highly segmented. There are a lot more pricing plans in between these options.

Send-based:

At $0.03  per email:
300 Emails – $9
2,000 Emails – $60 

At $0.02 USD per email
10,000 Emails – $200

At 0.005 USD per email
375,000 Emails – $1,875

High-volume pricing (CPM)
2,000,000 Emails – $2,500 (0.00125 USD/each)

MailChimp also offers a Pro add-on for $199/month that adds extra analytic tools made for growing companies.

Note: MailChimp has an extremely flexible pricing structure. There is a plan at every $5 interval beginning at $10, but it’s not a strictly linear progression. You can use the billing calculator to figure out exactly how much your plan would cost.

GetResponse

$15/month
for 0-1,000 subscribers, unlimited emails, access to all features

$25/month
for 1,001-2,500 subscribers, unlimited emails, access to all features

$45/month
for 2501-5,000 subscribers, unlimited emails, access to all features

$65/month
for 5,001-10,000 subscribers,unlimited emails, access to all features

$145/month
for 10,001-25,000 subscribers, unlimited emails, access to all features

$250/month
for 25,001-50,000 subscribers, unlimited emails, access to all features

$450/month
for 50,001-100,000 subscribers, unlimited emails, access to all features

You'll have to get a custom quote for more than 100,000 subscribers.

As you can see, GetResponse has access to all of its features out of the gate. GetResponse also has a 30-day free trial, so you can try it out first to see if it fits your needs. They have unlimited image hosting for all of their plans as well.

Design icon

Design (weighted 11%)

MailChimp

MailChimp has hundreds of built-in beautiful HTML templates with lots of different color schemes.

There is no option in MailChimp to have designers build you an entirely new template. This is a pretty cool (but pricey) feature of GetResponce's.

Your emails can look different depending on the email client your customers use. In MailChimp you can preview how your email will look in 10 of the most popular email clients.

All the templates are also mobile optimized, so you don't have to worry about sending you customers emails that will lag on their phone.

You can also add your own HTML email design, customize an existing template, or code a completely new one from scratch.

GetResponse

If you want to create a new campaign with GetResponse, you’ll get a choice between a drag and drop email editor and a HTML source editor.
GetResponse has more than 500 templates available to get you started.

If you're code savvy, the HTML editor allows you to create your own emails. You can also import a template from a zip file or a web page, create a plain text email, or have one of GetResponse's designers create one for you for an extra fee.

An extremely useful feature is the mobile device preview, which shows how the custom email will look on a mobile device, complete with interactive scrolling and landscape/portrait toggle.

The template selection is very good; templates are arranged into a wide range of categories.

The editor offers drag and drop design elements, and there are a lot of templates to choose from. However, the customization is pretty limited.

Frontend Features icon

Frontend Features (weighted 11%)

MailChimp

MailChimp’s complete features are only available to paying customers, so if you are using the free plan some of these may not be available.

Paid users get access to all MailChimp's features including: email designer, multi-user account, analytics /reports, autoresponders, custom forms, subscriber profiles, geolocation and deliver by time zone, audience segmentation, integration into other web services, or any of their support options.

MailChimp has a seven, count-em seven, mobile apps available for Android or iOS that can help you manage your email list while away from the computer.

MailChimp Mobile - Lets you send campaigns, view reports, and add new subscribers.
MailChimp Coupon Scanner - This lets you put coupon codes into your emails.
MailChimp Editor - You can edit emails right from you phone with this app.
MailChimp Snap
- This lets you take a photo, or select an existing photo, and build a simple email around it that you can send out to any of your lists.
MailChimp VIPs - mark extra-special subscribers as VIPs and receive notifications when they open and click
Mobile Signup Forms - a great app that will help you collect email addresses in person at a storefront or conference.
SMS for Events - This sends text messages to your subscribers during events.

These apps let you do most of the things available in the MailChimp web app right from your smartphone. MailChimp has a lot more functionality on their mobile platforms than GetResponse.

GetResponse

GetResponse includes a great selection of features for all customers like email creator, landing page creator, inbox preview, A/B split testing, autoresponders, form builder, and email analytics.

GetResponse offers some very useful features that are not available in Campaign Monitor, like surveys, auto-responding campaigns that are triggered by customer behaviors, a landing page creator, and alias emails.

The iOS and Android apps have a useful number of features to help you mange your email marketing campaigns directly from your mobile device. They do lose to MailChimp here just because of the sheer number of mobile apps MailChimp offers.

Backend Features icon

Backend Features (weighted 11%)

MailChimp

The dashboard is very well designed. It is very clean and intuitive, and seems to be geared towards users of any skill level. They obviously put a lot of care into the design of their interface.

On the main menu you'll find the following links:

  • Campaigns - where you can access your current campaigns.
  • Templates - the starting point for creating your email designs.
  • Lists - where you can manage you current subscriber lists or create new ones.
  • Reports - where you can track how well your campaigns performed, check open and click rates, and more.
  • Automation - here you can setup your automated emails to users that subscribe to your lists, open links from your newsletters or buy your products (only available to paying users).

MailChimp's backend is really very usable no matter your skill level.

GetResponse

GetResponse is pretty straightforward to use, and the menu covers all the basic and more advanced features very clearly:

  • Contacts - This tab lets you manage your lists. (import contacts, edit custom fields)
  • Messages - Create and test newsletters, setup autoresponders, and manage your RSS to email automation.
  • Statistics - This is where GetResponse has all of its analytics.
  • Surveys - Here you can create and manage your customer surveys. The statistics gathered from your surveys will be found under the Statistics menu.
  • Forms - GetResponse has a bunch of different form templates to suit your needs. They also have blank forms if you don't find what you're looking for in their templates.
  • Landing Pages - These are great for converting visitors quickly. They provide you with a visually appealing front page that lets visitors opt-in to whatever it is you need them to opt-in to.

MailChimp doesn't offer any landing pages, which can be really useful in building an email list.

Reports & Statistics icon

Reports & Statistics (weighted 11%)

MailChimp

MailChimp has a strong reports section, they track data on open and click rates, top links clicked, performance over time, subscriber activity, revenue reports, opens by location, and unsubscribes.

There are also maps that show the locations of the people who have opened emails. This can be pretty cool to look at. It is always fascinating to see where your emails end up.

You’ll also have access to reports for successful deliveries, forwards, unique opens, and abuse reports, and you can view bounces and social activity.

Don’t forget that you can track higher-level stats (ROI, conversion rate, revenue and the average value per visitor) using the Google Analytics integration (Analytics 360). You can download reports for both single and combined campaigns in csv format.

This all adds up to a lot of useful data. You won't have a shortage of information to help you fine-tune your email marketing campaign.

Honestly, both of these apps are going to give you all the data you'll need for your email marketing campaign.

GetResponse

Reports and statistics are a strong point for email marketing campaigns, since you need the stats in order to improve your delivery and open rates or even the efficiency of your signup forms.

GetResponse’s reporting section covers both the basics and a number of advanced statistics. The basic reports appear directly on the dashboard via a pie chart and raw numbers.

You can access the Email Analytics page for information on opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces, and complaints. You can view which members within your email list performed any given action and compare desktop versus mobile activity, list growth compared to prior campaigns, and find autoresponder statistics.

GetResponse's reporting tool is definitely one of the most advanced and fully featured out there.

Flexibility icon

Flexibility (weighted 11%)

MailChimp

MailChimp offers several ways to add subscribers to your list. You can import subscribers from a CSV, TXT, manually add contacts from XLS or XLSX files, or import from services like Google Contacts, Salesforce, Highrise, Zendesk and even Constant Contact. This makes it really easy to get started.

They've got a few more options for importing your lists than GetResponse.

You can import the contacts to a new list or append them to an existing one. Importing new subscriber data to an existing list is also possible.

Keep in mind that when you import a new list or switch to MailChimp from another email service provider, you may need to reconfirm your subscriber list, especially if your current list hasn't been recently or regularly cleared of unsubscribes and bounces. Other ESPs handle bounces differently than MailChimp so double check that your bounces aren't included when you upload your subscribed addresses.

There are no contracts and you can cancel at any time, but you won’t get a refund for fees you’ve already paid including email credits. You still have the option to temporarily pause monthly billing if you don't need to use MailChimp for a while.

Keep in mind that if you are on a paid account and want to go back to the Forever Free plan, you can downgrade only once over the life of your account.

GetResponse

GetResponse's design features allow it to be very flexible for a number of different uses. The open-ended drag and drop editor allows you to make custom emails that can be used for almost anything.

With GetResponse you can import your contacts from a CSV, TXT, XSL, XLSX, VCF, or ODS file (the file cannot be bigger than 10 MB) , from other web services like SalesForce, Google, Magento and many others. The option to manually add your contacts is also available.

All imports will add your subscribers to your list without sending them a confirmation email or asking them to click a link to verify their subscription. Before the list is imported GetResponse will estimate the list quality and depending on the results, the list can be approved or rejected.

GetResponse does not issue a refund for fees you’ve already paid, even if you have paid for a whole year so be careful about paying in advance!

Automation icon

Automation (weighted 11%)

MailChimp

MailChimp offers an easy way to set up autoresponder emails. The interface is intuitive and has a lot of features.

Autoresponders allow MailChimp users to engage with their subscribers one-on-one by sending automated welcome emails, birthday messages, purchase follow-ups or even provide product recommendations based on previous purchases.

All the emails can be personalized based on customer interests, and you can send emails based on customers' website activity and behavioral targeting.

Keep in mind this is one of the features only available on paid plans, so free users will have to upgrade before using the automation features.

MailChimp offers a few more features than GetResponse. The automated product recommendation option is particularly nice.

GetResponse

With GetResponse you have the power to schedule either time-based or action-based messages to reach your subscribers at the perfect moment.

Time-based autoresponders are sent automatically to every new subscriber who joins your list (you can specify the timing of each message). Action-based autoresponders are “trigger messages” sent to your subscribers when they perform a specific action - like, clicking a link or opening a message.

Both of these features work well, and with GetResponse's 99% deliverability you can trust that the emails made it to your customers.

Extensibility icon

Extensibility (weighted 11%)

MailChimp

MailChimp offers an enormous number of integrations and add-ons. They are just better at this than GetResponse.

Their Integrations Directory lists more than 800 integrations, so its pretty likely that your favorite apps will be included.

A few of MailChimp’s most popular add-ons and integrations are Facebook, Twitter, Google Analytics, Salesforce, Shopify, Bigcommerce or Zoho.

GetResponse

There are just 112 add-ons and integrations available for GetResponse. This is not nearly as many as you can find for Campaign Monitor, but all the major programs are available.

MailChimp blows GetResponse out of the water.

Support icon

Support (weighted 11%)

MailChimp

MailChimp doesn’t have live telephone support.
The only way to communicate with them is by Email (you can reach them 24/7) or live chat (available Monday-Friday from 8am-6pm EST)

Email or chat support is only available after you become a paying customer, so free accounts can only use the self-service support available through their online knowledge base.

MailChimp’s team is active on social media especially on their Twitter and Facebook pages so if you are looking for a quick answer this might be the best option.

Overall, MailChimp's support is not as good as GetResponse.

GetResponse

GetResponse has a live chat service that is 24hours a day on weekdays. They also have a phone line that is open 9 - 5 EST. Of course, they also offer email support.

They also offer a FAQ section, video tutorials, and live and pre-recorded webinars, but navigating the FAQ section can be a little frustrating.

They are active on Social Media and will quickly respond to user comments and questions on Facebook and Twitter.

Besides the FAQ, GetResponse's support is quick and reliable. They offer a lot of options to fix whatever problem you may be having.

GetResponse has a phone line, unlike MailChimp. That alone puts them over the top.