Constant Contact vs. GetResponse Comparison [2024 Update]

You’re ready to put your email marketing strategy to work. You have great campaign ideas, images, and email copy, and now you need an extraordinary email marketing service provider.

You’ve probably seen recommendations for Constant Contact1 and GetResponse, and both are leading email marketing tools that serve hundreds of thousands of companies. But which one is better for your business?

You want an easy platform to send engaging email marketing campaigns, organize and grow your subscriber lists, and measure and boost your email ROI. And you want to avoid getting stuck paying for a plan with limited features, or one that has too many features you don’t need.

In this email marketing software review, I analyze Constant Contact and GetResponse to help you decide which is the best email marketing software for you. Let’s compare these tools on six important categories:

• Platform features
• Email creation and dispatch
• Email marketing automation
• Reporting and analytics
• Pricing
• Customer support

But First, a Quick Mention About a Non-Negotiable Feature

Before we dive into how Constant Contact and GetResponse differ, let’s cover one feature that all email marketing service providers share: the ability to get your emails delivered.

GetResponse averages a 99% deliverability rate, and Constant Contact averages 98%. With these rates, both providers are fantastic choices.

How do they achieve such high deliverability rates?

First, GetResponse and Constant Contact maintain positive relationships with major internet service providers like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. They do this so that your emails, sent through their software, don’t get blacklisted.

Second, they adhere to policies such as CAN-SPAM and GDPR, which protect consumers and their data. These are the rules that require you to include your mailing address, website, and an “Unsubscribe” button at the bottom of each email you send. They also prohibit false or misleading subject lines, among other requirements.

Platform Features

GetResponse Offers More (and More Valuable) Features, But Constant Contact Leads in Integrations

Email marketing is about more than emails; it’s also about the features and functionalities that make email marketing easier. All kinds of email marketing tools provide helpful features, but between GetResponse and Constant Contact, GetResponse offers more (and more valuable) features.

First of all, with GetResponse, you get access to most email marketing, email automation, and design features even in its Basic plan. With Constant Contact, most features aren’t available unless you upgrade to the Email Plus plan.

Moreover, GetResponse gives you a handful of notable features that Constant Contact offers only a limited version of or doesn’t offer at all. These features include A/B testing, landing pages, and contact management. It’s easy to see why GetResponse gets such good reviews.

GetResponse offers an incredibly valuable A/B-testing tool. The software allows you to A/B-test your email message content, subject lines, form fields, and what day and time you send each email… and you can test up to five email versions. Constant Contact allows you to split-test only subject lines — and that’s if you’ve paid for Email Plus, its priciest plan.

GetResponse is also one of the best landing pages software solutions. Yes, you can create landing pages with Constant Contact, but GetResponse offers a much more robust landing page platform. With GetResponse’s Essential plan, you can access over 180 mobile-responsive landing page templates to build sales pages, opt-in pages, download pages, thank you pages, and more.

Finally, GetResponse provides a built-in CRM that can help you organize and manage your contacts and leads. It offers an intuitive contact management system that keeps your lead scoring, statuses, and stages — plus notes, tasks, and meetings — all under one digital roof.

Constant Contact does allow you to tag and segment your contacts, but not to the extent of GetResponse’s CRM.

And the Winner Is…

GetResponse. GetResponse simply offers more features that boost the value of its platform and your email marketing campaigns.

However, Constant Contact does win in this category on one important feature: integrations and apps. There are over 450 of them for tools such as Facebook, Shopify, Outlook, and Salesforce. GetResponse offers only about 150 integrations.

Email Creation and Dispatch

GetResponse and Constant Contact Are Evenly Matched for Email Creation and Dispatch, But One Pulls Ahead

Creating and sending emails can be the most frustrating part of email marketing, especially for businesses with small budgets and small teams. What if you don’t have a dedicated designer on your team? When should you send your emails? How can you maximize your open rate?

GetResponse has more than 200 customizable email templates (and over 5,000 free stock photos) to get you started. The software also provides multiple ways to develop your emails; you can use their HTML or drag-and-drop editors, upload your own template as a zip file or webpage, build a plain-text email, or have a GetResponse designer create one for an extra fee.

Constant Contact offers over 100 customizable email templates you can edit within its drag-and-drop editor, which you can also connect to your e-commerce platform so you can pull over any products or services to feature in your emails. Constant Contact offers a limited amount of free stock images as well as the ability to buy Bigstock photos from within the platform.

Both email marketing tools offer intuitive editors and plenty of customizable templates and royalty-free images. They also provide a mobile preview feature, allowing you to view how any template will look on a mobile device.

The two platforms are tied when it comes to email creation, but where GetResponse pulls ahead is in how it helps you send your emails. Unlike Constant Contact, GetResponse offers three intuitive email marketing features: Perfect Timing, SpamAssassin™, and RSS-to-Email.

The Perfect Timing feature analyzes and predicts the optimal time of day that each of your contacts will most likely open your emails. (GetResponse actually ran a study on this feature and found that it led to 25% more opens and 20% more clicks.)

SpamAssassin™ checks your content against known spam words and other linking, formatting, or coding behaviors to ensure your emails don’t end up in your recipients’ spam folders.

RSS-to-Email lets you aggregate, customize, and share your blog content via email — which, according to GetResponse, leads to a 20%+ click-to-open rate.

And the Winner Is…

GetResponse. While Constant Contact offers the same email creation tools, GetResponse pulls ahead with its intuitive email-sending features — bringing your email marketing experience full-circle.

Email Marketing Automation

Constant Contact Can’t Compete with GetResponse’s Email Marketing Automation Features

The very best email marketing tools don’t just help you do the work — they also do the work for you. That’s where email marketing automation comes into play, and both GetResponse and Constant Contact offer email automation capabilities.

GetResponse has an extremely intuitive email marketing automation platform. It offers an easy drag-and-drop workflow builder that helps you visualize a real-time view of your customers’ journey, and the automation features aren’t limited to sending emails; you can also use the tool to automatically tag and score contacts or move them to another list.

GetResponse also offers two different types of automated messages that help you reach your audience. Time-based messages are sent based on a time you specify, like a subscriber’s birthday, or two days post-purchase. Action-based messages are triggered by a subscriber or customer action, such as their clicking on a link, making a purchase, or joining an email list.

The majority of GetResponse’s automation features (i.e., welcome and thank you emails, drip campaigns, birthday emails, and click and open follow-ups) are available starting with the GetResponse Basic plan.

Constant Contact, on the other hand, offers limited automation options — even with its most advanced plan, Email Plus. These options include only an automated welcome series and an automated email behavioral series, as well as an automated email resend to those who don’t open your email the first time around.

As convenient as these features are, they come with their own limitations. You can’t copy messages from automated emails to use as regular emails — a feature that could save precious time and energy.

And the Winner Is…

GetResponse. While Constant Contact does offer comparable email marketing automation features, GetResponse is the clear winner — in features, flexibility, and accessibility.

Reporting and Analytics

GetResponse for Real Reporting; Constant Contact for Basic Analytics

Constant Contact offers basic reporting and tracking. You can see opens, link clicks, unsubscribes, email bounces, and where your contacts are coming from. You can also view unique opens as well as the specific subscribers who opened your emails.

But that’s where Constant Contact’s reporting ends.

GetResponse offers all the same reporting features, and more. GetResponse tracks your email activity in real time, delivers mobile tracking and social media sharing statistics, and even allows you to compare two emails to see which was more effective with your audience. Your dashboard will reflect all of these statistics, too.

GetResponse will also track each email’s real-time ROI; all you need to do is install a tracking code.

It’s important to mention that Constant Contact offers one reporting feature that GetResponse doesn’t: a comparison of email averages per industry. This tool compares your statistics (open rates, bounce rate, etc.) to your industry’s averages. GetResponse doesn’t offer this, but Constant Contact provides this data in its knowledge base… so, technically, it’s available to GetResponse customers, too.

And the Winner Is…

GetResponse. GetResponse provides plenty of reporting and tracking so you can be confident in what’s working for your emails, and so you can fix what’s not. Constant Contact does provide some insight into your email performance, but its reporting features are limited compared with GetResponse’s.

Pricing

GetResponse Pricing Is More Wallet-Friendly than Constant Contact

GetResponse offers four subscription plans: Basic, Essential, Professional, and Enterprise. Subscription prices are based on list size, and you can choose to pay your GetResponse subscription monthly, or pre-pay annually (for an 18% discount) or biennially (for a 30% discount).

GetResponse doesn’t provide a free plan, but it does offer a 30-day free trial for up to 1,000 contacts. You don’t have to submit any credit card details.

Constant Contact offers two subscription plans: Email and Email Plus, which are also priced by list size. You can pay your Constant Contact subscription monthly or pre-pay semi-annually (for a 10% discount) or annually (for a 15% discount).

These are the two tiers you can choose from:

Like GetResponse, Constant Constant doesn’t provide a free plan, but it does offer a 60-day free trial — the longest duration I know of for any email marketing service provider — for up to 500 contacts. Constant Contact also requires no credit card to sign up.

Note that if you sign up for Constant Contact from outside the U.S., you don’t get the 60-day trial, but you do get your first month free.

At this point, GetResponse and Constant Contact are practically tied. Neither require contracts, both offer unlimited email sends. Where does GetResponse pull ahead?

GetResponse offers twice as many plan options, allowing customers to better customize their subscription to meet their needs — and their wallet.

GetResponse also remains less expensive as your list size grows, meaning that the software can scale with your business. For example, at 10,000 contacts, Constant Contact’s Email plan is $195. On the other hand, for 10,000 contacts both GetResponse’s Basic and Essential plans are less than that.

Here’s where Constant Contact does win, though: Its free trial is twice as long. You can also get a 30-day money back guarantee after the free trial is over. That’s three months to decide if Constant Contact is for you.

And the Winner Is…

GetResponse. Although Constant Contact does provide a longer free trial and a 30-day money back guarantee, GetResponse offers less expensive plans, greater discounts, and more flexible plan options.

Customer Support

GetResponse Support Falls Just Short of What Constant Contact Offers

Your customer experience with a software (i.e., training, customer support, and cancellation) is just as important as the software functionality itself. GetResponse and Constant Contact are leaders in this space — both have won awards for their customer support and satisfaction — but we recommend Constant Contact in this category, and most reviewers agree.

GetResponse offers a wide variety of customer support channels: 24-hour live chat, email support, social media support, and an extensive knowledge base including an FAQ section, webinars, and video tutorials. GetResponse support also responds to customer support inquiries in seven different languages (English, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, German, French, and Spanish).

Constant Contact provides a range of support options, including seminar classes (with a fee), dedicated professional design and consultation services, and phone support lines for the U.S., Canada, and International (available in seven different countries). It’s important to note that support questions are addressed exclusively in English.

One nice thing about GetResponse in this category is that you can cancel your subscription anytime from your online account. If you want to cancel Constant Contact, you have to speak directly to a billing specialist; you can’t cancel service on your own or via email or chat.

However, it’s important to note that if you do cancel but end up wanting to reactivate your GetResponse subscription at some point, you can do so within 90 days.

And the Winner Is…

Constant Contact. With their multitude of support channels, features, and added services, Constant Contact is the clear winner in customer support. GetResponse is a close second with its easy cancellation process and multilingual support team.

GetResponse vs Constant Contact Winner

One Conquers the Other in Almost All Categories

The battle of GetResponse vs. Constant Contact IS hardly a battle at all. Constant Contact finished second in every category (except customer support), making GetResponse the clear winner and the best email marketing software.

Please understand that Constant Contact remains a high-quality email marketing software. If you prioritize a software providing various support options or desire greater access to integrations within your email marketing tool, Constant Contact could be the more suitable option for you.

If you’d like to learn more about Constant Contact, don’t miss our expert review.

But compared with GetResponse, Constant Contact simply can’t keep up. GetResponse has better pricing, more features, and is simply a more intuitive platform.

Let’s review how GetResponse and Constant Contact compare in each category. If you’re looking for a robust email marketing software that provides powerful yet user-friendly features to deliver the best possible campaigns to your audience, go with GetResponse.

If you need more information before you make your decision, check out our GetResponse review.

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Sources:

https://www.getresponse.com/features/email-marketing/

https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com