Aweber vs GetResponse for Affiliate Marketers

Your Ultimate Guide to Aweber vs GetResponse for Affiliate Marketers – updated for November 2020

In this blog we look at Aweber vs GetResponse, two of the leading email autoresponders available in the affiliate and digital marketers digital toolkit. Both Aweber and GetResponse are affiliate marketing friendly, though, like any modern email platform, they do not take kindly to any form of spam. Check out another of my posts here as to why mailchimp is not a viable option for the Affiliate marketer (though for more standard small business marketing it is still useful tool).

This post will cover the comparison of pricing, key features, suitability for affiliate marketing and give a synopsis of why you might go for one and not the other.

Both Aweber and GetResponse are email autoresponder platforms, that will basically in very simple terms host and manage your email list.

So what do they actually do?

If, like most of us, you have an email address and are connected to the internet, you would have received emails from either companies that have collected your email address as part of their sales process, or from somebody you have subscribed to on the internet by inputting your email address. Typically these email responses are managed by email autoresponders. One of the myriad of benefits of autoresponders such as Aweber and GetResponse is the ability of these platforms to easily create good looking email templates, simply by adjusting existing ones available through the platforms. These templates make professional looking emails easy for even the most technically challenged punter. Obviously they’re excellent for managing those all important lists of verified emails, and handle things like segmentation, tagging and the like (check out my advanced article on targeted emails here).

Pro tip: Though both Aweber and GetResponse can create excellent looking marketing emails, it’s been statistically proven that plain-text emails convert better for most products that you may market through email.

So what about the word Autoresponder? This is an attempt to describe the process flow that modern email marketing platforms such as Aweber and GetResponse can provide. Say someone subscribes to your email list: you can set up an Autoresponder to send them an immediate reply, a reply in three days time or a reply if they opened a particular email. Think of the tailoring power this gives you when you plan out your marketing flow. You can respond to customers depending on how they previously reacted to your emails.

Aweber and GetResponse Pricing Comparison

Aweber Pricing

Aweber‘s pricing is nice and simple and is based on the number of subscribers.

As at the time of writing, the ‘pro’ plan of Aweber is as follows:

Up to 500 subscribers: $19 per month

501 to 2,500 subscribers: $29 per month

2,501 to 5,000 subscribers: $49 per month

5,001 to 10,000 subscribers: $69 per month

10,001 to 25,000 subscribers: $149 per month

And prices for over 25,000 subscribers to be quoted.

Benefits of this pricing plan: Aweber is fully featured for even the 0-500 subscriber option; unlike GetResponse, which restricts access to features depending on which plan you choose.

Aweber in recent months (this post is updated as at November 2020) has released a ‘free’ plan, which is basically a cut down version of it’s ‘pro’ plan. It’s limited to 500 email subscribers. In this post we are comparing Aweber’s pro plan, which is what you will need if you are planning on any expansion of your list beyond 500.

GetResponse Pricing

GetResponse has two dimensions when it comes to pricing. Price increases both as subscribers increase, and also there are four (Basic, Essential, Professional and Enterprise) levels of available functionality. To illustrate this:

For 1000 subscribers:

Basic- $15 a month

Plus – $49 a month

Professional – $99 a month

Max – Custom Pricing

For 5000 subscribers:

Basic- $45 a month

Plus – $79 a month

Professional – $139 a month

Max – Custom Pricing

The price increases as the number of subscribers increases. I’ve done a full in-depth article on Getresponse Pricing here.

So, in simple terms, Aweber’s functionality is fully available to even the small email list user, but be prepared to pay a bit more with GetResponse for functions above the “Basic” plan level such as Split Testing.

So who offers the best price? Aweber or GetResponse?

I’ll answer this question from the point of view of the starting out user who may have a small or no list to begin with. For this user, that has 0-1000 subscribers GetResponses’ “Basic” plan at $15 comes in a little cheaper than Aweber’s $19 a month for 0 – 500 subscribers, with the added benefit of a bonus 500 extra subscriber positions available. (Excluding the obvious free plan available through Aweber with cut-down functionality).

GetResponse offers a discount for up front purchase of 12 and 24 month subscriptions. Aweber offers a discount for up-front quarterly or annual payments.

Best of all, both Aweber and GetResponse offer free thirty day trial periods.

However, if your looking at pricing alone to determine which of GetResponse or Aweber to use as your affiliate marketing email autoresponder, you are selling them both short. There are several other factors which come into play; not least of all which is features which we will look at next.

Core Features for Aweber and GetResponse

• Unlimited email sends
• Automation – Ability to autorespond depending on rules set by you
• Templates and easy to use email builders
• Integrations with a number of useful third parties
• Analytics of who opened which email
• Landing Pages (A more recent feature of Aweber).

However GetResponse has a number of features in the “Essential” and above price range that are not available through Aweber.

Some of these are:

• Webinars
• CRM
• Advanced Marketing Automation
• Sales Funnels in-built

Visual Extravaganza

Both Aweber and GetResponse offer a number of email templates as standard. These email templates are responsive, though it does vary from template to template, so check on a few different devices before sending. GetResponses’ platform does offer better previewing of what you email may look like on mobile. However, if you’re an affiliate or digital marketer, I’m sure you’ll be more interested in:

Aweber and GetResponse Autoresponding features

As described earlier, autoresponders give you the ability to control when emails are automatically sent to your subscribers. You may set up a rule such as straight after subscription, 24 hours after the last email, or whether or not they opened the last email.

Both Aweber and GetResponse offer fantastic autoresponder capability. Aweber has an easy to use functionality, as does GetResponse. GetResponse however is a bit more functional and has more options – particularly with it’s marketing automation functionality, which really takes the autoresponder domain to a whole new level.

Marketing Automation – a whole new world

GetResponse has a brilliant functional flowchart style approach towards building out an autoresponder email chain that is both intuitive and powerful. It’s like a drag and drop builder and decision tree in one where you can decide how you want to respond to how the user interacts with your emails. The use of “triggers” such as email opens, cart abandonment and URLs visited can really shape how you respond to your clients and it’s dead easy using the GetResponse builder. The visual interface is simple to understand even if you are not tech savvy and makes life easy for you and your email channel.

In more recent times Aweber has put together a marketing automation package, known as Campaigns. This allows actions based on targeting and segmentation.

As a bonus, GetResponse has a CRM which can be potentially integrated with this functionality, to even further help you meet your customer’s needs, which I will elaborate on below.

Already have an email list? look no further, just import them..

Both Aweber and GetResponse allow importing of an email list using common formats such as CSV, TXT and XLS.

Single and Double Opt-ins

Both Aweber and GetResponse support single or double opt-ins to bring subscribers into your list. So, you ask, do either platform support me in bringing people onto my list- That’s where the next part comes in.

Landing Pages – more than just a pretty face

Landing or “squeeze” pages should be made with the following intention: data capture of potential customers. Again, GetResponse and Aweber both have solutions for bringing people onto your list from landing pages.

Aweber offers integrations that can be used with some of the better known landing page providers, and also forms which can be used on your website and just about anywhere digital. These are more than sufficient for the purpose they are designed.

Yet again, GetResponse trumps Aweber in this field. It has an in-built landing page creator which saves the expense of an extra landing page builder such as Instapage. The GetResponse landing page builder is available on the “Essential” package and above so you’ll have to shell out just a bit more for it. It still represents a saving in most comparisons between the cost of GetResponse and that of Aweber in addition to, say, Instapage.

And this is where GetResponse streams ahead.

GetReponse has a number of extra features which can make it an all round marketing solution, more than merely an email autoresponder, which are unmatched by Aweber in any form. These features are:

CRM (Customer Relationship Manager)

The CRM present in GetResponse’s platform can help you manage your sales pipeline, check out your customers activity, can be merged in with email autoresponses and also webinars which are another GetResponse feature. The CRM probably wouldn’t stand up as a stand-alone feature, but it offers a significant improvement on most email autoresponder platforms, which simply don’t offer it at all.

Webinar, Lead and Sales Funnels

GetResponse offers simple, easy to follow workflows to build a Sales Funnel, say, for your new online yoga video course – it’s dead easy to follow and basically does the whole process for you. I’ll be including a video on just how easy it is to make a sales funnel with GetResponse in an upcoming post. Suffice to say it demystifies the whole process and sets out how to collect emails with landing pages, add subscribers to an autoresponder cycle, and even take payment using payment gateways such as paypal.

Webinar Central

GetResponse, again unlike Aweber, offers functionality for a webinar. If you are unaware of what a webinar is it’s basically an online class you host a limited number of attendees in kind of like an online classroom. It’s fantastic for informing users of your product and also making sales.

GetResponses’ Webinar offering is limited to a certain number of seats per viewing, depending on which plan you buy.

Time Send Windows

Both Aweber and GetResponse offer functionality for varying the exact timing of your email send. Aweber’s offer allows for windows of opportunity (send windows) that are manually determined by the user. GetResponse, however, has a well thought out solution known as “Perfect Timing” – which, according to it’s own statistics can lead to an approximately 20% increase in both open and clickthrough rates.

Can I get Help? Support

Aweber – phone, email and live chat support is available for Aweber, who have won awards for their service quality

GetResponse – email and live chat support are available. GetResponse has also won service awards.

Aweber as a whole in my opinion has a better customer service offering, especially if you want to speak to a human.

The Free Trial offering

Both Aweber and GetResponse offer a free trial offering so you can check out their full functionality with no risk to your Bank Account. Aweber requires your credit card details to be supplied for the free trial, so if you do intend to cancel before charge make sure you do so before the month expires. GetResponse doesn-t require you to supply your credit card details, so no risk of accidental charge there.

So which do I choose?

By now I’m sure that you have realised that I am a huge GetResponse fan, and I believe that it is the best offering of it’s kind available, especially for affiliate marketers. All the extra functional possibilities available through GetResponse such as the inbuilt CRM and sales funnels make it pound for pound a better offering than Aweber, or in my belief any other email autoresponder offering out there. Aweber does have GetResponse covered in a few areas, notably in over-the-phone service, full functionality availability no matter your price point (though GetResponse functionality clearly has more available), and possibly more suitable price points for certain niche and volume users available through its plan.

All in all, GetResponse is hard to go past if you want to build your marketing plan, be it for affiliate products or otherwise. What I would suggest is that you take advantage of the free trials available for both products for yourself, simply to make your own choice as to which is more suitable for your needs.

Free trial for GetResponse is available here

Free trial for Aweber is available here

So get out there and build your list!

Affiliate Disclaimer: In case you were in any sort of doubt, yes, I’m an Affiliate in some manner for some of these programs and products. I like to practice what I preach. If you are intending to utilise any of these offers I’d love if you went through one of these links to support my site.