# ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse: Same Entry Price, Opposite Sending Models

> ActiveCampaign and GetResponse both charge about nineteen dollars a month for a thousand contacts. One includes ten times your list in sends; the other includes unlimited sends.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/activecampaign-vs-getresponse — The Professional's Toolkit · updated 2026-10-07_

---

These two products cost almost exactly the same at the door and meter the one
thing that matters most completely differently.

ActiveCampaign Starter is $19 a month paid monthly, or $15 on an annual term. GetResponse Starter
is nineteen dollars a month paid monthly, or fifteen dollars fifty-eight on an annual
term[21]. Both figures buy one thousand contacts.

Then ActiveCampaign gives you ten thousand emails a month and GetResponse gives you unlimited
monthly sends.

**OUR TAKE:** At the entry band this is close to a straight choice between a capped send
allowance with a deeper platform behind it, and uncapped sending with a simpler one. The price
difference is noise. The metering difference is not.

## The entry band, side by side

Read from both vendors' own pages on the same day.

| Plan | Monthly, $/mo | Annual, $/mo | Metered on | Sending |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign Starter | 19 | 15.00 | contacts, 1,000 band | 10x contacts |
| ActiveCampaign Plus | 59 | 49.00 | contacts, 1,000 band | 10x contacts |
| GetResponse Starter | 19 | 15.58 | list size, 1,000 band | unlimited |
| GetResponse Marketer | 59 | 48.38 | list size, 1,000 band | unlimited |

The symmetry is almost comic. Two vendors, four plans, two prices.



> 💡 **undefined:** Count your monthly sends per contact before comparing. Under ten, ActiveCampaign's included allowance covers you; well over ten, the unlimited model removes a variable.

## One difference you can see on the page, and one you cannot

GetResponse displays both billing terms at once. Its cards show the monthly figure struck through
beside the annual one, with the annual saving named in dollars per year[21].

ActiveCampaign displays only the annual figure and labels it "Billed annually" in smaller type
beneath[2]. The monthly rates exist in the vendor's own billing catalogue — $19, $59, $99 and
$179 at the entry band — and on no page a visitor can reach[3].

Neither approach is wrong. One of them is simply harder to price from.

## The sending question

This is the comparison. GetResponse publishes "Unlimited monthly email sends" on all three of its
plans and repeats it in its own FAQ: "Monthly payment plans are bracketed by list size, starting
at $19 per month for unlimited messages to 1,000 subscribers"[21].

ActiveCampaign publishes a multiple instead: ten times the contact limit on Starter and Plus,
twelve on Professional, fifteen on Enterprise[2]. At a thousand contacts that is ten thousand
emails a month.

Which is better depends entirely on your sending pattern. Ten times your list is generous for a
weekly newsletter and tight for a daily one, and it is tight for anyone running heavy automation,
because automated campaigns count toward the limit while one-to-one and transactional mail does
not[8].

And ActiveCampaign's limit has an edge it has not resolved. The terms of service say sending stops
until the next calendar month[5]. The help centre says you are charged half a cent an email,
with sending switched off only at three times the limit, and the reset tied to your billing
cycle[8]. If you are choosing ActiveCampaign partly on the send allowance, get that in
writing.



> 💡 **undefined:** GetResponse shows both billing terms on its cards. ActiveCampaign shows only the annual one, so build the monthly figure yourself before budgeting.

## Bands and ceilings

GetResponse publishes seven list sizes: one thousand, two and a half, five, ten, twenty-five,
fifty and a hundred thousand[21].

ActiveCampaign's selector shows twelve bands and its catalogue carries forty-eight on the middle
tiers and forty-nine on Enterprise, reaching thirty million[3]. The Starter tier is the
exception: eight bands, ending at twenty-five thousand contacts, where it already costs more per
month than Plus charges for the same number.

| Contacts | AC Starter, $/mo | AC Plus, $/mo |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 15 | 49 |
| 5,000 | 79 | 145 |
| 10,000 | 149 | 189 |
| 25,000 | 391 | 389 |

All annual rates. The last row is the one to notice.

## Seats

ActiveCampaign includes one seat on Starter and caps that tier at two, against nine hundred and
ninety-nine on every tier above[3]. A second seat is ten dollars a month.

We have not measured GetResponse's seat model, and we are not going to assert one. It is on the
list for that product's own measurement.



> ⚠ **undefined:** ActiveCampaign's terms and help centre give different consequences for exceeding the send limit, and the help article is nine months newer.

## Capability, with the boundary marked

We have ActiveCampaign's full capability list from its vendor's billing catalogue: seventy-nine
named entitlements on Enterprise down to eleven on Starter[3]. The entry tier is the narrow
one by a long way — landing pages, site messages, contact scoring, combined segment logic, custom
branding, database sync and AI content generation all begin at Plus.

For GetResponse we have read the pricing page and nothing more. Its cards name AI-powered content
generation and position the third plan, Creator, around courses and monetisation, which is a
product shape ActiveCampaign does not have at all.

That is as far as we will go. GetResponse's own cluster is coming, and this comparison will be
rewritten with equal depth on both sides when it is.

## The rest of ActiveCampaign's price surface

The entry comparison is clean. The rest of the ladder is where a buyer needs the catalogue, and
this is what it says.

| Plan | Month to month, $/mo | Billed annually, $/mo | Charged once a year, $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 19 | 15 | 180 |
| Plus | 59 | 49 | 588 |
| Professional | 99 | 79 | 948 |
| Enterprise | 179 | 145 | 1,740 |

Those are the entry band. At ten thousand contacts the same four tiers are one hundred and
forty-nine, one hundred and eighty-nine, three hundred and seventy-five and five hundred and
eighty-nine dollars a month on annual terms. The tier matters less than the band on the lower half
of the ladder, which is the opposite of how the page is laid out.

Fourteen separately metered entitlements sit underneath that across the vendor's eighteen
products[3]. Most buyers touch three or four, but the card shows the floor of a multi-meter
bill rather than the bill.



> ⚠ **undefined:** ActiveCampaign's Starter tier ends at 25,000 contacts, where it costs more per month than Plus charges for the same number.

## The add-ons that carry the features

Six are named on ActiveCampaign's pricing page and none is priced there[2]: Pipelines enhanced
CRM, Sales Engagement enhanced CRM, Custom Reporting, SMS, AI Activities and WhatsApp Messaging.

Two of those carry the sales pipeline. Pipeline management, deal records, account records and lead
scoring are each marked "Included in add-on" on every tier that offers them, and their
entitlements carry empty price ladders in the vendor's own billing catalogue[3]. So if the
reason you are comparing these two products is that you want one system for marketing and sales,
the price of the sales half is not published anywhere.

The AI meter is the same pattern with a visible number. The catalogue's Activities entitlement has
zero included units on all four tiers and starts at a dollar a month for two hundred, while the
page marks AI translations and AI actions "Available add-on" even on Enterprise[3].

## What ActiveCampaign publishes about its own mechanics

Worth a section, because it is the thing that made this measurement possible at all.

The help centre publishes the overage rate, the shutoff threshold at three times the limit, in-app
warnings at 75, 90 and 100 per cent of capacity, the reset day for monthly and annual plans, the
columns in a contact export, the seven-day validity of the download link, the pause rules, the
trial's hundred-send ceiling, and a dedicated article on whether unsubscribed and bounced contacts
count[8]. Every article is dated and most are current within weeks.

That is more published mechanics than any product we have measured in any category. It sits
alongside a pricing page that publishes no monthly rate and no add-on price, which is a strange
combination and a real one.



> ⚠ **undefined:** We have measured ActiveCampaign in full and GetResponse's pricing page only. Its own cluster is still to come.

## What the reviews argue about

Trustpilot displays 2.7 from 1,446 reviews, while the distribution table on the same page — 641
five-star, 229 four, 104 three, 114 two, 358 one — averages 3.47[17]. The Gartner Digital
Markets pool shows 4.6 from 2,570, counted once because Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice share
it. TrustRadius shows 8.6 out of ten from 946 ratings and prints a second count of 702 on the same
page[19].

The shape is more useful than the scores. Among the eighty-four English reviews we read,
cancellation is a theme in 38% of the one and two-star reviews against 4% of the four and
five-star ones. Contract runs 29% against zero. Billing runs 17% against zero. Meanwhile
complexity is flat at 10% against 12%, and hitting the contact limit actually runs the other way,
4% against 12%.

Read that last pair carefully, because it says something specific. People do not complain that
this product is hard or that its meter bites. They complain about the commercial relationship.

## Integrations

ActiveCampaign's marketplace counts 1,056 apps and integrations, rendered as a filter result
rather than claimed in copy[16]. That is the largest number we have counted in any category.
The API and webhooks are on every tier including Starter.

The caveat we found while counting: the marketplace offers a filter by plan, but the server
returns the same total for every plan, so the number of those 1,056 available to a given tier
cannot be read off the page. Check the specific connectors you need against the tier.

## Leaving

ActiveCampaign publishes no refunds of any kind[6], cancellation that takes effect at the end
of the current period, and three cases where cancelling requires contacting support rather than
clicking[7]. Its terms state that "upon cancellation or termination, you will not have access
to or be able to restore any Contact Data"[5], so the export happens before the exit. The
export itself is free, covers contacts with custom fields, scores and tags, and excludes contact
notes[13].

We have not read GetResponse's refund or cancellation terms, so there is no comparison to draw
here yet.

## Which one to pick

If your sending volume is high relative to your list — daily mail, heavy automation, large
campaign counts, GetResponse's unlimited sending removes a variable that ActiveCampaign leaves
in, and does it at the same price at the entry band.

If what you want is the automation engine, ActiveCampaign is the deeper product by a margin we can
demonstrate rather than assert, and its documentation is the best we have measured. Just price it
properly: the figure on the card is annual, the entry tier holds two people and stops at
twenty-five thousand contacts, and the sales pipeline is an add-on whose price is published
nowhere.

And if you are torn, the tiebreaker is the one neither page answers. Both products will stop your
sending if your list quality slips, and ActiveCampaign's trial allows a hundred sends, which will
not tell you anything about deliverability either way[14].

## Before you commit to either

Five questions, in the order they will cost you money.

What is your real contact band? On ActiveCampaign it is the single biggest lever on the invoice,
and the page shows twelve of the forty-eight the catalogue carries[3]. On GetResponse there
are seven published list sizes, so the question is simpler and still worth answering before you
compare headline prices.

Which billing term are you being quoted? ActiveCampaign's page shows only the annual one.
GetResponse shows both. If you are budgeting monthly, build ActiveCampaign's figure yourself from
the catalogue rather than from the card.

How many people need logins? ActiveCampaign's entry tier holds two and then stops[3]. That
ceiling catches more small teams than the contact band does.

Do you need a sales pipeline? On ActiveCampaign that is an add-on with no published price, on
either the pricing page or in the vendor's own billing catalogue[2].

And what happens if you want out? ActiveCampaign publishes no refunds at all, a cancellation that
lands at the end of the current period, and a line stating that access to contact data ends at
cancellation[6]. Export in month one, keep the file, and treat the fourteen-day trial as the
only risk-free window you get.



## FAQ

**Is GetResponse cheaper than ActiveCampaign?**

At the entry band they are effectively identical: nineteen dollars a month paid monthly for a thousand contacts on both, and fifteen dollars against fifteen fifty-eight on annual terms. The difference is what the money includes, not what it costs.

**Does ActiveCampaign have unlimited email sends?**

No. The allowance is a multiple of your contact limit: ten times on Starter and Plus, twelve on Professional, fifteen on Enterprise. GetResponse publishes unlimited monthly sends on all three of its plans.

**Which has more integrations?**

ActiveCampaign's own marketplace counts 1,056 apps and integrations, which is the largest figure we have counted in any category we measure. We have not counted GetResponse's.

## What we measured, and what we did not

We think this belongs in the article rather than in a footnote.

On ActiveCampaign we read the pricing page as served, the vendor's billing product catalogue of
eighteen products, the static fallback price file, the terms of service in full, fifteen
help-centre articles, the app marketplace, three review platforms and ninety-nine reviews. Every
quotation in this article was checked against the text the vendor served before it was written.

On GetResponse we read one page, its pricing page, rendered from the United States on the same
day. Everything we say about GetResponse comes from there and is dated accordingly.

That asymmetry is the honest state of our measurement today, and GetResponse's own cluster is in
the queue. When it is done, this article gets rewritten with equal depth on both sides rather than
quietly left as it is.



## Sources

[1] ActiveCampaign vendor pricing page, read from the United States — https://www.activecampaign.com/pricing (2026-10)
[2] ActiveCampaign billing product catalogue, the vendor's own price list — https://billing-product-catalog.cluster.app-us1.com/api/v1/read/products?currency=USD&billing_interval=1&billing_interval=12&c=ac2024&referer=/pricing (2026-10)
[3] ActiveCampaign published fallback price file — https://www.activecampaign.com/dist/pricing/fallback/USD.json (2026-10)
[4] ActiveCampaign terms of service — https://www.activecampaign.com/legal/terms-of-service (2026-10)
[5] ActiveCampaign vendor refund policy — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/218253598-Refund-Policy (2026-10)
[6] ActiveCampaign vendor documentation on cancelling — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/218790117-How-do-I-cancel-my-account (2026-10)
[7] ActiveCampaign vendor documentation on send limits and overage — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/10918125380764-About-email-send-limits-and-overage-fees (2026-10)
[8] ActiveCampaign vendor documentation on the contact limit — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000364264-What-happens-when-I-reach-my-contact-limit (2026-10)
[9] ActiveCampaign vendor documentation on auto-upgrade — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000337284-Does-ActiveCampaign-automatically-increase-my-contact-limit (2026-10)
[10] ActiveCampaign vendor documentation on contact counting — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000337324-Do-unsubscribed-unconfirmed-or-bounced-contacts-count-against-my-contact-limit (2026-10)
[11] ActiveCampaign vendor documentation on pausing billing — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/13613456314652-Pause-billing-for-your-ActiveCampaign-account (2026-10)
[12] ActiveCampaign vendor documentation on exporting contacts — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/221393808-How-do-I-export-all-contacts (2026-10)
[13] ActiveCampaign vendor documentation on the free trial — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/218789987-Free-trial-capabilities (2026-10)
[14] ActiveCampaign vendor documentation on account reviews — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/221362648-About-account-reviews-and-suspensions (2026-10)
[15] ActiveCampaign vendor app marketplace, counted with its own filter — https://www.activecampaign.com/apps (2026-10)
[16] Trustpilot profile and its own distribution table — https://www.trustpilot.com/review/activecampaign.com (2026-10)
[17] GetApp profile and published distribution — https://www.getapp.com/marketing-software/a/activecampaign/ (2026-10)
[18] TrustRadius rating — https://www.trustradius.com/products/activecampaign/reviews (2026-10)
[19] Mailchimp vendor pricing page, read from the United States — https://mailchimp.com/pricing/ (2026-10)
[20] GetResponse vendor pricing page, read from the United States — https://www.getresponse.com/pricing (2026-10)
[21] Brevo vendor pricing page, read from the United States — https://www.brevo.com/pricing/ (2026-10)
[22] The vendor's documentation on sharing an automation, the only published way to take one out of the account — https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001963270-How-do-I-share-an-automation
[23] ActiveCampaign's anti-spam policy, which governs suspension and is stamped September 2021 — https://www.activecampaign.com/legal/anti-spam-policy
[24] ActiveCampaign's minimum advertised price policy, which names its own pricing page as the price of record — https://www.activecampaign.com/legal/minimum-advertised-price-policy
[25] The vendor's trial signup page: fourteen days, no credit card — https://www.activecampaign.com/free
[26] Software Advice's profile, which files this product under CRM and publishes the same pool as percentages — https://www.softwareadvice.com/crm/activecampaign-profile/