ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse: nearly the same price at 1,000 contacts, a different bundle for it
Strip away the marketing and the first workflow-capable plans cost the same: GetResponse Marketer is $48.38 a month on yearly billing for a 1,000-person list and ActiveCampaign Plus is $49. What differs is the bundle. GetResponse adds five seats, web push, funnels and a monthly billing option. ActiveCampaign adds a CRM path, goals and a deeper Stripe sync, but gives one seat on Plus.
By Julian Pryor · Updated 7 Oct 2026
Short answer
For a small SaaS team of two to five people that sends newsletters, trial emails and web push from one place, GetResponse Marketer is the better value at 1,000 contacts. For a product whose lifecycle depends on Stripe subscription state or whose sales team works leads in the same tool, ActiveCampaign Plus or Pro is the stronger fit. Skip GetResponse Starter and ActiveCampaign Starter for SaaS onboarding: one allows a single workflow and the other five actions per automation.
The plans at a 1,000-person list
GetResponse's pricing page opens at a list size of 1,000 and shows monthly and yearly (18% off) rates; ActiveCampaign's contact selector opens at 1,000 and shows annual billing. Both were read on 7 October 2026. GetResponse's slider moves with list size, and the 1,000-person readout is the one that was recorded for this page.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Yearly billing (per month) | Users | Automation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GetResponse Starter | $19 | $15.58 | 3 | 1 custom workflow |
| GetResponse Marketer | $59 | $48.38 | 5 | Unlimited workflows |
| GetResponse Creator | $69 | $56.58 | 5 | Unlimited, plus webinars, courses, website builder |
| ActiveCampaign Starter | not shown | $15 | 1 | 5 actions per automation |
| ActiveCampaign Plus | not shown | $49 | 1 | Unlimited actions |
| ActiveCampaign Pro | not shown | $79 | 3 | Unlimited actions, advanced segmentation |
GetResponse's Enterprise and ActiveCampaign's Enterprise ($145 at 1,000 contacts) both sit above these. GetResponse lists custom pricing and adds SMS, mobile push, single sign-on and transactional email. Sources: getresponse.com/pricing and activecampaign.com/pricing.
The arithmetic on a year
GetResponse Marketer on yearly billing comes to $48.38 × 12 = $580.56. ActiveCampaign Plus comes to $49 × 12 = $588. That is a $7.44 difference a year, so price is not the decider. Two other sums matter more.
- Paying monthly. GetResponse Marketer at $59 monthly costs $708 a year, so annual billing saves $127.44, which matches the page's "save up to $127 a year". ActiveCampaign's page shows annual billing only.
- A second and third user. GetResponse Marketer already includes 5 users at $48.38. To give three people access on ActiveCampaign you move to Pro at $79 × 12 = $948 a year, which is $367.44 more than Marketer's yearly cost.
What GetResponse gates behind Marketer
The plan comparison on GetResponse's pricing page marks a long list as unavailable on Starter: contact tagging and scoring, abandoned-cart and visited-URL triggers, event-based automation, segmentation on tags, events and ecommerce, web push, sales funnels, roles management, and the Stripe and PayPal integrations. All of them switch on at Marketer. Automation workflows go from 1 to unlimited at the same step. In practice a SaaS team's entry price on GetResponse is therefore Marketer's $59 monthly or $48.38 yearly, not Starter's $19.
Creator, at $69 monthly or $56.58 yearly, adds webinars (100 attendees), a website builder, a course creator and premium newsletters. Enterprise adds the transactional email section: triggered emails, sending history, API and an SMTP connection. SMS and mobile push sit there too.
What ActiveCampaign adds for the same money
ActiveCampaign Plus lifts the 5-action cap, and its plan table lists standard segmentation, landing pages and 25 active goals against 15 on Starter. The pipelines and sales-engagement CRM pieces are separate add-ons, and lead scoring is bundled inside the pipelines add-on. On the integration side, the pricing page lists API and webhooks, Zapier, Slack and PayPal and Stripe among its connections, and a Stripe help article that describes a deeper sync than a payment gateway (below).
Stripe and subscription state
ActiveCampaign's help article says its Stripe sync covers customers, invoices, charges, checkout sessions and subscriptions, that subscription and checkout events create orders and recurring payments, and that choosing Subscription as the resource unlocks recurring-payment triggers. For a failed card, the status-change trigger is the cleaner start than the Invoice event, which offers no payment-status filter.
GetResponse's Stripe and PayPal entries appear next to its stores, products, promo codes and order-confirmation automation. That is the right model for a shop or for selling a course through GetResponse, and a weaker model for a SaaS whose Stripe Billing subscriptions live in your own app. Its comparison table lists an API on every plan and Zapier on every plan, so you can push a plan name, trial end date or past-due flag into contact data from your own code, then segment on it from Marketer upward.
Switching
- Export contacts with tags and custom fields. GetResponse's tags and scores only exist from Marketer upward, so decide how to carry them over before you import into Starter.
- Import unsubscribed and bounced contacts as suppressed, so nobody who opted out is mailed again.
- Recreate the signup forms and landing pages, update the form embeds in your app, and test the confirmation emails.
- Authenticate the sending domain on the new platform, run both for one billing cycle, then retire the old workflows.
Pick by team and by trigger
GetResponse Marketer fits a team of several people who want web push, funnels and event-based emails at a price that matches ActiveCampaign's Plus plan. ActiveCampaign fits a team whose emails depend on Stripe subscription status, whose sales staff need pipelines, or who want conditional content and predictive sending on Pro. If you only have one person, one product and a small list, either at its Marketer or Plus level works, and the choice comes down to which editor you prefer.
Related reading: Mailchimp vs GetResponse, MailerLite vs GetResponse, ConvertKit vs GetResponse, tools for startups and the comparison hub.
ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse: common questions
Is GetResponse cheaper than ActiveCampaign?
At 1,000 contacts the two are almost level once automation is unlocked: GetResponse Marketer lists at $48.38 a month on yearly billing and ActiveCampaign Plus at $49. The seat count differs, though. Marketer lists 5 users and Plus lists 1. GetResponse also lets you pay monthly ($59 for Marketer), while ActiveCampaign's pricing page states annual billing.
Can GetResponse Starter run trial-to-paid sequences?
Barely. Starter lists 1 custom automation workflow. Its plan comparison also marks contact tagging, contact scoring, event-based automation and abandoned-cart triggers as Marketer-and-up features. A SaaS that wants a trial sequence, a failed-payment sequence and a win-back sequence needs at least Marketer.
Which one connects to Stripe?
Both list it. ActiveCampaign's help article describes syncing Stripe customers, invoices, charges, checkout sessions and subscriptions, with a "Stripe event received" start trigger. GetResponse lists Stripe under integrations from Marketer up, inside an ecommerce toolset built around stores, products and orders; its comparison table does not describe subscription lifecycle events.
Does either send transactional email?
Not on the entry plans. GetResponse lists triggered transactional emails, a transactional sending API and an SMTP connection under Enterprise only. ActiveCampaign sells transactional email as an add-on that is available on each plan. Either way, password resets and receipts are an extra line item or a separate service.