MailerLite vs GetResponse: what the cheapest paid plan lets you automate

Plan ladders at a 1,000-contact list

GetResponse prints prices for a list size you choose, and its default is 1,000 contacts, so that is the point where the two can be set side by side. The readings are from 7 October 2026, with monthly billing in the first price column.

GetResponse's annual option removes 18% by its selector and saves $41 a year on Starter, $127 on Marketer and $149 on Creator. Take the setup most SaaS teams need, a welcome series plus a payment-failed flow plus a trial-ending reminder, which is three automations. That fits on MailerLite's free plan up to 250 subscribers, then costs $19 on Comfort at 1,000. On GetResponse it needs Marketer at $59, a gap of $40 a month or $480 a year. Against MailerLite Power the gap shrinks to $20 a month, $240 a year.

The record gives no GetResponse readout at 5,000 or 10,000 contacts, so those sizes have to come from its own list-size selector. MailerLite's ladder is published: Comfort at $49 and Power at $69 for 5,000 subscribers, $89 and $129 at 10,000, $179 and $239 at 25,000. Run GetResponse's slider to the same numbers and set the Marketer figure against Power.

Where GetResponse is the bigger product

Creator is the plan that explains GetResponse's higher prices. It includes webinars, a website builder, a course creator for up to 500 students and premium newsletter subscriptions, none of which MailerLite's pricing page lists in the same form. MailerLite counters with websites, landing pages, digital products and bookings, and its plans list 100-plus integrations. If your SaaS also sells training or runs live onboarding webinars, one GetResponse account replaces a webinar tool; if it does not, those features are paid for and unused.

Two gaps matter for a product business. GetResponse lists transactional email and SMS only on Enterprise, which is custom-priced, so receipts and password resets still go through a separate sender. And dedicated sending domain and IP address also appear only in the Enterprise column of its capture. MailerLite's pricing page splits transactional into its own tab, sold as MailerSend, so both tools need a second service for app mail.

How each hears about your billing events

GetResponse's webhooks cover a fixed list: message opened, link clicked, contact subscribed, contact unsubscribed, contact copied or moved, custom field value changed, email changed, import finished and contact rejected. Your endpoint has five seconds to answer with a 2xx status and a body of {"status": "OK"}, and a failed call is retried three more times. Two caveats bite a billing integration: the subscribed webhook is not triggered by imports, and the custom-field-changed webhook does not fire for changes made by marketing automation or imports. Its Event condition in workflows matches a custom event by exact name, which your page registers with GrTracking('setEvent', name, attributes); the API reference also lists operations to create and trigger custom events. A browser-side call is fine for a signup page but wrong for a card decline, which happens on your server, so use the API route for Stripe's invoice.payment_failed or Paddle's transaction.payment_failed.

MailerLite's webhook list is longer on the subscriber side (subscriber.added_to_group, subscriber.automation_triggered, subscriber.automation_completed and others), signed with an HMAC header, with a three-second reply window and retries after 10, 100 and 1,000 seconds. For input it relies on groups and fields: your handler adds the subscriber to a "payment failed" group and the Joins a group trigger starts the automation. Its Stripe connection is for selling products from MailerLite pages, not for the invoices of your own plans.

Hosting and data terms

MailerLite states that its data storage center is in the European Union with ISO 27001 certification and that it has GDPR controls. GetResponse's DPA link returned a 404 when read on 7 October 2026 and its hosting region was not stated, so this page makes no claim for it.

Switching from GetResponse to MailerLite

1. Export contacts with their list assignments and custom fields, and keep the unsubscribed, bounced and rejected contacts in their own file.
2. Recreate each GetResponse workflow as a MailerLite automation using a group or field trigger, since GetResponse event conditions have no direct equivalent.
3. Move landing pages and forms last; changing a form's endpoint is the point at which new signups start going to the other tool.
4. Authenticate the domain, run the old and new welcome series together for one cycle, then close the old account at the end of the paid period.

Which to choose

• MailerLite Free or Comfort for a waitlist or early customer list that needs several automations for under $20.
• MailerLite Power for unlimited automations and sends at $39 when the list is 1,000.
• GetResponse Marketer for funnels and cart recovery, at $59, if the team will use them.
• GetResponse Creator for a SaaS that also sells training or hosts webinars, at $69.

Related reading: ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse, Mailchimp vs GetResponse, Brevo vs GetResponse, GetResponse vs AWeber and the comparison index.