When it comes to email marketing and automation platforms, Klaviyo and GetResponse stand out as two of the top solutions. Business owners looking to drive sales, connect with customers, and grow their companies need to choose software that can handle key functionality like email campaigns, landing pages, and analytics while also being easy to use.
Selecting the right email marketing platform is crucial since it can have a direct impact on revenue and customer retention. For this head-to-head Klaviyo vs GetResponse comparison, we will evaluate both platforms across numerous factors that are important to small business owners and marketers.
By the end, you’ll have the information needed to decide which platform is the best choice for supporting your business growth and customer engagement goals.
1. Understanding the Basics
Founded in 2012 by Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen. Klaviyo is one of the fastest-growing email marketing and automation platforms. They are currently being used by over 90,000 small businesses across various industries. According to Datanyze, Klaviyo has a 13.8% market share in their category.
Launched in Poland in 1999 by Simon Grabowski. GetResponse specializes in email marketing, webinars, landing pages, sales funnels, and other tools to help small businesses grow. Over 400,000 customers in 183 countries use GetResponse. They have an 11.8% market share based on user numbers in the email marketing arena.
Both platforms have rapidly grown in market share, popularity, and reputation in recent years. However, Klaviyo is trending as the fastest-growing option, especially in the US market. GetResponse maintains a strong global presence though.
2. Features and Functionality
Automation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo lets you create customized workflows and sequences without needing to know code. You can trigger emails based on actions like signups, purchases, abandoned carts, expired trials, inactivity, and more. Workflows happen behind the scenes and can segment contacts, update metrics, or enroll people in sequences.
Sequences are sets of timed, automated emails that engage subscribers. Set up welcome series for onboarding, win-back flows for inactive users, educational drips, and promotional series like cart abandonment reminders. Build sequences using a drag-and-drop workflow builder with pre-designed templates.
Klaviyo offers an AI-powered segmentation tool for automatically grouping contacts based on behaviors, profiles, and metrics. Use granular filters like email engagement, pages visited, order history parameters, custom fields, and 100+ categories to define microsegments. Dynamic segments update automatically as your customers take action.
Overall, Klaviyo shines with sophisticated automation centered around detailed customer profiles and the flexibility to adapt campaigns as your business evolves.
GetResponse
The Automation tool in GetResponse allows you to create sequences, funnels, and autoresponders without needing coding expertise. Set up triggers based on most standard e-commerce actions customers take. Build sign-up incentives, educational content streams, re-engagement plans for churn reduction, and promotions tailored to buyer segments.
While GetResponse has pre-made automation templates you can use, there is less flexibility compared to Klaviyo when wanting to customize multi-step workflows. GetResponse focuses more on email-centric marketing automation vs robust profiling of audience segments across channels.
Their auto-responder tool easily allows sending a series of emails to subscribers over selected time intervals. This works well for delivering consistent, scheduled content. But bespoke solutions require more manual setup.
GetResponse automation meets basic small business needs, but serious e-commerce marketers may find it less scalable.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo is the winner for superior automation and segmentation capabilities. You get greater flexibility to customize workflows triggered by detailed audience actions, profiles, and metrics vs more rigid templates. Automation is in Klaviyo’s DNA with more robust, scalable options as evidenced by the 90K+ merchant users.
Email Templates
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers hundreds of professionally designed email templates you can customize for your brand. Browse by category like abandoned cart, promotions, announcements, newsletters, welcome series, or product releases. Filter for templates tailored to e-commerce, blogs, events, courses, or agencies.
Use their drag-and-drop template editor with image galleries, your product catalog, and other elements already integrated to customize templates. Dynamic content ensures subscriber personalization. All templates are mobile responsive.
Save any email sent through Klaviyo as a custom template to easily reuse and tweak further. Share saved templates with team members to collaborate on content while maintaining brand consistency.
GetResponse
GetResponse supplies 300+ pre-made email templates targeted to industries like e-commerce, publishing, software, travel, agencies, and others. Use their intuitive drag-and-drop designer to personalize templates from scratch or let their WYSIWYG email builder guide you.
Browse templates by type like onboarding, promotions, newsletters, outreach campaigns, and holiday emails. Choose from different formats like promotional, informational, conversational, and transactional messaging.
While template flexibility and customization are decent, those catering specifically to e-commerce could be more robust compared to Klaviyo. Collaboration features on templates also seem less developed.
Winner: Tie
Both Klaviyo and GetResponse offer extensive, professionally designed email templates to choose from. Their template editors and personalization capabilities are also on par.
Klaviyo edges out with templates specifically for high-volume e-commerce merchants. But GetResponse covers a wide range of customer engagement scenarios across business types. For most use cases, both deliver templates that will create stellar email experiences for subscribers with decent customization options once picked.
Segmentation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo enables dynamic segmentation to automatically group contacts based on profiles, behaviors, metrics, and other factors. Create unlimited segments using 100+ filters like email engagement, pages visited, order parameters, custom fields, scored activities, and more. Complex boolean logic lets you combine filters to target microsegments.
As customers interact with your business, Klaviyo’s AI-powered platform automatically updates segment membership. You can visualize audience sizes, see segment overlap, and understand engagement rates.
Use segmentation across your account for emails, landing pages, flows, and other areas. Integrate with your CRM, support desk, surveys, referrals, and other channels. Custom and dynamic segments focus on your messaging to drive conversions.
GetResponse
GetResponse offers contact tagging to manually group subscribers. Tag customers by behaviors like email opens/clicks, website visits, downloads, purchases, and webinar attendance. Also, assign static tags indicating customer profile attributes.
Build contact lists using basic filters based on tags, last campaign opened, email activity, etc. Set autoresponders or sequences to target lists matching specified criteria.
While functional for basic subscriber grouping, GetResponse lags Klaviyo in machine learning-powered dynamic segmentation. Marketers have more manual work building audiences vs AI-assisted segmentation.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo wins for its robust, automated segmentation capabilities fueled by AI. Granular targeting based on detailed customer data and actions takes the guesswork out of building high-value audience groups.
Dynamic segmentation here is far more powerful compared to GetResponse’s reliance on manual tagging and basic contact lists. Klaviyo helps even non-technical marketers create customized microsegments that truly reflect customer behaviors.
Analytics
Klaviyo
Klaviyo provides robust analytics on email campaigns, landing pages, website engagement, custom metrics, and customer profiles. You can track opens, clicks, conversions, revenue, margins, LTV, and other email engagement rates. See analytics trends over customizable date ranges.
Their dashboards offer visual insights into your audience including demographic data, purchase history, order value, product preferences, and engagement across channels like email, web, social, etc. Review summary metrics and segment-level analytics to optimize targeting.
Klaviyo generates reports detailing email deliverability, bounce rates, and spam complaints. Access CSV exports, schedule reports, and integrate Power BI dashboards. Despite the depth of metrics, Klaviyo’s UX remains clean and easy to navigate.
GetResponse
GetResponse offers campaign-level analytics on opens, clicks, forwards, and unsubscribes – including by contact segment. See some website analytics like traffic sources, conversions from emails, and form submissions. Export reports or create custom dashboards showing high-level sales and engagement data.
Analytics focus more on email campaign performance vs holistic cross-channel customer intelligence offered in Klaviyo. Marketers may need to supplement GetResponse with other tools to get deeper behavioral insights and website analytics tied back to customer profiles and lifecycle stages.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo wins for providing unparalleled breadth and depth of integrated analytics from email to websites to custom data. Robust segmentation means marketers can dial into campaign performance by micro-audience cohorts. Klaviyo’s analytics bridge siloed solutions into singular views of customer intelligence – crucial for small e-commerce players to understand their buyers and make smart targeting decisions.
Unique Features
Klaviyo
Klaviyo Summit is an annual online conference where merchants access actionable advice from top experts through keynotes, panels, and workshops. Attendees gain hard-won lessons across strategy, email, SMS, workflows, analytics, and other areas that directly impact their business growth.
Klaviyo also provides a community forum for users to network, ask questions, and share best practices. The built-in Knowledge Base offers step-by-step articles and tutorials on using different platform capabilities.
Notable integrations beyond basic marketing channels include analytics tools, CRMs, POS systems, SMS providers, Slack, Zapier, and 400+ apps via their API. Klaviyo emphasizes enabling customized tech stacks.
GetResponse
GetResponse offers a library filled with detailed academic articles, how-tos, and ebooks focused on email marketing, conversion optimization, and online sales growth. Users can access expert-led webinars for continuing education.
Their integrations cover sending emails, creating landing pages, and setting up marketing automation. However, fewer cutting-edge channels are integrated compared to Klaviyo. Support for developer custom apps also appears restricted vs Klaviyo’s open API.
Where GetResponse shines uniquely is with built-in webinars supporting up to 100 live attendees per session. Webinars facilitate lead generation alongside email.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo wins based on the wider array of capabilities via events like Summit and their marketplace enabling highly customized stacks through API/developer integrations. Extensibility is in their DNA. While GetResponse covers the basics well, Klaviyo appears better positioned to support emerging marketing tactics and channels. Their focus as the faster growing, next-gen platform shows in terms of feature set.
3. Ease of Use
Klaviyo
Klaviyo’s interface is modern, sleek, intuitive, and optimally organized to facilitate usage for beginners and experts alike. Navigating the various sections from the audience to email creation to automation is straightforward with logical information flows and menus.
The interactive dashboard provides a one-click entry into key functions like email campaigns, workflows, analytics charts, mobile previews, and customer profiles. Creators will appreciate visual, drag-and-drop builders for crafting emails and landing pages that are easy to customize without needing design chops.
Tooltips, online support materials, and forum community backing combine with Klaviyo’s inherent usability to enable nearly any skill-level merchant to start progressing through successively advanced email marketing strategies at their own pace. The platform places a high emphasis on learnability.
GetResponse
GetResponse has a dated user interface that may appear technical or unintuitive at first glance. A modest learning curve exists due to more complex navigation, cumbersome workflows when building emails or funnels, and insufficient supporting educational materials for absolute beginners.
Positively, their email and landing page editors still provide essential templating, personalization, automation, and analytics features in a single solution once users get the lay of the land. But true ease of use for growth-oriented customers appears an area requiring product improvements or renewed focus.
More tenured marketers may acclimate faster vs total newcomers to concepts like funnels, autoresponders, and tags – though overall, Klaviyo pips GetResponse when it comes to inherent usability.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo stands out as the clear winner based on its modern, graphically appealing UX that embraces clarity, simplicity, and the appropriate functionality positioning needed for users spanning total email marketing beginners to advanced power operators. Spend less time figuring out the platform, and more time growing your business with Klaviyo.
4. Email Deliverability
Klaviyo
Klaviyo emphasizes keeping high email deliverability and inbox placement rates for customers above 75%+ industry averages. They monitor ISP feedback loops continuously and work to resolve blocking issues before impacts occur.
To aid deliverability, Klaviyo offers sender authentication, domain ownership validation, and sender reputation monitoring while automatically splitting user bases deemed risky. Pre-send inbox rendering previews the email experience across 90+ inbox providers.
Granular analytics detail inbox placement rates, spam test scores, bounce categorization, sender scores, and compliance factors. Klaviyo also allows access to raw message data like traffic light protocol info to diagnose deliverability at a technical level.
GetResponse
GetResponse highlights email deliverability as a competitive advantage, with rates above 95% and mechanisms to maintain sender reputation. Emails get checked pre-send using their Deliverability Engine identifying issues that may cause blocking or spam folder filing.
However, compared to Klaviyo less transparency seems available in technical and performance data related to deliverability rates. Users may lack context on whether their send volume, content issues, or limiting ISP factors affect ongoing rates. Room for improvement exists in education and troubleshooting.
More established users may be satisfied with GetResponse deliverability, but Klaviyo appears better optimized for high-growth, high-volume email marketers concerned with granular inbox placement data.
Winner: Klaviyo
Both GetResponse and Klaviyo are simple yet powerful solutions. However, Klaviyo emerges the winner for offering best-in-class email deliverability and analytics detailing the contextual performance factors driving inbox placement – whether based on message content, send behaviors, or external ISP algorithms. For merchants focused on expanding audiences dramatically without jeopardizing deliverability, Klaviyo has proven capabilities.
5. Customer Support and Community
Klaviyo
Klaviyo provides 24/7 live chat, email support, and phone assistance to aid customers from beginners to large enterprises. US-based reps have strong familiarity with e-commerce use cases. Knowledgeable Klaviyo specialists will remote into accounts to provide hands-on troubleshooting.
Added community support taps into the Klaviyo User Facebook group with 20K+ members. Users access peer insights on email marketing strategies and platform capabilities via forums. Klaviyo Summit facilitates invaluable networking opportunities with experts.
Between responsive support experts and a thriving merchant community, Klaviyo users get their issues promptly addressed while also enabling education that circumvents the need for some support tickets in the first place.
GetResponse
GetResponse offers 24/7 live chat assistance and email/phone support during US business hours. Documentation features detailed tutorials on core platform capabilities and integrating channels like email, webinars, and analytics.
Their Facebook Users Group of 5K members provides a community forum for discussing best practices, though with less emphasis on networking events vs Klaviyo Summit.
GetResponse support meets baseline expectations. Yet merchants experiencing rapid, complex growth may desire more US-based reps with greater e-commerce familiarity and community immersion options to maximize customer guidance.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo wins for providing exceptional customer support spanning personalized troubleshooting from US reps supplemented by peer community insights via Summit events and social channels. GetResponse trails on support specialization and community resources for ambitious e-commerce brands aiming to strategically harness email marketing.
6. Integrations
Klaviyo
Klaviyo integrates with all major e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and custom systems via plugins and API. Email automation connects with CRMs, analytics, SMS, chat tools, payment systems, Facebook ads, and other channels.
Install hundreds of pre-made app integrations from their Marketplace like Mailchimp migration, product reviews, loyalty programs, surveys, and more. Or use the Developer API to build custom workflows with your specialized business systems.
Klaviyo’s breadth of integrations enables centralizing data from dispersed technologies into unified customer profiles displayed in the platform UI. Unleash omnichannel strategies faster.
GetResponse
GetResponse integrates email marketing, landing pages, forms, and webinars into an all-in-one solution requiring fewer standalone apps. Key platforms covered include leading e-commerce stores, Salesforce, Zapier, online stores, and select partners for referral programs or merchandise design capabilities to help round out omnichannel needs.
Developer APIs allow some custom integration outside their App Center of pre-approved solutions covering areas like email designers, analytics, subscriber behavior, advanced segmentation, or automation workflows. But the extent of extensibility and two-way data flows seem more limited vs Klaviyo.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo is the winner, as an integration-first platform built to centralize data flows across the Martech stack via their Marketplace and open API architecture. Whether integrating existing software or building custom apps, Klaviyo appears better optimized for flexibility. It serves as a customer intelligence hub that diminishes the need for additional tools.
7. Pricing
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers a free plan covering up to 500 contacts with basic email and automation features. The paid Email plan starts at $45/month billed annually for 5,000 contacts including advanced capabilities like custom metrics, A/B testing, and surveys.
Their Pro plan expands limits to 50,000 contacts while adding enterprise-grade support, custom integrations, and analytics dashboarding. Quote-based custom pricing applies beyond Pro for high-volume merchants. Overall Klaviyo is affordable for SMBs but scales to enterprises via volume tiers.
Klaviyo pricing aligns with key needs around contact count, email sends, automation complexity, and support demands rather than opaque feature bundles. Expect transparent pricing.
GetResponse
GetResponse offers 4 paid plans with prices ranging from $15.60 – $999/month based on contacts, features, and usage.
The Basic Email Marketing plan is good for starters with up to 1,000 contacts and basic email marketing tools. The Marketing Automation plan supports 10,000 contacts and adds automation workflows.
The E-commerce and GetResponse MAX plans are ideal for advanced users with features like webinars, landing pages, SMS, and multi-user access. GetResponse offers a 30-day free trial.
Winner: Klaviyo
The Klaviyo GetResponse comparison shows that Klaviyo wins for providing highly transparent, intuitively packaged pricing catering to emerging SMBs while scaling through clearly delineated tiers by contacts, features, and support as customers grow to enterprise scale.
Their pricing aligns tightly with customer needs rather than opaque bundles. Klaviyo also avoids surprises or quote-driven negotiations as businesses scale.
8. Reviews and Reputation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo earns glowing reviews from most users highlighted by their average 4.9/5 star rating across platforms like Capterra, G2, and Software Advice spanning hundreds of merchant reviews.
Users praise Klaviyo for its modern design, sophisticated analytics, segmentation capabilities, intuitive and flexible workflows, strong automation, ease of use, and stellar customer support. Some growing pains exist around complexity for newcomers. But most agree Klaviyo provides enterprise-level power for SMBs aimed at rocket fuel growth.
With revenue share pricing driving alignment and an obsession with fast onboarding, Klaviyo reviewer sentiment supports their positioning as the emerging leader in next-generation email marketing platforms.
See Klaviyo’s reviews on G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius.
GetResponse
GetResponse garners positive feedback from their 400,000+ customer base as reflected by 4.5/5 stars on trusted review sites like G2. Praise centers on email deliverability reaching inboxes, easy-to-use campaign creation capabilities, responsive customer support, and affordability for basic email functionality, webinars, and landing pages.
Constructive feedback includes below-par automation features compared to leading competitors, lack of design flexibility in pre-built templates seen as too restrictive by some users, complexity navigating their UI, webinar capacity limits, and a desire for more educational materials to fully harness available tools offered across their wider platform.
Winner: Klaviyo
With Klaviyo’s intense focus on customer-first design and support fuelling industry-leading reviews, they are the clear winner reputation-wise among modern email and marketing platforms. GetResponse delivers on email fundamentals but falls behind on capabilities required to fuel rapid growth for e-commerce disruptor brands. Klaviyo gets that making users successful drives adoption – and strong reviews.
9. FAQ’s
Klaviyo FAQs
- What types of email campaigns can you run in Klaviyo?
Klaviyo enables welcome emails, promotional emails, transactional emails, behavioral trigger emails, abandoned cart recovery emails, and automated email workflows or drips. - Does Klaviyo have email templates?
Yes, Klaviyo offers beautiful pre-designed and customizable templates for different email campaign types. Browse by category or industry. - Can Klaviyo handle my high email volume?
Klaviyo can support sending high-volume email campaigns with over one million emails per month by leveraging dedicated IPs and advanced deliverability features. Enterprise plans meet huge sending needs. - Is Klaviyo just for email or is it a full marketing platform?
Klaviyo specializes in sophisticated email marketing automation features while also offering landing pages, forms, surveys, and the ability to integrate other channels via their marketplace apps and open API. - How does Klaviyo pricing work?
Klaviyo has transparent pricing tiers based on the number of contacts, features, and support levels. Start free up to 500 contacts then upgrade through Growth, Pro, or custom Enterprise plans as your needs evolve.
GetResponse FAQs
- Does GetResponse offer email templates?
Yes, GetResponse provides over 300 professionally designed email templates you can customize to match your brand across industries like e-commerce, publishing, software, etc. - What types of emails can I send?
GetResponse lets you create signup confirmations, newsletters, promotional mailings, autoresponders, alerts, and other bulk email to segmented subscriber lists.. - Is GetResponse just for email campaigns?
No, GetResponse provides integrated options for email marketing, landing pages, forms, webinars, sales funnels, and basic CRM. Their focus goes beyond just email functionality. - Can I integrate other software tools with GetResponse?
Yes, GetResponse offers some integrations with leading apps, the ability to connect via Zapier, and API/SDK options for developers to build custom integrations across channels. - Does GetResponse offer discounts?
GetResponse runs occasional promotional offers providing percentage discounts on annual subscription plans. Higher volume customers can contact sales for customized quote-based pricing.
Final Thoughts
Choose Klaviyo if…
You are an e-commerce merchant focused on fast growth and needing robust email marketing capabilities like advanced automation, enterprise-scale deliverability, and integrated analytics to fuel expansion.
Klaviyo shines best for high-volume brands desiring maximum control and customization across channels like email, SMS, website, and more. If you envision rocket ship growth, Klaviyo has proven ROI-driving power.
You may also be interested in reading about some Klaviyo alternatives to expand your scope of choosing the best email marketing platform for you.
Choose GetResponse if…
You need a reasonably-priced all-in-one marketing platform for basic email alongside landing pages, forms, webinars, and some light marketing automation functionality. GetResponse brings respectable deliverability and intuitive campaign creation for solopreneurs, green marketers, or small teams not yet needing best-of-breed standalone tools. It can serve as a springboard before graduating.
Choosing the right email marketing and customer engagement platform is critical for your business success. If you still have questions after reading this comprehensive GetResponse versus Klaviyo comparison guide, don’t hesitate to ask them below! We’re happy to provide personalized advice on which solution may work best for your specific needs and growth goals.