EmailOctopus vs GetResponse — which should you choose?

EmailOctopus and GetResponse are both EU providers, so data location does not separate them. The differences are elsewhere, and they are big: one is the cheapest in our comparison and the only one with a truly generous free plan, and the other sells webinars alongside email. One thing weighs against the cheaper one.

The short answer

Choose EmailOctopus if you send a newsletter and the budget is tight. It is cheaper at every list size and free up to 2,500 subscribers.

Choose GetResponse if you run webinars, write to the list often or want list cleaning in the app. Its sending is unlimited on every paid plan.

Comparison table

← scroll →

Prices exclude VAT, billed monthly unless stated otherwise.(ad) = ad link

• The price is the monthly price of the cheapest paid plan at that list size. The Free plan column shows when you do not have to pay.
• EmailOctopus: the price list only shows the monthly price on annual billing. Monthly billing costs more.
• GetResponse: the smallest list sold is 1,000 contacts, so the 500-contact column shows that price.

Prices side by side

Both price by contact count and both in euros, so the figures are directly comparable.

← scroll →

Cheapest paid plans (EmailOctopus Pro, GetResponse Starter) read from the price lists (EmailOctopus, GetResponse) on 3 September 2026, monthly prices excluding VAT. EmailOctopus’s price list shows monthly prices on annual billing. GetResponse’s smallest list sold is 1,000 contacts, so the 500-contact row shows the price for a thousand contacts.

The top row is in practice the most important. At a 2,500-subscriber list the comparison is not €16 against €27 but zero against €27, because EmailOctopus’s free plan covers exactly that list size. GetResponse has no equivalent plan at all, and its thousand-contact minimum means that even for a small list you pay the price of a thousand.

One limit the price table does not show

On EmailOctopus’s paid plans the email volume is capped; at GetResponse it is not.

At EmailOctopus the 2,500-subscriber tier carries 25,000 emails a month and the 10,000-subscriber tier 100,000. A ten-thousand-name list therefore fits ten newsletters a month — plenty, but not unlimited.

At GetResponse sending is unlimited on every paid plan, so a weekly newsletter costs no more than a monthly one.

For most this changes nothing: a monthly newsletter to 10,000 names is 10,000 emails, a tenth of EmailOctopus’s ceiling. If you send daily or segment the list many times a week, count the email volume before choosing.

Data location: both in the EU

GetResponse is a Polish company and its servers are in the EU. EmailOctopus is a British company, but the lists are stored in AWS’s Irish data centre inside the EEA. Both read from the services’ own privacy policies on 3 September 2026.

Data location therefore does not separate these two, and at both your own entry stays short: no transfer basis outside the EU is needed at either. What still belongs in the policy: email marketing and GDPR.

Deliverability: the basics at both

We do not test deliverability ourselves. Below are two things: Tooltester’s 2017–2024 series as history — it ended in January 2024, and the source no longer stands behind its method — and eight points from the services’ own help pages, which are the current basis of this comparison.

← scroll →

Tooltester ended the series with the January 2024 round and explained why in August 2026: seed lists proved unreliable and providers started optimising for them. The figures are therefore history, not a measurement of current deliverability.

Source: Tooltester deliverability test, 12 rounds 8/2017–1/2024. About 80 seed addresses, 28 providers, shared IP addresses. Average across all platforms in the latest round 83.1%. Average and range calculated from the published rounds.

Deliverability features from the help docs

Eight points read from each provider’s own help pages on 13 September 2026. This replaces percentages as a buying basis: a feature can be checked and dated, a seed-list result no longer can. Every cell links to the article it was read from.

← scroll →

Yes = the help page describes the feature. No = the help page says it is absent or points to an external tool. — = not found in the help pages; that does not mean the feature is absent.

As history: in Tooltester’s series GetResponse’s average was 83.8% and its trend upward in the last two rounds; EmailOctopus was not in the series. The series ended in January 2024.

Read from the help pages, the differences are on GetResponse’s side, but partly only on the most expensive plan. The List hygiene page for blocking addresses and domains is on every plan; dedicated IP addresses and a named deliverability team only on the MAX plan. EmailOctopus’s help page describes neither but tells you to warm up the sender domain yourself. The basics — authentication, automatic removal, a ban on purchased lists — are at both.

Most of deliverability is still the sender’s own responsibility — authentication, list quality and sending pace: what Gmail and Yahoo require of senders.

Contact counting — the same trap at both

← scroll →

The rules are read from the providers’ own help pages. “Not read” means the rule could not be opened in the original source — we do not guess it in either direction.

• EmailOctopus. Unsubscribed contacts do not count toward the limit, nor do hard bounces and spam complaints, which are marked as unsubscribed automatically. Contacts awaiting double opt-in do not count either. One trap: the same address is counted separately for every list — an address on six lists is six contacts.
• GetResponse. Billing is set by two figures: the month’s highest number of active contacts and the total number of contacts added during the month, regardless of what later happens to them. The same address on several lists is counted several times. Exceeding the limit is not a one-off charge but recurs every billing period, on an annual contract too, and above 100,000 contacts the charge is $4 for every thousand started.

At EmailOctopus the unsubscribed do not count toward the limit, nor do hard bounces or spam complaints. GetResponse’s billing is set by the month’s highest number of active contacts and additionally by the total number of contacts added during the month, regardless of what later happens to them.

Both share the same trap, though: the same address on several lists is counted several times. The practical instruction is the same for both — keep one list and separate groups with tags, not many lists. All seven rules side by side: how contacts are counted.

What else the price includes

GetResponse has webinars built in, and funnels. If you run webinars, calculate what a separate tool would cost — it can flip the whole comparison.

EmailOctopus is deliberately narrow: no CRM, no e-commerce integrations on the same scale, no conditional automation branches. That is its advantage and its drawback in the same sentence. If you need conditional content or scoring, neither of these is enough: ActiveCampaign starts them on its Plus and Pro plans.

Which one for you