Systeme.io vs GetResponse — which should you choose?

Systeme.io and GetResponse are not plain email tools but packages in which email is one part. That is why this comparison is not settled by a price table — nor could it be, because one prices in dollars and the other in euros and we do not invent an exchange rate. Everything else is comparable, though, and there are two clear differences and two honest gaps.

The short answer

Choose Systeme.io if you sell a course or build funnels and want to start without paying anything. The free plan holds 2,000 contacts with no sending limit, and it includes three funnels and one course.

Choose GetResponse if you run webinars or write to the list often. Sending is unlimited on every paid plan, and the webinar module replaces a separate tool.

Note before choosing: Systeme.io lacks two things that can be read up for GetResponse — list clean-up inside the app and a published contact counting rule. Neither is a reproach, but both are gaps.

Comparison table

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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.
• GetResponse: the smallest list sold is 1,000 contacts, so the 500-contact column shows that price.

Why we do not state a price difference

Systeme.io’s price list is in dollars and GetResponse’s in euros. Giving a single figure would need an exchange rate, which is on neither price list and changes daily — and an invented rate would turn a dated figure into a guess. So the figures are below side by side in their own currencies, and no difference is calculated from them.

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Read from the price lists (Systeme.io, GetResponse) on 3 September 2026, monthly prices excluding VAT. The currencies differ, so the columns are not added together and no difference is given. GetResponse’s smallest list sold is 1,000 contacts. Systeme.io’s plans are Startup, Webinar and Unlimited; despite the Webinar plan’s name, webinars are not the axis of this comparison.

The table shows what is comparable without a rate: the number of contacts each tier carries. Systeme.io’s tiers are sparser and start from zero; GetResponse’s tiers start from a thousand contacts, below which you cannot buy.

The free plan is this comparison’s clearest difference

Systeme.io’s free plan holds 2,000 contacts and sending is not capped. It includes three funnels, one online course and one automation rule. It is not a trial but a usable plan on which the list can be grown to two thousand names without paying anything.

GetResponse has no free plan at all, only a 14-day trial. After two weeks you pay or leave, and the smallest list you can buy is 1,000 contacts.

The practical consequence is asymmetric: Systeme.io can be tried with a real list and a real newsletter without a time limit, GetResponse cannot. All seven free plans side by side: free email marketing.

Courses against webinars

Both sell more than email, but different things, and this settles the choice more often than price does.

Systeme.io has sales funnels, landing pages, online courses and payment handling in the same price. If you sell a course, it replaces a separate course platform and payment handling — two subscriptions fewer.

GetResponse has webinars built in and funnels. If you run webinars regularly, calculate what a separate webinar tool would cost a month, and compare only after that.

The same caveat applies to both: if you do not use the extra, you pay for it anyway. So neither is a good choice if your need is a plain newsletter — for that EmailOctopus and MailerLite are more straightforward.

Data location: both in the EU

GetResponse is a Polish company and its servers are in the EU. Systeme.io is operated by Irish ITACWT Limited, and according to its privacy policy the data is in AWS’s Irish data centre and is not transferred outside the EU. 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. What still belongs in the policy: email marketing and GDPR.

Contact counting — one we know, one we do not

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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.

• Systeme.io. The plan limits are contact counts (free plan 2,000, Startup 5,000, Webinar 10,000). All nine contact-management articles in the help centre were read on 5 September 2026: none of them says which contact statuses count toward the plan limit. The guides advise cleaning the list, but the counting rule is not published. So we claim nothing either way until it can be read or has been asked from support.
• 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 GetResponse the rule is published and has three points worth reading before importing: billing is set by the month’s highest number of active contacts and by the total number of contacts added during the month regardless of what later happens to them, and the same address on several lists is counted several times.

Systeme.io’s rule has not been published. Its plan limits are contact counts, but none of the help centre’s nine contact-management articles says which contact statuses count toward the limit. The guides tell you to clean the list, but the counting rule is not stated. We claim nothing either way. All seven rules side by side: how contacts are counted.

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.

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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.

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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% with an upward trend at the end; Systeme.io was not in the series. The series ended in January 2024.

Read from the help pages, GetResponse has a List hygiene page for blocking addresses and domains on every plan, and dedicated IP addresses and a deliverability team on the MAX plan. Systeme.io’s help page describes neither: cleaning with an external checking tool, warm-up with a “start small” guide. The basics 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.

What we do not know

This page is unusually full of gaps, and they all point the same way. Systeme.io’s help page describes no list clean-up and publishes no counting rule. For GetResponse both can be read up — the counting rule is among the strictest in the comparison, but it is known.

Which situation is better depends on which you value: a cheaper start, or knowing what you are buying. We have not used either tool ourselves and therefore do not assess the interfaces, editors or support response times — those would be measurement results, and there is no measurement. How we compare.

Which one for you