Building an email list in very important and I’m sure you heard (or read) that dozens of times before. In order to build an email list you are going to need to use an autoresponder service. That is not a must as you can build and maintain email lists using other sources but I never done that and I won’t recommend you do that either. At least not at the beginning.

There are several autoresponder services out there but for the purpose of this post I will focus on the two services I use myself which also seem to be the two most popular services among internet marketers – AWeber and GetResponse.

I know that I struggled to decide between AWeber and GetResponse back when I first started and I know for a fact that many others struggle with this decision. The most important thing you should know is that you can go wrong with either one. Both are great and both will help you do what you want to do.

With that said, some might find one better than the other just like I think one is better for me than the other (I might tell you which one later) and I hope that the information I will share with you here will help find and choose the better autoresponder for you.

Let’s Meet The Competitors

Name	AWeber	GetResponse
Owner	AWeber Communications	implix
Founder	Tom Kuzler	Simon Grabowski
Founding Year	1998	1998
Website	http://www.aweber.com	http://www.getresponse.com/
Alexa Rank	134	612
Facebook Fans	12,666	3,947
Twitter Followers	12,919	10,075

How To Judge The Competition?

Since we are in a competition and we are looking for a clear winner, we are going to need a few comparison points. It took me a while but I decided on several points that I think are important for an autoresponder service and I hope you will agree.

So let’s begin.

Email Deliverability

Probably the most important aspect when talking about an autoresponder service. If an autoresponder service can’t provide you with the highest deliverability rates than you won’t use it.  No matter how good all the other factors are if the emails you are sending out are not being delivered than you will probably won’t use the service and look for something else that performs better.

Sadly for you, I don’t have any exact numbers to share with you and I’m not sure anyone has such numbers. Maybe guys with really big lists can test this out (I can’t) so all I can say is that both services will provide you with the highest deliverability rates possible (99%). I am sure that if one was better than the other we would have heard about it and I would have been able to find you some information regarding that on Google.

Email deliverability is exactly why you would prefer to use an autoresponder service and not run your own autoresponder server. Due to the relationships AWeber, GetResponse and other autoresponder services have with ISPs across the world ensure your email are not being blocked and marked as spam. In order to keep these valuable relationships you will find very strict anti spam policies in all autoresponder services.

Bottom line here is that both AWeber and GetResponse will provide you with excellent email deliverability and you can be sure that when you send emails using these services they will arrive at the destination.

Email Deliverability Winner – Draw.

Interface and Ease of Use

AWeber and GetReposne have a very different interface and I think that this is the biggest difference between the two services.

Aweber Dashboard

GetResponse Dashboard

I know that you can’t learn much from the above screenshots and I thought about doing some video overview but there is too much private information in these services that it would take hours to edit the videos to hide the private information.

What I can say is that I find AWeber to be much better when it comes to the interface and managing your lists. It is much simpler looking than GetResponse and it simply does the job great. AWeber also have a progress bar for every list you create so that you know exactly where you are and what you need to do next.

I know that this is only my personal opinion and experience and that others might say the exact opposite but since I am writing this I would share with you my own thoughts. And in the case of interface and ease of use, I think AWeber is the clear winner.

Interface and Ease of Use Winner – AWeber.

Feature List

Both AWeber and GetResponse have more features than most of you will ever use. I know I haven’t used many of the features they offer and I have been using both services for over a year.

The features are pretty much the same for both services and I can say that GetResponse has stock image gallery support so that you can add stock images from their gallery to your emails and I haven’t seen that in AWeber. Also, I think GetReposne has better integration with social networks (like Twitter and Facebook) but I’m sure that AWeber are not far behind and will soon include a similar feature.

Feature List Winner – Draw

Support

Support is very important for many and since you probably won’t know how to get started using these services at the beginning you will probably want to know how user friendly they are.

Well, you will be glad to know that both services provide you with excellent support. Both have support sections dedicated to providing you all the information you may need and answer just about any question you might have.

Both have live chat, video tutorials and weekly webinars. Since you are not going to be the first user for either AWeber or GetResponse you can be sure that all the possible questions have already been asked by others and both services really made it as easy as possible to find help and get answers to any questions you might have without even needing to send a support ticket or start a live chat.

Support Winner – Draw.

Forms

In order to get people to join your email lists you will need to use forms so that people can enter their name and email. I personally think that AWeber has a better form builder and a better selection of ready made forms to choose from.

Here is the form builder from AWeber:

And here is the form builder from GetResponse:

AWeber also has more than 1500 ready made form you can choose from while GetResponse has a little more than 100. Both of them organize their forms in categories so it would be easier for you to find what would work and look best for you. Even though AWeber has a much bigger form selection I wouldn’t necessarily say that it is better. To many options is not always good and I think in this case it applies. You can very easily waste hours going over all the different forms which is a total waste of time. Having just a few options for each category is better in my opinion and will help you make a decision much faster.

Forms Winner– AWeber.

Pricing

I know that the price of the service is what most people look at first and I think that the price shouldn’t be the reason you pick one over the other. Building an email list is a long term strategy and it shouldn’t be based on the price of the autoresponder service you will use. As you grow you will probably use more than one service and in general, the price difference is really not that big when you are managing smaller list and when you will get to the bigger numbers I’m not sure the price would have a big impact on your decision of which service to use.

With that said, here is a pricing comparison table of both services that shows the monthly prices according to the number of subscribers. I hope it makes sense (if not, you can always check the prices on the websites of each service):

AWeber are offering the first month for $1 and I think that they are killing it with this offer. I have no idea why GetResponse are not doing something similar as I think it would help them get more clients (at least I think so). But, as I said, don’t let that $1 for the first month be the reason you decide to go with AWeber because if you look at the pricing table closely you will find that GetResponse offers cheaper prices for the same list sizes.

Pricing Winner (who’s cheaper) – GetResponse.

And The Winner Is…

The big winner is you, first of all. Like I mentioned in the beginning, no matter which service you choose to go with you simply can’t go wrong. Both AWeber and GetResponse are great at what they do and I’m sure you will be satisfied with both options.

With that said, if I had to pick a winner than I would have to say AWeber and only because I found its interface to be better. I just had an easier time and an overall better experience while working with AWeber.

Winner Update (February 2012)

I am more than happy to say that my current winner is GetResponse. Approximately 3 months ago they made some major changes to their user interface and it is now much cleaner and easier to use. I am really liking it and have been enjoying it in the last few months and I feel that GetResponse has grown on me and I don’t find myself missing AWeber anymore. The new interface really rocks .

But that is only my winner. You might have a different opinion and that is totally fine. Just pick one of the two and start building and managing your email lists. You really can’t go wrong with either one.

And Start Building Your Email List

After you get an autoresponder service (AWeber or GetResponse) you will need to start building your email list and I would like to share you with a great free resource that can help you get started.

It is called Lucrative List Building Bootcamp and it is a series of 6 emails provided to your by the email marketing ninja, Andre Chaperon. When it comes to email marketing, I only take advice from one person and that is Andre Chaperon.

Also, if you decide to go with AWeber than here is a link for a set of custom made email signup forms that look much better than what you will find inside. You don’t even have to opt-in in order to get them. And for those that will decide to use GetResponse, you can also get these 7 Custom Get Response Email Signup Forms for free.

To your success (and mine ),