GetResponse vs Kit (ConvertKit) 2026: Billing Rules, Free Plans, Automation, and Contract Terms

Last updated: August 27, 2026

GetResponse and Kit are not the same kind of product

GetResponse sells email alongside marketing automation, conversion funnels, webinars, a website builder, and a course creator. Kit sells email organized around one subscriber record, with sequences, a creator recommendation network, and native product sales. Both bill on a ladder labeled with a number of people. The two numbers are defined differently, so the displayed list size is not a like-for-like comparison.

Verdict in one sentence: Shortlist GetResponse first if the job needs webinars, funnels, courses, or store-linked automation in one stack, and shortlist Kit first if the job is a creator newsletter built on one deduplicated subscriber record, then check each billing definition and each acceptable-use list against your own database and your own content before comparing monthly figures.

What you are actually buying

Most comparisons of these two products start with price. That is the wrong order, because the two vendors are not selling the same shape of thing, and their own plan cards say so.

FSR read each vendor’s plan cards and feature comparison table on 26 August 2026 and recorded what each one claims to include. Nothing below was tested.

Compiled from each vendor’s own plan cards and feature comparison table, captured 26 August 2026 in a United States session, plus the contract clauses cited below. “Not listed” means the item did not appear on the pages FSR captured, not that the vendor cannot do it.

The pattern in that table is the first thing a buyer should act on. GetResponse’s ladder absorbs adjacent products into the plan: a webinar tool, a site builder, a course platform, a funnel builder. Kit’s ladder does not, and instead deepens one thing: the subscriber record, what you can automate against it, and how you monetize it directly.

One row deserves reading twice. SMS marketing appears on GetResponse’s Enterprise card, and the two contracts describe its availability differently. The standard terms state the SMS service is available exclusively to customers in Poland. The Enterprise terms state it is available for selected locations, without naming them. A buyer outside Poland who needs SMS is therefore looking at Enterprise and an availability question to put in writing, not at a standard plan.

If the job needs one of GetResponse’s absorbed products, the comparison is largely settled before price enters. If the job is a newsletter with direct monetization, the same is true in the other direction. The rest of this briefing matters most for buyers whose job could genuinely go either way.

Sources: GetResponse, pricing page plan cards, accessed 26 August 2026 · Kit, pricing page and plan comparison table, accessed 26 August 2026 · GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Sections II.9 and II.11 · GetResponse MAX Terms of Service, valid 21 May 2026, Section II.6

The billing object, and four database scenarios

Both ladders are labeled with a number of people. The label refers to different things, and on the GetResponse side it refers to two different things depending on which plan you are on.

GetResponse, standard plans. Section V of the Polish standard terms states that the total number of contacts is the number of all contacts in the account in a given month, and that this number includes the sum of contacts that were stored, added by import or subscription, unsubscribed, deleted, rejected, not confirmed where double opt-in is enabled, or inactive during that month. The same section states that a contact on multiple lists counts once for each list, and that GetResponse counts on an ongoing basis with the running total driving the List Extension Fee.

GetResponse, Enterprise. The MAX terms describe a different mechanic. Fees are monitored against the peak number of contact email addresses accumulated across all lists and accounts in a settlement period, with contacts unique within each list but not across the whole account structure. The highest number in the period determines the fee, and a reduction inside the period does not change it. So the standard plans run on a cumulative monthly total and Enterprise runs on a peak. Neither pricing page states this.

Kit. Kit publishes a status table and ties billing to one of the statuses in it.

Kit Help Center, The subscriber profile page and status, accessed 27 August 2026. Kit also publishes a self-service check: filter the subscriber list by Confirmed and read the total at the bottom of the page.

Those two definitions produce different results on the same audience. Here is what each vendor’s own text says about four ordinary database situations.

GetResponse S.A. Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Section V. Kit Help Center, The subscriber profile page and status, accessed 27 August 2026, and Kit pricing page comparison table, accessed 26 August 2026. The GetResponse worked example is carried forward from FSR’s separate GetResponse briefing, which cited the vendor’s help center. FSR inspected no invoice at either vendor, so no figure is attached to any scenario.

Scenario D is the one worth sitting with, because the two vendors treat the same operation in ways that have nothing to do with each other. GetResponse’s billing clause counts a deletion and a re-import as separate events inside the same monthly figure. Kit’s documentation forbids the operation for a reason that is not about billing at all, and offers a status that stops sending while preserving the record. A publisher who cleans and re-imports regularly is looking at a cost mechanic on one side and a compliance instruction on the other.

Sources: GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Section V · GetResponse MAX Terms of Service, valid 21 May 2026, Section V.15 and V.16 · Kit Help Center, The subscriber profile page and status, accessed 27 August 2026 · Kit Help Center, Why is my subscriber showing as Complained · Kit Help Center, Why is my subscriber showing as Bounced

The plan prices FSR recorded

FSR moved each vendor’s list-size slider to a set of positions and captured each state. These are the positions FSR chose to record, not the complete set of tiers either vendor offers. Neither vendor’s full tier list was enumerated for this briefing. Nothing is interpolated.

Only one position, 1,000, was captured on both sides. That is a property of FSR’s sample. Section 02 explains why even that position is not a like-for-like unit.

Net of tax. GetResponse Enterprise is custom pricing at every recorded position. Kit’s Newsletter card rendered with a disabled button reading “Up to 10,000 subscribers only” at the 20,000 and 45,000 positions. At Kit’s 500,000+ position on yearly billing, Creator showed $2,083 per month, $24,990 billed yearly, and Pro showed $2,333 per month, $27,990 billed yearly.

Three things about these numbers are worth carrying into a decision.

Annual discounts are close. GetResponse’s toggle reads minus 18% and FSR verified it exactly at the 100,000+ position, where $539 becomes $441.98, $599 becomes $491.18, and $690 becomes $565.80, each the monthly figure times 0.82. Kit’s toggle reads save 17%, and its help center describes the mechanic as twelve months for the price of ten.

Both have a paid floor. GetResponse’s slider starts at 1,000. Kit’s goes to zero, but Creator returned the same figure at 0 and at 1,000 on yearly billing.

GetResponse’s overage rule has two parts. Section V describes a List Extension Fee equal to the difference between the plan fee at the tier sufficient to cover that month’s contacts and the plan fee at the tier originally selected. If the maximum list size for the plan is also exceeded, the fee is that difference plus $4 for every started block of 1,000 contacts above the published maximum. The terms also state that past 100,000 contacts GetResponse has the right to block further contact adding. FSR located no equivalent published overage rate on the Kit side.

Sources: GetResponse, pricing page, slider and billing toggle states recorded 26 August 2026 · Kit, pricing page, slider and billing toggle states recorded 26 August 2026 · GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Section V · Kit Help Center, Billing at Kit, page dated 16 March 2026

Free plans: capacity against control

Both vendors publish a permanent free tier. Kit’s is twenty times larger. GetResponse’s leaves the account holder in fuller control of what appears on their own pages. Both attach conditions the plan cards do not carry.

GetResponse S.A. Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Section II.3, and GetResponse Free page, accessed 26 August 2026. Kit pricing page comparison table and Kit Help Center, Onboarding the Newsletter Plan, accessed 26 August 2026. “Not located” means the item was not found in the documents FSR read.

The Kit condition deserves detail because it is not on the plan card. Kit’s onboarding article for the Newsletter plan states that the account is auto-enrolled and required to be in the Creator Network, that recommendations are auto-enabled on all forms and landing pages, that the creators recommended are selected automatically, and that one Kit-managed Smart Recommendation slot remains and cannot be removed. It states that in order to keep the plan free for up to 10,000 subscribers with all its features, Kit keeps 100% of any Paid Recommendation earnings generated from that slot. Turning recommendations off requires upgrading to Creator or Pro. Running your own Paid Recommendations, at Kit’s stated fee of 23.5%, also requires upgrading. The pricing page comparison table marks the Free Recommendations row as “Required” in the Newsletter column.

FSR is not asserting that the slot always serves a paid recommendation. Kit’s documentation says it pulls in either a free or a paid recommendation, and the revenue statement is conditional on a paid one appearing. What the documentation establishes is that the account holder does not choose who occupies the slot, cannot remove it, and receives nothing if it earns.

One GetResponse condition has no counterpart on either side and appears on no pricing page. The terms state that a customer sending from a free public domain such as gmail.com or yahoo.com may have the from-field domain automatically changed to a GetResponse-controlled domain and may be limited to 50 messages per day until a custom domain is added and verified.

Sources: GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Sections II.3 and II.5 · GetResponse, GetResponse Free, accessed 26 August 2026 · Kit Help Center, Onboarding the Newsletter Plan, accessed 26 August 2026 · Kit, pricing page comparison table, accessed 26 August 2026

Where the paid boundary sits on each side

The reason most people leave a free or entry tier is not the subscriber ceiling. It is a workflow they cannot build. On both sides that wall is automation, and on both sides it sits at the first real paid tier.

GetResponse. The Starter card lists one custom automation workflow. The Marketer card lists unlimited automation workflows and adds advanced audience segmentation, abandoned cart recovery, sales funnels, promo codes with revenue reports, and unlimited web push. The Creator card adds webinars, the website builder, the course creator with up to 500 students, and premium newsletter subscriptions. Enterprise adds a dedicated sending domain, dedicated IP, single sign-on, transactional email, AI product recommendations, SMS marketing, and unlimited users.

Kit. The Newsletter card lists one basic visual automation and one automated sequence. Creator lifts both to unlimited and adds the visual automation template library, RSS campaigns, apps and integrations, Kit MCP, removal of Kit branding, email editor version history, and local timezone scheduling. Pro adds Subscriber Signals, engagement analytics, engagement scoring, the insights dashboard, deliverability reporting, a custom tracking domain, advanced A/B testing, collaborative editing, the newsletter referral system, and unlimited users.

Two consequences follow for a buyer sizing the real entry cost.

On GetResponse, the practical entry tier for anyone running more than a single welcome sequence is Marketer rather than Starter, because Starter is capped at one workflow. On Kit, the same logic points to Creator rather than Newsletter, because the free plan is capped at one automation and one sequence. Comparing the two vendors’ cheapest advertised prices therefore compares two tiers that many buyers will pass through rather than stay on.

Seats are the second thing to size early. Kit’s comparison table gives one user on Newsletter, two on Creator, and unlimited on Pro. GetResponse lists unlimited users on Enterprise, and FSR captured no seat count on the three standard cards.

Moving to GetResponse Enterprise changes more than the feature list. The MAX terms bill on a peak count rather than a monthly cumulative total, add a separate liability formula, and place the Order Form above the Terms of Service in the order of precedence.

Sources: GetResponse, pricing page plan cards, accessed 26 August 2026 · Kit, pricing page and plan comparison table, accessed 26 August 2026 · GetResponse MAX Terms of Service, valid 21 May 2026, Sections V.15, XVI and XVIII.7

Selling: who carries the payment rails

Both vendors let a publisher sell to their own audience. The architectures differ in a way no feature checklist shows.

Kit’s terms place Kit Commerce on Stripe. Payment processing is provided by Stripe under the Stripe Connected Account Agreement, and the customer sets up their own Stripe account. Kit’s terms list the countries currently supported by Stripe connected accounts; FSR counted thirty-nine, including Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The stated criterion is the connected-account country, which is not necessarily the seller’s nationality, residence, audience location, or company registration. The pricing page states a fee of 3.5% plus 30c on every plan including free, described as inclusive of credit card processing fees, with Kit’s own share stated as 0.6% of the total.

GetResponse’s creator terms disclaim the seller role. Section II.9 states that GetResponse will not be the seller or merchant of record and will have no responsibility for creator content or offerings sold to end users through its Hub. End users pay the creator directly through third-party platforms such as Stripe and PayPal, subject to restrictions on certain payment methods depending on the creator’s country and choice. The creator is solely responsible for paying commissions and fees due to those platforms, for setting any refund policy for their own buyers, and for determining, collecting, reporting, and remitting applicable taxes. The creator is treated as a separate controller of end-user personal data. GetResponse states no transaction fee of its own in the terms FSR read, and warns that attempting to bypass the Hub payment system to avoid transaction fees may result in suspension or cancellation.

There is a second document behind that arrangement, and it matters if your buyers are consumers. Your buyers do not contract with you when they create a Hub account; they contract with GetResponse S.A. under Polish law, on terms valid as of 20 August 2024. Those terms give a buyer who is a consumer a fourteen day right to withdraw from the agreement, state that the Hub is for adult users only, and cap GetResponse’s aggregate liability to that buyer at USD 100.00. You set your own refund policy for your product; the platform gives your buyers a separate statutory withdrawal right you do not control.

Each vendor also leaves a different part of the country condition off its plan card. Kit publishes a specific country list in its terms and does not repeat the condition on the plan card advertising digital product sales on the free plan. GetResponse publishes no list and states an undefined restriction on payment methods depending on country. A buyer in an unlisted country can find Kit’s answer in a document. A buyer of either product has to ask GetResponse’s.

Sources: Kit, Inc., Terms of Service, last updated 5 September 2025, Section 7 · Kit, pricing page comparison table and tooltips, accessed 26 August 2026 · GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Section II.9 · GetResponse Hub, Terms Of Service for Members, valid 20 August 2024, Sections V, X and XIII

Refunds and cancellation conditions

GetResponse publishes a narrow no-refund rule. Section XI states that the service is pay-as-you-go and that refunds are not issued, even if the account is canceled immediately after the card is charged for a new billing period. The section carries its own example: a card charged on 10 August and an account canceled on 15 August still owes the entire billing period, whether that period is one month, twelve months, or twenty-four. One express exception appears in Section X and again in Section XI: if GetResponse terminates the subscription without cause, it refunds a pro rata portion of the prepaid amount. That exception runs in the vendor’s direction, not the buyer’s. On Enterprise the position is stricter still, because the MAX terms state that a customer on a fixed term who terminates early remains liable for the fees that would have been due to the end of that term.

Kit publishes a 30 day refund policy with two different starting points. Kit’s billing help article states that funds paid in the last 30 days can be refunded in full, that the policy applies to all plans including annual, and that payments made more than 30 days before the request are neither refunded nor prorated. Kit’s pricing page FAQ states that, whether on a monthly or an annual plan, a refund is available within the first 30 days of the date the account was signed up. One clock runs from each payment. The other runs once, from account creation.

Kit’s Terms of Service separately state that fees already paid are not refunded when a subscription is canceled before the end of the current period. That clause and a refund policy can both hold at once, because canceling and requesting a refund are not necessarily the same act. FSR takes no position on how the statements interact, which document controls, or what a buyer is entitled to. Those are questions for counsel and for the vendor in writing.

The narrow, testable finding is the one to act on: Kit’s own public pages give two different answers to when the 30 day window starts, and the published text does not reconcile them. Ask before prepaying a year.

Cancellation conditions differ in kind. GetResponse’s Section IX permits cancellation of a paid account at any time provided that, at the time the request is submitted, the customer has not exceeded the List Size limit for the selected plan, has no outstanding payments, has no separately agreed terms, and is not billed through the Apple App Store. It adds that between submitting the request and actual cancellation the customer may not exceed the List Size limit, calculated in twenty-eight day cycles from the moment the request is submitted. Read alongside Section V’s monthly aggregate, which count the cancellation check applies is not stated in the published text. That is a question to put in writing before starting the process.

Kit’s Section 6 states that a subscription renews automatically unless canceled before the Renewal Date, and defines the Renewal Date as thirty days after Kit sends an electronic copy of the receipt for the applicable monthly or annual term. On a monthly plan those dates fall close together. On an annual plan they do not. FSR does not interpret what follows for an annual subscriber and puts it on the written-questions list instead.

Both vendors publish a compliance path with no refund at all. GetResponse’s Fair Usage Policy allows immediate suspension or termination where the compliance team determines in its sole discretion that usage is excessive or unreasonable and advice to reduce it is not followed, with no refund of amounts previously paid. Its Anti-Spam Policy reserves termination without notice or refund. Kit’s Acceptable Use Policy states that an account closed for prohibited content, or for elevated bounce, complaint, or unsubscribe rates, is not entitled to a refund, that data export is at Kit’s discretion, and that a new account may not be opened.

Sources: GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Sections VI.1, IX, X and XI · GetResponse MAX Terms of Service, valid 21 May 2026, Section V.11 · GetResponse S.A., Anti-Spam Policy, Section VII, accessed 27 August 2026 · Kit, Inc., Terms of Service, last updated 5 September 2025, Section 6 · Kit Help Center, Billing at Kit, page dated 16 March 2026 · Kit, pricing page FAQ, accessed 26 August 2026 · Kit Help Center, Acceptable Use Policy, page dated 7 May 2026

The contract stack, and four liability formulas

Neither vendor has a single document. Both stacks are layered, and the layer that applies depends on who you are and what the claim is about.

GetResponse. FSR read the GetResponse S.A. version valid as of 11 August 2026, which applies to standard-plan buyers outside the United States and Canada. It names a Polish joint-stock company in Gdansk, applies Polish law and GetResponse’s local court, contains no arbitration clause and no class or jury waiver, and states in Section I that the service is business to business only. Section XVII incorporates the Anti-Spam Policy and Privacy Policy as integral parts and states that revised terms take effect immediately on posting, with a ten day window to terminate. The Data Processing Agreement is a separate document, also incorporated, and it states that where it and the Terms of Service disagree on personal data protection, the Data Processing Agreement prevails. FSR also read the MAX terms that govern Enterprise, valid 21 May 2026, which place the Order Form above the SLA and the Terms of Service in the order of precedence. A third document, a GetResponse Inc. version under Delaware law for buyers in the United States and Canada who subscribed after 23 October 2019, was recorded in FSR’s separate GetResponse briefing and was not re-read here.

Kit. The public standard terms name Kit, Inc., an Idaho corporation, apply Idaho law, and provide for AAA binding individual arbitration with a class action waiver and a jury waiver, a thirty day opt-out from first acceptance, and a two year claim bar. Those terms are not the whole picture by their own wording. The preamble states that where an organization has a separate paid contract with Kit, that contract governs instead. Section 2 states that supplemental terms include, without limitation, the affiliate program terms, and that where supplemental terms conflict with the main terms the supplemental terms control for that conflict. The arbitration position above is therefore the position under the public standard terms, not necessarily under every Kit agreement.

On liability, a single comparison row would mislead, and the reason is now visible. GetResponse publishes four formulas across its own documents, plus a fifth that governs claims your buyers might bring against GetResponse through the Hub. Kit publishes one.

FSR publishes no monetary figures here. The formulas also start their clocks at different events: GetResponse measures back from the event that caused the damage, Kit from the first claim brought. A contractual cap is not the same as a recoverable amount, and enforceability is not assessed. Identifying which document governs a given claim is a legal review, not an article table.

The buyer takeaway is short. On the GetResponse side, the number that applies depends on your plan tier and on whether the claim is about personal data. On the Kit side there is one number and one clock. Ask each vendor to state which of its own clauses would govern your case before you decide whether the difference matters to you.

Sources: GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Sections I, XV and XVII · GetResponse S.A., Data Processing Agreement, Sections IX and XI, accessed 27 August 2026 · GetResponse MAX Terms of Service, valid 21 May 2026, Sections XVI and XVIII.7 · GetResponse Hub, Terms Of Service for Members, Section XIII · Kit, Inc., Terms of Service, last updated 5 September 2025, preamble and Sections 2, 20, 23 and 24 · Kit, Data Processing Addendum, limitation of liability section

What each vendor will not let you send

This is the section most likely to decide the question before price does, and neither pricing page links to it.

Both vendors reserve the right to refuse a customer. GetResponse’s Section I reserves the right to reject a registration for any or no reason, so long as it is not unlawful. Kit’s Acceptable Use Policy states that most new accounts go through a verification process and that Kit reserves the right to deny an account during review. Neither publishes the criteria.

Both close accounts for sending performance without a refund. GetResponse’s Fair Usage Policy allows immediate suspension or termination where the compliance team determines in its sole discretion that usage is excessive or unreasonable and advice to reduce it is not followed. Kit’s Account Health section allows manual review, suspension, or termination for elevated bounce, complaint, or unsubscribe rates, with data export at Kit’s discretion and no new account afterward.

Both prohibit purchased or scraped lists. GetResponse’s Anti-Spam Policy adds an operational gate FSR found on no other page: for a large import, GetResponse reserves the right to require a test dispatch to part of the list first, with the ability to import the rest or send to the remaining addresses depending on the result.

Where the two vendors separate is the industry list. Both publish one. They do not overlap the way a buyer would expect.

GetResponse prohibited goods and services list, linked from Terms of Service Section VI, accessed 27 August 2026. Kit Help Center, Acceptable Use Policy, page dated 7 May 2026. Kit maintains a strictly prohibited list and a separate additional-scrutiny list; entries above are marked according to which list they appear on. “Not named” means the item did not appear in the list FSR read, not that the vendor permits it.

Read that table before the price tables, not after. GetResponse’s list bars a weapons or betting publication outright and does not name affiliate publishing at all. Kit’s policy does close to the reverse. Neither answer appears on a plan card, so describe your actual publication to the vendor and get it in writing before importing a list.

Sources: GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Sections I and VI · GetResponse S.A., Anti-Spam Policy, Sections III to VII, accessed 27 August 2026 · Kit Help Center, Acceptable Use Policy, page dated 7 May 2026

Who touches your subscriber data

Both vendors publish a data processing document with a named sub-processor list. The two lists are not the same kind of list.

GetResponse S.A. Data Processing Agreement, Sections V to VIII and Annex 3, and Standard Contractual Clauses, Clauses 9, 17 and 18 and Annex I.C, accessed 27 August 2026. Kit Data Processing Addendum, Sections 1, 3, 4 and 5 and Attachment 3, accessed 26 August 2026. Kit Privacy Policy, last updated 5 September 2025.

Two further points belong on the record, and neither is a conclusion.

Both vendors name an AI provider, and the two arrangements are not equivalent. GetResponse’s terms name OpenAI and Azure OpenAI, state that the selected AI solutions ensure the model does not learn from customer content, and instruct customers not to enter personal or confidential information into those features. The sub-processor actually named in its data processing agreement is Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited, processing in the EEA, with a scope limited to the course-creator AI feature. Kit names OpenAI OpCo, LLC directly, in the USA, as a sub-processor for subscriber personal data with the scope stated as application AI functionality.

Kit’s addendum also splits two roles inside one document. For subscriber personal data Kit is the processor. For data relating to the operation, support, and use of the services, the addendum states Kit is the controller and may use and disclose it for purposes including product development and sales and marketing.

Sources: GetResponse S.A., Data Processing Agreement and Annex 3, accessed 27 August 2026 · GetResponse, Standard Contractual Clauses, accessed 27 August 2026 · GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026, Sections II.9 and II.10 · Kit, Data Processing Addendum, accessed 26 August 2026 · Kit, Inc., Privacy Policy, last updated 5 September 2025

Who should shortlist which first

Routing is based on the plan pages and contracts cited throughout this briefing. FSR used neither product, so no row reflects quality of execution, and no row is a compliance opinion.

What this establishes, and what it does not

Established. Each vendor’s plan pages list a materially different product scope. GetResponse’s standard terms define a monthly, list-sensitive contact total, and its Enterprise terms define a peak count instead. Kit bills only Confirmed subscribers, with Cold subscribers included and Unconfirmed, Unsubscribed, Complained, Bounced and Blocked excluded. Kit’s documentation instructs customers never to delete and re-add. Kit’s free plan carries a required Creator Network enrollment and a non-removable Kit-managed recommendation slot. GetResponse’s free plan carries a 90 day inactivity rule and a broad contractual right to alter or discontinue the free service. GetResponse publishes one narrow no-refund rule with one exception; Kit publishes a 30 day policy with two different starting points. GetResponse publishes four liability formulas across three of its own documents plus a fifth for Hub buyers; Kit publishes one. The two prohibited-industry lists diverge on affiliate publishing, weapons, gambling, nicotine, insurance and crypto.

Not established. No invoice at either vendor. No crossover point and no cost winner. No account-side entitlement at either vendor. No behavior of any cancellation, downgrade, refund, or approval process. Nothing about editor quality, template range, automation depth in use, deliverability, or support. Nothing about how mandatory local law interacts with either contract, which is a counsel question on both sides. No compliance opinion about either vendor.

Not read. GetResponse’s United States and Canada terms and its United States privacy policy. Kit’s security policy. Both vendors’ checkout screens. Neither vendor’s full plan-tier list was enumerated.

Evidence sample, not product structure. The positions in section 03 are the ones FSR chose to record, and the single overlapping position is a property of that sample.

Before you prepay

Keep the replies as procurement evidence. Where a published page and a written answer disagree, that disagreement is itself worth recording before you commit.

FAQ

Methodology

FSR read the documents cited in this briefing and captured both vendors’ pricing pages on 26 and 27 August 2026. No account was opened with either vendor, no trial started, no payment made, no invoice inspected, no product sold, no cancellation run, and no refund requested. Neither product was used. Product capability statements come from each vendor’s own plan cards and comparison tables.

Pricing figures come from United States browser sessions on 26 August 2026 in which FSR operated each vendor’s list-size slider and billing toggle and captured every state quoted. Prices are net of tax. GetResponse’s terms state all fees are exclusive of taxes, with VAT or GST added at effective rates and invoices issued as Polish structured e-invoices. Kit’s help center names the United States jurisdictions in which sales tax may be applied.

Documents read in full. On the GetResponse side: the S.A. Terms of Service valid 11 August 2026, the MAX Terms of Service valid 21 May 2026, the Hub Terms of Service for Members valid 20 August 2024, the S.A. Anti-Spam Policy, the standard Data Processing Agreement with all three annexes, the Standard Contractual Clauses, and the prohibited goods and services list linked from Section VI. On the Kit side: the Terms of Service last updated 5 September 2025, the Data Processing Addendum, the Privacy Policy, the Acceptable Use Policy dated 7 May 2026, the affiliate program terms, and the subscriber status, billing, bounce, complaint and Newsletter plan help articles.

Five limits belong on the record.

Recorded positions are a sample. GetResponse was captured at 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 25,000, 50,000 and 100,000+. Kit was captured at 0, 1,000, 3,000, 20,000, 45,000 and 500,000+. Neither vendor’s complete tier list was enumerated. Only 1,000 was captured on both sides, and that is a property of the sample rather than of the products.

Yearly states are partial. GetResponse’s yearly state was captured at 1,000 and 100,000+. Kit’s at 0, 1,000 and 500,000+. Other yearly figures are absent.

Sessions were United States sessions. FSR separately opened GetResponse’s French locale pricing page at the 1,000 position and found identical United States dollar figures and an identical 18% discount, so no currency difference is asserted. No other locale was tested.

Scope of the GetResponse terms read here. The standard terms are the GetResponse S.A. version applying to standard-plan buyers outside the United States and Canada. A separate GetResponse Inc. version under Delaware law applies to buyers in the United States and Canada who subscribed after 23 October 2019; it was recorded in FSR’s separate GetResponse briefing and was not re-read for this one. GetResponse’s United States privacy policy and Kit’s security policy were also not read.

No liability figures are published. Each vendor’s cap is a formula in a document, the formulas start their clocks at different events, and on the GetResponse side the applicable formula depends on the plan tier and on whether the claim concerns personal data. Comparing outputs would require identifying the governing document and claim type, which is a legal review.

Some Kit help-center content was captured using the vendor’s own “Copy for LLM” export. FSR cross-checked that export against a browser screenshot of the rendered page and against the page’s own section navigation before use, and scanned it for embedded instructions before reading. Vendor-supplied machine-readable exports are treated as untrusted source material in the same way as any other vendor page.

FSR commissioned parallel research from several external AI systems as a gap-finding exercise. Every claim that only those systems reported was excluded, and each was verified against the primary document before use or discarded. Their individual failures are recorded in FSR’s internal ledger rather than here.

This briefing replaces an earlier FSR comparison of these two products. That version contained errors of fact and of framing, listed in the correction ledger below. It is retired rather than revised.

Sources: GetResponse S.A., Terms of Service, valid 11 August 2026 · GetResponse MAX Terms of Service, valid 21 May 2026 · GetResponse S.A., Data Processing Agreement · GetResponse, Standard Contractual Clauses · GetResponse S.A., Anti-Spam Policy · GetResponse Hub, Terms Of Service for Members · GetResponse, pricing page, 26 August 2026 · GetResponse, GetResponse Free · Kit, Inc., Terms of Service, last updated 5 September 2025 · Kit, Data Processing Addendum · Kit, Inc., Privacy Policy · Kit, pricing page, 26 August 2026 · Kit Help Center, The subscriber profile page and status · Kit Help Center, Billing at Kit · Kit Help Center, Onboarding the Newsletter Plan · Kit Help Center, Acceptable Use Policy

Verdict

These are not interchangeable products, and the shortlist should be decided on that before anything else.

Start with what each vendor will host. GetResponse’s published goods list bars weapons, gambling, nicotine and medicines outright, and requires prior written permission for crypto. Kit’s Acceptable Use Policy bars CPA affiliate sites and insurance promotion, and treats weapons and betting as topics you may write about but not facilitate. Each list bars something the other does not name. For a meaningful share of publishers the comparison ends right there, on a page neither pricing page links to.

If both vendors will host you, the product scope decides next. GetResponse’s ladder absorbs adjacent products: a webinar tool, a site builder, a course platform, a funnel builder. Kit’s ladder deepens one thing instead, a deduplicated subscriber record with direct monetization on every tier including free. Price the Creator tier on either side rather than the cheapest advertised one, because both entry tiers cap automation at one workflow.

The billing definition is the third decision, and it is where a plan card is least reliable. GetResponse’s standard monthly total can include contacts you deleted during the month and counts a contact again for each list it sits on, while its Enterprise terms switch to a peak count. Kit bills only Confirmed subscribers, keeps cold ones inside that number, and tells customers not to delete and re-add at all. A list with duplicates, or a month with a migration in it, will not behave on the GetResponse side the way a plan card suggests.

The contract layer decides what happens if the fit turns out wrong. GetResponse’s refund position is narrow and clearly stated. Kit’s is more generous and published with two starting points its own pages do not reconcile. Both vendors can close an account for sending performance without a refund. GetResponse publishes four liability formulas across its own documents, so the number that applies to you depends on your tier and your claim; Kit publishes one. Buyers outside the United States and Canada are choosing between a Polish company under Polish law with no arbitration clause and a business-to-business restriction, and an Idaho company under Idaho law with arbitration and class and jury waivers under its public standard terms.

This briefing does not establish that either vendor bills incorrectly, refuses refunds improperly, or misuses data. It establishes that the plan cards do not describe what you may publish, what you will be billed for, or what you can recover, and that the documents deciding all three are not linked from either pricing page.

Model this against your own list