Migrate from GetResponse to ActiveCampaign Without Losing Your Sequences

The trigger I see most often: a RevOps lead books a call with me after their GetResponse renewal quote lands in their inbox. They realize they are paying for a platform that caps automation steps, buries conditional branching behind higher tiers, and has not materially improved its sequence builder in years. Leaving is an easy call. The migration is where teams lose weeks and, occasionally, wreck deliverability. This guide covers the exact steps I use when migrating an account from GetResponse to ActiveCampaign, without dropping a sequence mid-send or ghosting a segment of warm leads.

Before you migrate

Do not click anything in ActiveCampaign until you have completed a full audit inside GetResponse. I have watched teams skip this and spend three days reverse-engineering their own automations because they canceled the GetResponse account too early. Not a fun call to get on a Friday.

What to export and document:

• Full contact list export as CSV, including all custom fields (go to Contacts > Export, select all custom fields explicitly, not just defaults)
• Every automation workflow, with screenshots of trigger conditions, wait steps, and branching logic. GetResponse lets you export a JSON summary but no other platform can read it
• All active email sequences with send schedules, subject lines, and delay intervals written out
• Segment definitions: the filter logic, not just the segment name
• Form embed codes and confirmation page URLs, because those will break on cutover
• Your current sending domain and DKIM/SPF records pulled from your DNS provider directly, not from GetResponse’s dashboard
• Suppression list and unsubscribe list, exported separately

Pause any sequences touching mid-funnel leads before you flip DNS. A lead receiving email step 3 from a domain that has not finished authenticating in ActiveCampaign is a deliverability problem you absolutely do not want to diagnose under pressure.

What breaks and what does not transfer

Two migration gotchas I always flag before a client starts: webinar triggers and historical engagement scoring.

GetResponse has a native webinar product. If you built automations that fire off webinar attendance, those triggers simply do not exist in ActiveCampaign. You will need a webhook from your webinar tool (Zoom, Demio, or Livestorm all support this) into AC to replicate that behavior. Not difficult, but it adds setup time that teams consistently forget to budget for.

The second one stings more. ActiveCampaign’s lead scoring is forward-looking. Contacts imported with high engagement history in GetResponse start at zero in AC, which immediately breaks any score-gated automations you try to carry over. Don’t bother trying to reconstruct historical scores manually. Instead, run a 30-day re-engagement sequence in AC first, let contacts self-select by clicking, and build scores from live behavior before you gate anything on a score threshold.

AC Automation entry:
Trigger: Tag added (gr-migrated)
Step 1: IF tag = seq-nurture-step4
          → Go to: Step 4
        ELSE IF tag = seq-nurture-step3
          → Go to: Step 3
        ELSE
          → Continue from Step 1

Verify it worked

Before you cancel GetResponse, run these four checks:

• Send a test through every rebuilt automation. Use a seed address and trigger each workflow manually. Confirm timing, branching, and personalization tokens render correctly. ActiveCampaign uses %FIRSTNAME% syntax where GetResponse uses a double-brace format. One missed swap means every recipient sees a raw token in their inbox.
• Check bounce categories in your first real send. Soft bounces above 3% or hard bounces above 0.5% in your first campaign point to a list quality problem or an authentication issue. Neither is a migration success.
• Confirm forms write to the right list and apply the right tags. Submit each form yourself and verify the contact record in AC shows the expected list membership, tag, and custom field values.
• Verify unsubscribes suppress correctly. Trigger an unsubscribe via a test contact and confirm they are suppressed across all lists in ActiveCampaign, not just the one they unsubscribed from.

Who should make this switch, and who should stay put

Choose ActiveCampaign if

• You have more than 5 active automations and need deep conditional branching
• You want a built-in CRM that connects deal stage changes to email sequences
• Your team runs sales and marketing sequences from the same platform

From $15/mo (Starter, 1k contacts) Try ActiveCampaign →

Choose Brevo if

• You have a large list (50k+ contacts) and cost per contact is your primary concern
• You send transactional email alongside marketing and want a single platform
• Your automation needs are straightforward: welcome series, basic drips, abandoned cart

Free to 300 emails/day, paid from $9/mo Try Brevo →

Choose Loops if

• You are a SaaS product team sending lifecycle email triggered by product events
• You want a developer-friendly API-first setup over a marketer drag-and-drop UI
• Your sequences are product-led: trial started, feature activated, churned

Free to 2k contacts, paid from $49/mo Try Loops →

If you are evaluating Brevo versus ActiveCampaign as your destination, the Brevo vs. ActiveCampaign comparison covers the feature gaps in depth. For a broader three-way view that includes ActiveCampaign alongside HubSpot, the ActiveCampaign vs. HubSpot vs. Brevo workflow comparison is worth reading before you commit. SaaS teams considering Loops specifically will find useful context in the Beehiiv vs. Kit vs. Loops breakdown.

If your main reason for leaving GetResponse is pricing rather than features, read the GetResponse pricing breakdown first. You may be on a plan with room to move tiers rather than platforms, and a full migration is not a small lift.

The migration is worth doing right, not fast

GetResponse is a capable tool for simple broadcast lists and basic drip sequences. Where it consistently loses to ActiveCampaign is automation logic depth: multi-condition branching, deal-stage triggers, and CRM-connected workflows that scale with a real GTM motion. I have run this migration for accounts with lists ranging from 5,000 to 120,000 contacts, and the pattern holds every time. Teams that do the prep work (field mapping, sequence position tagging, domain auth first) are live in ActiveCampaign and sending confidently within a week. Teams that skip steps and import fast spend the next month cleaning up deliverability problems and re-engaging leads who received duplicate emails. Do the prep. According to G2’s 2026 ActiveCampaign reviews, the automation builder is the most consistently praised feature across mid-market users. That reputation is earned. The switch is worth it.