GetResponse accounts mix newsletter subscribers with webinar registrants and funnel opt-ins, and those three sources behave nothing alike. A combined export hides which one is dragging the average down.
Getting the addresses out of GetResponse
Contacts, select the list, then Export. GetResponse produces a CSV of the selected fields.
Before you upload, because the import review happens before you can send. Verifying afterwards means waiting through the review twice.
What GetResponse does with the file you bring back
The import rules decide what a re-import actually changes, which is worth knowing before you upload.
The short version
- Large imports are reviewed before release, and the review asks how you collected the addresses.
- GetResponse matches on email and updates rather than duplicating.
- Removed contacts are not re-added by an import.
- Custom fields import alongside the address and can hold a verification verdict.
The mistake to avoid
Some addresses come back unresolved, and that is a fact about the receiving server rather than a gap in the check. We label those and never bill for them. What that means, and why roughly 28% of business addresses land there, is set out on our page about catch-all domains.
Contacts you add are billed even if they're gone by Friday
Suppose your GetResponse plan covers 25,000 contacts and you hold 19,000. A co-marketing push produces a file of 8,000 webinar registrants, and you upload it on the 3rd. The account now holds 27,000, which puts you above the plan.
Most people assume the bounces will sort it out. GetResponse's pricing help says otherwise, in so many words: you pay for all subscribers added during the billing month, regardless of what happens to them afterward. Billing looks at the peak number of active subscribers in the month and at the total added in that month. So when 1,300 of the registrants bounce and get removed on the 5th, they've already been counted.
Check the 8,000 before uploading, and say 1,300 are invalid and 900 unknown. Add 5,800 now and you're at 24,800, inside the plan, with the 900 waiting in a spreadsheet for next month's decision. That check fits a 10,000 pack at $25.
The same address on two lists is two contacts
GetResponse treats each list independently. Its help center gives the example directly: an address assigned to two lists counts as two contacts. Accounts that run a newsletter list, a webinar list and a funnel list often carry the same few thousand people on all three, and those copies are billed on each.
Before any import, export every list, merge the files and count unique addresses. The gap between that figure and the total on your billing page is what the overlap costs you. We don't charge for duplicate rows, so a merged file with repeats in it is fine to upload as it is.
When you consolidate, move people by copying them into the surviving list and then removing the emptied ones in the same sitting. Leave both versions in place over a billing date and the peak will include the two of them.
Questions people ask
Does verifying help an import pass review?
It helps and it does not decide it. The review is about consent and provenance, so a clean list from a source you cannot explain still gets questions.
Should each acquisition source have its own list?
Yes. It makes bounce rates attributable, it makes reviews easier to answer, and it means one weak source can be paused without touching the rest.
What do I do with catch-all results before an import?
Import them into their own list and send to them after your confirmed addresses. That keeps the campaign statistics on your main list honest.