The strength of the electronic coupling of the donor and acceptor decides whether the electron transfer reaction is adiabatic or non-adiabatic. In the non-adiabatic case the coupling is weak, i.e.  H in Fig. 3 is small compared to the reorganization energy and donor and acceptor retain their identity. The system has a certain probability to jump from the initial to the final potential energy curves. In the adiabatic case the coupling is considerable, the gap of 2 H is larger and the system stays on the lower potential energy curve.
Marcus theory as laid out above, represents the non-adiabatic case. Consequently, the semi-classical Landau-Zener theory can be applied, which gives the probability of interconversion of donor and acceptor for a single passage of the system through the region of the intersection of the potential energy curves 
where H is the interaction energy at the intersection, v the velocity of the system through the intersection region, s and s the slopes there.
Fig. 3 Energy diagram for Electron Transfer including inner and outer sphere reorganization and electronic coupling: The vertical axis is the free energy, and the horizontal axis is the "reaction coordinate" – a simplified axis representing the motion of all the atomic nuclei (inclusive solvent reorganization)
Working this out, one arrives at the basic equation of Marcus theory
where  is the rate constant for electron transfer,  is the electronic coupling between the initial and final states,  is the reorganization energy (both inner and outer-sphere), and  is the total Gibbs free energy change for the electron transfer reaction ( is the Boltzmann constant and  is the absolute temperature).
Thus Marcus's theory builds on the traditional Arrhenius equation for the rates of chemical reactions in two ways:
1. It provides a formula for the activation energy, based on a parameter called the reorganization energy, as well as the Gibbs free energy. The reorganization energy is defined as the energy required to "reorganize" the system structure from initial to final coordinates, without making the charge transfer.
2. It provides a formula for the pre-exponential factor in the Arrhenius equation, based on the electronic coupling between the initial and final state of the electron transfer reaction (i.e., the overlap of the electronic wave functions of the two states).