Having a pop-up plugin installed on your WordPress site can benefit your conversion rates and email-list building efforts. However, with so many WordPress plugins circulating in the market, finding the right one for creating your pop-ups can be challenging.

If you encounter this issue, we’re here to help. This article will explore the top free and premium WordPress pop-up plugins. We will uncover each of their pros and cons to help narrow down your search for the best WordPress pop-up plugin to install.

What Is a Pop-up Plugin and What Is It Used For?

A pop-up is a small window or image that appears on top of an active web page. It generally has a trigger that controls its appearance ‒ on page load, after scrolling past a specific page section, or upon attempting to leave a web page, to name a few.

WordPress webmasters utilize a pop-up plugin to ease the pop-up creation, customization, and integration.

The best WordPress pop-up plugins come with pre-built pop-up templates and a pop-up builder, saving you time and money since you don’t need to design them from scratch.

Pop-ups help turn new visitors into repeat customers. Running pop-up campaigns may grow your newsletter subscribers with email opt-ins, reduce the cart abandonment rate on the site, and promote ongoing events.

The built-in triggering options also eliminate the need to code, allowing webmasters with different technical knowledge to use this marketing strategy without much effort.

To decide what is the best WordPress pop-up plugin for your needs, we need to discuss some of its essential characteristics.

What Should You Look for When Picking a Pop-up Plugin

While each developer and business owner has different needs, you should consider a couple of factors when choosing the best WordPress pop-up plugin for your site.

• Price. Pick a WordPress pop-up plugin within your budget. Look out for upsells and hidden fees as some plugins offer certain functions as a paid add-on.
• Features. Make sure the plugin has everything you need to launch different types of pop-up campaigns. The pop-up plugin should also be lightweight enough to avoid slowing down your website without reducing its capabilities.
• Ease of use. Besides an easy setup process, the plugin should equip you with an easy-to-use pop-up builder and multiple triggering options to create personalized pop-up campaigns hassle-free.
• Support. A good WordPress pop-up plugin should have a customer support team ready to solve any technical issues whenever needed. Make sure the support team is reachable through multiple channels as well.
• Integrations. Verify whether the pop-up plugin supports integration with popular website platforms and email marketing services for a better workflow.
• Customizability. You should be able to customize the triggers, campaign type, design, and placement of the pop-ups.

Now that you learned how these plugins could benefit your marketing campaigns, we can help you select the best WordPress pop-up plugin.

5 Top Free WordPress Pop-up Plugins

If this is your first time experimenting with pop-ups, we recommend starting with a free WordPress pop-up plugin. Once you understand how it works, you can upgrade it or switch to a premium plugin.

Despite being free, the following plugins have all of the essential features to create compelling pop-up campaigns. Here’s our list of the best free WordPress pop-up plugins:

• Sender – lets you create beautiful, branded popups and forms to attract and grow your tribe.
• Sumo ‒ a simple plugin with a basic pop-up functionality.
• TrustPulse ‒ implements the “fear of missing out” (FOMO) marketing technique.
• Icegram ‒ allows advanced customizations via custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Popup Maker ‒ supports integration with popular form builder services.

1. Sender

Sender lets you create beautiful, branded popups and forms to attract and grow your own tribe of loyal fans.

Designing your own popups is super simple — choose from any of the premade, editable designs, or start from scratch using the drag-and-drop editor.

While mobile responsiveness is baked in, every existing template is extensively customizable, and you won’t need a single line of code for that.

The major types of popups you can create in no time include:

• Scheduled popups – displayed based on custom date & time settings;

• Behavior-based popups – displayed based on
  • Time spent by a user on the website or landing page;
  • Percentage of screen scrolled by the user;
  • Exit intent shown by users trying to leave your page.

Prominent advanced popup configuration features include:

• Frequency – how frequently do you want the same user to see the popup;
• Visibility – which specific pages and devices should the popup be shown on;
• Google reCAPTCHA – to ensure that any spammers don’t have a field day;
• GDPR compliance – to ensure that your business is always on the right side of marketing laws.

However, Sender is more than just another WordPress popup design plugin.

It’s an all-in-one email & SMS marketing solution that includes segmentation, personalization, broadcast newsletter campaigns, automated workflows, and lots more.

While Sender’s paid subscriptions start at $8.33/mo, their free forever plan includes up to 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails monthly, and unlimited popups, forms, and email automation. So yes, you could sign up for their free plan and just keep using all the popups and forms you ever need.

Pros:

• Unlimited popups & forms under the free plan;
• Premade popup & form templates;
• Drag-and-drop editor for custom, branded popup builds;
• Variety of popup types to address every business need.

Cons:

• “Made with Sender” branding on popups under the free plan.

2. Sumo

Sumo is a simple yet versatile email marketing and pop-up plugin for WordPress. This freemium tool includes plenty of features to collect the visitors’ email addresses and build email marketing campaigns.

The opt-in email forms come with customizable designs, allowing you to create personalized marketing approaches.

Sumo can also expand your reachability and increase your conversions by equipping you with social media sharing and visitor-targeting features.

It accommodates an unlimited number of subscribers and lets you send up to 10,000 welcome emails and newsletters per month.

Integrations with popular mailing systems like Mailchimp and AWeber help streamline your workflow.

Besides sending out cart abandonment emails, Sumo provides a discount code generator and analytics tools to monitor your marketing campaigns and boost conversions.

Sumo is available in free and premium versions. Consider getting the latter for $39/month to get the A/B testing feature and remove the Sumo branding from your forms.

Pros:

• Ease-of-use
• Unlimited subscriber allowance
• Built-in analytics and discount code generator

Cons:

• Enforced Sumo branding on the free version

3. TrustPulse

TrustPulse is an all-in-one solution for your marketing needs developed by the same team behind OptinMonster.

This WordPress pop-up plugin allows you to work on increasing your conversion and sales rates from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.

With the real-time event tracking feature, TrustPulse lets you display any action customers made on your site to create a sense of urgency.

Combined with the FOMO notification system, your WordPress website will attract conversions without complications.

Thanks to its smart targeting, TrustPulse is an incredibly efficient pop-up plugin. By customizing the advanced targeting rules and timing controls, all pop-ups shown on your site aim to generate optimal results.

You can monitor each web page’s conversion rate through actionable analytics.

The plugin’s free version supports WooCommerce integration and is compatible with the membership plugins such as MemberPress.

Consider getting a premium plan, between $5-$39/month, to unlock other smart-targeting features and access priority support.

Pros:

• Abundant pop-up design options
• Multiple FOMO campaigns
• Integration with popular website platforms and tools such as Zapier

Cons:

4. Icegram

Icegram is one of the best WordPress pop-up plugins on the market. With an easy setup and a variety of functions, this WordPress plugin helps grow traffic, subscribers, and conversion rate without coding.

Offering four types of opt-in forms, Icegram lets you create, for example, CTA messages and toast notifications.

This pop-up builder has action bars that are particularly ideal for placing announcements on the header and footer bars of your WordPress site. It helps ensure maximum visibility without damaging the user experience.

The display targeting options make it easy to control each campaign’s appearance. You can set the trigger based on specific pages, posts, categories, and even site visitors using a simple shortcode.

Besides offering multiple pop-up themes, Icegram also supports custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for advanced customization.

Icegram’s unique headline generator comes in handy if you have little to no experience with copywriting.

Icegram is a freemium WordPress plugin. Purchasing the premium version will unlock more opt-in types and features like A/B testing, geo-targeting, and advanced targeting.

Icegram offers two pricing plans, Pro for $97/year and Max for $147/year.

Pros:

• Mobile-friendly designs
• Free headline generator
• No enforced branding

Cons:

Having all the tools you need to create pop-ups, slide-ins, and banners, Popup Maker commits to growing your revenue and email list without hassle.

Besides several types of pop-ups, Popup Maker offers a built-in pop-up editor that lets you customize your pop-up designs.

The plugin also supports integration with popular form builder services like WPForms and Ninja Forms.

To facilitate your email list building, Popup Maker provides compatibility with email marketing services like HubSpot and Constant Contact. Multiple triggering options and cookie creation events may help to target specific visitors for optimal conversions.

All these features come with the free version of Popup Maker. The premium plans, costing between $87-$247/year, include premium extensions, pop-up analytics, and WooCommerce integration.

Pros:

• Integration with popular form builders and email marketing services
• Multiple triggering options
• Built-in pop-up builder

Cons:

• Pop-up analytics available only on premium plans

Which Free WordPress Pop-up Plugin Do We Recommend?

If this is your first time trying out pop-up campaigns, we recommend going with TrustPulse. The free version comes with plenty of advanced features that other plugins hide behind paywalls.

Upgrading to TrustPulse’s premium plan to increase the monthly session allowance also costs less than its competitors.

Meanwhile, WordPress webmasters who want freedom in customizing their pop-up forms may find the free version of Icegram better equipped. Adding custom code to the pop-up campaigns allows for a more personal touch for your audience.

Top 8 Paid WordPress Pop-up Plugins

Now that you know the best WordPress pop-up plugins available for free, let’s discuss the premium ones.

Functionality-wise, paid pop-up plugins for WordPress generally come with more features and better support than the free plugins, making them a great investment in the long run.

Here are our top eight paid pop-up plugins for WordPress:

1. Elementor Pro ‒ has a drag-and-drop builder and an extensive template library.
2. OptinMonster ‒ provides abundant features for efficient lead generation.
3. Ninja Popups ‒ an all-in-one pop-up solution with Google Analytics integration.
4. Bloom ‒ comes with a variety of templates with modern design.
5. Thrive Leads ‒ offers mobile-specific opt-in templates.
6. Convert Plus ‒ ensures an excellent user experience thanks to its pop-up repetition control.
7. Popup Domination ‒ provides GDPR-compliant pop-ups.
8. Layered Popups ‒ specializes in multi-layer animated pop-ups.

We will now explore each plugin’s features, pros, and cons to help you find the best WordPress pop-up plugin for your site.

1. Elementor Pro

Elementor is a popular WordPress page builder plugin capable of streamlining all sorts of web design processes, including pop-up creation.

Even though you can download it for free on WordPress, the pop-up-builder feature comes only with its premium version, Elementor Pro.

The plugin equips you with a drag-and-drop editor, making it an easy-to-use tool for those with limited web design skills.

It also offers multiple pop-up types, such as slide-ins, fly-ins, and bottom bars. You’re free to create different types of content with them, ranging from simple login forms to upsells.

Elementor Pro ensures that you can display each pop-up at the right time to the right user by arming you with lead capture and exit intent features.

It also lets you display premium content to visitors who agree to your terms.

All Elementor Pro designs are responsive and cross-site compatible. You get access to over 100 pop-up templates and widgets as well as entrance and exit animations to boost your site’s engagement.

Other premium features include a theme builder, WooCommerce builder, and one-year support and updates. Elementor Pro ranges between $49-$199/year.

Pros:

• A vast collection of pop-up templates
• Advanced targeting with multiple conditions and triggers
• Lots of customization options

Cons:

2. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is arguably the best WordPress plugin for lead generation. Equipped with a conversion toolkit and multiple pop-up form types, you get to drive sales and conversions much faster.

The pop-up plugin provides a drag-and-drop builder that lets you customize a pre-built template or build a design from scratch.

With the targeting options and segmentation engine, your site gets to display personalized marketing content for both new and returning visitors.

Furthermore, OptinMonster has built-in analytics and A/B testing tools. Knowing each campaign’s performance will make it easier to develop effective lead generation strategies for maximum conversions.

Other useful features include exit-intent technology, geo-targeting, and two-step opt-ins. For advanced features and customizations, OptinMonster supports custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

You can get OptinMonster for free or update to a premium plan, ranging between $9-$49/month, billed annually. All plans integrate with popular email marketing service plugins and come with reporting and access to the OptinMonster University.

Pros:

• Multiple triggering options, including inactivity sensor and scroll trigger
• Advanced targeted campaigns
• Support dynamic smart content via smart tags

Cons:

• Forced OptinMonster branding on the Basic and Plus plans

This is another excellent pop-up plugin for WordPress sites, offering various integrations with popular plugins and many responsive pop-up themes.

Ninja Popups is a great choice for WordPress webmasters who want to unlock their pop-up campaigns’ full potential.

Usability-wise, Ninja Popups has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder with a collection of free opt-in panels. All pop-up designs are optimized for search engines, graphics workloads, and faster loading times.

Additionally, the page-level targeting makes it easier to create personalized pop-ups for each page or post on the site.

Membership sites can use this pop-up plugin to lock exclusive content and encourage subscriptions. It’s also compatible with WooCommerce and WPML, perfect for accommodating online stores and expanding your site’s reach.

Other features include A/B testing and Google Analytics integration. You can access all of them by purchasing the Ninja Popups Regular License for $24 or the Extended License for $155.

Pros:

• Social media integrations
• Unlimited pop-up allowance
• Translation-ready

Cons:

• No after post opt-in forms

4. Bloom

Bloom is a WordPress email opt-in plugin known for its modern designs. It offers over 100 pre-built templates and various design capabilities to create compelling pop-up campaigns.

Six different automated opt-ins with three form orientations and multiple triggering options are available for your needs.

The after-commenting and bottom-of-post triggers are particularly useful for targeting visitors who engage with or show interest in your content.

Besides supporting integration with Mailchimp and AWeber, Bloom also has a page-level targeting functionality that lets you display pop-ups on specific posts or pages of the site.

Bloom’s custom panel allows for easier pop-up campaign management and monitoring from your WordPress dashboard.

Other useful features include having access to a statistics panel and integrating all your email marketing accounts to combine their subscriber counts.

The premium plan, costing $89/year or $249 as a one-time purchase, lets you unlock Bloom, other Elegant Themes plugins, and website packs by Divi.

Pros:

• A wide selection of templates
• Intuitive, easy-to-use interface
• Multiple opt-in options

Cons:

• It comes as a part of a bundle, can’t be purchased separately

5. Thrive Leads

Thrive Leads is arguably the best WordPress pop-up plugin for conversion optimization.

This WordPress lead generation plugin offers everything you need from the get-go ‒ a drag-and-drop editor, advanced targeting options, and reporting, to name a few.

Thrive Leads offers several opt-in forms, including two-step opt-ins, screen filler overlays, and multiple-choice forms.

With the A/B testing and reporting features, it is much easier to find the best opt-in form designs for your WordPress site.

Having access to Thrive Leads’ template library saves you from building pop-ups from scratch. The editor is code-free and has a mobile mode, meaning that you can display different opt-in looks on mobile devices.

Thrive Leads is part of Thrive Suite, costing $19/month, billed annually. The plan includes access to all Thrive tools, unlimited support, and can accommodate up to 25 websites.

Pros:

• Drag-and-drop editor
• Unlimited lead connection
• Mobile-specific opt-in forms

Cons:

6. Convert Plus

Convert Plus is one of the best WordPress pop-up plugins for users with limited technical knowledge.

It comes with a real-time live editor, ready-made pop-up-form templates, and integration with popular email provider plugins.

Besides helping you build an email list, this WordPress pop-up plugin can detect exit intent and redirect traffic to specific pages or posts.

You may also design pop-ups for locking exclusive content and targeting visitors coming from a particular website.

Multiple opt-ins are available to cater to various marketing needs. All pop-up templates are conversion-ready, mobile-ready, and customizable.

Convert Plus includes a repetition control that lets you control each pop-up campaign’s frequency to maintain an excellent user experience. Video pop-ups are also available to provide better user engagement.

Convert Plus’ Regular License costs $23. To unlock Google Analytics integration and more targeting rules, consider getting Convert Pro for $79/year or a one-time payment of $399.

Pros:

• Excellent usability
• Built-in analytics with a real-time graphical overview
• Integration with contact form plugins

Cons:

• Google Analytics integration only available on Convert Pro

Popup Domination is another excellent WordPress pop-up plugin with a wide selection of templates, ranging from email pop-ups to on-click pop-ups.

All templates are GDPR-compliant and responsive. You can also create mobile or desktop-only pop-ups to avoid Google’s mobile pop-up penalty.

To help you make better business decisions, Popup Domination offers built-in analytics and Google Analytics integration. The A/B testing feature is also available to split test your pop-up campaigns.

All pop-up designs are customizable and support custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for advanced customization.

Building your email list is easy, as Popup Domination supports integration with popular email providers. It’s also compatible with various eCommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Squarespace.

Popup Domination’s plans range between $54-$174/year, depending on the number of pop-up views. It also offers a 60-day money-back guarantee to ensure customer satisfaction.

Pros:

• GDPR-friendly pop-ups
• Google Analytics integration
• Mobile and desktop only pop-ups

Cons:

• You can’t manage the pop-ups directly on your WordPress dashboard

Green Popups, formerly known as Layered Popups, specializes in multi-layer animated pop-ups. This WordPress pop-up plugin has over 150 pop-up templates and various displaying options to choose from, all of which are guaranteed to attract the visitors’ attention.

The drag-and-drop visual pop-up editor lets you customize the pre-built designs and make them unique. Split test your pop-up campaigns using the A/B testing feature and monitor their performance with built-in analytics.

Despite having animation-packed pop-up designs, Layered Popups ensures a fast page load speed. The plugin also supports Mailchimp, AWeber, and other popular email providers for email list building.

Online store owners can benefit from the plugin’s integration with popular payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe. You can even display payment pop-ups to encourage customers to perform specific actions after making a purchase.

The price of a Green Popups’ Regular License is $21, while the Extended License costs $105.

Pros:

• 150+ pop-up templates
• Supports remote use by third-party websites
• Payment gateway integrations

Cons:

• Less triggering options when compared to competitors like OptinMonster

Which Paid WordPress Pop-up Plugin Do We Recommend?

In this category, the best WordPress pop-up plugins compete against each other by offering unique features and conveniences and promising the best value for money.

Like you would do when choosing a free plugin, do your research first to avoid spending money on the wrong paid plugin.

If you want a wide selection of pop-up templates, consider Elementor Pro. Besides helping you create compelling pop-ups, this WordPress plugin can also simplify the website customization as it’s bundled with a theme builder and over 50 widgets.

Webmasters who prioritize functionality over aesthetics may find OptinMonster the best WordPress pop-up plugin for their needs.

OptinMonster has various triggering options to improve the lead generation process. Plus, you can implement custom code to add new functions and perform advanced customizations.

Lastly, the Popup Domination WordPress pop-up plugin may be the perfect solution for your website if you want to appeal to search engines.

Besides having GDPR-compliant pop-up forms, this plugin also lets you create pop-ups for mobile or desktop environments.

Conclusion

Once you choose the best WordPress pop-up plugin for your website, you will be able to create and manage pop-ups campaigns without problems.

Whether you have a small business site or an eCommerce shop, pop-ups are necessary to inform visitors about your newsletter or remind them about purchases they didn’t finalize.

In this article, we presented the best WordPress pop-up plugins, free and paid, to help you achieve your campaigns’ goals.

With our recommendations and keeping your budget and needs in mind, picking the best tool for your website should be a whole lot easier.