Best Popup Plugins for WordPress

Lana Krupnik
6 min readJun 23, 2021

In this article, we’ll talk about one of the most controversial things in the marketing world — popups!

Many consider them an outdated tool and bypass it, but I think that it should not be neglected.

Popups are needed to attract subscribers, collect emails, report news, receive requests from customers, and more. Some think that popups no longer work, but this is a misconception. SUMO analyzed 2 billion popup ads and found that their conversion rate can reach over 40%. So that’s why I think at least you have to give them a try.

In this article, I will take a look at the best plugins for creating popups. Here’s the list in a nutshell. Scroll down to find out more about each.

How to Choose the Popup Plugin

Of course, the choice of plugins is very large. I believe that good popup plugins should provide the following:

  1. Intuitive and easy to use interface
  2. Comes with many different templates
  3. Provides customer support (you can always check if it’s good on Trustpilot)
  4. Allows customizing triggers for popups
  5. Integrates with the email marketing tool you use

Use pop-ups wisely! Poorly looking ones, randomly popping up, too frequent, and so on just annoy the users. They may simply never return to your site, not to mention they would never take the targeted action.

Good plugins will help you create a beautiful popup and configure it correctly on the site. Finally, let’s take a look at our plugins!

9 Best WordPress Popup Plugins

Sumo

Sumo, formerly known as SumoMe, is not a typical WP plugin. It’s a toolset that can help you turn visitors into e-commerce customers and boost your site’s performance. Sumo comes with 13 standalone tools divided into 6 categories: on-site analytics, eCommerce, traffic boosting, list building, communication, and social sharing.

Pros:

  • Supports 60+ social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
  • Works flawlessly with Google Analytics
  • It has a free version with limited features. This is the perfect option to try the plugin before considering paying for a subscription
  • Pre-built templates included

Cons:

  • Targeting options, as well as many other specialized features, are missing
  • UX is quite intuitive but doesn’t feel much integrated with WordPress
  • The more traffic you get the more you pay according to Sumo’s pricing model

Price: Free to $39/month

JetPopup

JetPopup is the best popup plugin for Elementor page builder. It provides a drag and drop builder, easy popup customization, the ability to manage trigger events, and much more.

Pros:

  • Animation effects for popup available: fade, zoom in/out, bounce in/out, slide up/down, and much more
  • Stylish in-built design templates for popups
  • Allows choosing the events, set timers, and dates of the popup blocks appearance
  • Allows you to fine-tune the size, position, and behavior of the popup on the page
  • In-built popup presets: discount, countdown, subscribe, sale, and others

Cons:

  • Can’t be used without Elementor
  • No free version available

Price: $22/year

Ninja Popups

Released in 2012, Ninja Popups keeps upgrading its features and capabilities and remains one of the most popular popup builders for WordPress. It’s quite straightforward, integrates with a variety of email services, and doesn’t require any coding skills.

Pros:

  • In-built analytics with KPIs and charts
  • Allows conducting A/B tests
  • 65+ popup theme templates
  • Integrates with social media

Cons:

  • The options are very basic compared to most of the others in the niche: no possibility to launch campaigns or even to customize the popups flexibly
  • No free version available

Price: $24/year

OptinMonster

OptinMonster is not the basic popup builder. It’s a fully-fledged online lead generation software that helps turn visitors into paying customers or subscribers. In-built templates, email services integration, and analytics are also included.

Pros:

  • Exclusive Exit-Intent® technology
  • Analytics and A/B testing available
  • Allows managing all websites and opt-ins in one interface
  • Allows you to adjust multiple rulesets for one campaign

Cons:

  • No drag and drop building option
  • No free version available

Price: from $9/month

TrustPulse

TrustPulse is a solid marketing tool that allows you to easily create social proof notifications to increase conversions on the site. It displays real-time notifications of user activity on the site, thus using the FOMO effect.

Pros:

  • Suitable and responsive for different platforms, including WP, Shopify, Drupal, and more
  • User activity tracking and analytics
  • Offers flexible customization options
  • Integrates with Zapier

Cons:

  • The free version comes with a limited number of sessions per month

Price: from $5/month

Icegram

Icegram is one of the lately launched WordPress popup builders. In addition to the ability to create popups and email opt-in, it also allows you to make CTA (Call To Action) buttons so they will drive your site’s visitors to any page you want them to.

Pros:

  • No traffic limit, so it will work no matter how many people visit your site
  • Big in-built templates library

Cons:

  • Targeting options are limited to quite basic ones
  • It does no analytics at all

Price: addons cost from $7

Thrive Leads

Thrive Leads is a lead generation plugin by Thrive Themes. This is one of the plugins included in the Thrive Suite package and it’s very intuitive and offers many cool features.

Pros:

  • Advanced analytics included
  • Powerful targeting options

Cons:

  • Can’t be bought separately but only within the full package
  • Might be not beginner-friendly

Price: full package for $19/month

Bloom

Bloom is a WordPress plugin for creating popups and email opt-ins by Elegant Themes. The plugin allows you to include or rule out specific pages or posts and show forms and offers specifically for a particular user based on their location and activity.

Pros:

  • Offers intuitive dashboard
  • 100+ in-built templates of different categories
  • A/B testing, analytics, and reports are included
  • 6 display types available

Cons:

  • No possibility to buy this plugin separately
  • The features are no too impressive but enough for a plugin that is just a part of the package

Price: full package for $89/month

Elementor Popup Builder

Elementor Pro is one of the most popular page builders. Besides the builder itself, Elementor Pro offers extensive features that include popup builder as well. If you don’t want to buy popup builder separately, the in-built plugin may also serve your needs well.

Pros:

  • Integrates with most email marketing tools
  • Flexible customization of popups appearance and behavior
  • 100+ different templates included
  • Cross-site design consistency

Cons:

  • No A/B testing available
  • No possibility to buy this plugin separately

Price: full package starts at $49/year

Final Thoughts

In this article, I showed you my favorite WordPress popup plugins and made a short overview. The links in the descriptions will take you to the sites of each plugin to learn more about each.

If you ask about our personal choice, it is quite difficult to make it. Recently, however, we are hooked on Jet plugins from Crocoblock. They are all so cool, intuitive, have the most thought-out features, and their support is just something. Therefore, today we will also recommend the Elementor popup plugin JetPopup.

JetPopup’s only issue is that it only runs on top of Elementor. And if you prefer a different page builder, then JetPopup will not suit you. In this case, if we were you, we would choose OptinMonster. It has wide functionality and a separate pro I would like to highlight is high-quality documentation.

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