Best WordPress Popup Plugins

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WordPress popup plugins are one of the best ways to maximize your site’s effectiveness. 

Easy to use and implement, popups help to enhance your messaging and convert leads. You can use them in many ways, including to upsell products, drive newsletter signups, and more.

A WordPress popup plugin can help to increase your return on the investment you’ve made in your website, your branding, and your products or services. 

I’ll show you the best WordPress popup plugins that you should consider, as well as my methodology for choosing which is right for your needs. 

#1 – Ninja Popups — The Best For Customization

Ninja Popups was released in 2012 and has been regularly updated with features and capabilities, including new popup templates and integrations with the most popular current mailing systems. The result is a plugin that puts you in control of all popup creation and performance elements. 

Fully compatible with WordPress and WooCommerce, Ninja Popups boasts an intuitive drag-and-drop theme builder, so you can custom-build your theme from scratch. If you want to save time, you can start with the more than 65 popup theme templates, then customize everything from colors to button sizes. The themes are responsive, so you don’t have to worry about leads falling off because of poor mobile performance.

I always want to be able to analyze data about how my site and popups are performing, and Ninja Popups delivers that detailed analysis. Ninja Popups allows for easy A/B testing, a must-have when you’re experimenting with its customization options. It also provides analytics of popup views and conversion, so you can test, refine, and test your popups again. 

Page-level targeting further maximizes the effectiveness of your popups. Integrations with the top email marketing platforms including MailChimp, Constant Contact, Freshmail, and HubSpot save you time and make this plugin an integral part of your sales funnel.

Ninja Popups also integrates with social networks, including: 

Popups are optimized for search engines for faster script loading and optimized graphics. Ninja Popups can enhance your site without bogging down its load time. 

A regular license starts at $24 and includes six months of support. Extra opt-in bar, widget, and theme packs are available if you’re looking for even more features. Buy Ninja Popups.

#2 – Green Popups — Best Time-Saver

Green Popups, formerly Layered Popups, gives you the versatility to custom-make a multi-layered animated popup with easy drag-and-drop functionality. And if the animation isn’t enough to grab users’ attention, the more than 1,000 fonts you can choose from will do the trick. 

If you’re short on time, the plugin is also equipped with more than 200 templates so you can get going quickly. 

You can choose from many popup triggers, including: 

With so many variables, including the ability to design your own popups, A/B testing is important. One of my favorite features is the fact that Green Popups allows for an unlimited number of A/B campaigns. These campaigns provide valuable statistics on popup performance, so you can test, refine, and choose the popup that’s right for your audience and goals. 

Green Popups is also compatible with WooCommerce. It integrates with ConvertKit, Jetpack, Mailchimp, HubSpot, and more to create a streamlined process, automatically sending user submission information right to your CRM or newsletter service. 

It also integrates with payment providers and gateways including PayPal, Stripe, and Razorpay. As users complete subscription or purchase popups, they’ll be routed to your payment provider of choice to complete payments. This creates an ideal user experience and can reduce abandoned cart rates.

Green Popups is optimized for PageSpeed Insights, keeping your loading speeds fast for SEO benefits. 

A regular license starts at $21 and comes with six months of support. Extended licenses are $105. This plugin’s time-saving capabilities make these subscription prices an excellent value. Buy Green Popups.

#3 – Optinly — Best for Businesses on a Budget

Optinly helps businesses and marketers to capture leads and drive sales. For all of the features and functionality this plugin offers, it’s impressively affordable, and even the free version offers comprehensive options. 

Optinly offers an array of popup forms and templates, including: 

Thanks to the integrated popup builder, you can customize all of the plugin’s popup templates. Nearly everything is editable, including the text, font, font color, and background image. You can also edit the CTA button text, color, and size to test and determine what’s most effective for your audience. 

Advanced triggers, including time-based and exit triggers, allow you to customize how and when your popups are displayed. 

Optinly also includes many targeting options, including page-based targeting and device-based targeting. You can also target popups based on user interactions, and add multiple conditions to popups for increased lead conversion.

This plugin integrates with email marketing service providers, including HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, and ConvertKit. You can simultaneously connect it to multiple email providers for a seamless addition to your sales and marketing campaigns. 

I like Optinly because of the great value it offers. The free plan requires no credit card to sign up, and it comes complete with: 

The free plan supports one site and is comprehensive enough so that a business can get up and running, enjoying some of the plugin’s best features. New free plan subscribers get access to premium features for free for the first 14 days, giving you a chance to decide which version is right for your business. 

As a business grows, upgrading to the Growth Plan costs only $25 per month billed monthly or $20 per month billed annually. Still highly affordable, this plan includes perks like premium templates, priority support, and an in-depth analytics dashboard. It’s suitable for use with up to five sites. 

#4 – Elementor Pro — Best For Beginners

Elementor Pro’s drag-and-drop popup-building capability makes it a top choice for beginners. The visual builder gives you plenty of design options without being overwhelming, and its easy setup means you’ll be up and running quickly. 

More than 100 popup templates can save you time if you don’t feel like designing one from scratch. As you customize templates or create your own popup, you can include Elementor widgets like login forms, countdown timers, buttons, email opt-ins, and more. 

Elementor Pro is a versatile tool, and you can create many different popup types: 

That versatility extends to both targeting and triggers. You can target by post type, format, categories and tags, pages, and more, allowing you to create custom popups that are highly relevant to your audience segment. Available triggers include time, click, scroll, inactivity, and exit intent, again giving you full control of your popups’ performance. 

Elementor Pro offers tiered subscriptions. While a free plan is available, it doesn’t include the popup maker functionality. The Personal subscription for one site costs $49 per year and includes more than 50 widgets, 300 templates, and 10 full website template kits. Since that subscription also includes unlimited pageviews, popups, and interactions, I think it’s a great value if you’re just getting started with popups. 

#5 – Popup Maker — Best For Detailed Targeting

If you want comprehensive control of your popup targeting, Popup Maker is the way to go. Not only is Popup Maker easy to use, it delivers targeting and triggering options that surpass what you’ll find in other plugins. 

Popup Maker works with your cookies, and you can use those cookies to target audience segments. You can put this functionality to work in countless ways. For instance, if you create a cookie when a viewer converts by completing a popup, you can trigger another popup to display only to those who have already converted. 

Alternatively, you can target popups by: 

Beyond standard targets, you can create custom targets or use the included advanced conditions for more specific results. These custom targets might be the best feature Popup Maker offers, allowing you to get creative and choose exactly how your site and popups contribute to the user experience. There are 26 separate advanced targeting options, allowing you to show a popup solely to visitors:

While Popup Maker isn’t a drag-and-drop plugin, the editor is simple and easy to use. Expert support is also available if you need help. 

Rates start at $87 per year for one site. The Grow Plan for three sites is $147 per year, and the Optimize Plan for five sites is $247 and includes WooCommerce compatibility. All plans include unlimited popups, theming, and impressions, making Popup Maker a great value. It’s also backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy with confidence. 

What I Looked At To Find The Best WordPress Popup Plugins

A WordPress popup plugin can complement and enhance your marketing and sales funnels, convert site visitors into leads, and maximize the effectiveness of the hard work you’ve already put into your website. But a plugin needs to be the right fit for your business to be effective. 

Think of your WordPress popup plugin as being a sales associate who can interact with your website visitors to help seal the deal, whether your goal is to gain newsletter subscribers or upsell products. 

To determine which plugins are the best for you, consider the following criteria essential to your business. 

Customization Opportunities

The key to effective popups lies in their customization. While templates can be a great starting point, you don’t want to rely on generic popups that don’t fit your brand. 

Customization is equally as important when it comes to trigger options and targeting conditions. The more trigger options you have to choose from, like age verification, scroll, and idle time triggers, the better you can make your popup work for your site. 

Customizable targeting conditions are also essential. Your popups are most effective when they reach the right audience. Rather than using the same popup for everyone who visits your site, targeting lets you reach certain audience segments with popups designed just for them. 

I’ve chosen plugins that give you customization options in nearly every stage of popup development and implementation to truly put you in the driver’s seat. 

Detailed analytics are key in helping you to develop, refine, and improve on the effectiveness of your popups. 

This is particularly important when you’re able to customize different elements of your popups. A plugin that lets you perform A/B testing can help you to get better results from your work, maximizing the plugin’s value at the same time. 

Even if you’re just getting started out with popups, the data on each popup’s performance can help you to learn what works for your site and what doesn’t work. That’s why I’ve chosen plugins that include analytics, A/B testing, and data to help guide your work.

Effect on Site Speed

Your WordPress plugin should enhance your site, not detract from it, but many plugins can slow down your site’s speed and overall performance. Some plugins use WordPress to track analytics, and this increases the server load and leads to slower page speeds. Slow page speeds negatively affect your SEO and your user experience. 

Instead of plugins that slow down speeds, I’ve carefully chosen options that are still packed with plenty of features that don’t negatively impact your site’s performance.

Scalability

Your needs as the owner of a single website will differ from the needs of a marketer working across five different sites. Often, the number of sites a plugin subscription supports directly correlates with subscription plan price. 

I’ve chosen plugins that can scale with your business. These plugins include options for single-site use that can save you money. You can also upgrade to larger plans to use the plugin across multiple sites as your business grows.

Conclusion

WordPress popup plugins are versatile, and there are lots of great options to consider. From the highly customizable to the plugins that come equipped with a generous selection of templates, my top picks are suitable for many different businesses. 

Available at a range of price points, there’s something for any business on this list: 

Whether you’re just getting started with popups for the first time or need a popup plugin that can support multiple sites, you’ll find a quality solution in any of the plugins in this guide.

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