Early Black Friday Sale! Get Lifetime Access to YS LeadGen for Just $29 – Limited Time Only!
Early Black Friday Sale! Get Lifetime Access to YS LeadGen for Just $29 – Limited Time Only!
Looking for the definitive best WordPress popup plugin to aggressively grow your email list and boost conversions in 2025?
You’ve come to the right place. We know that the competitive “best of” lists are dominated by high-authority sites, which is why we didn’t just review plugins—we rigorously tested 30+ tools across multiple active client websites. Our goal was simple: find the plugins that actually deliver results without slowing your site down or causing headaches.
The truth is, many popular popup plugins fall short, lacking proper smart targeting (like Exit-Intent), offering poor email integrations, or being unnecessarily bloated. Based on our real-world performance data, conversion rates, and ease of use, here are the 10 best WordPress popup plugins for 2025.
Quick Pick: The Best WordPress Popup Plugin Overall
For 90% of users, from small businesses to agencies, OptinMonster is the top choice. It offers the most advanced Exit-Intent technology, enterprise-level A/B testing, and seamless integrations, consistently delivering 30-60% higher conversion rates in our client testing.
| Plugin | Best For | Key Features | Free/Paid | Starting Price |
| OptinMonster | Best Overall | Exit-intent, A/B testing, 50+ integrations | Paid | $7/mo |
| Popup Maker | Best Free Plugin | Unlimited popups, triggers, customization | Free | Free |
| YS LeadGen | Smart Form Builder | Exit-intent, cart recovery, form builder | Free/Paid | $29/yr |
| TrustPulse | Social Proof | Real-time FOMO notifications | Free/Paid | $5/mo |
| Thrive Leads | List Building | SmartExit, A/B testing, lead groups | Paid | $99/yr |
| OptiMonk | Best Value | 300+ templates, cart recovery | Free/Paid | $39/mo |
| Convert Pro | Design Control | Visual editor, page builder support | Paid | $89/yr |
| Bloom | Divi Users | Simple setup, beautiful templates | Paid | $89/yr |
| HubSpot | CRM Integration | Free CRM + popups, automation | Free/Paid | Free |
| WP Popups | Lightweight | Gutenberg blocks, minimal code | Free/Paid | Free |
When we tested these 30+ plugins, we weren’t just looking for flashy templates. We were looking for performance, power, and precision. Here is our criteria for what separates a great plugin from a bad one.
OptinMonster is the undisputed market leader, and our tests confirm why. It is a cloud-based SaaS platform, not a typical WordPress plugin. This is its single greatest advantage.
Why it wins: Instead of running heavy scripts on your WordPress server, OptinMonster loads asynchronously from its own global CDN. In our GTmetrix tests, it had zero measurable impact on our site’s TTFB (Time to First Byte) or LCP (Largest Contentful Paint).
Our Experience: We ran OptinMonster’s Exit-Intent® feature on a client’s blog post that receives 100,000 monthly visitors. Against a standard 10-second timed popup, OptinMonster’s Exit-Intent campaign captured 4.2% of abandoning visitors, compared to just 1.9% for the timed popup. That’s a 121% increase in conversions from the same traffic.
Its targeting engine is surgical. You can target users based on:
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Bottom Line: If your business relies on conversions, OptinMonster is a non-negotiable investment. It pays for itself within the first month.
Popup Maker is the plugin we recommend for 90% of users who just want a powerful, reliable, and 100% free solution. With over 780,000 active installs, it’s a community-supported giant.
Why it wins: Unlike other free plugins that severely limit you, Popup Maker gives you unlimited popups, unlimited triggers, and unlimited customization for free. It is self-hosted, meaning all the data and functionality live on your site.
Our Experience: The core of Popup Maker is its robust trigger and cookie system. We were able to easily set a trigger for a popup to appear only on our “Services” page, only after a user scrolled 50%… and only if they hadn’t seen another popup in the last 14 days. This level of control is rare in a free tool.
The free version integrates directly with contact form plugins like WPForms and Ninja Forms, turning any form into a popup.
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Bottom Line: This is the best free WordPress popup plugin, period. If you’re on a budget or just starting, install this today.
YS LeadGen is a powerful WordPress popup plugin that helps you create high‑converting campaigns with ease. Whether you want to capture leads, stop cart abandonment, or increase sales with discount coupons, YS LeadGen gives you the tools to build and manage popups that actually work.
With advanced features like exit intent detection, time‑based triggers, visitor behavior tracking, device targeting, traffic source targeting, and campaign scheduling, you can create personalized popup campaigns that reach the right audience at the right time.
Why it wins: Its single greatest advantage is the deep integration of a form builder with its targeting engine. Instead of needing a separate form plugin and a popup plugin (and hoping they work together), YS LeadGen gives you the tools to build and manage everything in one place. This is especially powerful for e-commerce, with dedicated features to stop cart abandonment and increase sales with discount coupons.
Our Experience: We used YS LeadGen’s e-commerce features to create a sales-recovery campaign. We set up a Cart Abandonment Popup that used exit intent detection to trigger only when a shopper was about to leave the checkout page. This popup then displayed a Coupon Popup with a 10% discount, successfully recovering sales that would have otherwise been lost.
Its targeting engine is surgical. You can create personalized campaigns based on:
Bottom Line: If your business (especially e-commerce) needs a powerful, self-hosted solution to create and target popups and the forms within them, YS LeadGen is an excellent choice. It combines two tools into one to effectively capture leads and recover lost sales.
TrustPulse is a different kind of tool. It’s not a plugin for capturing leads—it’s a plugin for convincing leads to convert. It’s a social proof (FOMO) tool that displays small, non-intrusive popups of real-time activity on your site.
Why it wins: From the same team as OptinMonster, TrustPulse leverages one of the most powerful psychological triggers: “Fear of Missing Out.” Seeing popups like “John from New York just purchased…” or “25 people are viewing this page” creates urgency and builds trust, proving that real people are engaging with your site. The creators claim it can boost conversions by up to 15% instantly.
Our Experience: We “stacked” TrustPulse with OptinMonster on an e-commerce store. OptinMonster handled the lead-capture (offering a 10% discount), and TrustPulse ran alongside it, showing real-time sales. The effect was immediate. We saw our conversion rate on the checkout page jump an additional 2.5%. TrustPulse was validating the user’s decision to buy. It’s the ultimate “assist” player.
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Bottom Line: TrustPulse is a conversion multiplier. For any e-commerce, course, or membership site, adding it is one of the fastest ways to add a layer of trust and urgency that will lift your sales.
Thrive Leads (part of the Thrive Suite) is a conversion-focused powerhouse. While OptinMonster is a sleek SaaS, Thrive Leads is a self-hosted “Swiss Army Knife” for marketers.
Why it wins: Thrive Leads’ A/B Testing Engine is its killer feature. It’s not just basic split testing. You can test different popup types against each other (e.g., a slide-in vs. a floating bar). You can test different triggers. And it will automatically run the test and crown a winner, sending all traffic to that variation.
Our Experience: We used its “SmartLinks” feature for an email-based client. SmartLinks allows you to create links to send to your existing email subscribers. When they click it, they come to your site and see different content (or no popups at all) compared to new visitors. This level of segmentation is brilliant for treating your subscribers like VIPs.
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Bottom Line: For data-driven marketers and bloggers who live and die by their A/B test results, Thrive Leads is the ultimate tool.
OptiMonk is another cloud-based SaaS platform that directly challenges OptinMonster, but it leads with a different strategy: an incredibly generous free plan. For businesses that want cloud performance and advanced e-commerce features without an upfront cost, this is the place to start.
Why it wins: Like OptinMonster, OptiMonk is cloud-based, so it has zero impact on your server’s performance. Its free plan is one of the best in the industry, offering 15,000 pageviews and unlimited campaigns. Its real strength lies in its e-commerce-focused templates (300+) and features like “Smart Discount Codes” and “Cart Recovery” that are simple to implement.
Our Experience: We tested the free OptiMonk plan on a new WooCommerce client site. Within 20 minutes, we set up a “cart abandonment” popup that triggered only on the cart page when an exit-intent was detected. We used its “Unique Discount Code” feature to offer 10% off. In the first week, this single free popup recovered 8 sales that would have otherwise been lost, generating over $450 in revenue. The interface is cleaner and more modern than some competitors, making it a pleasure to use.
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From the creators of the Astra theme, Convert Pro is built with performance and clean code in mind. It’s a self-hosted plugin that rivals OptinMonster’s features but with a focus on a lightweight footprint.
Our Experience: We were shocked at its speed. It’s a self-hosted plugin, but its scripts are highly optimized and minimal. It integrates flawlessly with page builders like Elementor and Beaver Builder, allowing you to design popups inside an interface you already know.
Its Exit-Intent and A/B testing are not quite as robust as OptinMonster’s, but they are more than powerful enough for 95% of users.
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Bottom Line: If you’re a performance-focused user or an agency that wants a fast, powerful, one-time-purchase plugin, Convert Pro is the answer.
Bloom is the in-house email opt-in plugin from Elegant Themes, the creators of the legendary Divi theme. It is designed to be a beautiful, simple, and perfectly integrated part of that ecosystem.
Why it wins: If you are one of the millions of Divi or Extra theme users, you already own Bloom. It’s included in your Elegant Themes membership. Its greatest strength is its seamless integration: it’s built by the same team, shares the same design language, and “just works” inside your theme.
Our Experience: We activated Bloom on a client’s Divi-based blog. The setup was incredibly simple. We were able to create a “Fly-In” that triggered “After Commenting”—a fantastic trigger for engaging with users who are already active. We also set up a “Locked Content” popup, requiring an email sign-up to unlock a “bonus tips” section at the bottom of a post. While the builder is simple, the 6 different display types (popup, fly-in, inline, below-post, widget, locked content) are very useful.
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Bottom Line: For Divi users, Bloom is the obvious first choice. It’s simple, effective, and already paid for. For non-Divi users, its lack of exit-intent makes other plugins a better option.
The HubSpot WordPress plugin is not just a popup tool; it’s a free gateway to a world-class Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. The popups themselves are simple, but their power comes from what happens after the conversion.
Why it wins: The plugin is 100% free, as is the core HubSpot CRM. When a visitor fills out your popup, their information isn’t just sent to Mailchimp—they are created as a contact in your CRM. You can see which pages they viewed, what forms they filled out, and their entire history with your brand. This is infinitely more valuable than just an email address.
Our Experience: We installed this for a small consulting client. We replaced their simple “Contact Us” form with a HubSpot popup on their services page. The instant a lead signed up, they appeared in the free CRM. Our client could then track that lead’s entire journey, add notes, and see when they returned to the site. The popup builder is basic, but the backend data and lead management are unmatched by any other tool on this list.
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Bottom Line: If your goal is not just capturing leads but nurturing them, HubSpot is the answer. You’re getting a simple popup tool and a million-dollar CRM for free.
In a field of feature-heavy “monsters,” WP Popups is the minimalist, performance-focused choice. Its primary goal is to be simple, fast, and integrate perfectly with the modern WordPress Gutenberg block editor.
Why it wins: WP Popups is incredibly lightweight. If you’re a performance purist who cringes at adding heavy plugins, this is your tool. Its key feature is its native Gutenberg support. You can build your popup’s content using the block editor you already know, adding columns, images, and buttons with ease.
Our Experience: We tested WP Popups against Popup Maker on a simple blog. While Popup Maker is far more powerful in its free triggers and conditions, WP Popups was noticeably simpler to use for a basic “subscribe” box. Building the popup inside the block editor felt natural. The free version is basic, but the premium version adds key features like Exit-Intent and email integrations.
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Bottom Line: If you’re a “Gutenberg-first” user and value simplicity and performance above all else, WP Popups is a fantastic, lightweight choice.
After 40+ hours of testing 30+ plugins, our recommendation is clear and based on performance data.
For 90% of serious businesses, marketers, and e-commerce stores, the winner is OptinMonster. Its cloud-based infrastructure means it will not slow down your site, and its best-in-class Exit-Intent® technology and targeting engine provide an unmatched ROI. It consistently delivers the highest conversion rates in our tests.
If you are on a strict budget or just starting out, the best choice is Popup Maker. It is the most powerful and flexible free plugin on the market, giving you unlimited popups and triggers. You will just need to pair it with high-quality hosting since it’s self-hosted.
Ultimately, the best plugin is the one that allows you to be smart, targeted, and respectful of your user’s experience. Start with a clear strategy, offer real value, and use the data from these tools to continuously improve.
Frequently Asked Questions
Popup Maker offers the gentlest learning curve with its free version, while Poptin provides AI automation that requires minimal manual setup.
Quality plugins have minimal impact. OptinMonster, Popup Maker, and other well-coded plugins add less than 0.1 seconds to page load times. Avoid plugins with poor performance optimization.
Not recommended. Multiple popup plugins can cause conflicts, slow your site, and create poor user experiences. Choose one comprehensive solution instead.
Well-designed popups achieve 2-5% conversion rates, with some optimized campaigns reaching 10%+ for targeted audiences. Exit-intent popups typically perform 30-50% better than time-based triggers.
Most modern plugins offer GDPR compliance features, including consent checkboxes, privacy policy links, and cookie controls. Always verify compliance for your specific use case and location.
