I’m going to save you some time and go straight to the good stuff. When comparing the best WordPress Email Popup plugins out there there are two categories, paid and free. Sure, if you want to spend $29 per month on an email plugin you will get a substantial amount of value from Sumo or Optinmonster. It offers lots of customization with the paid version. Let’s focus on small businesses, solopreneurs, and freelancers who more than likely want a low-cost solution ($10 and under per month). Between the free email popup plugins out there I tested the most popular ones which are Sumo, Popup Builder, Optinmonster, and Yeloni Exit Popup.
Sumo – Free Version : ⭐⭐ out of 5 stars
Good: Tons of features and will do what you need to with lots of expansion.
Bad: Free version left you really dry needing the paid version to do anything so I really can’t write a solid recommendation. They don’t even give you a trial so you can’t guess how well this actually works without paying for it. Sumo
Yeloni Exit Popup : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5 stars
Good: Excellent free plugin with tons of features and works great with current WordPress versions and excellent support via Facebook, highly recommended! Mailchimp integration out of the box. Yeloni
Bad: Some premium features require payment to work but that is still half the price of Sumo.
Popup Builder – Free Version : ⭐⭐⭐ out of 5 stars
Good: Lots of features, once integrated it works well
Bad: Popup interface was difficult to use and requires more of a coder to get working.
Optinmonster – Paid Basic Version : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5 stars
Good: Great interface, easily integrated with MailChimp and many other e-marketing applications
Bad: Gets expensive for certain features, basic email functionality needs CSS to work with Formspree.io properly.
See it at optinmonster.com
Conclusion:
The clear winner is Yeloni Exit Popup for a free program and Optinmonster for a paid software. For the value you are getting an amazing set of features, excellent support, and Mailchimp integration for free with Yeloni! It doesn’t require much coding experience and is flexible. Optinmonster would be my top pick but I was not happy about all the upselling and features that you might need having to cost extra. The interface is very easy though and the popup options all look really good. You will have to know CSS if you want a popup to send you an email directly as I do on my pricing page.
Sumo comes in second but would only be recommended if you want to pay for its premium features. Popup Builder gets a higher score than Sumo for being a free plugin once you get it working it works well. Getting it working is a different story and requires a knowledgeable coder/developer to properly configure. It has a lot of great free features which is why it scored higher than Sumo but it is too difficult to get configured.