Every popup tool in this category meters something different and prices it differently, and the free-plan question alone no longer has one answer: four of the five tools compared here offer a real, permanent free plan, but Wisepops does not. The real decision is what each tool meters and how far that allowance actually goes on your traffic, since the same store can blow through one tool's free allowance and barely dent another's, and what happens once a store hits the cap now ranges from a quiet pause to an automatic overage charge.
ToolsGavel's top pick: Poptin (4.3/5, from $20/mo) — Poptin's review scores sit at 4.9 out of 5 on Trustpilot (510 reviews), the Shopify App Store, and WordPress.org, all checked directly on those platforms. The free plan never expires, branding removal and every popup format unlock at the $20/mo-annual Basic tier, and it's the only tool here with native email sending built into its own pricing ladder. The catch is that email lives on a separate plan track that caps popup-visitor volume far lower than the popup-only plans.
3
Wisepops Best for broad on-site CRO ★★★★★ ★★★★★ 4.1
Wisepops keeps a consistently high review profile with no weak channel across Trustpilot, G2 or the Shopify App Store, and a broad feature surface: popups, quizzes, an on-site feed, web push, embeds and bars, tied together with sequenced "Playbooks." The catch is real: no free plan anywhere, and no public self-serve pricing beyond a single Shopify tier around $299/mo, with the main product gated behind a sales call and a $599/mo floor.
Best for: Ecommerce stores that have outgrown a basic popup tool and want one platform for popups, quizzes and on-site messaging, and are fine either self-serving through Shopify or booking a pricing call for the full platform · from $299/mo
Four of these five tools give you a real free plan and a believable-looking “from $X/mo” headline; Wisepops gives you neither. The number that matters more than any sticker price is the unit behind it, because the same traffic pattern produces a different bill, or a different outcome at the limit, depending on what gets counted.
OptiMonk, Popupsmart and Wisepops all bill by pageviews across the whole site: every page load counts, including a visitor who refreshes the page or browses five product pages in one session. Popupsmart adds a separate email-send quota on top of its pageview tiers. Poptin bills by unique monthly visitors: anyone who loads a page carrying its tracking snippet in a rolling 30-day window, whether or not a popup ever actually displayed for them. Repeat visits from the same browser count once, but a different device counts as a new visitor. ConvertFlow bills by funnel views, the narrowest unit of the five: only visitors who are actually shown a popup, landing page, quiz, or form get counted, so a store with 100,000 monthly visitors where only 30,000 see a campaign is billed for 30,000 views.
That difference changes what “10,000 free” is worth in practice, and now it changes what “unlimited popups” means at the cap, too. A high-traffic store with a low popup trigger rate will burn through Poptin’s visitor allowance just from people browsing, with or without a campaign showing. A store with a lot of repeat sessions from the same shoppers will use up OptiMonk’s or Popupsmart’s pageview allowance faster than a visitor count alone would suggest. ConvertFlow’s funnel-view model is the most forgiving for a store running a couple of targeted campaigns rather than a popup on every page. Wisepops skips the pageview-vs-visitor question for most buyers entirely, since there’s no free tier to measure it against in the first place.
| Tool | Meters | Free allowance | Cheapest paid (monthly/annual) | At the limit |
|---|
| Poptin | Unique visitors, 30-day window | 1,000 visitors, 1 domain | $25/mo / $20/mo (10,000 visitors) | All popups and forms stop showing to every visitor until upgrade or the monthly reset |
| OptiMonk | Pageviews, whole site | 10,000 pageviews, 1 domain | $29/mo / $19/mo (20,000-50,000 pageviews) | Campaigns pause after an 80% warning email, resuming on upgrade or at the next monthly reset |
| Wisepops | Pageviews, whole site | None, no free plan, 14-day trial only | ~$299/mo Shopify self-serve (500,000 pageviews); $599/mo main-site floor, no annual rate published | Not published anywhere for any plan |
| ConvertFlow | Funnel views (visitors shown a campaign) | 10,000 views, 5 campaigns | $29/mo / $25/mo (10,000 views) | Not detailed in the sources reviewed here; check the plan selector before relying on a specific behavior |
| Popupsmart | Pageviews, whole site, plus a separate email-send quota | 5,000 pageviews, 1 website | $39/mo / ~$32.5/mo (50,000 pageviews) | Auto-bills $10 per extra 10,000 pageviews (capped $99/block) by default; switch auto-extend off in settings to pause instead |
Three different behaviors now sit in that last column. OptiMonk and Poptin both pause campaigns instead of billing more, protecting against a surprise invoice but also meaning a store that outgrows its plan loses its popups entirely until it upgrades. Popupsmart runs the opposite default, auto-billing metered overage unless a store switches that setting off. ConvertFlow and Wisepops don’t publish a policy at all; for ConvertFlow that’s a documentation gap, for Wisepops it’s plausibly a contract term handled case-by-case under its sales-led pricing model.
Which one to pick
A store running Shopify with simple exit-intent and coupon popups and nothing else gets the most mileage out of Poptin’s free plan or Basic tier, especially if an eventual move to in-house email is part of the plan. A store with steady, high-repeat traffic that wants every popup feature unlocked without hitting a paywall should start with OptiMonk’s free tier, reading the Trustpilot billing complaints before adding a card for annual billing. A store that has outgrown a single popup widget and wants quizzes, an on-site feed and sequenced campaigns on one platform fits Wisepops best, provided the budget stretches to its ~$299/mo Shopify tier or a sales call for the main product, since there’s no free plan to test it on first. A store that wants popups as one piece of a larger funnel, alongside quizzes, landing pages, or a multi-step offer, fits ConvertFlow better, since its funnel-view metering only counts people who actually see a campaign rather than every page load or every visitor on the site. A store that wants gamified popups on a real free plan, and is willing to check the billing settings page before a launch or a sale, fits Popupsmart, keeping in mind that auto-extend bills overage by default rather than pausing.
Whichever tool fits the use case, check the live pricing page before committing to annual billing. OptiMonk’s plan tiers list pageviews as a range rather than one fixed number, Poptin’s email-bundle ladder carries a price that was not independently confirmed in the sources behind this guide, Popupsmart’s Shopify App Store listing runs a separate euro-denominated ladder that isn’t a straight currency conversion of its main-site prices, and Wisepops publishes no self-serve price at all outside that same Shopify channel.
Deals & price changes
Price changes and deals for popup & CRO tools
One short email when a tool in this guide changes its price or gets a verified deal. At most once a week.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest popup tool for a Shopify store?
Four of the five tools here have a free plan that costs $0 and never expires, so a small store can start there before paying anything. Wisepops is the exception: no free plan on either of its two pricing paths, just a 14-day trial. Once free-tier limits run out, Poptin's Basic plan is the cheapest paid entry point at $25/mo billed monthly or $20/mo billed annually, covering 10,000 unique monthly visitors on 1 domain. OptiMonk's Essential plan starts from $29/mo monthly ($19/mo annually) for a 20,000-50,000 pageview range, ConvertFlow's Personal plan runs $29/mo monthly ($25/mo annually) for 10,000 funnel views, and Popupsmart's Basic plan runs $39/mo monthly (about $32.5/mo annually) for 50,000 pageviews, the highest entry price of the four tools with a public self-serve grid. Wisepops's cheapest verifiable price sits well above all of them: roughly $299/mo through its self-serve Shopify tier, or a published $599/mo floor for the sales-led main product. The five tools meter different things and price different tiers of traffic, so the cheapest sticker price does not always mean the cheapest plan for your actual traffic.
Which popup tool has the best free plan?
OptiMonk's free plan covers the most ground on paper: 10,000 pageviews a month with every core feature, including A/B testing and full integrations, unlocked from day one. Poptin's free plan caps out at 1,000 unique monthly visitors but keeps unlimited popups and forms. ConvertFlow's free plan allows up to 10,000 funnel views and 5 live campaigns, though it only connects to newsletter tools until you upgrade. Popupsmart's free plan allows 5,000 pageviews a month on 1 website, half of OptiMonk's pageview allowance, but it includes gamified popups like spin-the-wheel formats that some competitors gate behind a paid tier. Wisepops has no free plan at all, the only tool in this comparison without one; its 14-day trial is the only way to test it at no cost. All four free plans that exist are permanent tiers, not time-limited trials, and none require a credit card to start.
Do popup tools charge by pageviews or visitors?
It depends on the tool, and the difference matters more than the price. OptiMonk, Popupsmart and Wisepops all bill by pageviews, counting every page load including repeat visits from the same person, though Popupsmart adds a separate email-send quota on top. Poptin bills by unique monthly visitors, counting anyone who loads a page carrying its tracking snippet in a 30-day window, whether or not a popup ever displayed for them. ConvertFlow bills by funnel views, counting only visitors who are actually shown a campaign, so a site with 100,000 monthly visitors where just 30,000 see a popup is billed for 30,000 views, not 100,000.
Can a popup tool replace my email marketing platform?
Only Poptin offers native email sending, and only on its separate "Emails & Poptins" pricing ladder, which caps the included popup-visitor volume much lower than its popup-only plans. As of Poptin's own August 2026 product update, email was still described as a phased rollout to existing WordPress and Wix customers, not a feature every account can turn on yet. OptiMonk, ConvertFlow, Popupsmart and Wisepops do not send email natively, so pairing any of those four with a real email program means adding a separate email service provider; Popupsmart's plans do list a numeric email-send quota, but that sits alongside third-party integrations rather than a built-in campaign composer.
What happens when a store hits its usage limit?
Three different behaviors now exist across these five tools. Poptin and OptiMonk both pause campaigns at the cap rather than billing more, OptiMonk after an 80% warning email, Poptin with no warning threshold published. Popupsmart does the opposite by default: it auto-bills $10 per extra 10,000 pageviews (capped at $99 per block) unless a store manually switches auto-extend off in billing settings, in which case it pauses instead. ConvertFlow doesn't document what happens at its funnel-view cap in any source checked for this guide. Wisepops is the only tool where this isn't published anywhere at all, for either its Shopify or main-site plans, plausibly because its sales-led pricing handles the question case-by-case in a contract.
