Top 5 Best WordPress Email Subscription Plugins

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Want to grow your email list?

The plugins featured here can help.

In this collection, you’ll find easy ways to:

  • Add forms to your site
  • Add subscribers to the email service of your choice
  • Send new post notifications

While these are all excellent products, this list includes a variety of plugins with some being incredibly advanced while others are quite simple.

Make sure to evaluate each one before making a final choice.

Now let’s get to the plugins!

If you want to get serious about list building, check out our collection of the best lead generation WordPress themes before you go.

Email subscription plugins

There are free and premium plugins listed here. Keep in mind where you need to display the forms and what email service integrations you’ll need before making a final choice.

Here are the top picks for the best email subscription WordPress plugins.


  • 1. MailOptin

    MailOptin

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    Plugin Description

    MailOptin is my favorite plugin for list building and we use it here at Compete Themes! Here’s why.

    First, MailOptin provides you with a great variety of optin forms. You can pick between the lightbox, in-post, widget, notification bar, and slide-in designs. In fact, if you really want to maximize your list building efforts, you should try a few of these optins at once.

    Every optin type is totally customizable. There are a few pre-made themes to pick from and then you can change the text, fonts, images, and colors from there.

    MailOptin works with all the top email service providers like MailChimp, GetResponse, and Aweber to name a few. You can set up your email campaigns with one of those services to run automatically as MailOptin adds new subscribers every day. MailOptin can also be used to send custom newsletters and new post notifications.

    The MailOptin WordPress email optin plugin has a free version and a one-time payment premium option. This will save you a ton of money in the long run compared to the monthly subscription alternatives.

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  • 2. OptinMonster

    OptinMonster

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    Plugin Description

    OptinMonster is an astoundingly feature-packed email popup solution. While OptinMonster used to be a plugin, it’s now a separate app with a plugin available for simple WordPress integration.

    While the other plugins here are all great and can probably meet your needs, OptinMonster is definitely the most advanced email marketing product. You can choose from eight different optin types each of which can be customized with a complete drag-and-drop editor. What really sets OptinMonster apart though are the targeting options.

    With OptinMonster running on your site, you get an incredible amount of control over what forms you show to visitors. You can different offers based on the visitor’s geographic location, whether they’ve been to the site before, or even other previous actions they’ve taken on your site.

    It’s hard to try and cover everything OptinMonster is capable of here, so click the link below if you want to see more.

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  • 3. WPForms

    WPForms

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    Plugin Description

    WPForms  isn’t normally thought of as a way to collect emails, but it actually works pretty well as an email form plugin. You won’t get popups and advanced targeting, but you will get an awesome form plugin with list building capabilities.

    WPForms has an awesome drag-and-drop interface for building custom forms. You can use it to create any kind of form you want including basic contact forms and even payment forms for selling products. For list building, you can get the Pro package which comes with extensions for MailChimp, Aweber, GetResponse, CampaignMonitor, Constant Contact, and Drip. The extensions allow you to create forms that add subscribers directly to your lists in those email services.

    If you don’t need popups or advanced retargeting, WPForms may be the best choice for your site. Plus, this plugin is so versatile you’re sure to find other uses for it on your site.

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  • 4. MailPoet

    MailPoet

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    Plugin Description

    MailPoet is a complete email subscription plugin for WordPress. The developers have managed to keep this plugin simpler than most competitors without skimping on features that most email marketing software includes.

    Way more than just an email form plugin, MailPoet can be used for all of your email marketing work. Create beautiful forms and add them to your site, grow and store your contact list, and even send out email campaigns without leaving your WP dashboard.

    MailPoet is the best plugin here for sending new post notifications because of its deep integration with WordPress. In fact, you can even send out pre-written autoresponder campaigns. Better still, MailPoet has tons of truly gorgeous email templates to choose from. Of course, they’re all customizable, but working with great designs out-of-box saves you lots of time.

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  • 5. WP Subscribe Pro

    WP Subscribe Pro

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    Plugin Description

    If you want a simple and cheap email optin plugin, go with WP Subscribe Pro. This WordPress plugin is easy to work with and has the essential functionality needed to start list building.

    WP Subscribe Pro integrates with a huge number of email marketing services including MailChimp and Aweber. The number of integrations makes it an excellent choice for most email marketers.

    Regarding customization options, this email popup plugin has high-converting forms, beautiful pre-made templates, cookie expiration and flushing, and a variety of popup triggers. The triggers allow you to decide exactly when the offer should be shown and this level of control allows you to time your offer perfectly leading to more signups.

    Learn more

Which email marketing plugin is best?

MailOptin is my top recommendation thanks to its feature variety, beautiful templates, and one-time price.

OptinMonster is a better choice for any marketers who need targeting features and don’t mind paying a little more.

What do you think? Did you find what you needed in this collection?

If you have any thoughts or questions to share about these email subscription plugins, please post in the comments section.

Ben Sibley
Ben Sibley
This article was written by Ben Sibley. He is a WordPress theme designer & developer, and founder of Compete Themes.