8 Best Thrive Leads Alternatives (Free & Paid)

Thrive Leads has been a default answer for WordPress list building for over a decade, and it earned that. Full A/B testing, real reporting, and every opt-in form type you could want, all in one plugin.

But a lot of people start looking for an alternative anyway, and it is usually for one of three reasons. The renewal price: a standalone licence is $99 for the first year and $199 after that, for a single site. The lock-in: every form you build lives inside Thrive’s own editor, so leaving means rebuilding. Or the weight: it is a big plugin, and if all you need is an email signup popup, you are carrying a lot you never use.

If any of that sounds like your situation, this post covers eight alternatives, ranked by how well they actually replace Thrive Leads rather than by how well known they are. Each entry covers what the plugin does well, where it falls short, and what it costs, so you can pick the one that matches your budget and your setup.

Plugin

Best For

Free Version

Standout Feature

Pricing (Pro)

ConvertForce

Gutenberg users who want popups without a page builder

Yes, full featured

Builds campaigns with the block editor you already use

From $49/yr

Convert Pro

The closest like-for-like Thrive Leads replacement

No

Blank-canvas editor with no traffic limits

From $99/yr

OptiMonk

Sites that want a genuinely usable free plan

Yes, 10,000 pageviews

AI-driven personalization and template families

From $19/mo

OptinMonster

Ecommerce and advanced behavioural targeting

No

Exit Intent and OnSite Retargeting (Pro tier and up)

From $7/mo (promo)

Poptin

Gamified popups and non-WordPress sites

Yes, 1,000 visitors

Spin-to-win, scratch cards, and pick-a-gift popups

From $25/mo

MailOptin

Running opt-ins and email newsletters from one plugin

Yes, limited

Sends automated newsletters from your dashboard

From $99/yr

Brave

Design freedom on a small budget

Yes, generous

10 drag-and-drop elements including WooCommerce products

From $59/yr (verify)

Bloom

Sites already paying for Divi

No

Six opt-in types with a template-driven setup

Bundle only, from $89/yr

Pick by situation

  • If you want to stop paying a subscription: ConvertForce or Convert Pro. Both are self-hosted with no traffic caps, so your bill does not grow when your traffic does.
  • If A/B testing and reporting are the reason you used Thrive Leads: OptinMonster or OptiMonk. Note that OptinMonster gates A/B testing behind the Plus tier and exit intent behind Pro.
  • If you are already building with Gutenberg: ConvertForce. It uses the same blocks and the same editor, so there is nothing new to learn.
  • If you want to try before paying anything real: OptiMonk’s free plan covers 10,000 pageviews with most features unlocked, which is the most generous free tier in this list.
  • If you also want to send newsletters: MailOptin handles both opt-ins and email campaigns from your dashboard.
  • If you are already paying for Divi: Bloom is already included, so it costs you nothing extra. Just know it has no drag-and-drop builder and has not seen significant development in years.

Why people switch from Thrive Leads

There are several reasons why people switch to a Thrive Leads alternative. Below we have mentioned some of those reasons.

  • The renewal price. The standalone plugin is $99 for your first year and $199 every year after that, for one site. Thrive Suite follows the same pattern at $299 then $599. If you run more than one site, the maths gets uncomfortable quickly. When you compare alternatives, look at the renewal price, not the introductory one.
  • Everything is built in Thrive’s editor. Forms you create live inside Thrive’s own builder, which means switching later involves rebuilding rather than exporting. If you already build your site with the block editor, a plugin that uses those same blocks removes a whole layer of tooling.
  • You may be paying for features you never touch. Thrive Leads includes A/B testing, SmartLinks, SmartExit, content locking, and detailed reporting. That is genuinely powerful if you use it. If all you run is one newsletter popup, you are carrying a lot of weight for one form.
  • Site limits and traffic caps. Thrive licences are per site. Many of the SaaS alternatives instead cap you on monthly impressions or pageviews, which means a traffic spike can push you into a higher tier. Self-hosted plugins avoid both problems. Check which model you are signing up for.
  • Support and update pace. A lead capture plugin sits on every page of your site, so it needs to keep pace with WordPress releases. Before you commit, check the plugin’s last update date on WordPress.org, not just its feature list.

Now let’s see the details of these Thrive Lead alternatives.

1. ConvertForce

ConvertForce is a Gutenberg-native plugin for building notification bars, lightbox popups, and slide-ins. The difference from everything else on this list is the editor: there isn’t a separate popup builder to learn. You build a campaign with the same WordPress blocks you already use to write your posts, so any block that works in your content works inside a popup.

That makes it the most direct answer to the two most common Thrive Leads complaints. There is no page builder to install alongside it, there are no monthly impression limits, and the free version on WordPress.org covers all three campaign types rather than acting as a teaser for the paid plan. It also stores dismissal and frequency data locally, with no third-party scripts and nothing sent to an external server.

Be clear about what it does not do yet, though. ConvertForce has no built-in A/B testing and no analytics dashboard. If those are the features you actually relied on in Thrive Leads, look at Convert Pro or OptinMonster instead.

Key features of ConvertForce:

  • Block Editor Native: Build campaigns with the blocks you already know. No separate builder, no page builder dependency, no new interface to learn.
  • Three Campaign Types: Notification bars, lightbox popups, and slide-in popups, all available in the free version. Lightbox campaigns include a position control for top, center, or bottom placement.
  • Advanced Targeting: 37 display conditions across 8 categories, covering pages, post types, user roles, devices, and referral sources. Pro only.
  • Exit Intent and Scroll Depth Triggers: Catch visitors as they move to leave, or wait until they have read a set portion of the page. Pro only.
  • Pre-Built Patterns: Ready-made designs for all three campaign types, including seasonal sets for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and summer sales.

Pros

  • Free version includes all three campaign types
  • No monthly impression or pageview limits
  • Nothing to learn if you already use the block editor
  • Fully self-hosted with no tracking or third-party scripts
  • Lightweight compared to full lead generation suites

Cons

  • No built-in A/B testing yet
  • No analytics dashboard yet
  • Requires the block editor, so it will not work with Classic Editor

Pricing of ConvertForce:

ConvertForce has a free version available on WordPress.org. Pro starts at $49/year for the Personal plan (10 sites) and $79/year for Professional (1000 sites), with lifetime options available and a 30-day money-back guarante

2. OptinMonster

OptinMonster plugin

OptinMonster is a renowned lead generation plugin that can create high-converting popups and email signup forms to convert visitors into subscribers and customers. It has an intuitive drag-and-drop builder to create lightbox popups, slide-ins, floating bars, and countdown timers for various campaigns.

OptinMonster has a rich library of professionally designed templates. If you are short of time, you can quickly create eye-catching forms using these readymade templates. The plugin integrates with many popular email marketing services, which enables you to organize and quickly follow up with them.

Key features of the OptinMonster plugin:

  • Drag-and-Drop Builder simplifies the process of creating forms and popups from scratch without requiring coding.
  • Built-in Analytics: OptinMonster has powerful analytics by which you can track views, conversion rates, and user interactions to evaluate the performance of your forms, popups, and strategies.
  • Customizable Templates: The plugin offers 700+ customizable templates. You can customize their fonts, colors, content, and images to fit your brand.
  • Advanced Targeting Rules: You can display forms, popups, and campaigns based on user location, referral source, and various other criteria.

Pros

  • Extremely feature-rich
  • Useful in multipurpose cases
  • Templates will save you valuable time
  • Numerous ways to capture leads
  • Four pricing plans

Cons

  • Lots of options may overwhelm new users
  • The interface could be more user-friendly

Pricing of OptinMonster plugin:

OptinMonster has a free version available on WordPress.org. But it works as a connector and all plans are paid. The pricing starts from $7/month with a 14-day refund policy.

3. Poptin

Poptin plugin

Poptin is a great plugin for creating engaging popups, optins, contract forms, notification bars, and more in the quickest possible time. It has the ability to study your web visitors’ behavior and show popups at the right time. Thus, you can contribute to converting more visitors into leads and making sales.

The plugin is equipped with the exit intent technology. It tracks the mouse movement and shows up popups at the critical moment, mostly just before you leave the site. Poptin is useful in various websites, like food, non-profit, education, fitness, medical, travel, security, real estate, and more.

Key features of the Poptin plugin:

  • Drag and Drop Editor: With the intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can build your desired popups without any coding.
  • Readymade Templates: Poptin comes with 40+ readymade templates by which you can quickly prepare your popups and save time.
  • Gamified Popups: You can create spin to win pop ups, scratch cards, and pick a gift pop ups which can give a gamified feeling to your designs.
  • A/B Testing: Poptin allows you to A/B test one popup or form with other designs to evaluate which one work the best for conversions.
  • Advanced Targeting: It includes configuring the exit intent trigger, display time, scrolling trigger, device & geo-location targeting, IP block lists, and more.

Pros

  • Extremely feature-rich
  • Huge customization options
  • Supports 70+ native languages
  • Lots of integrations
  • Live chat, phone, and doc support

Cons

  • Packages are expensive

Pricing of Poptin plugin:

The free plan caps 1,000 monthly visitors. Its premium version starts from $25/month with a 30-day refund policy.

4. Bloom

Bloom Plugin

Bloom is developed and maintained by Elegant Themes, which is a renowned developer of numerous WordPress themes and plugins. So you never have to worry about support and performance. You can create super-engaging and stylish lead-capturing forms with the plugin.

Bloom has a comprehensive collection of readymade templates and extensive customization options. This includes options for fonts, messages, images, animation effects, and more to make everything fit your brand’s identity. Bloom seamlessly works with many email marketing solutions.

Key features of Bloom:

  • 6 Opt-In Types: You can create Automatic Opt-In Pop-Up, Automatic Opt-In Fly-Ins, In-line Opt-In Forms, Below Content Opt-In Forms, Widget Area Opt-In Forms, and Require Opt-In To Unlock Content.
  • Set Different Triggers: You can set six types of triggers. They are Timd Delay, Bottom of Post, After Scrolling, After Commenting, After Purchasing, and After Inactivity.
  • Email Marketing Integrations: Bloom has integrations with 19 email marketing solutions. For example, MailChimp, HubSpot, ConvertKit, Mailer Lite, iContact, Mailster, Salesforce, etc.
  • 100+ Pre-Designed Templates: The template library offers a variety of collections. Each template is highly customizable.
  • Three Custom Locations: You can display the opt-in forms in three locations: bottom, left, and right.

Pros

  • Extremely feature-rich
  • Fully responsive
  • Easy to A/B taste
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Target specific categories and post types

Cons

  • Cannot buy the plugin alone.
  • You have to buy the entire Divi suite

Pricing of Bloom plugin:

Bloom has no free version available. You have to buy the entire Divi suite, starting from $89/year, with a 30-day refund policy.

5. Convert Pro

Convert Pro plugin

Convert Pro is a completely premium alternative to the Thrive Leads plugin. You will find almost all the features in this plugin, which we have also described in the above-mentioned plugins. This one also has a template library that is constantly growing as designers and developers ceaselessly prepare more templates for the library.

Convert Pro also includes Exit Intent technology. This allows the plugin to track users’ cursor movements and display a popup at the right moment. Popups designed with the plugin work perfectly on all devices. You will receive world-class support from real humans working behind the plugin.

Key features of the Convert Pro plugin:

  • Drag-and-Drop Editor: It is easy to organize design modules to create popups using the drag-and-drop editor.
  • Advanced Integrations: The plugin has seamless integrations with all the most popular marketing platforms.
  • On Click Popups: You can create conditions for showing up popups whenever users click on the predefined texts, images, or buttons.
  • Easy A/B Testing: This feature lets you create variants of your desired popups and test them to know which one works the best for your audiences.
  • Rich Template Library: Has a vast template library with 60+ pre-designed templates.

Pros

  • Super-fast loading speed
  • Mobile editor
  • Advanced triggers
  • Able to detect device types
  • Page level targeting

Cons

  • No free version is available

Pricing of Convert Pro:

Convert Pro has no free version available. Its pricing starts from $89/year with a 14-day refund policy.

6. OptiMonk

OptiMonk plugin

OptiMonk is a freemium WordPress plugin for creating stunning popups. It can help you collect leads and grow email and SMS lists, which you can use afterward to maximize growth and sales. Unlike other plugins, OptiMonk maintains a rich library of template families for 30+ use cases.

Each template family works as a template theme, covering different types of templates for various purposes. You can take inspiration from these template families to plan how many popups you should design for your site, what popup for which page, which popup type will be more effective during campaign times, etc.

Key features of the OptiMonk plugin:

  • Vast Template Families: You’ll get two types of template families: multi-colored themes (generic templates) and seasonal themes (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Halloween, etc.).
  • Simple Visual Editor: You can easily create popups using its drag-and-drop editor and preview it before publishing.
  • AI Personalization: Personalize your popups on all your products depending on the context and user behavior.
  • Built-in Analytics: This helps you track which variations work the best regarding your predefined metrics.
  • A/B Test Anything: Create multiple variants of your popups to compare which one performs better for campaigns.

Pros

  • Integrates with many popular tools
  • Advanced targeting options
  • Easy to save styles and reuse
  • Five pricing plans

Cons

  • It could be expensive for low-budget users

Pricing of OptiMonk:

OptiMonk has a free version available (10,000 pageviews). Its premium version starts from $39/month with a 14-day refund policy.

7. MailOptin

MailOptin plugin

MailOptin is a promising popup builder plugin. In addition, you can create subscription and user registration forms to grow your collection of leads and subscribers. No matter whether you want to build lightbox popups, notification bars, slide-ins, or in-post subscription forms, the plugin allows you to do everything quite easily.

The plugin automatically notifies your subscribers whenever you publish a new blog post by automating email newsletters. This really simplifies communication with the users. The premium version includes many advanced features to help you conduct sophisticated email marketing strategies.

Key features of the MailOptin plugin:

  • Prevent Spam: Integration with the Honeypot method, the plugin prevents spammers from joining your email lists.
  • Integrations: MailOptin seamlessly works with all the email marketing platforms you can think of. This could be a big help for your email marketing effort.
  • Create Email Newsletters: You can create your desired email newsletters just by staying on your WordPress dashboard. Once newsletters are ready, you can schedule them for automatic sending.
  • Pre-Designed Templates: MailOptin includes a good collection of pre-designed templates so you can design your newsletter as quickly as possible.
  • Built-in Analytics: You can track how well your opt-in forms are converting and if any modification is needed. The plugin also lets you A/B test multiple variants to find the best design.

Pros

  • Run targeted campaigns
  • Exit intent technology
  • Flexible pricing
  • Good for sending newsletters

Cons

  • Limited features for the free version

Pricing of MailOptin:

MailOptin has a free version available. Its premium version starts from $99/year with a 14-day refund policy.

8. Brave

Brave plugin

Although we’ve listed Brave at the very end of this post, you’ll hardly find any feature missing in this plugin compared to the ones covered above. What makes this plugin stand out is it allows you to create 150+ types of high-converting popups and widgets. Not only this! You won’t find a shortage of pre-designed templates in its library.

Features like A/B Testing, Advanced Tracking, Advanced Targeting, and Campaign Scheduling work in the same way as other plugins. So, if you are currently using Thrive Leads or any of the plugins listed above but are thinking of moving to a new alternative, you can consider the Brave plugin.

Key features of the Brave plugin:

  • Drag and Drop Editor: Brave has an incredibly easy drag-and-drop editor to build the popup you want from scratch.
  • Design Elements: Offer 10 crucial drag-and-drop elements to design popups. They are Text, Image, Button, Form, Shape, WordPress Posts, List, Single Post, Code, and WooCommerce Products.
  • WooCommerce Integration: Helps shoot up sales via up-sell, cross-sell, and related product popups.
  • Readymade Presets: It offers 90+ readymade presets so you can build popups urgently for any campaign.
  • Integrations: Brave has integration with 23 newsletter services. By collecting your forms to these newsletter solutions, you can easily grow and manage your email lists.

Pros

  • Has a built-in analytics
  • Add unlimited form fields
  • Advanced targeting
  • Advanced form animations

Cons

  • Limited features for the free version

Pricing of Brave:

Brave has a free version available. Its premium version starts from $59/year with a 30-day refund policy.

FAQs

Can you buy Thrive Leads without Thrive Suite?

Yes. Thrive sells a standalone Thrive Leads licence at $99 for the first year, renewing at $199 per year for a single site. Thrive Suite, which bundles all nine plugins across five sites, is $299 for the first year and $599 on renewal.

Is there a free alternative to Thrive Leads?

What happens to my forms if I stop paying for Thrive Leads?

Do I have to rebuild my forms when I switch away from Thrive Leads?

Which Thrive Leads alternative is best for a Gutenberg site?

Closing Up!

Showing popups is no longer an optional approach for any website. It has become a mandatory marketing approach for the growth of any online business. Because this has been a proven way to generate leads which set the primary foundation for this.

The above listed ones are not just Thrive Leads alternative but also the best popup builder plugins in the market. It’s now your turn to choose the one that goes with your budget and able to meet all your demands. If you still have any question unanswered, let us know about it through the comment box.

We’ll get back to you very soon with a viable answer.

Popups, slide-ins & bars for Gutenberg

Your visitors aren’t ignoring your offer.
They never saw one.

Every reader who leaves without being asked is traffic you already paid for. Build one popup, slide-in, or notification bar with the blocks you already know, put it live today, then compare next week against this one. That is the whole test.

Free on WordPress.org  ·  Works with theme  ·  No tracking, fully self-hosted

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