Whether you’re a techy genius or not, it can be tough to weed through all of the WordPress plugins out there to find The One that’ll fit your needs for a WordPress popup and lead generation plugin.
After all, there are a lot of nuances that’ll affect your decision: the ratings and popularity of a plugin (“other people use it, so it must be good”), the capabilities of said plugin, its ease of use, and, of course, how much it’ll cost ya.
Sometimes, that perfect plugin might evade your grasp because of budget constraints, other times it might just require more setup effort than you’re willing to put in.
That’s why I wanted to take the time to compare two of the biggest names on the market: the big Sumo vs PopupAlly Pro comparison.
Both offer attractive free versions, easy customization, and advanced tracking statistics that empower you to really unlock your full list building potential.
SumoMe vs PopupAlly Pro: Which is A Better WordPress Popup Plugin?
SumoMe and PopupAlly Pro are both powerful popup/lead generation plugins. Each has a strong following of users who really love the plugins and are happy to vouch for them.
But the two plugins are pretty different in terms of their capabilities and the way they make things happen. Here’s a quick dive into the main comparison points of each plugin:
- Types of Popups
- Design Flexibility
- Statistics & Tracking
- Accuracy and Effectiveness
- Cost
Types of Popups/Opt-ins
At first glance, SumoMe and PopupAlly Pro appear to offer slightly different types of popups… but as we look a little deeper, you’ll see that they are essentially similar:
SumoMe
The SumoMe plugin advertises 6 different opt-in types:
- Popup
- Scroll box
- Inline Form
- Click Trigger
- Welcome Mat
- Smart Bar
It’s a pretty stellar list of opt-in choices for your site’s needs, and Sumo does you a favor by including a brief description of what each opt-in type entails:
The drawback? As other developers have noticed, this plugin currently only allows you to create one of each type of opt-in form.
This can be frustrating if you have a large site – or several lead generation offers – that require multiple opt-ins.
PoupAlly Pro
While PopupAlly Pro only advertises 5 opt-in types. However, they are organized according to how the opt-in appears:
- Exit-intent Popup
- Scroll Popup
- Time-delayed Popup
- Click based Popup
- Embedded opt-in
While it looks like you have a few less options here than Sumo offers, you can actually create the exact same opt-in types (i.e. a welcome mat and “smart bar”) via the PopupAlly design settings. But more on that in the next section…
The PopupAlly Pro developers have made the popups mutually exclusive so that only one type of popup (exit-intent, scroll, and time-delayed) can appear on the same page. The reason for this is to keep the plugin a truly “polite” one since your website visitors can easily get turned off when faced with multiple plugins.
There is no limitation, however, with the click-based popup or embedded opt-ins, since these are static and can easily be controlled by the user.
Ease of Design
After testing out over a dozen WordPress popup plugins, I’m pretty confident that Sumo and PopupAlly Pro have the most user-friendly design options.
Both plugins provide you with a number of templates to get you started. They also allow you to further customize each template with the colors and images that will best fit your branding.
Here’s how each one does it:
SumoMe: Drag and Drop Template Design
Sumo has a really neat assortment of templates that you can start with.
Each element can be moved or changed using an easy drag-and-drop interface, making it really quick to tweak your opt-in and get it ready to go.
This drag and drop design feature is a huge bonus if you’re a more visual person and don’t want to worry about counting pixels or additional sizing concerns.
Although SumoMe provides you with a generous assortment of templates, you have a limited amount of customization. The overall size of the popup cannot be changed from the preset template, for example, so you remain constricted within a certain boundary.
PopupAlly Pro: Full Design Flexibility
PopupAlly Pro comes with 24 pre-designed templates (see examples of them here) that can all be re-sized and styled to your heart’s content.
The preview mode shows you how mobile-friendly your design is. When you click on any element in the preview, you’ll be taken directly to the styling settings for that element.
PopupAlly’s style settings are set up a bit differently than the Sumo plugin. As you scroll down the page to access the various elements in the popup, the preview remains visible on the right-hand side so you can see any changes in real-time.
Not only does it allow you to add or delete elements in your popup design (which Sumo does also), PopupAlly Pro gives you full flexibility for design: colors, sizing, transparency, etc.
Depending on the size of your screen – and the size of your popup – the “live preview” isn’t always fully visible during the design phase. While this can be circumvented by scrolling back up to the top of the page (which puts the popup back in the middle of the screen, instead of forcing it off to the right), it can be a minor irritation.
While designating the “pixels” of each element can be a bit tedious (lots of trial and error to get the right look!), it does allow you to make sure all elements are lined up precisely together on your opt-in.
Statistics & Tracking
SumoMe: Advanced Tracking Opportunities
With SumoMe, users have a few really great tracking metrics at their fingertips. Heat maps, a dashboard, and content analytics are all food for the hungry marketer who’s looking for ways to pinpoint the hotspots on their website.
These options definitely set SumoMe apart from most of the competition, as is definitely a really neat perk for Sumo also provides A/B testing to help you optimize your opt-ins.
If you aren’t using the “Pro” (read: Paid Subscription) version of the Sumo plugin, you won’t be able to access the full potential of these features.
PopupAlly Pro: Easy Statistics Tracking and Comparison
PopupAlly Pro’s built-in statistics tracking focuses on the popups/opt-ins themselves.
The at-a-glance view gives the conversion rate associated with each opt-in. Clicking deeper, you can see specific numbers… and download them as a CSV file for a more in-depth analysis.
Along with the A/B testing option, these stats can really help you create and offer the highest converting popups for your website.
Unlike Sumo’s tracking metrics, PopupAlly Pro’s stats are limited to the opt-ins themselves. Granted, if you want more help with site analysis, you can always use a third-part heat map plugin.
Accuracy & Effectiveness
How accurate is your popup going to be? It’s hard to guess right off the bat… which is why both SumoMe and PopupAlly Pro both offer A/B Testing.
This allows you to figure out what designs, content, and types of popups are working for your clients.
But in addition to this, each plugin offers its own unique way to improve your opt-in rates.
SumoMe: Heat Maps
One of the coolest features of SumoMe is its Heat Map functionality. Essentially, this shows you where most of your visitors are putting their cursors and clicking on your website. By knowing where the hot spots are, you can fine-tune your popups to appear accordingly.
PopupAlly Pro: Accuracy to the Max
The PopupAlly Pro plugin lets you decide by page where you’d like your popups to appear.
For example, you could create an exit-intent popup that’s specific to a blog post… and schedule it to only appear on that post.
So, while SumoMe gives more insight into the hot spots of your website… but PopupAlly Pro offers a different feature that helps you take advantage of this information.
Cost
It’s hard to admit, but sometimes cost plays a bigger role than we’d like to think. At this point, you might have a clear winner in your mind as far as the SumoMe vs PopupAlly Pro plugin comparison goes.
So check your budget and dive into this part of the comparison:
SumoMe: Pay For Sites and Visitors Alike
SumoMe offers a variety of pricing packages. Each has certain restrictions – whether it’s the number of sites you can install your plugin on, or whether it’s the number of visitors that can arrive on your site within any given month.
They have three “Pro” packages (plus a “custom” option if your company needs even more), that you have to choose from depending on the number of sites you want the plugin on and the number of monthly visits you receive…
The lowest of these paid options is $29/month ($348/year) for a single site.
If you have more than one site (or more than 5K visitors), you’re paying $708/year… or more.
If you have the budget, this might not be an issue for you.
PopupAlly Pro: Affordable, With Simple Limits
PopupAlly Pro’s pricing is far simpler, offering two different packages.
The first is a 1-1: one plugin, one site: $99/year. There’s no limit to the number of popups, opt-ins, or traffic numbers with this package. You can even install it on multiple sites you own.
But, say you’re a developer or have a variety of client websites that you’d like to install the plugin on. Well, with the developer’s license, you pay $708 per year… and receive the right to install the plugin on as many sites as you want, with no traffic restrictions or limits on the number of opt-ins you create.
It’s a pretty good deal.
Which Popup Plugin is Best for You?
In terms of creating popups and opt-ins, Sumo and PopupAlly Pro run pretty neck and neck in terms of user-friendliness and capabilities.
PopupAlly Pro pulls ahead by offering no traffic limits and an unlimited number of popups per website. Sumo gains some extra traction with its heat maps and additional analytics/sharing.
