5 Best WordPress Push Notification Plugins For Web + Mobile

Today, top five most popular WordPress push notification plugins to send web browser push notifications. Authored by Harsh Agrawal (shoutmeloud.com). ShoutMeLoud is an award winning blog that talks about living a boss free life with blogging. They cover about WordPress, SEO, Make money blogging, Affiliate marketing. Image courtesy of ileezhun via Bigstockphoto.

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Of all the ways to get more traffic to your website, one method in particular that I experimented with in 2017 was website push notifications.

Like the notifications you get on your phone, browser push notifications let you send messages to your website’s visitors even when they’re not on your website.

It’s a method that I’ve definitely seen success with and I encourage you to try it on your own website:

I’ve written more about the benefits of push notifications in the past. So rather than focussing on the theory in this post, I’m going to jump to the five of the best WordPress push notification plugins to make it easier for you to add push notifications to your blog or your website.

What To Look For In A Push Notification Plugin

As you go through this list, there are a few things that you should pay attention to:

• What devices does the service support? Most services support Chrome and Firefox, but it is rare to find a service that supports Safari, which may be a problem if you have a lot of visitors using Safari.
• How many subscribers will you have? Depending on how many subscribers you think you’ll have, some services may be cheaper than others.
• What extra features does the service offer? Think of whether you need features like segmentation, scheduling, A/B testing and more.

Best WordPress Push Notification Plugins For 2018

1. PushEngage

PushEngage is technically a standalone service for mobile and web push notifications. However, it also offers a dedicated WordPress plugin that makes adding push notification functionality to WordPress easy.

If you’re familiar with ShoutMeLoud, PushEngage is actually what we use here on the website. We’re even listed on the PushEngage landing page!

If you’re interested in seeing how PushEngage works, just click the Get Notificationsbutton on the ShoutMeLoud homepage (or most other pages):

PushEngage lets you send push notifications to both desktop and mobile versions of:

• Firefox
• Chrome
• Samsung Internet Browser

Beyond that, it includes a number of features to help you send push notifications in a smart way:

• Automatic responders: Send notifications based on a customer’s actions. For example, marketing automation for email.
• Easy segmentation: Segment your visitors based on the URL from which they accepted browser notifications so that you can send them content you know they’ll love.
• Geotargeting: Send push notifications to users from specific geolocations.
• RSS to notification: Set up your RSS feed to instantly alert people whenever you publish new content – without any manual action on your part.
• Personalized cart abandonment notifications: Super helpful if you’re running an eCommerce store on WordPress.
• Call to action buttons: Add one or more call to action buttons.

PushEngage is free for up to 2,500 subscribers and 120 notifications per month. To manage numbers in excess, you’ll need to pay, starting $25/month.

If you’re interested in using PushEngage, we have a full tutorial on how to add browser notifications to WordPress using PushEngage.

Create free account on PushEngage

2. OneSignal

Similar to PushEngage, OneSignal is a standalone push notification service that easily integrates with WordPress, thanks to a dedicated WordPress plugin.

However, OneSignal’s supported devices are slightly different when compared to PushEngage’s. It supports:

• Chrome (desktop and Android)
• Safari (Mac OS X)
• Firefox (desktop only)

So, in comparison to PushEngage, you get the Safari notifications but lose out on mobile Firefox notifications. Beyond that, OneSignal boasts of a fairly similar feature list:

• Automatic notifications: Send reminders based on set criteria. For example, whether or not you’ve published a new post or whether a person has visited your site over the past few days.
• Segments: Target your visitors by a number of different user attributes.
• A/B testing: Run split tests to find the highest performing messages before you send them to your entire audience. This feature is fairly unique.
• Scheduling: Schedule your notifications for a future date.

OneSignal is completely free with no limitations. However, they also offer unspecified premium plans.

Join OneSignal

3. PushCrew

 

Similar to the three previous plugins, PushAssist is also a standalone service that provides a dedicated WordPress plugin thereby making the setup process easy.

PushAssist also has a long device list. Here’s what it supports:

• Chrome (desktop and Android)
• Firefox (desktop and Android)
• Safari (Mac OS X)

It also boasts of a feature set similar to many of the previous services:

• Segmentation: Segment subscribers based on location, interests and other data.
• Scheduling: Schedule push notifications for specific dates and times.
• Personalization: Requires some setup – but lets you deliver personalized messages.

PushAssist has a free plan that supports up to 3,000 subscribers with unlimited notifications (and PushAssist branding). Paid plans start at just $9 per month.

Join PushAssist

5. All push notification for WP

Unlike the four services listed above, All push notification for WP is a dedicated WordPress plugin. It means there are no monthly fees and all the processing is done right on your server instead of a third-party service.

As a result, it does require a technical setup, only supports mobile notifications, and doesn’t have nearly as many features as the other services.

All push notification for WP supports mobile push notifications via the following services:

• Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) – for Android devices
• Apple Push Notification service (APNs) – for iOS devices

You can then:

• Send notifications whenever you publish a new post
• Send notifications to specific WordPress users (this is a pretty neat feature, though it’s a niche use)

If you’re a beginner or a casual blogger, I do not recommend that you use this plugin – it is far too complicated and you will be better off using one of the more user-friendly services above.

However, if you’re tech-savvy and want a solution that will support mobile notifications for unlimited users without any monthly fees or third-party branding, this one is worth checking out.

Which Push Notification Plugin Should You Use?

Given that fact that I already told you about using PushEngage here at ShoutMeLoud, it is an easy guess as to which  push notification plugins I would recommend.

PushEngage is a great option because:

• It has a free plan that works for most bloggers.
• The autoresponder tool gives you neat ways to interact with your audience.
• You can add call to action buttons to your notifications.
• It has easy segmentation.

Remember – if you’re interested in getting started with PushEngage, here is a tutorial to help you quickly get up and running.