Gaurav Chhablani

Gaurav Chhablani is an online social worker who loves to help his audience introduce new and review marketing tools that helps automate their respected businesses. And he’s a tall, hungry SEO content writer who speaks his audience’s language. Check him on Twitter!

Thrive Leads Vs Optinmonster

June 18, 2021

You must have seen or read somewhere – “The biggest mistake that beginners make is they don’t build email lists”.

Now you know it and you want to build an email list.

And…

You’ve seen too many plugins and tools available in the market.

But…

Now, you’re confused between Thrive Leads VS Optinmonster.

And wants to make a decision: plug the plugin in your website to start generating leads to grow your business.

Don’t worry I’ll help you take the leap of faith *wink wink*.

Key Features	Thrive Leads	Optinmonster
Drag Drop feature	✅	✅
Pricing	$19/month (with thrive suites)	$19/month to $99/month (basic to pro)
Email services integration	✅	✅
One time billing	❌(annual billing)	❌(annual billing)

What are Thrive leads and Optinmonster?

If you’re a newbie –

Thrive Leads and OptinMonster are email-list building plugins that can integrate with your WordPress website and help you generate leads.

Both plugins share some commonalities as well as some differences which makes them unique. And we’ll discuss each of them one… one-by-one.

Thrive leads VS optinmonster (commonalities)

To compare the two tools, you must have an idea of things in common and differences. Right?

That’s what we’re going to learn FIRSTLY.

Lots of pre-built design templates

Both of the tools contain pre-made templates that help you create opt-in forms quickly.

Seamless integration with email marketing services

Thrive leads and optinmonster integrates easily with 3rd party email-marketing tools like Aweber, Mailchimp, etc.

Works with all WordPress themes

Both, thrive leads and optin monster works with any WordPress themes.

Few common opt-in form types

Both have a lightbox type of opt-in form type in common.

A/b testing feature

Thrive leads and optinmonster let you test two or more form types to select the winning form.

Customer support

Both Thrive leads and OptinMonster provides you 1 year of unlimited support.

Thrive leads VS optinmonster (differences)

Both Optin monster and Thrive leads have some differences that make both tools unique in their places. Such as

Thrive leads

Works only with WordPress

Thrive leads works only if your website is hosted on a WordPress content management system. Thrive leads are not compatible with any other CMS. (This can be a disadvantage)

One-time billing

Thrive Leads gives you a lifetime membership with just one-time payment of $67 and will ask you for no extra buck ever again.

Life long updates

You’ll be getting updates on the plugin for life long and you don’t need to pay anything extra for the updates.

Conversion focused

Thrive Leads is a conversion-focused plugin that helps you increase your conversion rates significantly.

Single plan

Unlike other software and plugins, there is a single plan including EVERYTHING and no upsells or plan upgrade option.

No need for HTML or CSS knowledge

If you have no knowledge of HTML or CSS, thrive leads is the best to go for. As optinmonster do require some basic coding knowledge of CSS and HTML

OptinMonster

Subscription-based features

Optin monster is based on the subscription model. You’ll get to choose from basic, plus, and pro. Which gets much costlier (if you’re a newbie).

Personalized experience

Unlike Thrive leads are conversion-focused, optin monster is personalization focused i.e on the basis of what you like.

Connects with any CMS

If you’re not using WordPress, OptinMonster is the perfect suit for your website. Because optin monster can seamlessly integrate with any CMS in the market.

Point and edit

OptinMonster works on Point and edits features.

Needs CSS or HTML knowledge

If you know basic CSS and HTML, it’d help you a lot in personalizing the opt-in forms.

Pros of Thrive Leads

Simple DRAG-DROP visual editing tool (beginner friendly)
300+ pre-built templates (editable and customizable)

Affordable one-time billing (lifetime deal)
Easy integration with other email marketing tools.
Built-in tracking and analysis

Lifetime plugin updates for FREE
Variety of A/B testing options.

Cons of Thrive Leads

Only compatible with WordPress

Too many options and elements might confuse newbies.

Pros of OptinMonster

Compatible with any CMS you use.
14 days money-back guarantee.

Easy integration with other email marketing tools.
Easy point and edit feature (drag and drop)
Gives you reports of conversions.

Many pre-built email opt-in templates (less than Thrive leads)

Cons of OptinMonster

Limited elements in OptinMonster builder.
Pre-built templates are not 100% editable.

Subscription model expensive plan.

But that’s not the only basis you can define a winner. This is just one aspect and now let’s look at other aspects with a much bigger and wider view.

Key benefits and winners

Now, you know a few differences. It’s time for you to discover in-depth about Thrive leads and Optinmonster to decide which one is suitable for you.

Here we’ll look at key features one by one to see If both tools can do the same thing and compare on that basis.

Form Builder

Thrive Leads form builder gives you more flexibility than optin monster.

In Thrive Leads play with probably every element in your way in any way that you want.

On the other hand, OptinMonster does have tons of templates and elements. But building optin form from scratch, you don’t have many elements.

Moreover, you do need a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS to build forms.

Winner – Thrive Leads

Customization and User Interface

When I say customization and user interface, it’s clear that I’m looking for ease of use i.e customization and newbie-friendly.

Thrive Leads have a beginner-friendly user interface and working is so easy it hardly takes half an hour to understand.

Even in OptinMonster it’s a simple, point, and edits easy-to-use the drag-dropping feature that helps newbies like you who don’t know how to code and design.

Along with pre-built templates that you can choose and make your blogs convert like CRAZY.

Winner: TIE ! (Thrive Leads and OptinMonster shares a common ground when it comes to customization and user interface)

A/B test

A/B testing helps you find a winner that in turn helps you convert more (in context to lead generation).

A/B testing on Thrive Leads gives you so many detailed targeting options such as –

A/B testing design
A/B testing triggers

A/B testing winner selecting option
A/B testing separate opt-in types

Along with integrated analytics and auto-test traffic optimization in Thrive Leads.

And sadly, in OptinMonster all you get is the A/B testing design feature.

Winner – Thrive Leads

Trigger and Targeting

Using the Trigger and targeting setting you can set the time when the email opt-in pop up will show.

In thrive leads and optinmonster there are different trigger targeting. Some of the features are in optin monster and others in thrive leads.

Let’s look at all the Trigger settings in both tools.

Thrive Leads Trigger Setting targeting

Exit intent pop up
Smart exit pop up
Targeting by category

Targeting by page and tag
Scroll % triggering
After reaching a specific content trigger

Hide pop-ups from subscribers
Offer letters to subscribers

OptinMonster Trigger Setting targeting

Exit intent pop up
Targeting by category
Targeting by page (no tag)

Targeting by referral source
Time triggered pop up
Scroll % triggering

Real-time behavior
Content trigger using cookie
Hide pop-ups from subscribers

Important Note: Most of the trigger setting is available in the PRO plan of OptinMonster not in the basic plan.

Winner: TIE ! (Both the tools have different triggering options, so it’s a TIE)

CMS compatibility

One of the significant factor that affects buying decision (Only in the case of Thrive Leads)

To be straightforward –

Thrive Lead is compatible only with self-hosted WordPress websites and cannot be used with any other CMS.

On the other hand, OptinMonster is compatible with any CMS including WordPress.

Winner : OptinMonster

Conversion optimization

Being a blogger or website owner, you always look for optimizing conversions for higher profits.

And using a tool that helps you increase conversions is what you’re looking for.

Thrive Leads is the tool that is built to increase conversions using conversion-friendly pre-built templates. With built-in analytics and A/B testing features, you can increase your conversion rates.

On the other hand, OptinMonster wants you to give a personalized experience to the visitors of your website.

Both conversion and personalization have separate goals. But since our goal right now is conversion. The –

Winner: Thrive Leads

Advanced targeting options

Advanced targeting options help you target the content on your website.

Thrive Leads is a plugin that is installed on your website. Thus, you can target any specific content you want on your website.

You can target content based on

Pages
Tags

Category
Posts
Or even a specific part of your content.

On the other hand, in OptinMonster you can target your content on the basis of cookies which increases the personalization of the visitor.

You can customize advanced targeting on the specific user behavior and set rules according to it.

Who’s the winner Gaurav?

Winner: Tie! (Both Thrive Leads and OptinMonster have unique characteristics thus, tie)

Pricing

Ahhh! Here comes the interesting part.

Pricing is always been a major concern for everyone (including you and me)

SO let’s look at the pricing of Thrive Leads and Optin monster one by one.

Thrive Leads Pricing Plan

Thrive suites yearly plan – $19/month (bills yearly)

OptinMonster Pricing Plan

OptinMonster Basic plan – $108/year
OptinMonster plus plan – $228/year

OptinMonster pro plan – $348/year

Asking you, what would you rather choose? A tool that gives you not only thrive leads but all the tools of thrive themes at $228/year or just an email pop-up builder at the same price?

The choice is yours.

For us –