Countdown timers are a great way to inform your visitors of when an event will take place. They’re great for showing when something will be available, go on sale, or when a website will be ready for all to see. They’re also great for adding urgency to a sale, which is a popular marketing technique. Fortunately, there are several great choices for anyone looking for a WordPress countdown plugin. In this article, we’ll look at the 8 best countdown timer plugins for WordPress.
Types of WordPress Countdown Plugins
There are multiple types of countdown timers. They have different purposes and work in different ways.
First, we have the standard countdown timer. This timer counts down to a specific date or time. It remains the same regardless of who or where the visitors are. The timer shows the same time for everyone.
Second, we have what is known as an evergreen timer. Evergreen countdown timers provide a specific countdown for each visitor. They’re used for marketing and are great for creating scarcity and urgency to drive sales.
The WordPress countdown plugin you choose will depend on the type of features you need. I’ve included both types of countdown timers in this best WordPress countdown plugins post.
8 Best WordPress Countdown Plugins
Let’s go over the list of best countdown timer plugins, so you can easily find the product that matches your needs the best!
1. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is a popular conversion optimization tool that offers a variety of features to help website owners increase their conversions. One of these features is the Countdown Timer tool, which allows users to create urgency and increase conversions by adding a customizable countdown timer to their website.
With OptinMonster, you can generate unlimited timers to put on various pages and posts of your WordPress website. The tool provides two types of countdown timers. The first is a static countdown timer that counts down to a particular end date, indicating when an offer expires for everyone. The second is a dynamic or evergreen countdown timer that tailors the countdown to each visitor by allowing you to specify the timer’s length in days, hours, minutes, and seconds instead of an end date.
OptinMonster helps website owners increase conversions by creating a sense of urgency among their visitors. The customizable timer design and settings allow users to match the timer to their brand and website design.
As a top pop-up plugin for lead generation, OptinMonster has flexible display options that allow users to show the countdown timer in various ways (pop-up, slide-in, etc.) depending on their website’s layout and user behavior.
Key Features for OptinMonster:
- Customizable timer design and settings
- Flexible display options, including pop-ups, slide-ins, and floating bars
- Advanced targeting rules to show the countdown timer to specific visitors
OptinMonster Pricing: $9/month
2. Countdown Timer Ultimate
Countdown Timer Ultimate makes it easy to create circle countdown timers and add them anywhere within your content using shortcodes. You have control over the design, the expiry date, and the animation.
The timer is built with an editor that includes sliders and selectors. Change the size of the circle counter and backgrounds with sliders. Set the animation to Smooth or Tick.
Create multiple timers and get a shortcode for each one.
Features
- 1 clock design
- Shortcodes
- Clock expiry functionality
- Pro version adds 12 clock styles, extended settings, clock options, template features, CSS, RTL, and more.
Price: Free, pro version starts at $169/yr
3. HurryTimer
HurryTimer provides several settings to create a schedulable countdown, a recurring countdown, or an evergreen countdown. It provides a cookie for your evergreen campaigns. A customizable CTA button provides a link to your sales pages. It integrates with WooCommerce.
The editor includes settings for the schedule, actions, and appearance. Some of the features, such as recurring countdowns and actions, require the pro version, but the others are available in the free version. For the schedule, choose between one-time, recurring, or evergreen.
Appearance shows the timer in real time and provides multiple settings, including general, digits, label, headline, CTA, and several pro features.
Features
- Scheduled campaigns
- Evergreen campaigns
- Cookie
- Expiry actions
- Live design customizer
- CTA button
- Integrates with WooCommerce.
- Pro version adds recurring countdowns, actions, timer block, sticky bar, and custom CSS.
Price: Free, pro version starts at $39/yr
4. Countdown Builder
Countdown Builder is a simple countdown timer with several premade timers to choose from. The countdown timers can be added to your content with shortcodes. The timers include several customization features, and you can customize them further with CSS and JavaScript. It also includes a Coming Soon feature. It can be expanded with add-ons.
The countdown editor provides general and advanced options with a live preview of the timer. The advanced options require the pro version. Settings include fields for custom CSS and JS.
Once you create a countdown timer, you’re provided with a shortcode that you can place anywhere within your content.
Choose between multiple countdown types that include a countdown, clock, timer, popup, and more. The free version includes 7 types.
Features
- Shortcodes
- Multiple countdown types
- Live preview
- Coming soon feature
- Pro version adds advanced options, multiple scheduling, a subscription form, a newsletter, a countdown button, a progress bar, styling features, and extensions.
Price: Free, pro version starts at $23.98/lifetime
5. Sales Countdown Timer
Sales Countdown Timer was designed specifically for sales countdowns. It’s designed to build urgency for the sale. It also integrates with WooCommerce to create countdowns for products, show upcoming sales, and more. Choose the types of product pages where it will display, make it sticky, and adjust the positioning.
The editor includes the general settings, design settings, and WooCommerce settings. The general settings include the scheduling options. It includes the shortcode.
The design settings are extensive and include live previews. Adjust the color, background, padding, radius, and more for the timer and the DateTime values.
It also includes settings specifically for WooCommerce products. Create a custom message, add the product photo, show an upcoming sale and lots more. Show the countdown on shop pages and category pages. Adjust the position, make it sticky, and more.
Features
- Sales countdowns
- Simple editor
- Extensive design options
- Live preview
- Integrates with WooCommerce.
- Make it sticky.
- Pro version adds evergreen, restart after, and a checkout countdown.
Price: Free, pro version starts at $20/lifetime
6. Evergreen Countdown Timer
Evergreen Countdown Timer lets you create unlimited evergreen timers for your website. Create unlimited countdown timers and add them to your content with shortcodes. You can also disable the evergreen option and set a date for the countdown timer to count to.
The editor is simple. It lets you choose the date, enable evergreen, choose the detection method, and set the redirect URL. You can also change the colors, labels, and sizes.
The manager provides the shortcode for each countdown timer. You can clone a timer from this screen.
Features
- Shortcodes
- Evergreen and standard countdown options
- Cookie
- Customizations
- Pro version adds a spot countdown, unlimited colors, custom CSS, automatic time reset, and a better cookie.
Price: Free, pro version starts at $47/yr
7. Countdown Timer – Widget Countdown
Countdown Timer – Widget Countdown adds a countdown timer builder to the WordPress editor and provides the same tools in a widget. Set up a countdown timer in a few seconds and built it within the content itself. You have control over the placement, and you can choose which devices to show or hide. You can also choose what happens after the timer expires.
The Gutenberg block opens to show all the settings available. Set the date and time by entering the values into the fields. Choose what happens after the time expires from the dropdown box. Provide a message, redirect the URL, select the timer position, and adjust the size. It also includes lots of pro features.
A button is added to the classic editor that opens the same settings.
The widget includes all the same settings as the WordPress editor.
Features
- Build the countdown timer on the page with a Gutenberg block or in the classic editor.
- Build the countdown timer within a sidebar widget.
- Set the after-expiration action.
- Set the position.
- Pro version adds circle and vertical sliders, 39 animations, buttons, and customizations.
Price: Free, pro version starts at $29/lifetime
Get Countdown Timer – Widget Countdown
8. Divi Countdown Timer Module
Divi Countdown Timer Module is available in both the Divi theme and the Divi plugin. The Divi theme has the Divi Builder with all the modules built in. The plugin adds the Divi Builder to any WordPress theme.
Adjust the counter visually with the calendar and slider controls. Click the date for the day the counter will end. Adjust the sliders for the hour and minute. You can also add a title, background, clickable URL, etc.
Adjust the text, numbers, separators, colors, borders, size, box-shadow, and more. All the controls are intuitive. Make selections, use sliders, click elements, etc.
Adjust the timer even further with CSS. Each element of the timer has a targeted field where you can enter the CSS. Also adjust visibility, transitions, position, and scroll effects.
Features
- Available in the Divi theme and Divi plugin.
- Works anywhere in a Divi layout.
- Select the date and time with visual controls.
- Style the module with visual controls.
- Add CSS to style each element.
Price: $89/yr
Which is The Best Countdown Plugin for WordPress?
That’s our look at the 8 best countdown timer plugins for WordPress. This list includes multiple types of countdown timers in various price ranges and feature sets. OptinMonster is a must for websites that want to take marketing to the next level, and their countdown timer is just one of many tools available. If you’re looking for a great timer-centric plugin, it’s hard to top Countdown Timer Ultimate.
| Plugin | Price | Free Option | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | OptinMonster | $9.00 per month | ❌ | Visit |
| 🥈 | Countdown Timer Ultimate | $169.00 per year | ✔️ | Visit |
| 🥉 | Hurry Timer | $39.00 per year | ✔️ | Visit |
| 4 | Countdown Builder | $23.98 lifetime | ✔️ | Visit |
| 5 | Sales Countdown Timer | $20.00 lifetime | ✔️ | Visit |
| 6 | Evergreen Countdown Timer | $47.00 per year | ✔️ | Visit |
| 7 | Countdown Timer - Widget Countdown | $29.00 lifetime | ✔️ | Visit |
| 8 | Divi | $89 per year | ❌ | Visit |
No matter what type of WordPress countdown plugin you need, you’re sure to find something on this list to meet those needs. Exploring other options that keep your users up to date on your events? Check out our article on events calendar plugins.
We want to hear from you. What’s your favorite WordPress countdown plugin on this list? Let us know in the comments.
Featured image illustration via garagestock / shutterstock.com
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OptinMonster
Countdown Timer Ultimate
HurryTimer
Nice writeup but I question if using a scarcity clock is still effective these days in getting potential clients to take action.
Ian B
All of those special plugins, but the Divi countdown just beats them all for design…
My favourite countdown timer is the one built into Divi. It usually meets most requirements, but it could be so much better with just a few tweaks. If only it had received some attention in the past several years e.g. built-in option to remove leading zeros, option to count up as well as down. Sadly, like so many Divi modules it has been left to languish so no doubt a lot of users end up adding additional plugins, free or paid for. Any idea if this module is likely to receive any TLC in the near future?