24 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Business Websites in 2024

I’ve been building WordPress websites and experimenting with different WordPress plugins since 2006. When I first started, there were only a handful of essential plugins to choose from.

Fast forward to today, there are so many options for each functionality, which makes it extremely overwhelming for new users to find the right plugin for their website.

In this article, I’ll share my top recommendations based on years of experience using and experimenting with some of the best WordPress plugins.

Here’s why you should listen to me:

• My team and I test hundreds of paid and free WordPress plugins every year (See our editorial process)
• We extensively review each plugin or tool to ensure it’s the best solution for you.
• I’ll only recommend a product that I truly believe is best and adds value to our readers.

Note: These are the plugins that my team installs when I start a new blog or make a new website for our own businesses.

1. WPForms

New: WPForms now offers AI-Powered Form Building to speed up form creation even more. Simply type a description of the form you want to create and the AI assistant will generate it for you in seconds.

WPForms integrates with all popular marketing and payment platforms like Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Authorize.net, so you can build powerful forms in less than 5 minutes.

It comes with powerful features that simply don’t exist in other form builders such as conversational forms, lead forms, form landing pages, user journey tracking, form abandonment, geolocation tracking, GDPR friendly, custom WordPress user registration and login forms, etc.

I use WPForms on the WPBeginner website and most of my other websites. Over 6 million websites use WPForms, and they have consistently maintained a 4.9 out of 5-star rating average for over 5 years now.

If you are seriously looking to grow your business, then Irecommend getting the Pro version because it comes with all the powerful features you need to boost your lead generation efforts. Use this WPForms coupon to get 50% off your purchase.

To learn more about the best form builder plugin, see our detailed WPForms review.

Alternative: Formidable Forms is an excellent alternative for creating advanced solution-focused WordPress forms.

2. All in One SEO

It helps you properly add SEO title, meta description, keywords, generate XML sitemaps, connect your site to Google Search Console, optimize it for social media, and more.

Their team is continuing to innovate and add new SEO features to help you improve your SEO rankings such as their content optimizer with TruSEO score, author SEO, headline analyzer, custom schema generator for adding FAQ schema, reviews schema, and all other schema markup.

They even added an internal link assistant feature that helps you automate the process of internal linking to boost SEO. No other SEO plugin has this feature.

Plus, you can monitor the results of your SEO strategy with the built-in search statistics dashboard and keyword rank tracker.

For complete SEO setup on your website, follow our complete AIOSEO setup guide and then our ultimate WordPress SEO tutorial for beginners.

There’s also a free version of AIOSEO available. However, the pro version includes more powerful features like WooCommerce SEO, local SEO, smart schema, video sitemap, news sitemap, smart redirection manager, ability to detect & fix 404 errors, advanced breadcrumbs, and much more.

To save 50% on the pro version, see our All in One SEO coupon.

Bonus: AIOSEO offers two other powerful tools that you can use to boost your search engine rankings and grow your organic traffic:

• SEOBoost – An AI-powered content optimization tool that helps you easily research, plan, write, and optimize your content for SEO. It’s also a full content management system to streamline collaboration and media planner with unlimited access to free stock photos.
• LowFruits – An easy-to-use keyword research tool that allows you to discover low-competition keywords that you can actually rank for. You can also track your keyword rankings, identify backlink opportunities, and more.

Alternative: Yoast SEO is a good alternative for AIOSEO.

3. Duplicator

This is a great backend plugin that’s an absolute must-have for every WordPress blog and website because backups are an essential tool.

For more details, see our complete Duplicator review.

Alternative: UpdraftPlus, BackupBuddy, BlogVault, and VaultPress (Jetpack Backups) are also excellent solutions.

4. SeedProd

You can choose from over 300+ beautifully designed templates, or create a completely custom layout from scratch with their easy-to-use drag & drop WordPress page builder (no coding needed).

There have pre-made templates for landing pages, sales pages, thank you pages, webinar registration pages, coming soon pages, maintenance mode pages, 404 pages, frontend login pages, and more.

SeedProd comes with a smart design system, so you can save time by re-using elements instead of doing repetitive work. You can define color schemes, save font combinations, page templates, custom blocks, sections, and more.

It has all the blocks, widgets, and features that you would expect from a powerful page builder such as optin forms, social profiles, countdown timers, contact forms, buttons, pricing page blocks, various content blocks, and more.

Plus, SeedProd offers a powerful AI website builder to speed up the content creation process. You can use it to instantly generate engaging copy and high-quality images for your site.

It also comes with built-in subscriber management and seamless integration with third-party email marketing services and CRM software.

The best part is that SeedProd works with all WordPress themes, so you will not have to change your existing theme to create a custom design.

There’s also a free version of SeedProd that you can get started with. For more details, see our comprehensive SeedProd review.

Alternative: Thrive Architect, Beaver Builder, Elementor, and Divi page builder plugins are great alternatives with powerful features. You can also try CSS Hero for theme customization.

5. MonsterInsights

New: There’s now a powerful Conversations AI feature that lets you ask any question about your analytics and it will provide the answer instantly. No more digging through reports to find the data you need.

Ihave detailed guides on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress, how to use Google Analytics to enable eCommerce tracking, and how to track user engagement.

MonsterInsights has a free version, but the true power of it only unlocks when you upgrade to the premium version.

You can use our MonsterInsights coupon to get 50% off your purchase.

MonsterInsights is used by over 3 million websites. To learn more about this Google Analytics plugin, see our complete MonsterInsights review.

Alternative: OnePageGA is a simple and easy-to-understand one page dashboard for viewing your Google Analytics 4 metrics.

6. OptinMonster

Each opt-in form or campaign template can be easily customized with their drag-and-drop builder.

OptinMonster’s powerful display targeting features allow you to personalize the campaigns for each user, so you can show the right message at the right time.

It’s a great solution for bloggers, business websites, and eCommerce websites. Basically, if you want to make more money from your website traffic, then you need OptinMonster.

It helps you recover abandoned cart sales, convert website visitors, and grow your email list. Read these case studies to see how much success other businesses are having by using OptinMonster.

Iuse OptinMonster on WPBeginner and our other websites. Check out our OptinMonster review for more details.

There’s a free version of OptinMonster available if you signup from inside the WordPress plugin.

Alternatives: Thrive Leads is a popular alternative for creating popups in WordPress.

7. MemberPress

Since MemberPress is a premium plugin, it comes with many other powerful features including drip content, course management (LMS), quizzes, certifications, group memberships, paid forums, powerful access rules, automation features, and more.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to make a membership website in WordPress.

You can connect MemberPress with all popular email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and others to communicate with your customers.

MemberPress helps creators generate over $1 billion dollars in revenue each year.

Alternative: Thrive Apprentice and LearnDash are some other good WordPress LMS plugins for creating and selling online courses. Easy Digital Downloads is a great alternative for selling digital downloads like eBooks, software, music, and more.

Bonus: If you’re looking to add a community to your WordPress site including features like discussion forums, groups, then take a look at BuddyBoss. It works seamlessly with MemberPress.

8. Constant Contact

Their platform allows you to build an email list and send beautiful email newsletters to your subscribers.

It offers a quick and easy setup for non-techy users. It also works well with popular lead generation plugins for WordPress like OptinMonster and WPForms.

Alternatives: HubSpot, Omnisend, Brevo (Sendinblue), and ConvertKit are good alternatives if you want something more advanced, but they are more pricey.

9. Uncanny Automator

It seamlessly integrates with over 160+ popular WordPress plugins and third-party platforms, so you can easily build automation recipes without hiring a developer.

You simply choose from over 1,000 triggers and actions to create “if this then that” style recipes on your WordPress site (no code needed).

What’s even better is that you can even connect two separate WordPress sites to work together without writing any code. This is very useful for online stores and membership sites.

Some example use-cases include:

• Have 2 WordPress sites talk to each other – sell products on one while create users & setup access on another.
• Create buttons that can automatically create user accounts and perform other actions in WordPress.
• Add custom user attributes to user profiles based on user’s actions.
• Trigger automation recipes in one plugin from the action taken by another plugin (for example, a submission of WPForms can be used to create an order in WooCommerce).
• Connect your WordPress site to business apps like Google Sheets, Airtable, Slack, Zoom, etc.
• … and so much more

For more details, see our expert review of Uncanny Automator.

10. SearchWP

It also gives you the flexibility to create your own relevance scale and adjust the algorithm without writing any code.

There is a search metrics feature that helps you see what your visitors are searching for, and what they are finding or not finding, so you can improve your content discoverability.

SearchWP also lets you add powerful features like live AJAX search in WordPress, and it seamlessly integrates with all major WordPress plugins including but not limited to WooCommerce, Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), Meta Box, Toolset, BigCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, bbPress, and more.

For more details, see our complete SearchWP review.

11. Sugar Calendar

With the ready-made Sugar Calendar blocks, you can also display calendars on the front end of your site and allow users to book appointments. Users can also add your events to the calendar of their choice such as Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Microsoft Outlook.

In addition, it offers an Event Ticketing addon, which allows you to sell tickets for events and collect payments through Stripe and WooCommerce.

For step by step instructions, see our tutorial on how to create an events calendar in WordPress.

12. Smash Balloon

It’s simple to set up, with no coding required, and it comes with tons of built-in styling and layout options for quick customization. You can control what content you want to show or hide with visual moderation tools, highlight specific posts, display likes and comments, and more.

The best part is that your social feeds will update automatically, which keeps your site looking fresh with new content at all times.

Plus, even if social media is down, your feeds will stay up thanks to the smart feed caching and backup system.

There’s even built-in feed analytics, which allow you to track clicks, views, and profile visitors for all of your social media feeds. This way, you can discover what your most popular posts are and which feeds drive the most engagement.

You can use our Smash Balloon coupon to get 60% off your purchase.

There’s also free versions of the Smash Balloon plugins that you can use to display simple social media feeds.

13. WP Charitable

Plus, Charitable helps you attract a wider range of donors by providing flexible options for giving.

You can accept one-time donations for those looking to make a single contribution, recurring donations for ongoing support, or build community with crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns.

It also comes with detailed analytics and reporting so that you can track how well your fundraising campaigns are performing.

There’s a free version of Charitable that allows you to collect donations through Stripe and PayPal. However, you can remove additional transaction fees and unlock more payment gateways by upgrading to the premium version.

14. Pretty Links Pro

Other powerful features include auto rotating links, product displays, QR code creation, split testing, and more.

Alternative: ThirstyAffiliates is an excellent alternative for affiliate marketers with lots of advanced features including an Amazon integration. TastyLinks is another great alternative geared towards the food blogger audience.

15. WP Rocket

Most importantly, WP Rocket doesn’t wait for someone to request a page to save it in the cache. It automatically crawls and builds your website cache, which results in an instant performance boost.

WP Rocket also offers Imagify, which is a free image optimization service to help you speed up your website even further. See our Imagify review for more details.

They also have integrations with Cloudflare API, Sucuri, and many other tools to better configure your website caching setup.

WP Rocket is by far the easiest and most beginner-friendly caching plugin. The only downside is that it’s paid only, but they do offer a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Alternative: SiteGround Optimizer, WP Super Cache, Airlift, and W3 Total Cache are free, but they are not as powerful or easy.

16. PushEngage

PushEngage comes with all the powerful features like drip campaigns, a/b testing, dynamic user segmentation, opt-in reminders, powerful analytics, goal tracking, and more.

For eCommerce websites, it can automatically trigger cart abandonment notifications, price drop alerts, inventory alert notifications, and more.

For bloggers & publishers, it can automatically send out new blog post notifications to all of your subscribers.

PushEngage works seamlessly on all website builder platforms including WordPress, Shopify, Bigcommerce, and more.

They have a PushEngage WordPress plugin that makes it easy to enable web push notifications on your website.

The best part about PushEngage is that they DO NOT sell your data unlike every other provider in that space.

Alternative: OneSignal is another popular alternative, but they sell your data on free plans.

17. RafflePress

RafflePress incentivizes users to follow your social profiles and share the giveaway with their friends to get more entries into the contest. This helps you increase social media engagement.

The word-of-mouth marketing helps you get more traffic, FASTER! This results in more followers, more sales, and more revenue!

You can easily connect your social profiles, WordPress form plugins, and all popular marketing platforms and CRMs.

RafflePress has a free version called RafflePress Lite that you can get started with. If you want more powerful features to skyrocket your growth, then you need to use RafflePress Pro.

WPBeginner users can use our RafflePress coupon code: wpbeginner20 to get an additional 20% off.

You can see our complete RafflePress review for more details.

18. Cloudflare

To learn more on how to strengthen the security of your website and protect your business, see our ultimate WordPress security guide with step by step instructions for beginners.

Another added benefit of Cloudflare is that they offer a free CDN, which significantly speeds up your site.

While there are other security plugins like MalCare, Sucuri, Wordfence, WP Activity Log, etc., none of them can offer the full protection that Cloudflare does.

Note: At WPBeginner, Irecently made the move to Cloudflare from Sucuri to make our site faster and more secure. See our article on why WPBeginner switched from Sucuri to Cloudflare to learn more.

19. LiveChat

The team behind LiveChat also created ChatBot.com which is the best AI powered chatbot software. You can use it in combination with LiveChat to ensure your users always get the fastest response with the help AI + human.

Alternative: HubSpot and Brevo Chat are other popular services that let you connect chat, CRM, SMS, Facebook, and email in one platform.

20. WP Mail SMTP

Over 3 million websites use WP Mail SMTP because it’s an absolute must-have. Iuse it on WPBeginner as well.

Pro tip: The paid version called WP Mail SMTP Pro comes with white glove setup, detailed email logs, and more features. Basically, their support staff will set it up and connect it to use your SMTP service provider.

But you can use the free version of WP Mail SMTP to connect with all the popular SMTP services like SendLayer, SMTP.com, Mailgun, Gmail, etc.

21. WPCode

There’s a built-in code snippet library where you can find all of the most common WordPress code snippets and insert them in one click.

Plus, you can manage all of your code snippets from one central screen and use tags to organize them.

The WPCode Pro version comes with powerful features like an AI snippet generator, version control for code snippets (Code Revisions), device based targeting for code, ability to add specific code snippets for specific posts & pages, conversion pixels, and deeper integration for WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and other popular WordPress plugins.

WPCode is a project started by Syed Balkhi, founder of WPBeginner.

Bonus: WPCode also offers Search & Replace Everything, which is a powerful find & replace plugin for WordPress. This comes super handy when you want to bulk find and replace text, URLs, or images across your WordPress site.

The best part is that it also has an easy Undo button in case you make an error. This is a must have in your toolkit.

22. WPML

It is very easy to use, SEO friendly, and helps you easily create content in different languages.

Alternative: TranslatePress is an excellent alternative that’s growing fast.

23. WooCommerce

There’s a robust WooCommerce ecosystem now with dedicated WooCommerce hosting, WooCommerce themes, and WooCommerce plugins available.

Pro Tip: If you’re looking to start an eCommerce store with WooCommerce, then Irecommend using SiteGround. Alternatively, you can try Bluehost’s new eCommerce plan which comes with over $1000+ premium WooCommerce extensions for free such as subscriptions, bookings, and more.

To grow your WordPress eCommerce site, Ialso recommend the following plugins:

• TrustPulse – helps you instantly win customer trust with social proof and FOMO.
• FunnelKit (formerly WooFunnels) – helps you build sales funnels and add eCommerce automation to WordPress.
• Advanced Coupons – helps you add loyalty program, gift cards, and other advanced coupon features in WooCommerce.
• Stripe for WooCommerce – this free plugin helps you easily accept credit card payments as well as add Google Pay, Apple Pay, and others to WooCommerce.

For more suggestions, see our complete list of best WooCommerce plugins.

Alternative: Easy Digital Downloads is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin if you’re looking to sell digital downloads.

If you’re looking for a WordPress payment solution without setting up a shopping cart, then WP Simple Pay is an excellent WooCommerce alternative.

24. Nextiva

The best part is that you can receive calls from your business phone number straight to your cell phone which is excellent for small businesses. You can also set business hours, so you are not getting disturbed during holidays or non-work hours.

Their platform also offers CRM, live chat, online surveys, and other communication features. You can manage it all in a simple web-based admin panel which makes it easy for small business owners to easily manage everything like a pro.

Iuse Nextiva VOIP for our business because it’s one of the most affordable and most reliable business phone service that grows with your business.

Alternative: RingCentral and Ooma are other highly recommended phone service and business VoIP providers.

Bonus Tools

Aside from the top 24 WordPress plugins and tools that Imentioned above, Ialso use and recommend the following tools to better manage our WordPress sites:

• WP Simple Pay – A simple WordPress payments plugin that lets you accept credit cards without setting up a full eCommerce cart. You can add Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH debit, and more. There’s also WP Simple Pay free plugin that you can use to get started.
• Thrive Quiz Builder – A powerful lead generation plugin for WordPress that helps you create interactive quizzes to get more email subscribers and boost user engagement.
• Broken Link Checker – A free plugin that scans your website to check for broken internal and external links and helps you fix them to improve your search engine optimization.
• ClickSocial – This social media plugin allows you to easily schedule social posts for platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, directly from the WordPress dashboard. It also has a Revive Old WordPress Posts feature to automatically share evergreen content.
• Grammarly – Excellent grammar checking tool that comes with a plagiarism detector, vocabulary enhancement, and more.
• PublishPress – This plugin makes it easy for us to manage our editorial workflow in WordPress.
• Semrush – An all-in-one marketing toolkit for digital marketing professionals that includes powerful tools for keyword research, backlink audits, tracking brand mentions, keyword rank tracking, competitor analysis, and more.
• Antispam Bee – An excellent plugin to improve the comments section with reduced spam on your website. It works particularly well when used alongside Akismet to combat spam comments.
• Adobe Photoshop – This makes it easy for us to create blog thumbnails and other images for our articles.
• AffiliateWP – Iuse this plugin on some of our eCommerce sites to add a referral program. It works seamlessly with WooCommerce and other eCommerce platforms (Alternative: Easy Affiliate).
• Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) – A collection of cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools like email, docs, spreadsheets, etc. You can also use it to set up a professional email address.
• FunnelKit (formerly WooFunnels) – Sales funnel builder, eCommerce marketing automation, and light-weight CRM for WordPress. It’s a great ClickFunnels alternative for WordPress.
• Thrive Comments – Powerful WordPress comments plugin that help you super charge user engagement with features like upvoting, user badges, subscribe to comments, post from social sites, and more.
• HeroThemes – The best WordPress customer support plugins to manage your customer emails and support tickets directly from WordPress. You can also create a knowledge base to reduce the number of support tickets you get.
• WP 2FA – This plugin helps you add two-factor authentication to your WordPress sites. It helps improve WordPress security and is a very good plugin made by the same people behind WP Activity Log.
• Envira Gallery – Iuse this plugin to help us create better WordPress galleries with photo albums, sliders, tagging, and other advanced gallery features.
• WPBeginner Pro Services – A platform that helps you work with vetted WordPress developers to troubleshoot problems and make customizations (Alternative: Seahawk Media).

This concludes our list of the best WordPress plugins for business websites.

Depending on your business, you may not need to use all the WordPress plugins and tools mentioned in our list, but it’s pretty common for our readers to end up using at least 15 to 18 solutions that Ihave mentioned.

Ihighly recommend that you either download the plugins straight from the WordPress.org plugin directory or by using the links in our articles which take you to the official plugin websites. Please avoid all nulled WordPress plugins and theme websites because they can put your site at risk.

Now that you have the best WordPress plugins, you may also want to see our article on how to increase your website traffic (27 proven tips).

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Having helped over 400,000+ business owners create their website and choose the best plugins, Ihave answered a lot of questions. Below are some of the most frequently asked questions about WordPress plugins.

What is a WordPress plugin and how do they work?

WordPress plugins are like apps for your website that allow you to add custom features and functionality like contact form, eCommerce, etc. The concept is similar to the apps on your smart phone.

For more detailed explanation, see our beginner’s guide on what are WordPress plugins.

Do WordPress plugins affect site speed?

It really depends on the plugin, but yes WordPress plugins can affect your site speed if they’re not coded well. However most well-coded WordPress plugins will NOT slow down your website especially if you’re using proper caching and following our WordPress performance best practices.

WordPress plugins that run exclusively on the admin area like WP Mail SMTP, Uncanny Automator, etc., will never slow down your website because they don’t load on the frontend.

But when a plugin loads assets like images, scripts, and other files as your website loads for users (frontend), then they can impact your overall website speed. This is why choosing the right WordPress plugins is important, and the ones that Irecommend in our list are performance optimized.

For more details, see our guide on how WordPress plugins affect your site’s load time.

How many plugins should I use in WordPress?

A typical WordPress website will have anywhere between 15 to 18 WordPress plugins. But the answer to how many plugins should you use is as many as you truly need and no more.

It’s not the quantity of WordPress plugins that slow down your website but rather it’s the quality.

The WPBeginner website has over 62 active plugins, and it’s blazing fast. That’s because we’re using high quality WordPress plugins. Typically on most of our websites, Ihave over 30+ active plugins to speed up our workflow.

Often when someone says “it is the plugins that are slowing down your site”, they’re simply not experienced enough and are giving this answer out of frustration.

For a more detailed explanation on this topic, see our comprehensive on how many WordPress plugins should you install and what’s too many.

Are WordPress plugins worth it?

Yes, premium WordPress plugins are worth every penny because they help you save thousands of dollars in custom development costs. Not to mention, you will get access to expert support and new features regularly.

WordPress plugins are also far cheaper than their SaaS alternatives because most plugins are self-hosted on your site. This means you have full control over your data.

For example, to build a custom form solution like WPForms that gives you access to drag & drop form builder, smart conditional logic, hundreds of templates, dozens of integrations, and powerful features like surveys, polls, payment capability, etc., would cost you tens of thousands of dollars. But you can buy the premium license starting at only $39 for Basic license and $199 for Pro license.

Comparatively, Typeform, a SaaS form building tool which only does a fraction of what WPForms does will cost you $996 / year.

Do professional developers use WordPress plugins over custom code?

Yes, professional developers always use WordPress plugins to speed up their workflow, so they can earn more profit on their client projects. There is no point reinventing the wheel when an existing tool does the job far better.

For example, when you ask a professional development agency to build an eCommerce website, they might quote you $15,000 for the project, but behind the scenes they use the plugins to make the project more profitable for them and more affordable for you.

They might use MonsterInsights to setup all conversion tracking, FunnelKit to create custom order forms, All in One SEO for proper SEO schema setup, and so on.

This is why most WordPress plugin companies offer Agency licenses so developers can use them on client projects.

What is the best free plugin for WordPress?

Some of the best free WordPress plugins include WPForms, All in One SEO, MonsterInsights, SeedProd, WP Mail SMTP, OptinMonster, and WPCode.

What are the top 5 plugins you typically use on WordPress sites?

The top 5 WordPress plugins that Iinstall on all our websites include:

1. WPForms – every website needs a contact form and likely other type of forms, and this is the best WordPress form builder plugin.
2. AIOSEO – this is an All in One SEO toolkit that helps your website rank higher in search engines.
3. MonsterInsights – this is the #1 analytics plugin for WordPress. You can’t improve what you can’t measure, and this plugin helps you grow your website with confidence.
4. SeedProd – this lets you build custom website designs and landing pages faster.
5. WPCode – this is a code snippets plugin that lets you replace at least a dozen plugins with their expert code snippet library. It’s super easy even a beginner can use it.

Aside from these, Ialways install a backup plugin like Duplicator, and a caching plugin like WP Rocket or WP Super Cache. Ialso use WP Mail SMTP to ensure our website emails get delivered and OptinMonster to ensure Iunlock maximum revenue potential from each website visitor.

Ihope this article helped you find the best WordPress plugin for your website. If you have a question or need help finding the best WordPress plugin for your use-case, feel free to reach out to us using our contact form and our team would be happy to assist.

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