How Many WordPress Plugins Are Too Many?

Wondering how many WordPress plugins to install on your website? Need to learn the truth about how many plugins are too many?

We know there is much confusion about this topic and how many believe that plugins can impact website security, performance, and speed, so we’ll try our best to provide in-depth information for non-technical users.

This guide will provide you with a detailed overview of the plugins that keep your site running efficiently, so you can exercise moderation with your choices and enjoy the perfect blend of WordPress plugins.

How Many WordPress Plugins Are Too Many?

The ideal number of plugins is really a reflection of the specific demands of your website. Commercial websites might feature up to 20–30 plugins.

However, it isn’t uncommon to have a plugin count that exceeds 50 or more to fully utilize the extensive features and capabilities of WordPress.

You see, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer here. It’s not the number that poses a problem, but the functionality and reliability of each plugin as well as your budget. (We’ve included some typical costs in our article on how much it costs to create a website.)

Websites can perform exceptionally well despite using dozens of plugins and custom code snippets when managed properly.

All you need to do is prioritize the selection of reputable plugins that follow the coding standards of WordPress!

Is It Bad to Have Too Many Plugins in WordPress?

Yes, having an excessive number of low-quality and poorly-coded plugins can negatively impact the performance of your website. The pitfalls include:

• Security Risks: Plugins that are poorly coded or outdated create security vulnerabilities that hackers exploit to access your site data.
• Poor Support: Most plugins may lack a good support team to resolve issues on a timely basis, and this can result in a risk of downtime.
• Malicious Code: It’s not uncommon for plugins to contain malicious code that harms your site or exposes it to viruses and malware.
• Plugin Overload: The more plugins you have, the more resources your site requires to load, resulting in poor load times and a negative user experience.
• Compatibility Issues: Incompatible plugins affect your site’s theme and may also lead to conflicts that result in numerous site errors.
• Maintenance Exhaustion: Failing to keep your plugins up-to-date can result in site vulnerabilities, as regular updates address security issues and bugs.

If you want your site to run smoothly, choosing plugins with a proven track record of support, maintenance, compatibility, security, and performance is vital.

The WordPress Plugins You Need

Check out the recommendations below for plugins that are regularly updated, reliable, and optimized to work well together!

1. WPForms: The Ultimate Drag & Drop WordPress Form Builder

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.9/5
• Active Installs: 5+ Million

Since you’re reading this blog on WPForms, you’re probably aware that this plugin is our very own. But we have good reason to recommend it!

With WPForms, you can create beautiful, custom forms that engage your users and increase conversion rates.

Create Your WordPress Form Now

Our Experience

We’ve built WPForms for ease of use and versatility so that you can add forms to your website in less than 5 minutes.

The drag-and-drop form builder makes it easy to create a custom form, while the pre-built templates save our customers even more time.

Our plugin has all that you might want in a form builder, including conditional logic, payment integrations, multi-page forms, and two-column fields.

What We Liked

We put user engagement first, with features like smart conditional logic that tailor the form experience to each user.

Plus, the seamless integration with popular email marketing services like Mailchimp and Constant Contact makes it easy to grow your email list.

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $49.50 per year for unlimited forms, submissions, and users on a single site. There’s also a free version of WPForms you can use to get started.

Verdict

We recommend our plugin to anyone looking to create engaging, high-converting forms on their WordPress site.

2. WP Mail SMTP: WordPress Emails that Get Delivered Every Time

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.8/5
• Active Installs: 3+ Million

WP Mail SMTP by WPForms is another one of our plugins that prevents issues like WordPress emails not being delivered or ending up in spam folders.

You can easily use it to configure your WordPress site to send emails using your preferred email provider, ensuring your emails are delivered every time!

Our Experience

Setting up WP Mail SMTP with different email providers including Gmail, Outlook, SendLayer, and more is incredibly simple.

The plugin is built to improve email deliverability and does exactly what it claims. No emails end up in spam folders or are blocked overall!

What We Liked

WP Mail SMTP makes tracking your emails easy and ensures they are being delivered via features like real-time delivery notifications and email logging.

The plugin also has a simple and user-friendly interface, which makes it quick to set up and manage your WordPress SMTP settings.

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $49.00 per year for email reports, logging, tracking, and more on a single site to solve your WordPress email deliverability issues.

Verdict

Overall, we highly recommend WP Mail SMTP for anyone who wants to ensure their WordPress emails are delivered every time.

3. SeedProd: Best Drag & Drop Page Builder for WordPress

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.9/5
• Active Installs: 1+ Million

Are you building a site from scratch? Need an intuitive solution to create interactive landing pages? Look no further than SeedProd!

The WordPress plugin allows users to efficiently create landing pages with over 200 pre-built templates that boost conversion rates and user engagement.

Our Experience

We’ve used many drag-and-drop page builders, but they are far from the ease of use of SeedProd.

You have a wide range of pre-designed templates to choose from, based on the type of website you are building.

The plugin also comes equipped with many features, such as real-time page editing, pre-made color schemes, font pairings, and section layouts!

For more information, check out our detailed SeedProd review.

What We Liked

SeedProd is the ultimate tool for website owners who don’t have any coding knowledge. You can get set up with great-looking themes in a matter of minutes!

Not to mention, everything you build with SeedProd is bloat-free and super fast. This guarantees that users have a pleasant experience on your website.

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $31.60 per year for 50 PRO templates, 90+ PRO page blocks, drag and drop page builder, subscriber management, and standard support.

Verdict

If creating eye-catching, high-converting landing pages is what you want, we wholeheartedly endorse SeedProd!

4. OptinMonster: Convert More Website Visitors into Subscribers

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.4/5
• Active Installs: 1+ Million

OptinMonster is a powerful conversion optimization tool that allows you to turn website visitors into subscribers and customers!

This plugin integrates seamlessly with WordPress and offers a variety of features to help you grow your email list and increase conversions.

Our Experience

Thanks to its easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder, we found OptinMonster incredibly useful for creating pop-ups, announcement bars, slide-ins, and even gamified spin-the-wheels.

It allowed us to grab the attention of our users and get more sales and email subscribers quickly! The best part of all: we had plenty of templates to help us get exactly what we wanted.

What We Liked

In simple words, OptinMonster is the ultimate lead generation solution for your business. It’s got behavior automation, a wide range of advanced targeting options, and A/B testing capabilities; you name it!

Business websites, eCommerce stores, and bloggers will enjoy its simple interface and ability to create personalized campaigns for different users. It can even help recover abandoned cart sales and growing email lists.

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $9/month (billed annually) for use on a single site and support for 2,500 page views, unlimited campaigns, unlimited subscribers, and more!

Verdict

We highly recommend giving OptinMonster a try to see the difference it can make it your conversion rates and sales. We’ve covered more in our detailed OptinMonster review.

5. All in One SEO: Boost Your Website’s Search Engine Presence

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.7/5
• Active Installs: 3+ Million

Need to drive organic traffic to your site and boost your visibility on search engines? AIOSEO is a user-friendly and powerful plugin worth considering!

The plugin is your ultimate SEO toolkit that simplifies the process of optimizing your WordPress site to attract more visitors and rank higher.

Our Experience

The developers behind AIOSEO put great thought into creating a plugin that maximizes the potential of a website without any technical knowledge. Experts and beginners alike can fine-tune their SEO strategy using it!

The step-by-step guidance and intuitive interface help uncover new SEO growth opportunities in a matter of minutes, which is a pure treat for business owners who aren’t necessarily experts in the field of SEO.

What We Liked

The plugin lets website owners quickly configure advanced WordPress SEO functionalities, such as schema markup, XML sitemaps, webmaster tool connections, social media integration, SEO keywords information, and more.

It also offers exceptional compatibility with popular eCommerce solutions like WooCommerce, great internal linking features, advanced breadcrumbs, and the ability to quickly detect and fix 404 errors!

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $49.60 per year for use on a single site with all the essential tools you may require to improve your SEO rankings!

Verdict

If you own a WordPress site and want better search engine rankings and more organic traffic, we recommend AIOSEO. Check out our All in One SEO review to see more screenshots.

6. MonsterInsights: Unleash the Power of Google Analytics on WordPress

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.6/5
• Active Installs: 3+ Million

Want more insights into your website’s performance? For WordPress users, MonsterInsights is the go-to plugin for all your analytics needs.

Using MonsterInsights, you can quickly connect your WordPress site to Google Analytics, allowing you to monitor traffic and site performance in an instant.

Our Experience

The simplicity of MonsterInsights blew us away. Even novices can get up and running quickly.

The simple interface makes it easy to gather the required information, despite having no experience with Google Analytics.

The plugin provides detailed data on your website’s performance, including pageviews, bounce rates, and conversion rates.

We were also impressed with the eCommerce tracking feature, making monitoring sales and revenue easy.

What We Liked

Whether you’re a blogger, eCommerce store owner, or a small business, MonsterInsights helps you track and improve your website’s performance by checking your most visited pages, bounce rate, and demographics.

The plugin seamlessly integrates with other popular WordPress plugins like WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads, making it easy to track eCommerce sales and revenue.

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $99.50 per year for use on a single site with all the features small businesses and publishers may need for analyzing their website’s performance.

Verdict

With its powerful features, ease of use, and seamless integrations, we highly recommend MonsterInsights to get the most out of your website’s analytics!

7. Smash Balloon: Maximize Your Social Reach in a Matter of Minutes

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.6/5
• Active Installs: 3+ Million

Looking for powerful, easy-to-use, and user-friendly social media plugins for your WordPress site? Smash Balloon checks all the right boxes!

Their plugins make it incredibly simple to display your social network feeds on your website in a way that matches your brand tone and voice.

Our Experience

The ease of setting up and customizing our social media feeds was quite surprising. Using the setup wizard, we connected our social media accounts in a few minutes.

The plugin could auto-inherit styles from our theme with customizations to match the look and feel of our website.

We also enjoyed using numerous features like real-time updates, custom caching, smart issue reporting, and backup functionalities.

What We Liked

Unlike most social media plugins, Smash Balloon doesn’t use heavy iframes but embeds all your social media feeds directly on your pages.

If you need more than that, Smash Balloon also offers analytics information that gives you those much-needed insights into your social media performance.

You can also easily integrate it with popular GDPR consent plugins and display multiple feeds on your site to maximize user engagement.

Pricing and Plans

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reviews Feed Pro all cost a minimum of $49 per year. There is also an “All Access Bundle” available for $299!

Verdict

We strongly recommend Smash Balloon to anyone interested in elevating their social media presence on their WordPress site.

8. AffiliateWP: Unlock Your WordPress Site’s Affiliate Marketing Potential

• WordPress.org Rating: 5/5
• Active Installs: 1,000+

Are you looking for an all-in-one affiliate marketing plugin that’s powerful and easy to use on your WordPress site? Have a look at AffiliateWP!

The plugin allows you to effortlessly create an affiliate program and manage your payouts, referrals, and affiliates from within your WP dashboard.

Our Experience

We were impressed with the plugin’s user interface which allows you to reliably track affiliate links, coupon codes, landing pages, and cross-domain promotions.

Not only could we customize the affiliate onboarding and registration, but we could also generate detailed reports for all our affiliate campaigns.

Moreover, the plugin integrates seamlessly with popular eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and MemberPress!

What We Liked

With AffiliateWP, you can instantly create QR codes, coupon codes, affiliate banners, and unique referral links.

It even comes equipped with smart fraud detection to prevent loss of revenue and all sorts of affiliate fraud.

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $149.50 per year for use on a single site with all the essential tools you may require to build your affiliate program and start bringing in revenue!

Verdict

If you’re using WordPress and want to start an affiliate marketing program, we strongly suggest you check out AffiliateWP.

9. RafflePress: Best Drag & Drop Giveaway Plugin for WordPress

• WordPress.org Rating: 3.8/5
• Active Installs: 20,000+

Need a solution for growing your social media followers, email list, and website traffic with viral giveaways? Get RafflePress Now!

With RafflePress, you can create and customize existing templates to build stunning giveaways and contests in just a few clicks.

Our Experience

Like the other plugins in the list, RafflePress scores a 10/10 for its easy use and for creating giveaways and contests.

The drag-and-drop builder made it incredibly easy to add entry methods, choose a winner, and customize the design of our giveaways.

We were also impressed with its fantastic features, such as viral sharing, referral tracking, and integration with Mailchimp and Constant Contact.

What We Liked

The pre-built giveaway and contest templates are well thought-out and assist in saving time and driving results quickly!

The plugin also supports bonus actions like joining social media pages with the help of APIs to help get more engagement.

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $31.60 per year for use on a single site with all the amazing features you will require to boost your followers and traffic!

Verdict

With its powerful features, seamless integrations, and easy-to-use interface, RafflePress is a great choice for hosting giveaways on your website!

10. Duplicator: Secure, Fast, and Easy WordPress Backup and Migration

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.9/5
• Active Installs: 1+ Million

Looking for a WordPress plugin that can automatically schedule backups and assist with site restoration in an emergency? Give Duplicator a try!

Whether it’s a server crash or a hacker attack, the Duplicator plugin can help you restore your site to its former glory in no time.

Our Experience

With Duplicator, we could create a backup copy in minutes due to its user-friendly interface, customization flexibility, and the benefit of being a free tool. We never have to worry about losing our website data again.

It didn’t even require any technical knowledge, and we were also able to create recovery points on Amazon S3, OneDrive, Google Drive, and more for 1-click restorations, which is quite handy, to say the least!

What We Liked

For the highest level of safety, Duplicator backups are encoded using AES-256 encryption, which is the industry standard.

Duplicator even allows for the migration of entire networks of sites, as well as the migration of individual sites into multi-site networks.

Pricing and Plans

Consider upgrading to Duplicator Plus if you want to access more functionalities such as Unlimited Backups, Unlimited Migrations, Scheduled Backups, and Recovery Points. The annual cost for this upgrade is approximately $99.

Verdict

We recommend Duplicator as a great choice due to its ability to create backup copies of your website in a few easy steps. If you want to review its competitors, take a look at this list of the best backup plugins for WordPress.

11. WP Simple Pay: Accept One-Time and Recurring Payments Easily

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.4/5
• Active Installs: 10,000+

Wondering how you can accept payments on your WordPress site without complicated payment integrations? WP Simple Pay makes it easy.

With WP Simple Pay, you can connect your Stripe account with WordPress and begin accepting payments in a matter of minutes.

Our Experience

One of the best things about WP Simple Pay based on our experience is that you don’t need a complicated store setup for accepting payments.

All you need to do is create a payment form that’s integrated with Stripe, and you can start accepting credit card payments on your WordPress site.

It is compatible with numerous page builders like Elementor and Divi for ease of use, and you can even integrate it with AffiliateWP.

The support team is also proactive in responding to queries, and the plugin itself is PCI-compliant with SCA-ready credit card payment forms at your disposal.

What We Liked

You can add custom branding on your Stripe checkout payment forms to make sure everything is in line with your brand tone and voice.

Need to add a payment gateway to a page? WP Simple Pay comes equipped with embeddable payment form buttons.

If that weren’t enough, the plugin even offers the best in fraud protection and spam prevention, ensuring all your payments go through seamlessly!

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $49.50 per year for use on a single site with all the essential tools you may require for building optimized and secure payment forms!

Verdict

We highly recommend WP Simple Pay for anyone looking to accept one-time and recurring payments on their site without coding knowledge!

12. SearchWP: Revolutionize Site Search on Your WordPress Site

• WordPress.org Rating: 4.9/5
• Active Installs: 60,000+

Need a plugin that optimizes your WordPress site’s search functionalities? SearchWP is one of the best tools out there for boosting the search experience.

With SearchWP, you can provide website visitors with an interactive and user-friendly search and navigation experience to drive more engagement.

Our Experience

We found SearchWP to be incredibly versatile, as the plugin enables site owners to have control over search indexing and relevance.

You can use the plugin to fine-tune results based on your WordPress site’s unique requirements, thanks to many advanced features.

These include support for metadata, custom post types, taxonomies, keyword stemming, and custom weighting, making it a comprehensive search solution.

What We Liked

In addition to the above, SearchWP provides insightful analytics and metrics, making it incredibly easy to understand your visitors’ search behavior.

It also offers automatic theme integration without any coding knowledge, guaranteeing that the plugin matches the look and feel of your website.

Pricing and Plans

Starts at $99.00 per year for use on a single site with unlimited search queries, unlimited search engines, and standard support.

Verdict

If you want to provide an effective and seamless search experience on WordPress, check out our SearchWP review to see more powerful features.

Why Is It Important to Consider Limiting the Number of Plugins You Install on Your WordPress Website?

Limiting the number of plugins on your WordPress site can make all the difference in its performance, user experience, and overall success.

To help you make informed decisions about your plugin choices, we’ve identified a few factors to consider when selecting plugins:

1. Identify the Objectives of Your Site: Prioritize plugins that correspond with the goals and objectives of your site and assist with specific processes, such as page design, email delivery, and form building.
2. Assess Your Performance Needs: Choose plugins that optimize your site’s performance by enhancing its search engine presence, monitoring site analytics, and improving its technical SEO aspects.
3. Boost Conversions and User Engagement: Consider plugins that engage your visitors and convert them into subscribers by helping you optimize user experiences, build subscriber lists, and create compelling content.
4. Integrate Affiliate and Social Media: Look for plugins that allow for the seamless integration of your social media accounts and make it easy to manage affiliate programs within your WordPress dashboard.
5. Simplify Website Management: Opt for reliable plugins that simplify tasks like migration, backups, and payment processing, while offering advanced features to protect your user and site data.

By considering these factors and the recommended plugins above, you will have a carefully curated selection of plugins that maximize your site’s potential.

Next, Power Hacks to Grow Your Business Online

Now that you have an idea about the useful and correct number of plugins you should be installing on your WordPress site, it’s time to look into how you can further grow your business online with these actionable hacks.

Also, would you like to know how WPForms compares with other form builders on the market? Check out our detailed comparison of WPForms vs Everest Forms.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a simple plugin to create forms that assist with lead acquisition, get started today with WPForms Pro. It includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Create Your WordPress Form Now

If this article helped you out, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more free WordPress tutorials and guides.