6 Best WordPress Testimonial Plugins to Boost Social Proof and Improve Credibility

If you’re trying to sell anything on your website, testimonials are a great way to add social proof to your site and convince your visitors that they can trust you. For example, WikiJob was able to boost its conversion rate by 34% just by adding customer testimonials to its homepage. And that’s not the only example – there’s plenty more data about the power of testimonials.

But if you want to display stylish testimonials or reviews on your WordPress site without custom code, you’re going to need a third-party tool to do it. And that’s why we’ve rounded up some of the best WordPress testimonial plugins to help you do just that.

Let’s jump right in!

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a freemium WordPress testimonial plugin listed at WordPress.org.

In the free version, you can display testimonials on your WordPress website in a variety of different formats.

All the testimonials that you add are responsive. And you can add testimonials either to your sidebar with a widget or directly to your content with a shortcode.

Additionally, the plugin gives you a new Testimonials post type that you can use to add and manage all of your testimonials.

The free version is available at WordPress.org. However, if you’re looking for rich features, you can find them by upgrading to the Pro version. Here is the price list:

• Personal – $99/year for 1 site
• Business – $199/year for 3 sites
• Agency – $599/year for 10 sites

Key Features

• Display testimonials in a random order (if you want)
• Proper schema.org markup for Google Rich Snippets star ratings
• Testimonial categories to manage large numbers of testimonials
• Linking testimonials to a specific page
• Get access to front-end forms that allow users to submit their own testimonials (Pro Version)
• Create multiple forms and route each form to a specific testimonial category
• Additional themes for displaying your testimonials
• Neat testimonial carousel feature to display slides with multiple testimonials

Pros

• Provides SEO boost for testimonials
• Available submission forms
• Ability to display testimonials via slideshow

Cons

• If you have various websites, the pro version might be too expensive for you

Try Easy Testimonials

Toolset Testimonial

Toolset Testimonial is one of the most complete solutions to creating testimonials. You have complete control over where they go and how they look.

You can easily custom design your template without needing any complex PHP coding which will save you hours of time.

Not only that, but you can add your testimonials anywhere on your website and decide exactly what type of information it displays. If you don’t want to create custom testimonials, you can choose one of Toolset’s out-of-the-box testimonial designs to add great-looking testimonials to your website in just a couple of minutes.

Toolset Testimonial comes as part of the Toolset Interactive account which provides multiple other features such as the ability to build a search, a membership area, and to customize maps: 

• 1 site – $69/year
• 3 sites – $149/year
• Unlimited sites – $299/year

Key Feature

• Create a custom post type for a testimonial section
• Add multiple custom fields including images, contact details and checkboxes
• Display testimonials how you like – widgets, sliders, grids or anything else
• Add them to any post or page
• Translate your testimonials thanks to its integration with WPML
• Front-end forms so users can easily add their own testimonials
• Connect your testimonials with other post types
• Use any type of transition including carousel, fade and slide

Pros

• Rich features for testimonials
• Documentations are available so you don’t miss a thing
• Connect your testimonials with other post types

Cons

• The available free version has limited options
• Not beginner friendly
• The need to purchase Toolset suite to use testimonials

Get Toolset Testimonial

Testimonials Showcase

Testimonials Showcase is a popular testimonial plugin for sale at CodeCanyon. At the time of writing this post, it has an impressive 4.92-star rating on 249 ratings and over 4,600 sales, which is about as good as it gets at CodeCanyon.

Though there’s no free version, it gives you a bunch of helpful features. Additionally, the testimonials just plain look good. With a lot of the free WordPress testimonial plugins is that the designs are usually pretty basic. Testimonials Showcase changes that by offering designs that actually look good, as well as plenty of functionality to power those designs. Other than Thrive Ovation (which I’ll feature later), we think this one has the best designs.

You can get Testimonials Showcase at CodeCanyon at:

• Regular License – $19 for 6mos + $5.25 to extend support up to 12 mos
• Extended License – $60 for 6mos + $13.13 to extend support up to 12 mos

Key Features

• Grid and slider displays
• 5 built-in theme styles
• Front-end submission forms to collect testimonials
• Support for schema markup to get those coveted Google Rich Snippets
• Shortcode generator
• Widget for sidebar display

Pros

• Snippets are rich
• 15+ layout customization options
• Available submission forms for front-end

Cons

• Lacking on the amount of advanced features

Get Testimonials Showcase

Strong Testimonials

Strong Testimonials is another free option listed at WordPress.org. While the core plugin is 100% free, there are also a few Pro add-ons that you might want to purchase depending on your needs. The plugin lets you display your testimonials using a few different style options. And you can also display those testimonials using either shortcodes or a widget. Strong Testimonials has great reviews and a developer who actively supports the plugin. For that reason, and the stellar feature list, it’s definitely a good option if you’re looking for a free testimonial plugin.

Free to download at WordPress.org. However, if you want more extra features, here are the following pricing plans:

• Basic – $39/year for 1 site
• Plus – $59/year for 3 sites + everything in Basic
• Business – $79/year for 5 sites + everything in Plus

Key Features

• View builder 
• Front-end submission form
• Add honeypots or CAPTCHA to stop spam
• Grid, column, and masonry display options
• Testimonial sliders
• Star ratings
• Multiple sorting options
• Testimonial categories
• Pagination
• Add review schema markup
• Display multiple front-end forms (you only get one in the free version)
• Change “properties” like text strings and permalink structures

Pros

• Prebuilt templates
• Testimonials are present automatically by using the SEO-format
• Quality and professional looking 

Cons

• There is no free version available
• Integration is limited to hosted platforms

Get Strong Testimonials

Thrive Ovation

Thrive Ovation is a WordPress testimonial plugin on steroids. That is, it has pretty much everything that the other plugins offer, with a bunch more thrown in on top. You’ll pay for these features, though, – which makes it overkill for simple uses.

But if you want the testimonial plugin with the absolute biggest feature list, this is it. First, the plugin lets you collect testimonials in a few different ways:

• With a stylish front-end form
• By clicking a button to import a WordPress comment
• By automatically importing Facebook or Twitter posts from a URL

All of the features are overkill if you just want to display a few testimonials that you’ve already collected. But if you want a full-service testimonial suite, Thrive Ovation is a great option.

Get Thrive Suit to get the experience of its features. You can choose between:

• Yearly – $19/month 
• Quarterly – $30/month 

Key Features

• Easily moderate testimonials right from your dashboard to ensure that you’re only displaying testimonials that actually boost the business
• Tag testimonials so that you can display them in different areas
• Automatically email someone to get their permission before publicly displaying the testimonial
• Use shortcodes or the Thrive Architect page builder
• Has the best looking templates

Pros

• The templates are fully customizable
• Easy to use yet highly automated
• Dashboards are convenient for testimonial management

Cons

• Need to purchase the Thrive Suit in order to use the testimonials

Get Thrive Ovation

BNE Testimonials

BNE Testimonials is a testimonial plugin that makes it easy to display basic testimonials using shortcodes or widgets.

The free version is fine for simple testimonials. But the Pro version is the coolest option because it offers some unique features that not all of the other plugins have.

You can get BNE Testimonials for free or get a Regular License at Codecanyon for $29 

Key Features

• API integration with Yelp, Google Places, and Facebook Reviews
• Aggregated review badges for Yelp, Google, and Facebook

Pros

• 4 testimonial layout options
• You can display testimonials via shortcodes
• Allows to collect testimonials

Cons

• Sorting option is not available at present

Get BNE Testimonials

BONUS: Your Favorite Page Builder

If you’re already using a premium page builder plugin, you may already have access to testimonials via that plugin’s element list. For example, both Elementor and Divi offer dedicated testimonial widgets. Elementor just launched their testimonial carousel widget.

Plenty of other page builders do as well. So, before you go off installing some WordPress testimonial plugins, check if your page builder already offers a testimonial block.

Verdict

We hope that you enjoyed our list of the best WordPress testimonial plugins. As always, we tried to sift through the many options to only list the best. But if you know a great testimonial plugin that deserves to be on the list, it would be awesome if you shared it in the comments so everyone else can learn about it!