Lots of users think that WordPress experts rely heavily on custom code for their sites. In our experience, that’s not the case.
Professional WordPress developers prefer to use existing tools rather than reinvent the wheel. Most have a WordPress toolkit — a collection of software and plugins — that they use to build a solid foundation for their websites.
At WPBeginner and across our partner brands, we use a tried-and-tested set of tools on all our websites. These tools help us quickly lay the groundwork for successful sites, both for clients and for testing and researching. They also allow us to constantly improve and create pages on our own blog and product sites.
For starters, we use Duplicator for our backups, Cloudflare for security, and SeedProd to build landing pages. We also use MonsterInsights for our analytics needs and All in One SEO to help us boost our rankings in search results. But there are so many other fantastic tools we consistently rely on!
In this article, we will share our WordPress toolkit with you. It consists of 59+ essential tools that will help you build and run WordPress websites like a pro.
How We Test and Review Tools for Our WordPress Toolkit
When selecting the tools for our ultimate WordPress toolkit, we kept the following factors in mind:
- We use these tools on our websites: We’ve only included tools we have tested and used ourselves. Additionally, we reviewed user feedback to ensure other users highly recommend these tools.
- Ease of use: We prioritized user-friendly tools, especially for beginners. A straightforward interface, comprehensive documentation, and easy onboarding processes were key factors in our selection.
- Different use cases: Not all tools are perfect for every situation. That’s why we included tools that cater to various needs, such as backups, security, SEO, and performance optimization.
With that said, let’s dive into the ultimate toolkit of essential WordPress tools to help you build and manage your WordPress websites like a pro.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
At WPBeginner, we have been helping WordPress users since 2009. Our team is made up of WordPress experts who have years of experience in building, managing, and optimizing WordPress websites.
We carefully test every tool we recommend and ensure it meets our high standards. With millions of readers and a trusted reputation in the WordPress community, you can rely on our recommendations to help you succeed.
For more details, take a look at our editorial process.
In this article, we share tons of useful tools for WordPress pros in various categories. If you’d rather have a list of the must-haves, then check out our top picks. We’ve selected the best WordPress toolkit plugin for different categories.
| # | Tool | Best for | Pricing | Free Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Duplicator | Backups and Migration | $49.50/yr | ✅ |
| 🥈 | Cloudflare | Security and Performance | $20/mo | ✅ |
| 🥉 | All in One SEO | SEO | $49.60/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | WPForms | Form Builder | $49.50/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | OptinMonster | Lead Generation | $8/mo | ❌ |
| 🎖️ | SeedProd | Landing Page Builder | $39.50/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | MonsterInsights | Analytics | $99.60/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | PushEngage | Push Notifications | $9/mo | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | WooCommerce | eCommerce | Free | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | BuddyBoss | Courses & Community | $299/yr | ❌ |
| 🎖️ | WPCode | Code Management | $49/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | Envira Gallery | Photo Galleries | $39.50/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | UserFeedback | Visitor Feedback | $49.50/yr | ❌ |
The list is organized into categories to help you find the tools you need quickly. Each category covers a specific aspect of WordPress site management, such as backups, security, SEO, and more.
For featured tools, you’ll find detailed reviews explaining why they stand out. For other tools, we’ve provided concise descriptions to give you an overview of their benefits and offer alternate options.
Here is a quick list of categories we have used to organize all the tools. You can jump to a specific category if you would like:
Backups
Backups are essential for any WordPress site. They ensure you can quickly restore your website in case of data loss, hacking, or other emergencies.
Regular backups give you peace of mind, knowing that your content, settings, and customizations are safe and can be recovered with minimal downtime.
1. Duplicator
In our opinion, Duplicator is the best WordPress backup and migration plugin. We use it on the WPBeginner blog and have had a very positive experience with it. Over 1.5 million website owners use it, too.
For more details, check out our full Duplicator review.
We love Duplicator because it is a super user-friendly backup solution. With it, users can easily create on-demand backups or set up scheduled automatic backups.
Duplicator also works with all top remote storage services and lets you store your backups in the cloud. That way, you can rest assured that they will be safe and available when you need them.
In our experience, a backup solution is useless if you can’t restore your backup website files. With its one-click restore feature, Duplicator has proven to be the easiest way to recover a website from a backup.
We have extensively used Duplicator for website backups and migrations. Overall, it works like a charm, allowing you to quickly clone a WordPress website and then move it to a different host.
Why we recommend Duplicator: Duplicator has always worked reliably for us, even for complex migrations. It offers plenty of cloud backup options for additional peace of mind. Plus, its one-click restore feature puts it way ahead of other WordPress backup solutions.
Pricing: Starting from $49.50/year, and there is also a free version.
Alternative Backup Tools:
- UpdraftPlus: A reliable and easy-to-use backup plugin that allows you to schedule regular backups and store them in multiple remote locations. For more details, check out our UpdraftPlus review.
- BlogVault: A comprehensive backup solution that offers real-time backups, site migrations, and security features to keep your site safe. For more information, see our BlogVault review.
Security
With the growing number of cyber threats, it’s important to protect your site from hackers, malware, and other malicious activities. Using effective security tools helps safeguard your data, prevent breaches, and create a safe browsing experience for your visitors.
4. Cloudflare
Cloudflare is one of the biggest internet security and performance companies in the world. It helps protect and speed up websites and online services.
We use Cloudflare on WPBeginner and several other websites. It has provided us with superior DDoS protection, better website performance, and a user-friendly interface.
After switching to Cloudflare, we noticed that its powerful CDN and caching features significantly improved our site speed, which enhanced the overall user experience.
Overall, you can think of Cloudflare as a protection shield for your website. It works by simply routing your site traffic through its network. These network servers filter out spam and malicious traffic and only send genuine users to your website.
It even protects against advanced threats like DDoS attacks, malicious bots, and other intrusions. That way, your website remains safe from common internet vulnerabilities.
In terms of performance, Cloudflare uses a massive global network of data centers to cache content close to users, significantly improving load times. It also offers features like a Content Delivery Network (CDN), caching, and image optimization, which further help speed up websites.
Why we recommend Cloudflare: Cloudflare combines powerful security with highly effective performance improvements. Its firewall protects WordPress websites from common threats, while its CDN gives them a significant speed boost. Overall, we have found Cloudflare to be a reliable security platform that’s easy to set up and use.
Pricing: It offers a comprehensive free plan that would work for most small businesses and new blogs. Paid plans start from $25 per month.
Alternative Options:
- Sucuri: This is an effective security plugin that offers a cloud-based website firewall. We used Sucuri before switching to Cloudflare for more comprehensive coverage. That said, Sucuri can be a good option for smaller websites. Just keep in mind that the firewall is only available with paid plans. For more information, check out our Sucuri vs. Cloudflare comparison and our full Sucuri review.
- Wordfence: A powerful WordPress security plugin. The downside is that it runs on your website instead of the cloud, which makes it less effective for performance.
Other Security Tools:
- WP-2FA: A plugin that adds two-factor authentication (2FA) to your WordPress login page for enhanced security. We use 2FA on all our websites, and we recommend that all WordPress users set up two-factor authentication as well.
- WP Activity Log: A comprehensive activity log plugin that helps you monitor and keep track of all changes on your WordPress site.
Marketing
Marketing tools are designed to help you promote your site, attract new visitors, and convert users into loyal customers. Our recommendations in this next section can help you with email marketing, social media integrations, lead generation, and more. They are essential for building your brand, increasing visibility, and driving sustainable growth.
9. All in One SEO for WordPress
Looking for a tool to optimize your site for search engines? We use All in One SEO (AIOSEO) on all our websites, including WPBeginner, so it’s our top recommendation.
We’ve found AIOSEO to be much more powerful than any other WordPress SEO tool. The great thing about it is that it lets you optimize your site just like the pros, but you don’t need any special skills to use it.
For more information, you can see our full All in One SEO review.
The plugin includes an easy setup wizard that automatically configures the best SEO settings for your online business. It also features TruSEO on-page analysis with a checklist to help optimize your posts and pages. Plus, it supports WooCommerce SEO out of the box and works with other top eCommerce platforms.
One standout feature of All in One SEO that we love is Author SEO. It enables you to expand author bios to showcase experience, expertise, and authority, aligning with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines. This helps search engines trust your content more easily.
The plugin includes rich snippet schema markup, smart XML sitemaps, SEO health checks, and more, all aimed at boosting your search engine visibility. It also has a powerful schema generator that helps you get star ratings and other rich snippets in Google search results.
For advanced users, AIOSEO offers full control over RSS feeds, a robots.txt editor, local SEO, breadcrumbs, AI SEO tools, Google News sitemaps, video SEO, an advanced redirect manager, 404 tracking, IndexNow integration, and more.
Features like Link Assistant and on-page SEO tools are incredibly helpful in our overall SEO strategy. To learn more, take a look at our case study, where we explained the reasons why we switched to All in One SEO.
Why we recommend AIOSEO: We have found All in One SEO to be the most comprehensive SEO toolkit for WordPress websites. It includes all the features you can expect, makes them incredibly easy to use, and is continuously improving to keep up with the latest SEO changes.
Pricing: Starting from $49.50 per year. There is a limited free version of All in One SEO available. However, we recommend upgrading to a paid plan to unlock its full potential.
10. WPForms
Forms are incredibly powerful marketing tools. They let users communicate with you directly, which helps you generate leads, gather feedback, and segment your audience for personalized marketing.
We recommend WPForms for all your form needs. It is one of the most popular WordPress form builder plugins, and we use it for all our contact forms and surveys.
We’ve also covered it extensively in our complete WPForms review.
We love WPForms because its drag-and-drop builder is designed to be user-friendly. It allows you to create contact forms, payment forms, surveys, and more without writing a single line of code. It also includes over 2000 pre-built form templates so that you can get started even faster.
Another thing that we really like about WPForms is that it offers tons of seamless integrations to make your life easier. For instance, you can connect it with popular email marketing services, payment gateways, and other tools. This way, you can use forms to grow your email list, collect payments, and much more.
WPForms also includes advanced features like conditional logic, multi-page forms, file uploads, and spam protection, making it suitable for more complex form needs.
Additionally, the plugin offers powerful entry management features. This allows you to view, manage, and analyze form submissions directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Whether we need a simple contact form or a more complex solution, WPForms is our go-to tool.
Why we recommend WPForms: Unlike many other contact form plugins, WPForms is easy to use. Users can choose a template or use the drag-and-drop form builder to make any type of form. Its integrations with payment services, email marketing providers, and other growth tools make it even more powerful.
Pricing: It has a limited free version called WPForms Lite, and paid plans start at $49.50. If you just need a few contact forms, then the free version will work well. However, we recommend upgrading to a paid plan to unlock more features.
11. SeedProd
We often need to create a landing page for a marketing campaign or product launch. Whenever that happens, we always turn to SeedProd.
For more information about our experience with the plugin, check out our full SeedProd review.
SeedProd is the best no-code page builder for WordPress, trusted by over 1 million websites. It helps you create high-converting landing pages quickly without any coding.
Whether you’re building a sales page, coming soon page, maintenance mode page, or any other type of landing page, SeedProd has you covered.
The best thing about SeedProd? Its drag-and-drop builder makes it incredibly easy to design professional-looking pages.
You can edit any item on the screen by pointing to and clicking it. You can also add new design elements by dragging and dropping them to your page.
We’ve used SeedProd to create landing pages for several websites and find its pre-built templates highly useful. We also have experience with its custom theme feature, which has helped us design entire product sites. Using SeedProd reduced development time, resulting in highly polished websites.
If you run an online store, you will love SeedProd’s built-in WooCommerce support. It includes useful blocks that you can add to create custom checkout pages, product pages, or storefront pages.
SeedProd offers integrations with popular email marketing services, CRM platforms, and other tools, allowing you to grow your email list and boost conversions.
Why we recommend SeedProd: We love SeedProd because it is beginner-friendly and offers an intuitive drag-and-drop design tool. It includes dozens of pre-built templates, and seamless integrations make it versatile for various marketing needs.
Pricing: Paid plans start from $39.50 / year. There is also a free version of SeedProd available.
Alternative Option:
- Thrive Architect: A visual page builder for WordPress that allows you to create beautiful, engaging content. For more details, see our full Thrive Architect review.
13. OptinMonster
Driving traffic to your website is great, but this doesn’t mean anything unless you can convert those visitors into subscribers or customers.
In our experience, OptinMonster is the best conversion optimization software for this purpose. Designed to help you grow your email list, increase page views, and boost sales, it offers a wide range of features that make it easy to create high-converting opt-in forms.
At WPBeginner, we’ve used OptinMonster across our websites to grow our email list. We’ve taken advantage of its exit-intent technology to capture visitors about to leave our site and convert them into subscribers.
For more information, check out our complete MonsterInsights review.
We’ve also found its MonsterLinks feature highly useful. This allows users to click on an offer to view a popup. In our A/B tests, these popups performed well among our users.
Case Study: Proven methods we use at WPBeginner to grow our email list.
One of OptinMonster’s key strengths is its drag-and-drop campaign builder, which allows you to create visually appealing pop-ups, floating bars, slide-ins, and other types of opt-in forms.
You can choose from a variety of pre-built templates, making it easy to get started. The software integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services, CRM platforms, and other tools, enabling you to manage your leads effectively.
What sets OptinMonster apart is its advanced targeting and segmentation features. You can display personalized messages to different segments of your audience based on their behavior, location, device, and more. This makes sure that the right message reaches the right person at the right time, significantly improving conversion rates.
Why we recommend OptinMonster: This tool is user-friendly yet incredibly powerful. It allows you to easily create professional opt-in forms without any coding. The advanced targeting options ensure that your forms reach the most relevant audience, maximizing your conversion rates.
Pricing: Starts at $8/month, billed annually. There is no free version. Instead, OptinMonster lets you get started with a risk-free, 100% 14-day money-back guarantee.
14. MonsterInsights
We believe that understanding how visitors interact with our websites is the key to making informed decisions that drive growth. To do that, we track and monitor website traffic and user behavior with MonsterInsights, which uses the power of Google Analytics.
We always recommend MonsterInsights to our readers because it keeps delivering excellent results. For more information on how we’ve used and tested this plugin, see our full MonsterInsights review.
The nice thing about MonsterInsights is that it connects your WordPress website to Google Analytics with just a few clicks. Then, you can immediately start tracking visitor interactions, understanding user behavior, and making data-driven decisions to optimize your site.
We enjoy its user-friendly stats dashboard, which directly connects all the essential metrics to the WordPress admin panel. You can get quick reports without visiting the Google Analytics website separately.
We particularly appreciate MonsterInsights’s real-time analytics feature. It provides you with live data about who is on your site, what they are doing, and which content performs best. This feature is particularly useful for monitoring the success of marketing campaigns as they happen.
MonsterInsights also offers advanced features, such as eCommerce tracking, which helps you measure your online store’s sales, revenue, and conversion rates.
You can also track affiliate links, banner ads, outbound links, and more, giving you a complete view of how visitors interact with your content.
Recommended Reading: Step-by-step WordPress conversion tracking guide.
As we mentioned, we use MonsterInsights across all our websites to track user engagement and optimize our content strategy.
The plugin’s detailed reports on user behavior, traffic sources, and conversion tracking have been invaluable. It allows us to make data-driven decisions that enhance the user experience and drive growth.
Why we recommend MonsterInsights: This plugin is incredibly easy to use, making Google Analytics accessible to everyone, even beginners. Even better, you can do it all without leaving WordPress. Its advanced tracking features provide in-depth insights that help you better understand your audience and optimize your site for higher engagement and conversions. The real-time analytics and eCommerce tracking are particularly powerful tools for monitoring and improving performance.
Pricing: Starts at $99.60/year. A free version of MonsterInsights is also available with fewer features.
Additional Marketing and SEO Tools:
- PushEngage: A push notification service that helps you send targeted messages to your subscribers on mobile as well as desktop. We use PushEngage on all our websites and have found it incredibly useful in driving conversions and sales. For more information, see our full PushEngage review.
- Thrive Leads: This helps you capture more leads and convert users into email subscribers and customers. We love its ease of use and performance. This tool is part of the company’s marketing suite, which we have covered in depth in our Thrive Themes Suite review.
- Thrive Quiz Builder: A WordPress quiz builder plugin that allows you to create engaging quizzes to increase user engagement and collect leads. For details, check out our Thrive Quiz Builder review.
- SEOBoost: A powerful SEO content optimizer software that utilizes AI to help you write content for higher rankings. We use it to optimize content on our websites. This tool integrates seamlessly with All in One SEO.
- Thrive Optimize: It allows you to easily run A/B tests in WordPress, which helps you optimize your landing pages for conversions. You can also get it as part of a larger Thrive Themes package.
- WP Mail SMTP: Fix email deliverability in WordPress emails using an SMTP service. We use WP Mail SMTP on our own websites to ensure that our users don’t miss any emails. See our WP Mail SMTP review for more details.
- SendLayer: A reliable email delivery service for WordPress. We use SendLayer for some of our websites, and we love its ease of use and reliability. For more information, see our complete SendLayer review.
- LowFruits: An SEO tool that helps you find low-competition keywords to target for your content. Our teams use it to optimize content and do keyword research.
- Thrive Ultimatum: A scarcity marketing tool that helps you create and manage marketing campaigns with countdown timers. We use countdown timers for marketing campaigns on our websites, and we can tell you that they are highly effective. This tool is also available as part of the Thrive Themes Suite.
- Pretty Links: The best WordPress plugin to manage and track your affiliate links. We like Pretty Links because of its simplicity and ease of use. For details, check out our full Pretty Links review.
- RafflePress: A giveaway plugin that helps you grow your email list, website traffic, and social media followers with viral contests and giveaways. We use RafflePress to run giveaway campaigns on WPBeginner. See our full RafflePress review for more details.
- Beacon: A lead generation plugin that allows you to create and manage lead magnets. We use lead magnets on WPBeginner to grow our email lists.
eCommerce
eCommerce tools are essential for businesses selling products or services online. They provide the functionality you need to manage products, process payments, handle shipping, and more. These tools help create a smooth and secure shopping experience, driving sales and customer satisfaction.
27. WooCommerce
When building an online store with WordPress, WooCommerce is the go-to solution for millions of users worldwide. As the most popular eCommerce platform in the world, it powers over 6 million online stores.
The great thing about WooCommerce is that both small businesses and large enterprises can use it. The plugin is highly customizable and scalable to meet your business’s specific needs.
We don’t personally use WooCommerce on our websites. But that’s simply because we only sell digital products on our partner sites, so most of the plugin’s features would be unnecessary for us.
That said, we have tons of experience testing the tool and even using it to help our clients build their own online stores. For more details, see our full WooCommerce review.
WooCommerce allows you to easily manage your products, payments, and shipping. It also works with many payment gateways, such as PayPal and Stripe, making it simple for customers to buy your products.
The best part is that it also supports countless regional payment services. This means users in countries where PayPal and Stripe are unavailable can use other payment services. WooCommerce makes eCommerce possible for everyone.
What’s more, we have compared WooCommerce and Shopify as well as other selling platforms. During our research, we found that WooCommerce is way ahead of the competition when it comes to customizations.
It supports thousands of add-ons (many of which are free). These WooCommerce add-ons are like apps for your eCommerce store and enable you to add features like advanced shipping options, memberships, and bookings.
This extensibility makes WooCommerce suitable for any eCommerce business, no matter how complex your needs are.
Why we recommend WooCommerce: This plugin is the most flexible and powerful eCommerce solution for WordPress. It’s easy for beginners but also offers advanced features for more complex stores. It has a massive library of add-ons. It also supports more payment services and third-party software than other eCommerce platforms.
Pricing: WooCommerce itself is free to use, but there are additional costs for premium extensions and payment gateway fees. For more details, see our explainer on eCommerce website costs.
28. MemberPress
MemberPress is a full-featured WordPress membership plugin, that allows you to control who can access your content. We like it so much that we even use it to offer our free WordPress courses.
You can take a look at our full MemberPress review for more details about our experience.
With MemberPress, you can offer digital products and subscription services, sell online courses, and build a community around your content.
One of the best things about MemberPress is how easy it is to use. You don’t need any coding skills to set up a membership site.
The plugin’s simple interface makes it easy to create different membership levels, set up payment options, and protect your content. You can also offer free trials, discount coupons, and various pricing options to attract new members.
Plus, MemberPress comes with powerful access control features. Based on the membership level, you can restrict access to specific posts, pages, videos, categories, tags, and even files. This ensures that only paying members can view your premium content.
MemberPress also makes it easy to create courses and lessons, upload media, and restrict access to members only.
We particularly like the membership management features and how easy they are. The plugin even lets you automate billing, send reminders, and pause or cancel memberships. This makes it easier to manage your members and ensure consistent revenue.
The plugin integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services. This allows you to send targeted emails to your members. It also works well with payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe, making it easy to collect payments.
Why we recommend MemberPress: MemberPress is easy to set up, even if you’re new to WordPress. It offers powerful tools for managing memberships, including access control and subscription management. The plugin integrates well with other tools, making it a complete solution for building and managing a membership site.
Pricing: Starts at $179.50/year.
29. Easy Digital Downloads
We use Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) to sell products on several partner websites. It is the best plugin for selling digital downloads using WordPress, and thousands of website owners use it to sell things like eBooks, software, music, and more.
For more information, see our full Easy Digital Downloads review.
One of the best things about EDD is how easy it is to use. You don’t need technical skills to get started. The plugin has a simple setup wizard that helps you add products, set prices, and connect payment options. EDD supports payments through PayPal, Stripe, and credit cards.
It comes with a powerful download management area where you can upload digital products. Using built-in access control features, you can ensure that customers have access only to the products they have paid for.
We love the flexibility of Easy Digital Downloads. With extensions, you can add extra features to your store.
For example, you can set up recurring payments, offer discounts, or manage software licenses. This flexibility is the biggest reason we use EDD to sell digital products for our other businesses.
We also appreciate that EDD always performs optimally with our site. Thanks to its lightweight design, it doesn’t slow down your website. This is important because customers expect fast downloads.
EDD also works well with other WordPress plugins, which means you can easily add more features like email marketing or analytics.
Why we recommend Easy Digital Downloads: Easy Digital Downloads is simple and flexible. It’s great for selling digital products and supports many payment options. The plugin is light on resources, so your website stays fast. Plus, it works well with other tools, making it easy to add more features as your business grows.
Pricing: The core plugin is free, but you can buy premium features. Paid plans start at $99.50/year, depending on what you need.
30. WP Simple Pay
WP Simple Pay is a user-friendly Stripe payment plugin for WordPress. It’s ideal if you want to accept payments online without setting up a full eCommerce store.
We have tested the tool in-depth on our demo sites because our readers have often asked us about it. For more details, check out our complete WP Simple Pay review.
In our opinion, WP Simple Pay is perfect for businesses, nonprofits, and anyone looking to collect payments quickly without additional shopping cart functionality. We have used it on websites where we don’t need the cart functionality but need an easy way to accept payments.
We like WP Simple Pay’s simplicity and ease of use. You don’t need to deal with complex eCommerce setups. Instead, you can create customizable payment forms directly in WordPress.
What’s more, WP Simple Pay comes with a drag-and-drop form builder, which makes designing custom forms super easy, even for total beginners. The plugin also includes several templates to quickly create payment forms for different use cases.
The plugin allows you to accept payments, calculate taxes, and transfer Stripe processing fees to customers. You can also customize the payment confirmation and receipt messages to reflect your branding.
We were also impressed by the payment landing pages. The plugin makes it easy to create a landing page with a highly optimized payment form for conversions.
WP Simple Pay also integrates seamlessly with Stripe, enabling you to accept credit card payments, ACH bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more.
You can create one-time or recurring payments and even offer subscriptions or installment plans. The plugin also supports coupon codes, allowing you to offer discounts and promotions to your customers.
Why we recommend WP Simple Pay: We found WP Simple Pay very easy to use, so it’s accessible even if you don’t have technical experience. Overall, its simplicity makes it perfect if you need to accept payments but don’t want more advanced cart and checkout features. That said, its integration with Stripe lets you securely accept a wide range of payment methods. It also gives you plenty of payment options, including one-time purchases, subscriptions, and installment plans.
Pricing: It starts at $49.50/year. A free version with basic features is also available, called WP Simple Pay Lite.
Additional eCommerce Tools:
- AffiliateWP: An affiliate marketing plugin that helps you manage and grow your affiliate program. For details, check our AffiliateWP review.
- Charitable: A fundraising plugin for WordPress that helps you create and manage donation campaigns. We use Charitable to collect donations on the Balkhi Foundation (non-profit organization) website. Check out our Charitable review for more details.
- Thrive Apprentice: A learning management system (LMS) plugin that helps you create and sell online courses. For details, see our Thrive Apprentice review.
- FunnelKit: A plugin that helps you create sales funnels to increase conversions. We use FunnelKit for a number of businesses. See our detailed FunnelKit review to learn more.
- Advanced Coupons: A plugin that enhances the default WooCommerce coupons with additional features. To learn more, check our Advanced Coupons review.
- WC Vendors: A marketplace plugin that allows you to create a multi-vendor store with WooCommerce. See our WC Vendors review for more information.
- AdTribes: A plugin that helps you manage and optimize your product feeds for marketing channels.
- Sugar Calendar: A simple event management plugin for WordPress. We love Sugar Calendar’s easy Stripe integration, simple ticketing, and Zapier integrations. See our full Sugar Calendar review for more details.
- Business Directory Plugin: A plugin that helps you create and manage a business directory on your WordPress site. See our full Business Directory Plugin review for details.
Socials
Social media integration tools allow you to connect your site with various social media platforms. This integration helps you share content effortlessly, engage with your audience, and boost your online presence. Overall, social media tools are important for increasing traffic, building community, and enhancing your marketing efforts.
40. BuddyBoss
Popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit are easy to use, but we don’t like how they limit your reach. Wouldn’t it be nice if you controlled and owned your online community without depending on big tech companies?
BuddyBoss is the best platform for building online communities, membership sites, and social networks using WordPress.
We recommend it to anyone wanting to create an online community platform like Facebook but with full control over the content and audience.
When testing out this tool on real websites for our full BuddyBoss review, we had a great experience with it.
We like that BuddyBoss lets you create custom member profiles, social groups, and online forums. Members can send private messages, join group discussions, and share photos or videos. The platform supports gamification, allowing you to add points, badges, and ranks to increase engagement.
We found its mobile app integration very exciting. You can create a branded mobile app for your community that works on iOS and Android.
This means your members can stay connected on the go. The mobile app is built using React Native, the same technology used by major platforms like Facebook and Airbnb, ensuring a smooth user experience.
The platform’s integration with WooCommerce and LearnDash makes it perfect for selling courses or memberships while keeping the community engaged through forums and social groups.
Why we recommend BuddyBoss: We love this plugin because it gives you full control over your content and the community you build. It doesn’t require any special skills and works with existing WordPress sites. Overall, it’s ideal for anyone wanting to create a social network or online community but without the limitations of a giant corporation.
Pricing: Starts at $299/year. There are premium packages available with additional features.
41. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon is a suite of social media feed plugins for WordPress. It’s perfect if you want to display content from your social accounts directly on your website.
We have thoroughly tested this suite of tools for our complete Smash Balloon review, and we loved all of them. All of the Smash Balloon plugins are beginner-friendly and highly versatile.
Whether you want to show off your Instagram photos, display Facebook posts, showcase customer reviews, share your Twitter feed, or highlight your YouTube and TikTok videos, Smash Balloon makes it simple and customizable.
It allows you to customize your social media feeds to match your website’s design, with options to change colors, fonts, and layouts without writing any code.
You can also use its Social Wall plugin to combine different platforms and create one feed for all your social content.
One thing we like about this plugin is that all of its layouts are fully mobile responsive. So they look equally good regardless of screen size.
Now, when you embed media from third-party sites, speed should be your first concern. We were delighted with Smash Balloon’s page speed performance.
Each plugin in the Smash Balloon suite loads social media feeds quickly without slowing down your website. Additionally, it supports advanced features like filtering content by hashtags, combining feeds from multiple accounts, and even showing likes, comments, and shares directly on your site.
The Reviews Feed plugin even lets you display customer reviews from Trustpilot, Google, Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor, and more. This way, you can easily add social proof to your site and trigger FOMO for higher conversions.
Why we recommend Smash Balloon: All of Smash Balloon’s plugins are super-fast and user-friendly. They make it easy to display social media content on your WordPress site. Plus, for every type of social feed, you get multiple layouts, beautiful designs, and extensive customization options. This way, you can match the look and feel of your site. Whether you’re a blogger, a business owner, or a social media influencer, Smash Balloon can help keep your audience connected and engaged across platforms.
Pricing: Each plugin (Instagram Feed, Facebook Feed, Twitter Feed, TikTok Feed, Reviews Feed, and YouTube Feed) costs $49/year. The all-access plan with the complete suite costs $299/year.
- Thrive Comments: A commenting plugin that enhances the default WordPress commenting system with additional features. You can also get it as part of Thrive Suite.
- Thrive Ovation: A plugin that helps you collect and display testimonials on your website. Check out our Thrive Ovation review for more information. You can buy the individual plugin or get it with Thrive Suite.
Database Management
Database management software is important for maintaining the integrity, performance, and security of your WordPress database. It helps you optimize, clean, and back up your database, ensuring that your site runs smoothly and efficiently.
In the next section, we will share some of our favorite tools for improving database management.
44. Search & Replace Everything by WPCode
When it comes to building and managing sites with WordPress, we love no-code solutions. That’s why we use Search & Replace Everything by WPCode. This powerful WordPress plugin makes bulk editing tasks quick and easy.
Instead of writing complex SQL queries, you can use a simple interface to search and replace anything in your database.
It can help you update old URLs, correct typos across multiple posts, or make site-wide changes. It is designed to streamline the process and allow you to make large-scale edits with precision and efficiency.
What’s more, Search & Replace Everything is built to handle various types of content across your WordPress site. You can use it to search for and replace text in posts, pages, custom post types, widgets, and even database fields.
The plugin also supports easy image replacement. To do so, simply locate the image you need to change and then click ‘Replace’ to upload the new image.
One of the plugin’s standout features is its “Preview” mode, which allows you to see the changes before applying them. This ensures that you can check your edits and avoid any unintended changes.
Additionally, the plugin provides detailed logs of all search and replace operations, giving you a clear view of what was changed and where.
We have used Search & Replace Everything by WPCode for various tasks, such as updating links after a site migration, correcting errors, or updating bulk content.
Overall, this plugin lets you perform bulk tasks quickly and safely. This can have a huge impact on your workflows, especially when managing large websites with extensive content.
Why we recommend Search & Replace Everything by WPCode: This is an essential tool for any WordPress user who needs to perform bulk edits. Its ease of use and powerful features make it a reliable solution for both beginners and advanced users. Whether you’re managing a large site or just need to make quick edits, this plugin saves time and reduces the risk of errors.
Pricing: Starts at $29/year. A free version is also available with limited features. While you can use Search & Replace Everything as a standalone tool, it also comes with the WPCode Bundle.
45. WPCode
WPCode allows you to easily add custom code snippets in WordPress without editing your theme’s functions.php file. We use it to manage custom code across all of our websites and have only had great experiences working with it.
Whether we need to add tracking codes, customize WordPress functionality, or implement custom styling, WPCode allows us to do so without risking site stability. See our full WPCode review for more details.
In our opinion, WPCode is a must-have tool for developers and non-developers who want to customize their site’s functionality while keeping everything organized and safe.
WPCode offers an intuitive interface for adding and managing custom code snippets, such as PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and more.
The plugin also comes with a built-in library of pre-made snippets, making it easy to add commonly used code to your site with just a few clicks.
One of WPCode’s standout features is its smart conditional logic. We find this feature highly useful because it lets users control where and when each snippet runs on their site. You can target specific pages, posts, or user roles, giving you precise control over your custom code.
Don’t know how to write code? WPCode comes with a built-in AI code generator. Simply describe what you want to do, and it will generate code using artificial intelligence.
Why we recommend WPCode: This plugin is incredibly user-friendly, making it accessible to both developers and non-developers. It offers powerful features like conditional logic, error handling, and code versioning that ensure your custom code is safe and effective.
Pricing: WPCode offers a free version with essential features, while the premium version starts at $49.50/year and provides access to advanced features like conditional logic and premium support.
- WP Optimize: A plugin that helps you clean and optimize your WordPress database. Learn more in our WP Optimize review.
- Transients Manager: A free plugin that helps you manage and clean up transients in your WordPress database.
- SearchWP: A plugin that enhances the default WordPress search functionality. For details, see our SearchWP review.
Photos & Media
Photo and media plugins help you manage and optimize the visual content on your WordPress site. These tools make sure your images and videos load quickly and look great, enhancing the overall user experience.
49. Envira Gallery
Envira Gallery is designed to help you create beautiful, responsive image galleries with ease. Whether you’re a photographer, blogger, or business owner, Envira Gallery offers a powerful yet user-friendly solution to showcase your images in an attractive and organized way.
We like Envira Gallery for its simplicity and performance, and have tested it in-depth for our full Envira Gallery review.
The plugin allows you to create stunning photo galleries with a drag-and-drop builder, making it accessible even for beginners.
You can choose from various pre-built templates to customize the look of your galleries, ensuring they fit seamlessly with your website’s design.
One of Envira Gallery’s strongest points is its speed and responsiveness. The galleries are optimized to load quickly, which is crucial for maintaining a good user experience and improving your site’s SEO.
The plugin also ensures that your galleries look great on all devices, from desktops to mobile phones.
Plus, Envira Gallery offers advanced features like social media integration, allowing visitors to share images directly from the gallery. It also supports watermarking and image protection, helping you safeguard your work.
For those who need more functionality, the plugin includes add-ons for features like video galleries, image tagging, pagination, and WooCommerce integration for selling your photos online.
Why we recommend Envira Gallery: This powerful tool is the best WordPress gallery plugin on the market. It enables you to create fast, responsive, and visually appealing photo galleries on WordPress. Plus, it’s easy to use yet powerful enough to meet the needs of professionals. Overall, the plugin’s flexibility, performance, and extensive range of add-ons make it a valuable addition to any WordPress site.
Pricing: The basic Envira Gallery plan starts at $39.50/year, with more advanced plans available for additional features. A free version with limited features is also available.
- Soliloquy: A responsive slider plugin for WordPress that lets you easily create engaging slideshows. See our Soliloquy review for more details.
- Smash Balloon: A plugin that helps you display social media feeds on your WordPress site. (We love this tool so much that we’ve included it on this list twice.)
- WP Tasty: A suite of plugins designed for food bloggers. Read our WP Tasty review for more details.
- Nutrifox: A nutrition label generator for WordPress. To learn more, see our Nutrifox review.
Customer Satisfaction
Great communication and customer support tools are essential for engaging with your audience and meeting their needs. These tools include live chat, ticketing systems, contact forms, and more. They help you provide timely assistance, improve customer satisfaction, and build strong relationships with your users.
54. UserFeedback
User feedback is important if you want to improve your products and build a loyal customer base. The UserFeedback plugin can help you gather insights directly from your website visitors.
We have tested and tried out this tool extensively. We found that it is beginner-friendly and packed with useful features. For more information, check out our full UserFeedback review.
It allows you to easily create and manage custom feedback forms, surveys, and polls, making it a valuable tool for improving user experience and customer satisfaction. You can then place these forms anywhere on your site.
To get specific feedback, you can choose from various question types, including multiple-choice, open-ended, and rating scales.
One of UserFeedback’s notable features is its real-time reports. You can view responses as they come in, helping you quickly identify trends, issues, or areas of improvement.
The plugin also integrates with popular email marketing services and CRM tools, enabling you to follow up with users based on their feedback or segment your audience for targeted campaigns.
Another useful feature is its conditional logic, which allows you to show or hide questions based on previous answers. This ensures that you gather the most relevant information from your users without overwhelming them with unnecessary questions.
Due to its flexibility, UserFeedback can help you collect valuable insights from customers. That way, you can make informed decisions about your strategies.
Why we recommend UserFeedback: If you want to understand your audience better, UserFeedback is an essential tool. It’s easy to set up and does not affect user experience. The plugin’s advanced features, like real-time reporting and conditional logic, provide deep insights that can help you improve your site and increase user satisfaction.
Pricing: UserFeedback plans start at $49.50/year. There is also a free plugin available.
- TrustPulse: A social proof plugin that helps you increase conversions by displaying recent customer activity on your website. Check out our TrustPulse review for details.
- Groove: A help desk software that helps you manage customer support tickets. See our Groove review for more information.
- HeroThemes: A plugin suite designed to help you create and manage a knowledge base on your WordPress site. Read our HeroThemes review for details.
Forms & Automation
Forms and automation tools make it easier to collect information and automate tasks on your site. These tools help you create and manage forms, automate workflows, and boost user interaction, making your site more efficient and user-friendly.
58. Formidable Forms
Formidable Forms is one of the most advanced WordPress form builder plugins available today. We like how it simplifies the creation of complex forms, making it ideal for developers, businesses, and anyone who needs more than basic contact forms.
We’ve used this plugin many times in the past and have covered it in detail in our full Formidable Forms review.
Formidable Forms offers a drag-and-drop form builder that allows you to create everything from simple contact forms to complex multi-page forms, surveys, and quizzes.
The plugin stands out for its advanced features, such as conditional logic, which allows you to show or hide form fields based on user input. This makes your forms more dynamic and tailored to the individual user’s responses.
One of Formidable Forms’ most powerful features is its ability to create data-driven web applications. The plugin can collect data through forms and then display that data in charts, graphs, and directories.
This is particularly useful for businesses that need to manage and display large amounts of data, such as directories, listings, or even job boards.
Another feature that we found incredibly helpful is the templates. It comes with tons of templates for different types of online calculators, payments, and WooCommerce forms, allowing you to customize them quickly for your own requirements.
Formidable Forms also integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services, payment gateways, and other tools, allowing you to extend the functionality of your forms.
Why we recommend Formidable Forms: This form plugin is perfect for users who need more than just a simple form builder. Its advanced features, such as conditional logic, data management, dynamic fields, and calculations, make it a versatile tool for creating complex forms and applications.
Pricing: Formidable Forms starts at $39.50/year for the Basic plan. Higher-tier plans with additional features are also available.
59. Uncanny Automator
Whenever possible, we try to automate manual website tasks to save time and boost productivity. Uncanny Automator is a powerful automation plugin for WordPress websites that helps us do that.
Take a look at our Uncanny Automator review for more details.
This powerful tool lets you create automated workflows across different plugins, apps, and services without writing a single line of code. It can be a game changer for larger businesses and online stores.
That’s because lots of regular WordPress website management tasks are repetitive and don’t require user input. Automating those tasks can save you tons of time and also reduce instances of human error.
Uncanny Automator works by connecting different WordPress plugins and third-party apps to create automated workflows known as ‘Recipes.’
For example, you can set up a recipe that automatically adds a user to a specific email list when they purchase in your WooCommerce store or one that sends a Slack notification when a new form submission is received.
We love its recipe builder, which has a simple, user-friendly interface where you select triggers (the events that start the workflow) and actions (what happens when the trigger is activated).
Uncanny Automator offers an impressive amount of integrations. It supports over 80 plugins and apps, including WooCommerce, WPForms, MemberPress, BuddyBoss, Slack, Google Sheets, and many more.
With Uncanny Automator, you can automate almost any process on your WordPress site, from eCommerce to eLearning, without needing to switch between multiple tools or hire a developer.
We have found it highly helpful for day-to-day tasks on many of our websites. It saves time, reduces the chances of errors, and reduces workload.
The plugin also offers advanced options, such as conditional logic, which lets you add conditions to your recipes. This means you can create highly targeted and customized workflows based on specific criteria. Overal, this makes sure that your automation is as efficient and effective as possible.
Why we recommend Uncanny Automator: This tool brings the power of automation to WordPress. Its wide range of integrations and ability to create complex workflows without coding make it a valuable tool for any website owner.
Pricing: Starting from $149/year for a single site. There is also a free version of the plugin.
Bonus: WordPress Services
WordPress comes with a slight learning curve, and website owners have to continually manage the software. If you are a small business with a limited budget, then you can spend time doing that by yourself. However, if you manage multiple websites or need extra help, these services can help you.
WPBeginner Pro Services
One of the requests we always get in our annual WPBeginner reader survey is to offer affordable WordPress development and website management services. WPBeginner Pro Services aims to bridge the gap between DIY solutions and professional, tailored support.
It is ideal for small businesses, bloggers, and entrepreneurs who may not have the time or technical expertise to manage all parts of their WordPress sites. It’s also perfect for those who want to take their site to the next level without the steep learning curve.
When you hire WPBeginner Pro Services, you’re working with a team that has been deeply involved in the WordPress community for years. Our experts understand the platform inside and out, and we’ve helped millions of users through our tutorials and tools.
Services Offered:
WPBeginner Pro Services includes a range of offerings designed to meet the specific needs of WordPress users:
- WordPress Maintenance Service: Let professionals manage your WordPress updates and cloud backups and monitor your site 24/7.
- WordPress Website Design: Get a professionally designed WordPress website custom-made to your requirements.
- WordPress Speed Optimization: Optimize your WordPress site for performance and speed.
- Hacked Site Repair: Professional WordPress security experts clean your site and restore it in the case of a cyberattack or data breach.
- Emergency WordPress Support: Get quick WordPress help in times of crisis or hire professional WordPress developers for custom solutions.
Each service is delivered with the same attention to detail and quality that WPBeginner is known for. Whether you need a one-time fix or ongoing support, our team is here to help.
Why we recommend WPBeginner Pro Services: Hiring professionals to help with behind-the-scenes and technical tasks allows you to focus on growing your business. WPBeginner offers affordable options, as you only pay for the services you need.
Pricing: WPBeginner Pro Services offers customized pricing based on your specific needs. This ensures that you get the right level of support without paying extra.
Training & Resources
Software will likely make up the majority of your WordPress toolkit. However, having access to training and resources is just as important!
In this next section, we’ll share some extra resources, including tutorials, documentation, and courses. These will help you stay up-to-date with the latest WordPress developments and best practices:
- Free WordPress Courses and Video Tutorials – Quickly learn WordPress with step-by-step video courses designed for beginners.
- WBeginner Facebook Group – Join our free community of 98,000+ WordPress experts and beginners.
- WPBeginner on YouTube – Follow our YouTube channel with over 1 million subscribers, 1000 videos, and 54 million page views.
- WordPress Glossary – Look up commonly used WordPress terms.
- WPBeginner Solutions Center – Find the best WordPress tools curated by our WordPress experts.
Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress Toolkit
Here are answers to some of the questions our readers often ask about WordPress toolkits.
1. What is a WordPress toolkit, and why do I need one as a pro?
A WordPress toolkit is a collection of essential tools, plugins, and services that boost your website’s functionality, security, performance, and design. As a pro, having the right toolkit saves you time, boosts productivity, and ensures you can handle all aspects of running a WordPress site more effectively.
2. Are these WordPress tools suitable for beginners as well?
Yes, many of the WordPress tools we mentioned are suitable for beginners, although they’re primarily aimed at professionals. Some tools offer beginner-friendly interfaces and tutorials to help you get started quickly. However, advanced users will find additional features to make their workflows more efficient.
3. How do I choose the right tools from this list for my WordPress site?
Choosing the right tools depends on your WordPress site’s specific needs. Focus on what problems you’re trying to solve—whether it’s improving SEO, speeding up your site, or enhancing security. Start with the essential tools for your goals, then expand as your site grows.
4. Are these tools free, or do they require payment?
Our list of WordPress toolkit plugins and software includes both free and paid tools. Some offer free versions with limited features (freemium), while others are entirely premium. It’s always best to assess your needs and budget before investing in premium tools, but many free versions can meet the most basic requirements.
5. Can I use multiple tools from this WordPress toolkit together without conflicts?
Yes, most tools in this toolkit are designed to work smoothly together. However, it’s important to test any new tool you add to your site, as sometimes conflicts can arise depending on your specific theme or existing plugins. Keeping your plugins up to date helps avoid compatibility issues.
Managing a WordPress website can be difficult if you don’t know the right tools to use. We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress toolkit plugin in every category.
You may also want to look at our pick of the most popular WordPress themes and see our article on the cost of building a WordPress site for practical tips on controlling your site’s budget.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit for Pros (59+ Must-Have Tools) first appeared on WPBeginner.
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