Hello Bar

Hello Bar is a popup and notification-bar builder. It started as a header strip in 2011 and now ships bars, modals, alerts, sliders, page takeovers and inline calls to action. Paid plans start at $39 a month billed yearly on hellobar.com/pricing (checked 23 August 2026). That Growth plan includes 50,000 popup views a month and A/B tests.

It is a fair pick if you want a bar or a simple opt-in live today and you already have an email tool. It is a weak pick if you need spin-to-win, product recommendations or a dedicated strategist. OptiMonk undercuts it on annual price and ships more campaign types. Mailmunch is cheaper if you also need to send the email.

PopupBuilder.io is independent. Hello Bar does not pay for this page.

What is Hello Bar in 2026?

The product is no longer "just a bar." The marketing site calls it a popup builder and lists five formats on every plan: persistent header and footer bars, modals, small floating alerts, sliders, and full-screen takeovers. The homepage also talks about inline calls to action inside articles.

That matches how people actually use it. A media site still slaps a subscribe bar under the nav. A store still fires an exit modal. The name is leftover.

What has not changed is the pitch: get a unit on the page in a few minutes, no developer. You paste a snippet, or you use the WordPress plugin, the Wix app, or a Shopify install. The builder has pre-built themes and a design assistant that tries to match your site's colours and fonts.

Hello Bar LLC sits in La Jolla, California. Neil Patel, Chuck Longanecker and Mike Kamo founded it. Crazy Egg bought the product in August 2012. Legion Works, Inc. bought Hello Bar LLC from Mike Kamo on 31 December 2021 for $2.75 million (SEC Form 1-U). LinkedIn still lists a 2–10 person company. Neil Patel still appears on the homepage as a co-builder. The footer on hellobar.com reads "© 2024 Hello Bar LLC."

How much does Hello Bar cost?

The hero cards on hellobar.com/pricing (23 August 2026) print these annual rates:

The same page has a monthly/yearly toggle and claims you save up to 24% on yearly billing. The monthly dollar amounts did not render in the static HTML, so we are not inventing them.

A separate feature table on that same URL still lists Growth at $29, Premium at $49 and Elite at $99. Hello Bar's own March 2026 comparison post uses $39 / $69 / $129. We treat the hero cards and that post as current, and we flag the table as stale. The homepage still says "plans from $29/month," which matches the old list.

The meter is popup views, not site pageviews. A visitor who never sees a Hello Bar unit does not count. Go over the cap and Hello Bar bills overages: $5 per 5,000 extra views on Growth, $5 per 10,000 on Premium, $5 per 25,000 on Elite (overage article, updated 18 September 2024).

Starter is free forever, but those 5,000 views do not refresh. The support plan article calls them "non-renewing." Branding stays on. A/B tests do not.

Full breakdown on the Hello Bar pricing page.

What campaign types does it ship?

Five formats, listed on the pricing page as included with every plan:

• Bars. Header or footer strips that scroll with the page. This is still the product's natural shape: an announcement, a coupon, a subscribe prompt.
• Modals. Overlay popups for lead capture, surveys and offers.
• Alerts. Small floating messages.
• Sliders. Rotating panels.
• Page takeovers. Full-screen interrupts, usually for a sale or a hard opt-in.

The homepage also claims 12 trigger types and 30+ targeting rules. Public docs confirm date rules, time-of-day rules, geo (city / state / country), device, traffic source, number of visits and previous-page URL. Exit intent, scroll, time on page, visit count and click-to-open are in the marketing copy.

A/B testing is on every paid plan and off on Starter. That is the main reason to leave free.

How does targeting work?

Paid plans get customisable targeting. Starter is labelled "basic."

Geo, date and time sit in the builder under Targeting. Date rules can be "is," "is not," "before," "after" or "between." Hello Bar measures dates in UTC, so a US sale window usually needs a time rule as well (date targeting, updated 23 July 2026). Time rules use 24-hour clocks and can follow the visitor's timezone.

Geo can fire on a country, a state/province, or a city inside a state and country. Support still describes geo as a paid-plan feature.

That is enough for a holiday bar, a region-specific offer, or a mobile-only slider. It is not enough if you want cart-value rules, product-recommendation blocks or a quiz that branches.

Who owns Hello Bar, and who is it for?

Hello Bar LLC. Small team. Neil Patel is still the public face. Sister product: Subscribers.com for web push.

The homepage claims "over 600,000 websites." That is a vendor figure, not a third-party count. G2's review mix is 79% small business.

Use it if you:

• want a bar or a modal live this afternoon
• already send email from Mailchimp, Kit, Klaviyo or Constant Contact
• sit under ~50,000 popup views a month and do not want to think about CRO tooling

Skip it if you:

• run a store that needs gamified campaigns or product recs
• need a free plan that actually refreshes each month (OptiMonk's free plan is 10,000 site pageviews a month, unbranded)
• want a platform with a live G2 profile and a thick review set

How do reviewers score it?

G2 lists Hello Bar at 4.7 / 5 from 25 reviews (checked 23 August 2026). Ease of use 9.0, ease of setup 9.1, quality of support 9.0, meets requirements 8.8. Eighty-four percent of those reviews are 5-star.

Read that score with the sample size. Twenty-five reviews is a thin set. G2 also flags the profile as unmanaged: "No one has managed this profile for over a year." The homepage still prints 4.7/5 on G2, plus 4.6 Capterra, 4.5 Software Advice and 4.4 on WordPress. We did not independently recount Capterra.

What reviewers repeat, in short: install is easy, templates are enough for a bar, support answers. What they complain about: design depth, targeting vs the bigger tools, analytics.

The longer write-up is the Hello Bar review.

How does Hello Bar compare to alternatives?

For most jobs, someone else is the better default.

Pair write-ups: Hello Bar vs Adoric, Hello Bar vs Mailmunch, OptiMonk vs Hello Bar. The full list is on Hello Bar alternatives.

What are the trade-offs?

The 2023 version of this page said scheduling did not exist and HubSpot was missing. Both are stale.

What holds up

• Speed. A new teammate can ship a bar without a briefing.
• Paid-plan targeting is real: geo, date, time, device, source.
• HubSpot, Klaviyo, Salesforce, Kit (still labelled ConvertKit), Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Zapier and webhooks are on the integrations directory.
• A/B tests sit on Growth, not behind Elite.

What still bites

• Starter's 5,000 views never reset. Treat free as a demo.
• The public pricing page disagrees with itself. Budget from the hero cards, then confirm in the signup flow.
• HubSpot and Salesforce showed up as Elite-only in the August 2023 plan article. The 2026 pricing grid only says "Premium" vs "Advanced" email integrations. We could not confirm current gating from the public page.
• Analytics are clicks, conversions and custom reports. There is no revenue attribution of the OptinMonster or Wisepops kind.
• G2 is a 25-review, unmanaged profile. Do not treat 4.7 as a crowd.

Which templates and use cases fit?

Hello Bar's own examples are the usual set: email capture, a sale or coupon, a cart-nudge, a feedback ask, a "go read this other post" prompt. A bar is still the format that fits the product. A takeover is available if you want to be loud on exit.

The design assistant and the theme library are the path of least resistance. Custom HTML uploads are not documented. We are not claiming they exist.

Which tools does it connect to?

The directory at hellobar.com/integrations lists, among others:

• Email: AWeber, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, ConvertKit, Drip, GetResponse, HubSpot, Keap, Iterable, Klaviyo, MailerLite, Maropost, MyEmma, Sailthru, Vertical Response, Sender
• CRM: HubSpot, Keap, Salesforce
• Automation: Zapier, Integrately, webhooks
• Commerce and CMS: Shopify, BigCommerce, WordPress, Wix, Duda
• Chat: Slack, Intercom, a plain email notify

How-tos we keep current: WordPress, Wix, ConvertKit, Constant Contact, webhooks. Tag archive: Hello Bar integrations.

Where is the documentation?

Vendor help lives at support.hellobar.com. Our copies of the common jobs: turn off branding, geo rules, date and time display, reset a password. Tag archive: Hello Bar help.

Common questions

Does Hello Bar slow down my website?

Hello Bar's own FAQ says the script is lightweight and campaigns only load when their rules match. The older support article Does Hello Bar Slow My Site Down? is more cautious: it is JavaScript, so it can add a little work, usually in the same band as a tag like Google Analytics. Unoptimised images and ad units will dwarf it. We did not run our own lab test, so treat both claims as vendor-side.

Why is Hello Bar covering my header?

Support's answer is still the one that matches the product: the bar and a position: fixed header fight for the same strip. Turn on the "pushes page down" style, move the unit to the bottom, or switch the format to a slider, modal or takeover. Article: Why is Hello Bar covering my header?.

Where can I find my Hello Bar code?

In the dashboard: username menu → Installation Instructions, or Settings → Installation Instructions. WordPress users paste that snippet into the Hello Bar plugin. Wix users either drop a site ID into the Hello Bar app or paste the snippet under Settings → Custom Code. Direct links: WordPress, Wix app, Wix custom code.