Is Hello Bar or Privy cheaper?

Hello Bar starts at Free (about 5,000 lifetime popup views); paid plans from $29 per month (free plan available). Privy starts at $24 per month for the Pop Ups and Displays plan (10,000 monthly pageviews); $30 per month for the Email plan (up to 1,500 contacts) (15 days trial).

Hello Bar vs Privy

An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.

The short answer

Editorial assessment

Hello Bar compared with Privy

Different buyers wearing similar interfaces. Privy is built for Shopify: cart-value targeting, abandoned-cart flows, coupon issuing, and its own email and SMS sending. Hello Bar is platform-agnostic and stops at capture, handing the contact to whatever list tool you already use. An ecommerce store on Shopify will get more out of Privy; a blog, a service business, or a site on WordPress or Squarespace is better served by Hello Bar.

Choose Hello Bar if

Small businesses, bloggers, and marketing teams on WordPress or a hosted site builder that want email capture and announcement bars working the same afternoon, without learning a funnel builder or paying by subscriber count.

Choose Privy if

Small and growing Shopify, BigCommerce, and Wix stores that want list capture, email, and SMS from one vendor at a predictable low starting price, and that value a fast setup over deep segmentation or branching automation logic.

Side by side

13 attributes

Attribute	Hello Bar	Privy
Category	Lead Capture	Lead Capture
Starting price	Free (about 5,000 lifetime popup views); paid plans from $29 per month (free plan available)	$24 per month for the Pop Ups and Displays plan (10,000 monthly pageviews); $30 per month for the Email plan (up to 1,500 contacts) (15 days trial)
Pricing model	Flat monthly subscription metered on popup views, the number of times your campaigns are displayed. Popups, campaigns, and captured subscribers are unlimited on every paid plan; what steps up between tiers is the view allowance, support level, seat count, and access to the premium CRM integrations. Annual billing is discounted by roughly a fifth.	Two independent meters. Email plans are priced by the number of mailable contacts and include unlimited sends, popups, displays, campaigns, and automations. A Pop Ups and Displays only plan is priced by monthly pageviews for merchants who want lead capture without Privy's messaging. SMS is an optional add-on sold in monthly credit packages that roll over. Billing is monthly with no annual contract.
Free plan	Starter: unlimited popups and subscribers capped at roughly 5,000 total popup views, pre-built themes only, no A/B testing, Hello Bar branding on every unit	No
Free trial	Free plan rather than a time-limited trial; no credit card required to start	15 days, no credit card required
Best for	Small businesses, bloggers, and marketing teams on WordPress or a hosted site builder that want email capture and announcement bars working the same afternoon, without learning a funnel builder or paying by subscriber count.	Small and growing Shopify, BigCommerce, and Wix stores that want list capture, email, and SMS from one vendor at a predictable low starting price, and that value a fast setup over deep segmentation or branching automation logic.
Setup time	Fifteen minutes to a live campaign on a mainstream platform: install the script or the WordPress plugin, pick a goal and template, edit the copy inline, set a trigger, publish. Connecting an email provider adds a few minutes; a webhook integration adds an hour of developer time at most.	Under an hour to install and publish a first display on Shopify, since the app handles the script and pulls store data automatically. A complete setup with several displays, a welcome series, and an abandoned cart flow is typically one working day.
Learning curve	Low. The builder is goal-first and the editor is direct manipulation, so a non-technical owner can ship a campaign without documentation. The part that takes judgment is targeting: unrestricted campaigns burn view allowance and annoy readers, and the discipline of limiting a unit to the right pages and visit counts is learned rather than obvious.	Low. The editors are template-first and the flow builder ships pre-built sequences, so most merchants never build an automation from a blank canvas. The skill that takes longer is restraint: deciding which displays not to run so a visitor does not meet three overlays in one session.
Platforms	Web (JavaScript snippet), WordPress plugin, Google Tag Manager, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, Blogger, Mobile web	Shopify (primary), BigCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, WordPress.org, Web (JavaScript snippet)
Compliance	GDPR	GDPR, CCPA, TCPA (SMS consent, quiet hours, opt-out handling), CAN-SPAM
Founded	2011	2011
Headquarters	San Diego, California, United States	Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Ownership	Privately held; acquired by Crazy Egg in 2012 and operated within Neil Patel's group of marketing tools	Independent (Privy Operations) following divestment from Attentive in 2023

Strengths and limitations

Hello Bar

Strengths

Genuinely fast from install to a live campaign; a bar or exit-intent modal is publishable within an hour of pasting the script.
Priced on views rather than subscribers, so a large existing email list costs nothing extra to keep growing.
A/B testing is included on every paid plan instead of being reserved for a top tier, which is not the norm in this category.
Six unit types including the original top bar, so announcements, calls, and email capture are all served by one tool.

Limitations

The free Starter plan's 5,000 popup views are a lifetime allowance rather than a monthly one, which is easy to misread and exhausts quickly on a real site.
No multi-step or two-step optin funnels, no dynamic content replacement, and no cart-value or behavioral personalization; campaigns are one offer shown once.
No gamified formats such as spin-to-win wheels, which are a standard expectation for ecommerce optins.
The premium CRM integrations are gated to the $99 Elite plan, so a small team needing a proper CRM connector pays for view volume it will never use.

Privy

Strengths

One vendor covers popups, email, and SMS, which removes the coupon and handoff breakage that plagues stitched-together stacks.
Genuinely fast setup: a working exit-intent popup with a discount code and confirmation email is an afternoon's work with no developer involved.
The strongest display format library in the small-store segment, including spin-to-win, mobile flyouts, and cart savers that other popup tools charge extra for.
Standalone Displays pricing lets Klaviyo and Mailchimp users buy just the capture layer without duplicating their email spend.

Limitations

The free plan is gone. Privy historically offered a free tier for small lists and now offers only a 15 day trial, which removes the on-ramp that built its reputation.
Segmentation stays basic: new versus returning, location, device, and purchase history, with no predictive scoring and no deeply nested conditions.
Automation flows are largely pre-built sequences rather than the branching, conditional logic available in Klaviyo or Omnisend, so complex lifecycle programs hit a ceiling.
Billing after cancellation is the most common complaint in negative reviews: merchants report charges continuing after uninstalling the app, because removing the Shopify app does not always end the Privy subscription.

Pricing compared

Hello Bar

Flat monthly subscription metered on popup views, the number of times your campaigns are displayed. Popups, campaigns, and captured subscribers are unlimited on every paid plan; what steps up between tiers is the view allowance, support level, seat count, and access to the premium CRM integrations. Annual billing is discounted by roughly a fifth.

Starter$0
Growth$29
Premium$49
Elite$99

At $29 a month for 50,000 views with A/B testing included and no charge per subscriber, Hello Bar is priced sensibly for a small site and unusually well for anyone with a large list, since the meter ignores list size entirely. The awkward spot is the middle: a moderately busy site can burn 150,000 views without generating enough leads to justify $49, because views are consumed by everyone who sees a unit rather than everyone who acts on it. The free plan is a trial in all but name given the lifetime cap. Judged on capability per dollar it sits below OptinMonster on features and above Poptin on polish, and it wins mainly on how quickly a non-technical owner gets a working campaign live.

Privy

Two independent meters. Email plans are priced by the number of mailable contacts and include unlimited sends, popups, displays, campaigns, and automations. A Pop Ups and Displays only plan is priced by monthly pageviews for merchants who want lead capture without Privy's messaging. SMS is an optional add-on sold in monthly credit packages that roll over. Billing is monthly with no annual contract.

Pop Ups & DisplaysFrom $24
EmailFrom $30
Email and SMSFrom $45

For a store under roughly $50k a month in revenue, $30 buys capture, email, and automation from one vendor, which is genuinely hard to beat on capability per dollar; the abandoned cart flow alone usually clears the cost. The value proposition weakens in two directions. Below it, the loss of the free plan means the smallest stores now pay from day 16, and dedicated popup tools start cheaper. Above it, contact-based pricing climbs steadily while the segmentation and automation depth does not, so by the time you are paying several hundred dollars a month you are paying Klaviyo money for less than Klaviyo capability. Privy is priced well for its intended band and poorly for anyone who sits outside it.

Editorial verdict on each

Hello Bar

Hello Bar invented the notification bar and has spent fifteen years resisting the temptation to become a funnel builder, which is the most useful thing about it. Fifteen minutes gets a small business owner a working exit-intent modal or a scheduled sale bar, A/B testing is included at $29 rather than dangled from a top tier, and pricing on views rather than subscribers means growing a list costs nothing extra. The trade-offs are real and specific: the free plan's 5,000 views are a lifetime allowance and not a monthly one, the premium CRM connectors sit behind the $99 plan, live chat expires after 90 days on the entry tier, and there is no gamification, no multi-step optin, and no revenue reporting. Buy it if simple, fast, and reliable describes what you want from lead capture; look at OptinMonster if the optin strategy itself is the work, or at Privy if the site is a Shopify store.

Read the full Hello Bar profile

Privy

Privy is one of the few tools that does list capture and lifecycle messaging properly at a small-store price, and the reason is architectural rather than promotional: the popup that issues a discount code and the email that delivers it are the same system, which removes the most common failure point in a stitched-together stack. The display library is the best in its price band and the standalone Displays plan is a smart, honest option for merchants who already pay for Klaviyo. The reservations are real and specific. The free plan is gone, so the on-ramp that built the brand no longer exists. Segmentation and automation depth stop where a serious lifecycle program starts, which makes Privy a stage rather than a destination. And the persistent reports of billing continuing after uninstall are a support problem the company has been slow to fix, so cancel inside Privy rather than through Shopify. Judged against what a store under roughly $50k a month actually needs, it remains a strong buy; judged against where that store will be in two years, plan the exit at the same time you plan the install.

Read the full Privy profile

Hello Bar profile last reviewed 2026-08-23; Privy last reviewed 2026-08-23. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.