If you are looking for a way to keep your website private and under wraps while you are building it or giving an existing site a refresh, you will be pleased to know there are a number of WordPress plugins that can help you out.
In this post we will take a look at some of the different tools that you can use to create under maintenance or coming soon pages, in order to help you choose the right one for your needs.
The Best Coming Soon Plugins for WordPress
Of the different plugins of this type, there are some common features to look out for, including:
Collect email addresses
Email newsletter service integration
Social media links
Good design options
Responsive layouts
Exportable reusable settings
Allow certain users to still view the full site
While the features vary from plugin to plugin, being able to display an attractive image, and either collect an email address or display a link to your social media profiles are the most useful features to look out for.
SeedProd Coming Soon Pro
SeedProd allows you to create professional and attractive coming soon and maintenance mode pages for your WordPress site. The plugin can be activated while you are working on the site so that visitors just see an attractive launch page, allowing you to work away on the site peace.
Even after your site has gone live, SeedProd can be turned on again when you are doing any updates or maintenance on your website. One of the best features of this plugin is that your coming soon page can include a signup optin form to allow visitors to join your mailing list in order to get notified when your new site goes live.
Notable features of SeedProd Coming Soon Pro include:
Display a signup form to collect email addresses
Choose from a range of templates or design your own
Integrates with popular email marketing services
Support for displaying social media icons
Allow specific users to still access the site
Fully responsive to suit screens of any size
Optional progress bars and countdown timers
Import and export settings for use on other sites
View the full list of features
SeedProd has been used on many sites so there is a good chance you have run into it before. If you want to see how it can be put to great use, check out the showcase section of their website.
This plugin is easy to setup, and with a range of templates to choose from, you don’t need to have any particular skills to put SeedProd to great use. If you want to share your work in progress site to particular users, you can give them a link to bypass the holding page, or allow certain users, or those on specific IP addresses to circumvent the SeedProd page.
SeedProd isn’t free but it won’t break the bank either and is available on three pricing plans:
Personal: $29 (1 site)
Business: $49 (5 sites)
Developer: $99 $49 (unlimited sites)
If you are a developer, creating websites for clients then the prospect of being able to quickly activate SeedProd and display an attractive coming soon page makes investing in this tool an easy decision to make.
SeedProd is my pick of the bunch, so if you are looking for a good all-rounder and don’t mind paying for it, then you should definitely check this plugin out now.
Get SeedProd Coming Son Pro now
Easy Coming Soon Pro
This is another premium plugin for quickly adding a coming soon page to your WordPress before it goes live. This is a pretty versatile option and can double up as landing page builder in order to help you promote any products or services you might have under development, while leaving the rest of your site open to visitors.
Features of Easy Coming Soon Pro include:
Includes two predesigned templates
Add your own logo and background images
Change the fonts and colours
Display a signup optin form
Integrates with popular email newsletter services
Allow certain users to bypass the coming soon page
Display links to social media profiles
Include progress bars and countdown timers
Responsive design for use on multiple devices
As you can see this plugin has a very similar feature list to SeedProd Coming Soon Pro, and that plugin edges past Easy Coming Soon Pro thanks to its more appealing design, although you may think otherwise.
Get Easy Coming Soon Pro
Easy Maintenance Mode
This is the free version of the above plugin Easy Coming Soon Pro. The most noticeable omission is the signup optin form for allowing visitors to join your email mailing list, with free version only allowing you to display some text and social media icons on top of a background image.
However, by using the social media icons, which link to your profiles, it does give your visitors a way to connect with your project and get notifications on its progress. You can also enter your Google Analytics code if you aren’t using a suitable plugin already on your site.
The user interface is pretty poor on the backend and instead of using the native WordPress UI, the developers have tried do a better job without managing to succeed. However, setting up your coming soon page isn’t complicated thanks mainly to the limited options on offer.
If you just want a quick and no frills way to display a full screen image, some text and your social media links when your site is under development, then Easy Maintenance Mode is up to the job. However, when I tested this plugin, the message box was noticeably off centre which might be unacceptable to some users.
Get Easy Maintenance Mode now
Easy Pie Maintenance Mode
Easy Pie Maintenance Mode is a free plugin for letting your visitors know your site is unavailable and under construction.
There really isn’t much to do once you’ve activated this plugin, with it simply being a case of choosing from one of the four templates or mini-themes, entering the text for the page, uploading a logo, and adding any optional custom CSS.
If you don’t like the bundled mini-themes you can have a go at creating your own and then using the custom CSS field.
Get Easy Pie Maintenance Mode now
Easy Pie Coming Soon
This is a more feature rich version of the above plugin, so even if you aren’t building a coming soon page, it’s a better choice for creating a maintenance mode as well as a coming soon page.
Some of the features of this free coming soon plugin include:
Collect email addresses
Add links to social profiles
Display a YouTube video
Set a background colour or image
Set the fonts and text colour
Upload a logo
Display a countdown timer
Preview your design before going live
SEO options, return either a 503 or 200 code
Add custom CSS
While this plugin doesn’t offer integration with any email marketing services, such as AWeber, you can export the list of email addresses to be imported into your service of choice.
Easy Pie Coming Soon is a really good free option that includes many useful features. The user interface is native making it integrate seamlessly with the rest of WordPress and therefore very easy to use. If you are looking for a reliable free coming soon plugin you won’t be disappointed.
Get Easy Pie Coming Soon now
Other Options to Explore
While the above plugins represent a good sample of the free and premium coming soon and maintenance mode plugins available, here are some more free options you might want to check out:
WP Maintenance Mode (4.4 stars, 1,164,729 downloads)
Ultimate Maintenance Mode (4.6 stars, 210,116 downloads)
Coming Soon / Maintenance mode Ready! (4 stars, 329,632 downloads)
Conclusion
Now you should have some good options for displaying something useful and well designed to your visitors while you are working on your website. With free and premium options to choose from, it doesn’t matter what your budget is, there is now no excuse for letting your audience find your half-finished project.
When it comes to my recommendations, SeedProd Coming Soon Pro is my pick from the above options due to its great design – for both the front and back end – and its excellent set of features. Of the free options, Easy Pie Coming Soon is my choice due to its good range of features, nice design, and ease of use.
To get the most from these plugins and create a good looking holding page, you will need to supply your own photos or images to use for the page background. However, our guide to finding free images for your site will help you out here.
Which plugin are you going to use for your coming soon page and have I missed any good options out?
Last Updated: Friday, July 18, 2014