7 Push Notification Software, Compared [Free & Paid]

In this guide, you will find dedicated push notification software and marketing platforms that include web and mobile pushes as one of the channels.

We will explore software options tailored to all budgets and website platforms, so you should find a few options to consider regardless if your needs are that of a Shopify store, a SaaS business website, or a WordPress blog.

Get started:

• How to choose

• Best push notification software

How to choose the best push notification software for your business?

For this post, I've tried to choose options that fall into these four categories, giving you choices based on their specific strategy needs and budget:

• Dedicated push notification tools: if you need only push notifications to promote your online business

• Onsite engagement platforms: if you need to engage visitors while they are on a website (popups, product recommendations, embedded forms, etc.) and then retarget them offsite with pushes in one tool

• Omnichannel marketing platforms: if you need tools that combine push notifications with email, SMS, and other outreach channels

• Messaging-first engagement platforms: if you need tools with channels like in-app messaging, WhatsApp, and SMS messages

Push notification software

Wisepops

Wisepops isn’t just a push notification tool—it’s an onsite engagement platform designed for ecommerce and B2B businesses looking for one platform to increase conversions, capture leads, and engage visitors.

The platform offers pushes as a channel within its powerful suite of features.

Unlike dedicated software, Wisepops takes a comprehensive approach by combining multiple tools and functionalities:

• Push notifications to re-engage visitors and bring them back

• Lead capture features (popups, the feed, sticky bars, embedded forms) to grow email and phone number lists continuously

• CRO features like the Experimentation platform with advanced A/B tests and data like revenue per user, number of visited pages, and time on website

• Advanced targeting: by audience, browsing behavior, shopping history, cart content, traffic source, and more

• Goal and revenue tracking to know the exact impact of your campaigns on your marketing strategy and revenues

We chose this approach to help businesses cut costs by eliminating the need for multiple marketing platforms.

Instead of paying separately for web push notification tools, lead capture software, and CRO solutions (potentially exceeding $2,000 per month), you can have everything in one place for a fraction of that cost.

Key features:

• Target recipients by visited pages, devices, and location

• Let customers know that products are back in stock

• Create personalized pushes based on items bought or order count

• Re-engage inactive customers through targeted pushes tailored to their last order date

• Track goals and revenue to see how much your campaigns generated

• Create personalized offers to visitors (for example, in popups or bars) who clicked on pushes to personalize marketing offers

Pros:

• Beginner-friendly interface

• Multiple ways to collect push subscribers: dedicated popups and onsite feed

• Useful targeting options for ecommerce stores (last order date, shopping cart value, back-in-stock alerts, etc.)

• Track the impact of your push notification campaigns by setting goals like orders, visits, and revenue

• Engage and convert visitors with a suite of onsite channels for every use case (popups, the feed, bars, and embedded forms)

• Show personalized product recommendations automatically with AI (best sellers, recently viewed, frequently bought together, personalized, and more)

• Understand the impact of your campaigns with detailed engagement analytics (top pages, top countries, percentage of website visitors reached, and more)

• Add both onsite and offsite channels to your strategy with one tool, combined with powerful CRO experiments and tests

• Export your campaign performance data easily for analysis

• Integrate with your software directly or through Zapier (list of integrations) for efficiency

Cons:

• No free plan (but a 14-day free trial with all premium features available)

Review of Wisepops

Using Wisepops for pushes is super easy thanks to the clean interface and a straightforward campaign editor.

First off, you can quickly build your list of subscribers using two channels: dedicated popups and feed campaigns.

In Wisepops settings, you enable web pushes:

And then go through a few steps (here's the full guide) to enable the opt-in prompt block in the popup builder:

After the pushes have been added to your website, a new block will appear in the campaign editor to allow you to add an opt-in form to your campaigns in one click:

Next, activate the second channel for building the subscriber list: the onsite feed (it's a website feed with advanced targeting you can use to increase engagement with marketing offers, product launches, and announcements):

The feed is an optional channel by default because it requires some basic coding knowledge.

But we highly recommend using it (this guide will help you install) as a channel to collect push subscribers and engage visitors on your website.

Here's why: ecommerce case studies show that visitors who interact with the feed convert 3.5 times more than those who don’t. Many known brands, including Pierre Hardy, Timex, OddBalls, and Memo Paris are taking advantage of this channel to increase website conversions.

Here’s the push opt-in form from A.P.C., the French luxury brand—

Notice how they’ve also included best-sellers and new collection announcements below the opt-in—an idea you can implement, too:

Now, we can start making push campaigns to send.

Creating a push notification takes three steps:

• adding the content

• setting up targeting

• choosing a goal

Note: the last two steps may even be skipped depending on your strategy

Let's see how to create a campaign.

The first step is to include an image, a text, and a link to your website. Of course, all the changes you make will be immediately previewed on the right side of the editor:

Next, you can choose to show your campaign to every subscriber or a certain group—that helps to make pushes more relevant. If you want to target all subscribers, just skip this step altogether.

But if you'd like to personalize, let’s target desktop visitors who have returned to our website more than once.

All you need to do is choose the number of visits and the device type:

Lastly, we choose the goal.

I'd like to know how much revenue this campaign brought.

So, I will assign a monetary value to each visit to the checkout success page, indicating that an order has been placed:

Just like that, we're ready to launch this push notification campaign and start bringing back inactive visitors to increase your sales.

You have two options: send it right away or schedule it for later:

You will track the performance of your pushes (as well as all other channels) in one, intuitive analytics dashboard.

You will know your reach, engagement rate, revenue, and other helpful data about all your campaigns to inform your strategy:

Who uses Wisepops?

Ecommerce stores, SaaS, and B2B businesses, including Pierre Hardy, Timex, OddBalls, YesPark, and L'Atelier d'Amaya.

Examples and ideas of campaigns from different industries:

• Ecommerce stores

• Hotels and hospitality

• SaaS businesses

• Telecommunication businesses

Pricing:

You can try push notifications for free for 14 days along with all premium features. No credit card data is required.

Paid plans start at $99 per month, or save with an annual subscription at $82 per month, giving you two months free.

See full pricing.

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Omnisend

Omnisend is an email and SMS marketing tool that includes web push notifications. For small to mid-sized ecommerce stores, it’s one of the most affordable and highly rated tools in its category, offering budget-friendly push notifications and email marketing features.

Key features:

• web push notifications

• automatic and scheduled campaigns

• detailed campaign reporting and analytics

• pushes can be enabled as an additional step in automatic email and SMS marketing workflows such as cart abandonment and welcome series

Pros:

• Pushes, email, and SMS marketing features at a competitive price (you can also send 500 pushes per month in the free plan)

• Helpful pre-made workflows that include pushes as a supporting channel for emails and SMS messages to let you experiment with different tactics

• The entire platform is straightforward to use, even for beginners

• Numerous user reviews mention superb customer support

Cons:

• Designed for use by ecommerce businesses

• May not scale effectively to meet the complex needs of larger enterprises

Review of Omnisend

Omnisend's interface is extremely user-friendly, so you'll focus on productivity from the start. I'd say it's easier to use than some of its competitors, including Aimtell and PushEngage.

The push notification editor is also quite intuitive—all changes you make will be immediately previewed, helping you create good designs faster:

If you'd like to use pushes as an additional channel to emails or SMS (say, in a cart recovery workflow), doing so with Omnisend should be quite easy.

When you enter one of the pre-made email and SMS marketing workflows, you'll see that you can add pushes directly in the editor with just one action (see below). Besides, there are some ready-made workflows that already include pushes, too:

Another thing worth mentioning is reporting.

In the analytics section, there are two tabs that give you a comprehensive view of your campaigns' performance: Overview and Contact activity.

The first one shows key campaign metrics like total pushes sent, view rate, click rate, and revenue, along with a real-time performance report for the first 24 hours. It also tracks engagement over time and provides device reports to help you improve your strategy.

The second tab offers detailed insights into individual user behavior, helping businesses segment their audience and create personalized marketing strategies:

Overall, I'd say that Omnisend should be a good choice for Shopify and other ecommerce businesses looking for an app that combines email and pushes, be it for budget or strategy reasons.

While the push functionality isn’t as robust as dedicated tools, it’s a solid choice for businesses looking for an all-in-one marketing solution. Affordable plans and excellent customer support make Omnisend a standout option.

Pricing

Omnisend provides 500 monthly push notification messages in the free plan, which is more than enough to get familiar with this channel.

If you need more capabilities right away, their Standard plan with unlimited pushes costs only $16 (and there's an option to reduce that to $11.20 if you pay for three months upfront).

See full pricing.

Aimtell

Aimtell is a dedicated web push notification platform designed to help businesses and publishers re-engage visitors with targeted messaging. It offers easy integration with major platforms like Shopify and WordPress (for other platforms, you'll need to install the app manually via Javascript).

Aimtell provides automation, segmentation, and personalization features, allowing businesses to send behavior-based notifications for abandoned carts, promotions, and content updates. While it can help cover all push notification needs, its pricing may be a consideration for smaller businesses.

Key features:

• Manual and automatic drip campaigns

• Templates for triggered campaigns

• Subscriber segmentation for personalized marketing

• Conversion tracking for analyzing push notification effectiveness

• Plugins for popular website platforms (Shopify and WordPress)

Pros:

• Dedicated push notification platform with segmentation and automation

• User-friendly interface for creating campaigns

Cons:

• Reporting offers only essential data

• The interface feels outdated

Review of Aimtell

When you first enter Aimtell's dashboard, you immediately realize that this is a dedicated push notification software. There's a wide range of features available (more than in Omnisend, Hextom, and some other tools), from automation and segmentation to A/B testing:

With Aimtell, you can create both manual and triggered (behavior-based) push notification campaigns, which means it can help you implement different personalization strategies. And there are a few templates for automated campaigns (welcome push, abandoned cart recovery, etc.) that you can easily customize.

For example, you can get started by choosing a design of the opt-in form—this push notification software also allows to customize it a bit:

Once the opt-in is ready, you can proceed with an automatic welcome message, triggered to be sent after a visitor subscribes, or other campaign you have in mind.

Creating a campaign is easy thanks to a simple editor. There are four steps: you add content, choose the trigger (templates come with those pre-included, of course), activate conversion tracking, and set up the time delay (say, 30 seconds after the visitor subscribed should work well for welcome messages).

Let's see an example of an automated welcome push notification made with Aimtell.

Death Wish Coffee, one of the most successful Shopify stores, sends this message (with a very creative copy, I must say) when you sign up:

Pricing:

Aimtell determines its pricing based on the number of push notification subscribers.

The cheapest plan for 10,000 subscribers costs $49/mo.

There's also a 14-day free trial with a credit card requirement (even though Aimtell's website says otherwise):

PushEngage

PushEngage is a dedicated push notification software that offers complete automation for WooCommerce stores, hotels, media, and other industries. You create campaigns, launch them, and monitor progress—and that's about it. If you need a dedicated solution for your business, consider this one.

Apart from the usual push notification features, there's a helpful AI assistant for writing content in notifications.

If you don't feel like writing your copy, you can generate it by simply inputting a few related keywords (this feature is also available for languages other than English):

Key features:

• Push notifications for desktop, Android, and iOS

• A/B testing of copy, images, CTA button texts, landing page URLs

• Campaign analytics (clicks, views, goals)

• Segmentation of recipients based on their properties

• Manual and drip campaigns

Pros:

• A free plan for small websites and apps

• Dynamic segmentation of recipients

• AI assistant for writing titles and messages for notifications in seconds (available in multiple languages)

Cons:

• Credit card data is required for the free plan

• The most expensive plan is required to promote more than two websites

Review of PushEngage

Looking at the PushEngage website gave me a strong sense of déjà vu.

Another SaaS (a popup tool), OptinMonster, follows a similar business approach, offering a money-back guarantee, a free trial that requires credit card information to activate, and frequent (and even multiple) discounts on their plans:

I'm mentioning this because pricing has been a key factor driving OptinMonster users to explore alternatives, as I found in a different review. Similarly, PushEngage appears to be encouraging new users to commit to a yearly plan upfront.

While it's not a bad idea if you're confident that this push notification tool is right for you, it may not be ideal for smaller businesses looking to test the waters.

Pricing policies aside—

PushEngage is a solid push notification software, offering automation, segmentation, and A/B testing capabilities. The interface is user-friendly, making it easy to build a list of subscribers and create campaigns.

For example, you can choose the design of the subscriber collection popup, including a Safari-style box, a floating bar, a bell, and others, depending on how subtle or attention-grabbing you want it to be:

The campaign editor is also straightforward and follows the industry standard layout with the previews on the right side (although I found editors in Wisepops and Omnisend editors to be more user-friendly because they require fewer clicks to complete the setup):

When it comes to the audiences, you can send your pushes to all subscribers, a pre-made group (say, those who subscribed no later than 24 hours ago), or a custom audience based on your segments):

Overall, after analyzing this push notification platform and its users, I'd say that small to mid-size SaaS and B2B companies should find it a good option. It's easy to set up and start using pushes, and has a good range of options for businesses that need pushes for mobile apps.

Pricing:

You can access a free plan that allows you to send up to 30 push notifications per month, with a subscriber limit of 200. Paid plans begin at $19/mo for one website.

Note: a credit card is required to create a free account.

OneSignal

With this push notification tool, you can create web and mobile pushes. OneSignal is designed for apps, B2B businesses, and online stores that need to send both manual and automated campaigns, also including other channels like in-app messages, email, and SMS.

Key features:

• Web and mobile pushes

• In-app messaging for Android, iOS, Huawei Android, and Amazon Fire

• Essential engagement and subscription data

• Additional channels (emails and SMS messages)

• Dynamic content for notifications to personalize messaging

• Automation of app onboarding, user re-engagement, and promotional campaigns with workflows including all channels

Pros

• Get emails, pushes, and SMS in one app

• Guide users through app experiences without any coding required

• Workflows for in-app onboarding, ecommerce customer re-engagement, and lead qualification

Cons:

• Many customer reviews highlight negative experiences with customer support, often revealing the interactions were with bots

Review of OneSignal

Setting up OneSignal and getting started is quite easy.

During onboarding, you can select your business type to unlock industry-specific templates tailored to your needs (below). There's not a lot of them there, though—I had only six in my library.

You can also start with a blank campaign and customize it if you prefer.

The editor is user-friendly and offers easy access to A/B testing, segmentation, dynamic content, browser selector, and other settings.

However, I encountered a minor issue with the lack of an option to customize the button text (for some reason, they were included in the Advanced settings section). As you can see in the image below, there are only fields available for the title and main message.

I was able to create a campaign in minutes (although using more advanced features like dynamic content may be a bit more time-consuming, especially for beginners):

Beyond the editor, I also tried the Journeys feature, which allows creating personalized workflows including emails, pushes, and SMS based on a pre-defined goal, like customer re-engagement and sales announcements.

For example, here's a template for software onboarding designed to increase user engagement. A push campaign is included as a second step, sent only to those who created accounts but didn't complete them:

Overall, OneSignal is user-friendly and intuitive, and it can help grow your app or website user engagement. You can start with pushes, for example, and expand your strategy to workflows with emails and SMS messages for more value.

OneSignal should be an especially good option for smaller businesses, as you can get 1,000 pushes and a few monthly email campaigns for around $15 (as you can see in this calculator, you can customize your own plan):

Pricing:

You get unlimited mobile pushes in the free plan, along with emails and basic A/B testing.

Paid plans with an appreciable number of emails, SMS, and pushes are customizable, but not super expensive. There is also an enterprise plan, which basically removes limits on all channels and adds some priority support, which, for example, could be an option for bigger software businesses.

PushWoosh

If your strategy involves content distribution via Whatsapp, your own app, and/or emails, consider this option. PushWoosh has tailored templates and user workflow journeys with all these channels, so you can have a complete omnichannel marketing strategy.

Key features:

• Web and mobile push notifications

• Additional channels: in-app, emails, WhatsApp, and SMS messages

• Automated user and customer journeys to create personalized experiences

• Powerful analytics and reporting

Pros

• One app for mobile, web, in-app, SMS, and Whatsapp messaging

• AI text generator for some extra help with creative writing

• Use all premium features and channels for 30 days for free

Cons:

• Learning curve due to the wide range of options

Review of PushWoosh

PushWoosh is a feature-rich notification tool, so expect to ask your technical team to complete some tasks (like, configuring an in-app campaign to guide users to a specific section within the app).

I'd also say that the UI of this push notification tool (or rather messaging-first user engagement platform) is a bit more complex and unique compared to most of the software we've explored so far.

This is the first time I’ve seen a campaign editor that opens in a window overlaying the dashboard, rather than navigating to a separate page:

UI aside, PushWoosh is a good option for engaging app and website users with custom workflows involving multiple channels.

I used a dedicated editor to create a simple automatic workflow, and, although it was a bit challenging at first, I quickly got the hang of it and created a simple cart recovery project that involved two push campaigns:

The reporting dashboard in PushWoosh was also pretty advanced, providing insights into all campaigns and channels.

My dashboard was not filled with data, of course, but you can tell that once it is, it will produce a lot of useful data (plus, you can add your own metrics charts) to improve your strategy:

Overall, PushWoosh could be a good push notification tool for businesses that want to engage users across multiple channels with personalized workflows. And, as I've mentioned, you may need some help of your developers with campaign customization and some other things.

Pricing:

PushWoosh offers to try all the features for 30 days for free, which is one of the most generous free trials on this list. For using pushes with emails, expect the monthly cost to be around $80 for 5,000 subscribers.

Hextom: WhatsApp, SMS & Push

Hextom's is a good app for small stores that need budget-friendly web push notification software to drive Shopify sales and recover abandoned carts. It includes subscriber list building, promotion and cart recovery channels (WhatsApp, SMS, and pushes) to provide a comprehensive solution.

Key features:

• Web push notifications

• Grow your push subscriber list with both popups and pushes

• Transactional push notification automations, including shipping confirmation and order updates

• Simple automations for the most essential use cases such as welcome messages and price drop alerts

Pros

• Very easy to use

• Budget-friendly

• Multiple channel in one app: WhatsApp, SMS, and pushes

• Helpful automations such as cart recovery and back-in-stock alerts

• Combine pushes with SMS messages for better reach

Cons:

• Limited range of automations

• Does not support advanced features like workflows

• Users report integration problems with some Shopify themes

Review of Hextom: WhatsApp, SMS & Push

Hextom's app is a very easy way to send automated and manual web pushes for the most common ecommerce use cases such as cart recovery and price drop alerts.

As you can expect, you can use this tool inside your Shopify dashboard. Creating automated sequences (the app allows up to three pushes in one) is simple: you just need to choose this goal and create the design in a straightforward editor.

There's also an opportunity to add discounts (percentage or amount)—the app will fill out the links, images, and messages automatically:

Once you’ve set up the automation, you’ll get some basic insights into how your abandoned cart recovery pushes (and other campaigns, of course) are performing—both as a whole and individually. Those metrics include clicks, impressions, and generated sales:

I'd say this tool could be a supporting app for small Shopify stores that need simple web and mobile push notification software with some extra messaging channels. It's easy to use, has essential automations, and gives just enough data to improve your messaging and sales.

Pricing:

Send up to 1,000 pushes in the free version (but keep in mind there's only 10 WhatsApp messages, so it's not enough to really test that channel). Paid plans begin at $15/mo for 10,000 pushes.

Keep learning

If you'd like to explore more software to grow your business with, consider these guides from our blog:

• How to promote a new product [+examples]

• Tools for automated lead generation

• Top-rated CRO tools