Want to add social media buttons to your WordPress site? Good decision! They’re a great way to encourage social shares and boost your social traffic. But unless your theme includes built-in social media buttons, you’ll need a social share button plugin to get those nifty buttons for your own WordPress site.
I guess it’s a good thing you’re here then…because I’m about to list out the 5 best social share plugins for WordPress. While there are hundreds of different plugins out there, these are, in my estimation, the cream of the crop. Let’s dive in…
Summary: Best WordPress Social Share Plugins
In the following table, I’ll give you a quick snapshot of each of the plugins I looked at. But this is by no means the whole article! In the next sections, I’ll dig into each plugin in much more detail, listing out its pros, cons, and functionality.
| Kiwi Social Share | Social Warfare | Sumo Share | Easy Social Share Buttons | AddToAny | |
| Free version? | YES | Yes, but very limited | YES | YES | YES |
| Starting Price for Premium | $19 | $29 | $29/month for Sumo Pro | $19 | No Premium Version |
| Public Share Counts? | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| Custom Pre-Populated Tweets? | YES | YES | Only custom HTML | YES | YES |
| Visit | Kiwi Pro | Social Warfare | Sumo | Easy Social Share Buttons | AddToAny |
1. Kiwi Social Share
Overview
Kiwi Social Share is a freemium social sharing plugin that lets you add social share buttons for a variety of networks in a similarly diverse variety of styles. It’s lightweight, sending only 2 HTTP requests to render social icons. And the pro version adds a variety of unique features to help improve the functionality of your share buttons and get you deeper analytics.
Kiwi Social Share Core Features
- Supports all the major social networks right away – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, Google + and more
- Can enable/disable networks on an individual basis
- Supports a variety of different button styles
- Can display social share buttons in different locations on your site
- Performance optimization with only 2 HTTP requests
- Built-in Google Analytics Event Tracking for deep analytics
- Automatic URL shortening via Bitly
- Drag and drop ordering to change the order of social networks
- Pre-populated Tweets to make it easy for visitors to share your content
Kiwi Social Share Pros
- Because it only uses 2 HTTP requests, Kiwi Social Share won’t slow down your site
- You can see which pages and networks generate the most clicks thanks to the Google Analytics integration
- Simple backend interface makes it easy to configure your social share buttons
- Has a solid free version
Kiwi Social Share Cons
No social sharing buttons on individual images – just for the whole page.
How Does It Work?
Once you install the plugin, you select your desired social networks, choose your location and button styles, and drag and drop the icons into the order you’d like them to display. Then, your social share buttons will automatically display in the location you selected
Pricing
Kiwi Social Share has a free version listed at WordPress.org. While the free version can help you add basic social sharing buttons, it doesn’t include all the features I listed above. If you’d like all of the features, the pro version starts at $19 for a single site license.
2. Social Warfare
Overview
While Social Warfare does have a (very) limited free plugin at WordPress.org, it’s most known for the premium version of the plugin. For that reason, you’ll likely need to purchase the pro version if you want access to most of the features I’ll list below.
Social Warfare Core Features
- Add share buttons in a variety of locations, including some unique placements like fixed bar
- A variety of styling options. 5,000+ total combinations
- Upload custom images specifically for Pinterest
- Pre-populated Tweets for easy sharing
- Create “Click-to-Tweet” buttons inside post content
- Specify minimum share counts before share counts start displaying
- Automatic UTM tagging for Google Analytics tracking
Social Warfare Pros
- Has some unique features like custom Pinterest images and unique placement locations
- Goes beyond social share buttons with features like Click-to-Tweet
- Helps you recover share counts if you need to switch from HTTP to HTTPS
Social Warfare Cons
- Some people complain that the process of creating a simple gallery is overly complicated.
- Complaints in the WordPress.org forums about lack of support
- No social sharing in the free version
How Does It Work?
Like Kiwi Social Share, you just install the plugin, choose your social networks, styling, and locations, and you’re off to the races.
For more advanced features like Click-to-Tweets and Pinterest-specific images, you’ll need to add them on a per-post basis.
Pricing
There is a free version listed at WordPress.org, but if you want access to any of the differentiating features, you’ll need to go with the pro version.
The pro version starts at $29 for a single site license, which makes it the most expensive premium plugin on this list. Multi-site licenses are similarly expensive at $135 for 5 websites and $250 for 10 websites. There’s no unlimited license, which makes it a tough option for developers to use for client sites.
3. Sumo Share
Overview
Sumo Share is the social sharing button feature of the popular Sumo suite of apps. The free version is surprisingly feature rich, which is a good thing when you consider that access to Sumo Pro costs a hefty $29 per month.
Sumo Share Core Features
- Supports 65 different social networks
- In-content or sidebar display locations
- Social share counts
- “Smart Social Share” orders your social icons by those which get the most clicks
- Drag and drop setup process
- UTM tracking (only in pro)
Sumo Share Pros
- Has one of the best lists of supported social share networks for a free version
- Smart Social Share feature is unique and helps optimize your sharing
- Can display total share count (shares across all networks)
Sumo Share Cons
- Not a standalone plugin – bloated if you only want social share buttons
- Need to pay for pro to remove Sumo branding. Otherwise, the Sumo logo will appear beside your buttons
How Does It Work?
To use Sumo Share, you’ll need to install the entire Sumo plugin (which includes a variety of other apps). Then, you can enable the specific apps you’d like to use, Share included.
Once Share is enabled, you can set it up using a simple drag and drop interface.
Pricing
The core Sumo plugin is free. That gets you access to the basic versions of all of the apps (including Share). The cheapest pro version starts at $29 per month. So if you’re considering going pro, you’d best be planning to use other Sumo tools as well.
4. Easy Social Share Buttons
Overview
Easy Social Share Buttons is one of the best-selling social share plugins at Code Canyon. While it originally started as a plugin specifically for social share buttons, it’s now expanded to add some email list building functionality…which might be either a good or bad thing depending on your perspective.
Easy Social Share Buttons Core Features
- Supports 50+ social networks, including all of the major networks
- Display share counts for each network
- Arrange social networks by drag and drop or share count
- Different ordering depending on user’s device
- Email subscribe button
- 27 different display positions
- Trigger social share buttons to appear based on user actions
- 52 different template styles
- Detailed analytics for which social networks get you the most shares
Easy Social Share Buttons Pros
- Easy Social Share Buttons boasts one of the lengthiest feature lists of any social sharing plugin
- Offers unique functionality for targeting social share buttons based on specific user actions
- Has the most different display locations
Easy Social Share Buttons Cons
- One man’s “feature-rich” is another man’s bloated. That is, if you just want basic social share buttons, most of Easy Social Share Buttons’ functionality isn’t really necessary.
- Building on that, configuring all of these options takes much more time than a plugin that’s more “plug and play”
How Does It Work?
The plugin includes all the settings you need in a backend interface inside your WordPress dashboard. Just install, activate, and start configuring!
Pricing
Unlike the other plugins on this list, there’s no free version of Easy Social Share Buttons (there is a plugin with that name listed at WordPress.org, but it’s not the same).
The premium version will cost you $19 at Code Canyon with standard Envato licensing.
5. AddToAny
Overview
AddToAny is the only social share button plugin on this list that’s 100% free. That is, there’s no premium version – every single feature I’ll discuss below is available in the free version listed at WordPress.org.
AddToAny Core Features
- Supports over 100 different services
- Display as part of your content, separate floating bar, or via shortcode
- Google Analytics and Bitly integrations
- Asynchronous loading for performance optimization
- Universal share button to let visitors share via their preferred service
AddToAny Pros
- 100% free
- Huge variety of supported networks
- Includes some advanced features like Google Analytics and Bitly integrations
AddToAny Cons
- No option to create custom pre-populated Tweets
- Lacks the “bells and whistles” of some of the premium plugins
- No share buttons on individual images
How Does It Work?
Install the free plugin from WordPress.org and then configure some simple settings in the backend interface that deal with which networks to display and which locations to use.
Pricing
AddToAny is 100% free and listed at WordPress.org.
Wrapping Things Up
| Kiwi Social Share | Social Warfare | Sumo Share | Easy Social Share Buttons | AddToAny | |
| Free version? | YES | Yes, but very limited | YES | YES | YES |
| Starting Price for Premium | $19 | $29 | $29/month for Sumo Pro | $19 | No Premium Version |
| Public Share Counts? | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| Custom Pre-Populated Tweets? | YES | YES | Only custom HTML | YES | YES |
| Visit | Kiwi Pro | Social Warfare | Sumo | Easy Social Share Buttons | AddToAny |
And that concludes our list of the best social sharing WordPress plugins. While this is by no means comprehensive (there are a ton of plugins out there!), these are some of the absolute best and most popular options.
For the best balance of functionality and affordability, Kiwi Social Sharing is a great option to add stylish social share buttons to your WordPress site.
And if you want the plugin with the absolute biggest feature list, Easy Social Share Buttons is also a solid option. Just think long and hard about whether you actually need all of those features!