Best Maintenance Mode Plugins for WordPress

Need a good maintenance mode plugin for WordPress to handle important website changes? The following range from basic to highly customizable options which are ideal for ‘coming soon’ as well as temporary maintenance pages.

Before we get started, you might be wondering which plugin (and which features) you actually need. So let’s tackle the following question right away…

Are premium maintenance mode plugins worth the price?

In my personal opinion, most FREE options already do a fantastic job.

In addition, you will rarely use maintenance mode pages given that your blog should be functional 99% of the time..

The amount of time you do need to enable such a plugin is generally short — unless you have an actual “Coming Soon” page, at which point a premium plugin may prove useful depending on your needs.

Let’s look at some of the best options to help launch (or resume) your blog without hiccups…

Under Construction Page

Packed with over 260 templates, this plugin allows you to customize your page however you see fit and make it ideal for any occasion.

Under Construction works like a traditional page builder, which means you’re essentially building a one-page website with it. You also have access to over one million high quality images to make your maintenance page truly pop.

Other important features include:

• The plugin automatically deactivates on X date and time
• Drag & drop builder available
• Allow certain visitors to view the website based on user roles
• Third-party shortcode support for additional features
• Universal autoresponder support to collect leads while enabled

If your website has a mass following and you intend to take it offline for extended periods, this is one of the best maintenance mode plugins available for WordPress blogs.

Coming Soon By Supsystic

This tool works as a ‘coming soon’ and general maintenance mode plugin in general. The tool provides features such as:

• A countdown timer to let visitors know when your website will launch or resume
• Autoresponder integration to keep visitors updated about your website status
• Support for traditional social media accounts to help increase followers
• Dozens of templates to choose from
• Page builder that lets you customize it with a logo, fonts, backgrounds, and more
• Basic Google Analytics tracking

All in all, the tool is pretty neat for a free option.

WP Maintenance Mode

WP Maintenance Mode performs similarly to the rest on this list, but it gives you the benefit of excluding certain URLs from being unavailable.

Bloggers are often working on certain pages of their website as opposed to every single page, thus making the above feature essential (and it helps prevent upsetting your visitors, too).

Otherwise, expect great perks such as:

• A neat contact form
• Social media links
• Responsive design
• Newsletter integration
• Easy visual customization options
• Multisite ready
• Countdown timer

This is amongst my favorites at this time due to its simplicity and effectiveness.

IgniteUp

IgniteUp comes with everything you might expect, but I was surprised by the robust customization options available to make your page unique.

• Change background color or upload a suitable image
• Change font colors to suit your theme aesthetic
• Add big headings, subtitles, and paragraphs
• Add animation effects and even video backgrounds for a small fee

Other benefits include social media buttons, contact forms, subscription forms, user role access, among other traditional features.

In all honesty, most of these plugins perform similarly and there’s no real need to cover dozens of them.

The above suggestions do a superb job for virtually all users in every niche. That being said, here are a few honorable mentions…

Slim Maintenance Mode: Looking for something simple that doesn’t require extensive setup? This WP maintenance plugin works right out of the box.

Simply activate it and visitors will see a message informing them about your site’s status – no bells and whistles required. It also sends a 503 Service Unavailable message to search engines, effectively letting them know about its status (which theoretically helps keep your blog ranking intact).

Colorlib Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode: This plugin has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews and it’s been installed over 10,000 times as of this writing.

While it does not let you create a template from scratch, it does come with 15 pre-built templates to fit a wide range of themes.

Tips & Recommendations

It’s tempting to build a flashy maintenance page, but this could overwhelm visitors if you display too much at once. Ensure your page complements your overall theme and gets the point across without too many bells and whistles getting in the way.

Speaking of simplicity, do not add more than one or two Call to Action (CTA) at a time. If your primary goal is to collect email subscribers, avoid adding too many social media buttons and other elements for visitors to interact with.

Conclusion

Any of the above should be a great fit whether you need them for a few hours or for extended periods of time. And as stated before, the need for a premium option depends entirely on your exact blogging needs and how much you wish to impress new & returning visitors.