Best FREE WordPress Button Plugins to Create Converting Call-to-Action (With Examples)

Call to Action (CTA) buttons play a key part in any website’s marketing plan.

Whether you’re selling a product or simply want to lead your visitors to another page of your blog, a good call to action button is necessary.

But what makes a button good?

• It grabs the user’s attention
• It has a high percentage of conversion
• It stands out while being a part of the website design
• It’s using modern design trends

To get a better idea and some good examples of call-to-actions check out this article.

In your WordPress pages and posts, you have two main ways of quickly adding a button anywhere you want:

1. By using a plugin/shortcode
2. By using a button as an image

📌 Button Plugins on the Market (Fresh Update!)

A lot has changed since I first wrote this post in 2017. The block editor arrived, page builders like Elementor became the norm, and shortcodes went from being the standard way to add a button to being the old way.

If you’re still on the classic editor, scroll down and check the shortcode plugins. If you’re using the block editor – which you almost certainly are by now – start with the section right below.

Available buttons in the block editor

First I have to say the block editor has some good built-in buttons.

But they are not perfect.

Let’s see how they look in this real-time example:

It’s good for a standard tool, but probably not enough for more advanced users.

One thing worth correcting from the original version of this post: the core Buttons block can add rel="nofollow" or sponsored to a link now – select the button, open the link settings and use the Advanced panel. If you’re building affiliate buttons, that matters, and you no longer need a plugin for it.

Best button plugins for the block editor

1. Spectra

When it comes to buttons this plugin offers two useful types – a Marketing Button (pictured above), which pairs a heading with a description inside the clickable area, and a standard Call to Action button with plenty of styling options.

The marketing button is the one I’d actually reach for. A plain button says “Buy now”; a marketing button says “Buy now” with a line of reassurance underneath it, and that second line does a lot of work on a landing page.

2. Kadence Blocks

The original version of this post gave Kadence Blocks one throwaway line, which was unfair – it’s grown into one of the best block plugins available, sitting at around 600,000 active installs and updated constantly.

Its Advanced Button block is the most complete free button tool on this list. What you get over the core block:

• Several buttons side by side inside one block, with proper spacing control
• Icons before or after the label, from a large built-in set
• Separate styling for the normal and hover states – colour, border, background, shadow
• Gradient and outline styles without touching CSS
• Per-device sizing, so your button isn’t comically wide on a phone

WPCtrl Best Choice for anyone on the block editor who wants more than the core button and doesn’t want to install a dedicated button plugin for it.

Classic WordPress Button Plugins

There are a lot of button plugins in the WordPress repository, but many of them are just a waste of time.

We want a plugin with at least some customization options, so we can build the button the way we want while keeping it simple and uncomplicated.

An easy-to-use interface that makes adding a button quick and smooth is also a must.

If your website is using WPBakery, you have to check these 4 WPBakery add-ons, which make adding beautiful buttons extremely easy! 

You also want to check what your theme has to offer in terms of button shortcodes. Most WordPress themes come with their own shortcodes, including buttons (they will often suck). And be aware of the trade-off: a theme’s button shortcode stops working the day you switch themes.

Now let’s see the best button plugins available for FREE.

1. Shortcodes Ultimate

Shortcodes Ultimate provides a solution not just for buttons but for dozens of different content elements. It’s still going strong with around 400,000 active installs and regular updates, which is more than can be said for most plugins of its generation.

As for the buttons, the plugin offers several styles and some nice customization options. It has 9 pre-made styles to choose from and lets you preview your button before inserting it into your page.

You can build different styles and save a preset, so you can load your favourite button next time you need it and insert it really quickly.

Some button style examples:

Weee, those are some nice buttons. You can download Shortcodes Ultimate for free here.

2. Olevmedia Shortcodes Buttons

I loved this simple plugin for its simplicity and effortless usability, and it’s a shame it’s gone. It gave you hover colours for both text and background and exact sizing in pixels, which was more control than most free plugins offered at the time.

If you’re here from my Pros & Cons boxes tutorial, the same applies there – build those with blocks or plain HTML instead.

3. MaxButtons

MaxButtons is a dedicated buttons plugin. That makes it more flexible and customizable than the previous two, and it’s still actively maintained with around 70,000 active installs.

With MaxButtons you create your button style first, save it, and then add it to any post or page from the plugin’s menu in the editor. It also ships a block, so it works fine in the block editor and not only in the classic one.

The plugin gives you styling options such as text font and padding, text shadow, button radius and border colour, gradient backgrounds, and more.

Its real advantage is central control: because every button is a saved style rather than inline formatting, changing that style updates every button using it across the whole site at once. If you run a lot of affiliate buttons, that alone justifies the plugin.

Download This Free Plugin Here!

4. Forget About Shortcode Buttons

This one takes a different approach: instead of shortcodes it inserts real CSS buttons into your content. Which means if you ever remove the plugin, the buttons stay – exactly the problem the rest of this page has been complaining about.

The plugin aims to add buttons in the lightest way possible, without extra HTML clutter, and the editing process is easy and flexible – double-click a button to reopen its settings. It has several styles and supports Dashicons and Font Awesome icons.

One caveat: at around 20,000 active installs it’s the smallest plugin here, and it’s only tested up to a slightly older WordPress version than the others. It still works, but it’s not being updated at the pace of Kadence Blocks or MaxButtons – worth knowing before you build your whole site’s CTAs on it.

Download This Free Plugin Here!

So which one should you actually install?

Honest answer, and it’s changed since 2017: probably none of them.

If the core Buttons block does what you need – a coloured button with a link and a nofollow attribute – use it and move on. It loads no extra CSS or JavaScript, it can’t be abandoned by its developer, and it’ll still work in whatever WordPress looks like in ten years.

Install a plugin when you have a real reason to:

• You want icons, hover states and gradients without CSS → Kadence Blocks
• You manage a lot of affiliate buttons and want to restyle them all at once → MaxButtons
• You’re still on the classic editor → Shortcodes Ultimate

And a word on what makes the button convert

No plugin fixes a weak button. A few things that consistently matter more than the styling:

• Say what happens next. “Check the Current Price” outperforms “Click Here”, because the reader knows what they’re getting.
• One button per section. Two competing CTAs side by side reliably beat each other up.
• Make it big enough to tap. Aim for at least 44px tall – most of your readers are on a phone, and a button they have to aim at is a button they don’t press.
• Keep enough contrast. Pale text on a pale background looks tasteful in the editor and disappears on a phone screen in daylight.
• Don’t disguise it as something else. A button that looks like a download but goes to a sales page is the fastest way to lose a reader for good.

I hope this helps you create the most amazing buttons for your website! If you want to learn how to create even more appealing content, check out these 5 Free Graphic Content Resources – these are all the resources I use to run this blog.