Animated number counter plugins for WordPress

An animated number counter is a great, eye catching way to display any kind of numeric statistic on your web site. To impress your visitors with important numerical data you can use one of the many plugins available. To make your choice easier, we tested and reviewed the best free animated number counter plugins currently available for WordPress.

What are animated number counter plugins?

To achieve numeric counter animations we have to use a JS script, such as CountUp.js or simmilar. This scripts are rotating (counting) numbers from 0 or a user defined initial value to a user defined final value. The animation duration is also predefined within the script. To make life easier for non coders and less experienced developers unfamiliar with JavaScript, the counting scripts are embedded into user friendly animated number counter plugins.

The animated counter plugins for WordPress offer more or less options and settings to easily customize the counters according to your needs. Some plugins are equipped with visual customizers suitable for non coders, others are less customizable but experienced developers will easily style them to perfection. All the counters are displayed on the web site using a [ shortcode ], meaning they can be easily added both to template files or posts and pages.

How we tested the animated number counter plugins for WordPress?

Although the choice of free animated number counter plugins in the WordPress repository is not quite extensive, we picked the most used and best rated plugins for our test. Our comparative test criteria was the following:

• ease of setting up and configuring
• useful features
• visual appearance without additional styling
• possibilities of additional styling
• impact on loading speed (server requests)

All animated counters do their job well, each with it’s own specific features, upsides and downsides. Read our review carefully before deciding which one will suit your project needs the best.

Counter Number Showcase plugin for WordPress

Counter Number Showcase by WPshopmart is the animated counter of choice for most WordPress dvelopers. This animated number counter plugin has over 10.000 active installations and its voted 5.0 by over 90 developers. The plugin is regularly updated and it’s compatible with the latest version of WordPress.

Upon installation the plugin gets it’s own button in the WP Dashboard left column menu. By clicking the button you access the counter’s visual editor. The editor’s user interface is nice and intuitive, perfectly suitable for non coders. There are a couple of visual options to customize such as font sizes and colors of the animated counter elements. There’s a choice of few most popular fonts and a huge selection of Font Awesome icons with a built in search engine. You can also choose between 1 to 4 column layouts. The counter starts from 0, so only the final value can be defined. For more experienced users there’s a built in CSS editor for additional styling of the counter.

Speaking of downsides, we mostly miss an option to control the animated counter speed. Another thing to take in consideration is that the plugin in a common setup generates 7 server requests, slightly affecting the loading speed of the web site.

Visual appearance of Counter Number Showcase items in the classic icon-number-description format. There’s a built in visual editor to customize fonts, dimensions and colors.

Counter Number Showcase is also available in a paid version with dozens of additional configuring and styling options. This animated number counter plugin is probably the best choice for non coders, for its ease of use and simple customizing.

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TF Random Numbers counter plugin

TF Random Numbers by Themeflection is another widely used WordPress animated number counter plugin. It has over 6000 active installations and it’s voted 5.0 by many developers. The plugin is frequently updated and compatible with the latest WP version.

The plugin comes with a visual editor suitable for non coders. It allows to create multiple counters and customize their look by defining colors, sizes and such. There’s a wide variety of Font Awesome icons to choose from, but without the search function. It’s also possible to choose the counters block background color and even add a background image. This animated number counter has a unique feature among the competition called Dynamic Counters. It counts and displays info such as number of articles, categories, authors or comments which some projects might find useful.

The main downside of this plugin is the animation speed which is too fast. There is no option to manually define the animation duration. Therefore, this plugin works nice only with at least 4 digits numbers (1000+). Otherwise the animation is too fast to even notice. The plugin generates around 4 server requests which is considered fairly lightweight.

TF Random Numbers counter appearance with a background image set trough it’s built in visual editor.

TF Random Numbers animated number counter plugin can be extended with a couple of paid addons, and gain more visual and functional customizing possibilities.

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WP Counter Up WordPress plugin

WP Counter Up by LogicHunt has decent 1.000+ active installations and a slightly different approach than it’s icon based competitors. It sure might be interesting for some projects. Instead of using icons as graphical representation of the counting information, this counter uses a different background image for each counting number. With some creativity and imagination, a nice animated number counting block can be created.

Upon installation there are a couple of basic settings to go trough and define counter colors and layout. Counter items are added as custom post types, where you define the number to count to and the featured image used as background. The custom post title is used as item description.

WP Counter Up WordPress plugin specific visual appearance with images as counter items backgrounds

Due to very limited customization, the default appearance of the counter might need some additional styling which require knowledge of CSS. The animation speed is well balanced but with no possibility to customize it. Another downside of the plugin is the possibility of creating of only one counting block, with unlimited counting items inside. Also, the plugin generates 7+ sever requests which could have effect on the site loading speed.

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WP CountUP JS animated counter WordPress plugin

WP CountUP JS by Roel Magdaleno with 2000+ active installations and an 5.0 average vote might be the best animated counter choice for more experienced developers. The plugin has no visual editor and all the customization is done trough the shortcode. That’s why some knowledge of HTML and CSS is required when using this plugin.

There are a couple of basic settings to go trough firstly. Those are located within the Settings menu of the WP Dashboard. This settings already show some nice features of the WP CountUP JS animated counter WordPress plugin. The first one is Easing, which slows down the rotating numbers as they get closer to the end point. It’s a very nice visual effect we haven’t seen among the competitor plugins. There’s also a option to reset the counter each time it exits the screen and start counting again when scrolled to it.

WP CountUP JS plugin settings showing nice features such as animation easing and counter reset on scroll.

The WP CountUP JS plugin allows you to set both initial and final numeric value, so it doesn’t have to start counting from zero. There’s also the option to set the animation duration. You can also define the counting number prefix and suffix. Those can be formatted as plain text or HTML code and it will even accept Font Awesome tags. Finally, you can add CSS classes and ids for easier styling of the counter element. All those features are activated and customized as shortcode parameters. The animated number counter’s default appearance is completely unstyled but with some HTML and CSS coding experience the final result could come up pretty awesome.

This plugin doesn’t have any significant downsides, except it’s not suitable for non coders. The effect on the loading speed is minimal since the average setup generates only 1-2 server requests.

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Animated Counters WordPress plugin

Animated Counters by EraLion with 1000+ active installations and voted 5.0 is another Animated number counter plugins for WordPress worth the consideration. Same as previously reviewed WP CountUP JS, this plugin is also completely operated trough shortcode parameters. Some HTML & CSS experience is required to make the most of this counter.

This plugin doesn’t come with any settings or visual editors. The only parameters you can customize within the short code are the final number and the counter speed. Additionally you can add CSS classes and ids for styling purposes. Experienced developers might not need anything more. Animated Counters plugin is also extremely lightweight and generates only one server request.

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Conclusion: Which animated number counter plugin is the best?

After in deeply testing each animated number counter plugin, we can’t proclaim an overall winner. Each plugin has it’s own upsides and downsides, and each one could be the best for each specific project. Therefore, here are our guidelines on how to choose the right plugin for your project:

• Counter Number Showcase: best all around plugin suitable for non coders
• TF Random Numbers: user friendly plugin with Dynamic content counters, suitable for 3+ digits numbers
• WP Counter Up: simple plugin that uses images as counter items backgrounds
• WP CountUP JS: perfect plugin for more advanced developers
• Animated Counters: fastest and lightest plugin for advanced developers