Consumers are bombarded by anywhere from 6,000–10,000 ads every single day. While ads are still a quick and easy way to get your message in front of the right people, they aren’t the be-all and end-all when it comes to leading your prospects to make a purchase. For that, your best bet is to include social proof in your marketing messages.
Social proof can have an enormous impact on your bottom line. In an extensive survey across locations and generations, OptinMonster found:
- 57% of consumers will only buy or use a business service if it has at least a 4-star rating.
- Buyers require an average of 40 online reviews before believing a business’s star rating is accurate.
- 63% of consumers need to hear company claims 3-5x before they actually believe them.
Social proof leverages psychology to get your target audience to take action by showing them that other people are taking those actions. It’s a powerful marketing technique, and it’s easy to do when you use the right tools. In this article, we’re sharing 13 of the best social proof software tools that we’ve found.
13 Best Social Proof Software Tools in 2024:
What Is Social Proof?
Social proof is when we copy the actions of others in order to become part of the group. It’s essentially peer pressure. For marketers, this means that consumers are more likely to trust real people (their peers, influencers, celebrities) more than an ad for a product. This makes social proof a marketing tactic well worth investing in. Social proof is based on the concept of “normative social influence.” This concept asserts that people will conform to be seen as similar to, or accepted by, an influencer or society as a whole. It boils down to using third-party influence to get prospects to commit.
There are several tools these days that help you leverage social proof for your business. In this section, we’re covering 13 of the best social proof software tools on the market today, along with their features and pricing.
1. ProveSource
ProveSource is a social proof software tool with an easy to use interface and four different types of social proof notifications: page visits, sales, number of people to take specified action within a set time period, and Stream (measures conversions).
ProveSource makes it easy to create a new social proof notification, using a tab system for user flow. Each tab includes a limited number of options so it’s nearly impossible to make a mistake. Plus, you can add GIFs to your social proof notifications, making things fun and really engaging.
Key Features:
- Auto Tracking: Capture conversions from a custom web form automatically.
- Page Visits: Display recent page visits or live visitors on your website.
- 100+ Integrations: ProveSource integrates with tons of 3rd party platforms.
ProveSource Pricing
ProveSource pricing starts at $24/month for 20,000 unique monthly visitors.
2. Boast
Testimonials are a great form of social proof, but collecting and curating them takes a ton of time. Boast is a social proof software tool that makes the process of getting text and video testimonials a lot easier. And, it integrates with Facebook and YouTube so you can use your video testimonials across social media platforms.
Boast also has a mobile app that lets customers record their testimonials through the app, right from their smartphones, making the entire process super simple.
Key Features:
- Testimonial Ratings: Apply your own score to every testimonial that is submitted so you can showcase your best videos first.
- Conditional Thank You Messages: Quickly review customer feedback, product or service ratings, and overall customer satisfaction with a simple metric.
- Weekly Request Reminders: Boast will send you an email every week asking if there are any customers you’d like to request a testimonial from.
Boast Pricing
Boast pricing starts at $50/month (when billed annually) for 1 testimonial collection form and 20 monthly testimonial videos up to 5 minutes each in length
3. Proof
Proof’s social proof software tool, Pulse, shows notifications of the real actions taken by real people on your site. More than 20,000 websites use Pulse and get an average conversion increase of 10%.
Key Features:
- Hot Streaks: Show off the total number of people who’ve taken action on your site.
- Live Visitor Count: Create scarcity and urgency by showing the number of visitors currently browsing your site or page.
- Recent Activity: Show a live feed of real activity happening on your site right now.
Proof Pricing
Proof pricing starts at $66/month (when billed annually) for up to 10,000 unique visitors.
4. Provely
Provely has a clear and easy to navigate user interface and it takes just a couple of minutes (2 minutes flat, according to their website) to set up. Once set up, it will auto-detect new signups for display immediately.
Provely offers 3 campaign types (live, rotate, and past data) so you can show notifications based on real-time activity, rotate through notifications for a certain period of time, or show notifications for past/historical activity.
Key Features:
- Widget Customization: Choose from a library of different sleek popup templates.
- Color Scheme: Choose to integrate your widget into your brand and website design or use contrast to make it stand out.
- Location: Show lead/sale notifications only from a certain country to help tailor your social proof to your audience.
Provely Pricing
Provely pricing starts at $19/month making it one of the less expensive social proof software tools on our list.
5. Fomo
Fomo comes with a variety of templates and display rules built into the platform, but you can create your own, too. This social proof software tool stands out in terms of the customizations you can have. You can create notifications that look and sound exactly how you want them to, without a developer and without a single line of code.
Key Features:
- Limitless Customizations: Fomo’s patent-pending architecture powers unlimited message permutations.
- Filters: Include fallbacks, automations, and styling to control every element.
- Refined Settings: Fomo uses machine learning to optimize conversions, but allows you to tweak 30+ controls based on your own customer knowledge.
Fomo Pricing
Fomo pricing starts at $19/month for up to 25,000 notifications/month.
6. Proven
Proven is an easy-to-use social proof software tool for WordPress. It’s simple to set up and you can customize the appearance of your social proof notifications to match your personal or professional brand (or not). This social proof plugin lets you create manual entries and customize when and how notifications show up for your visitors.
Key Features:
- Seamless Integration: Proven works with the most popular eCommerce and mailing list plugins.
- Customize Appearance: Change colors, shape, and position to match the look of your website.
- Control Visibility: Decide who sees new visitors, logged in users, only visitors to certain pages, and more.
Proven Pricing
Proven pricing starts at $39 for a single site license (renews annually until canceled).
7. Yotpo
Yotpo was built with eCommerce shop owners in mind and offers a powerful suite of tools that will help you market and sell more. We’re including it in our list of the best social proof software tools thanks to its reviews feature that lets you collect and display reviews and ratings automatically.
Yotpo uses AI to message your customers, encouraging them to leave a review after their purchase. Using the same AI platform, Yotpo shows off your reviews at just the right time to visitors who are browsing your website.
Key Features:
- Review Request Emails: Collect more site and product reviews, ratings, and Q&A with artificially intelligent requests using in-mail technology.
- Community Q&A: Make it easy for customers to ask questions and decrease shopper hesitation by getting quick & reliable answers from past buyers and your team.
- Custom Questions: Get more detailed and helpful reviews with key topics your shoppers are looking for, and customize each form to suit your brand needs.
Yotpo Pricing
Yotpo offers a free plan for up to 50 monthly orders. Paid plans starting at $19/month.
8. WPfomify
WPfomify, as you can probably guess from its name, is another social proof plugin for WordPress. It comes with several powerful features to boost conversions, build credibility, and increase revenue. It’s easy to set up and offers extensive documentation and world-class support.
Key Features:
- Real-time Customer Activity: Display real-time customer activity data from your eCommerce or LMS website.
- Subscriber Activity: Connect WPfomify with your mailing service and share who is joining your list.
- Granular Targeting: Take complete control of who, when, and where sees the notifications from WPfomify.
WPfomify Pricing
WPfomify pricing starts at $99/year for a single site license.
9. Thrive Ovation
Thrive Ovation is another social proof WordPress plugin that makes it seriously easy to add testimonials to your eCommerce site. It includes a tagging system that lets you easily find the testimonials you want to include on each page. Plus, you can use it to add social media and blog comments to your library of testimonials.
Key Features:
- WordPress Comments as Testimonials: Transform WordPress comments into testimonials with a single click (no cut and paste).
- Social Testimonials: Transform social media comments into ready-to-insert testimonials.
- Collection Automation: Automate your testimonial collection process by creating dedicated testimonial gathering landing pages, blog posts, or opt-in forms.
Thrive Ovation Pricing
Thrive Ovation pricing starts at $99 for a single site license.
10. LetConvert
LetConvert shows recent visitor activity and live visitor count and includes something called Power Trails that show the number of conversions that have taken place on your site. LetConvert is customizable so you can change fonts, colors, and animations to fit your brand. It also goes a step further, using customer cards that let you follow the buyer’s journey once they sign up.
Key Features:
- Custom Curation: Upload a list of your current users to show them on your website.
- Advanced Triggers: Define when to show the alerts on your website.
- User Journey: Map the entire journey of the user across the website.
LetConvert Pricing
LetConvert pricing starts at $4.99/week (when billed annually) for up to 10,000 unique visitors each month.
11. TrustPilot
TrustPilot displays text reviews from customers. Reviews can be requested by businesses that want to build a strong and transparent relationship or created by customers who have their own accounts. Each review comes with a star rating out of five. Reviews are also published instantly, making TrustPilot a powerful social proof tool for open conversations around the quality of products and services businesses offer.
Key Features:
- Invite customers and respond to reviews
- Get product, service, and location reviews
- Flag and report reviews
- Access to performance reports
TrustPilot Pricing
TrustPilot offers a free plan with basic reporting, 2 TrustBox widgets, and basic reporting.
12. TrustPulse
TrustPulse is dubbed as the “honest marketing platform”. And while that may sound like a lofty title, TrustPulse rises to the occasion. Besides a quick 5-minute setup, it offers purchase, analytics and conversion notifications, and action messages. It’s also easy to customize, letting you tweak every element to meet your design requirements. TrustPulse also includes a smart targeting feature. It allows brands to target visitors at the right times to help improve conversions.
Key Features:
- Purchase, analytics, and conversion notifications
- Flexible design
- Smart targeting
- Quick set up
TrustPulse Pricing
- Plans start at around $5/mo for up to 2500+ unique visits and include 2 campaign types, customization features, activity capture, and smart targeting and controls.
13. StoryPrompt
StoryPrompt is a video testimonial collection tool that simplifies the process of getting video reviews from customers and clients. And, once the video responses have been received, it uses AI to automatically edit and produce branded videos for your website and social channels. This removes the most time-consuming and cost-prohibitive step from the video testimonial creation process.
StoryPrompt also makes it easy for your customers to record videos without needing to join you on a call at a predefined time. You simply send your clients a link and they can record video responses in their own time from any device, without the need to download another app.
Key Features:
- AI Producers: Get fully branded video testimonials automatically, no editing needed.
- Teleprompter: Help your customers feel more comfortable on video.
- Website Widgets: Add testimonials to your site with no coding.
StoryPrompt Pricing
- Collect your first 25 testimonial videos for free, then upgrade to their Starter plan, starting at $39/mo for 200 videos per month.
Choose the Best Social Proof Software Tool for Your Business
With roughly 95% of shoppers reading online reviews before making a purchase and 91% of 18–34-year-olds trusting online social proof as much as they do recommendations from someone close to them, it’s clear that social proof can be a game-changer for your business. To get the most from your social proof efforts and leverage this powerful marketing tactic, you need the right tools. Any of the 13 social proof software tools on our list will help you improve your marketing message and tap into the power of social proof.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best social proof tools?
In this article, we have looked at 13 of the best social proof software tools on the market today, along with their features and pricing. The products we have covered are:
1. ProveSource
2. Boast
3. Proof
4. Provely
5. Fomo
6. Proven
7. Yotpo
8. WPfomify
9. Thrive Ovation
10. LetConvert
11. TrustPilot
12. TrustPulse
13. StoryPrompt
Any of the social proof software tools on our list will help you improve your marketing message and tap into the power of social proof.
What is an example of social proof?
Many companies rely on social proof to make sales. They realize that consumers aren’t going to rely on a company saying positive things about themselves. Examples of social proof include:
- An expert giving his or her approval for a product – for example, an influencer
- Celebrity endorsement
- Testimonials from existing customers
- Social media shares
- Earned media, e.g., backlinks to the company website
- “Wisdom of the Crowd” – many people are seen to endorse your brand
- “Wisdom of your Friends” – people see their friends using your product
What is social proof in marketing?
Modern consumers are wary about buying products they have never previously used. This is particularly so when buying online, where you can’t touch or try a product before you buy it, having to rely on photographs, videos, and descriptions. However, it is still relevant for physical goods and services. For instance, many people will check a restaurant’s reviews before they consider making a booking. People often rely on the opinions of previous customers of a brand before they are willing to risk spending their money.
How does social proof work?
Social proof works because it establishes trust. The typical consumer isn’t willing to trust a business merely because they say positive things about themselves. They may be a shoddy business that employs a superb copywriter! However, social proof is generated by a third party whose views potential customers consider more relevant than those of the company itself. Social proof, like reviews and testimonials, help others make a purchasing decision. It can play an incredible role in influencing the views of others.
Why is social proof important?
The main reason that social proof is important is that it provides a psychological trigger that encourages potential customers to go through with a purchase. They see that other people have been happy with your products, and based on this, are willing to give your product a chance. For example, if somebody shopping on Amazon sees that 1,000 people have rated a particular book highly, then it provides an incentive for this reader to buy and see if they too will like the book.
What is negative social proof?
If you are a brand wanting to use one of the social proof software tools covered in this article, you will be hoping to engender some positive social proof for your business. Unfortunately, too many firms suffer from negative social proof – for all those businesses with glorious 5-star reviews, there some with cringeworthy 1-star reviews. Negative social proof occurs when a reviewer or someone similar recommends you don’t use a product, e.g., “Avoid this flea-ridden hotel and go elsewhere2022.”
