Remember Google Optimize? If you used it, you probably loved it. It was simple and visual with no dev team required.
You could create an A/B test in an afternoon and actually understand what you were looking at.
Then it was gone.
If you haven’t found a replacement yet, you’re not alone. Plenty of site owners are still searching for something that fits the same way, and the market hasn’t exactly made that easy.
Most alternatives either do too much, cost too much, or assume you have an engineering team on standby.
This guide covers 4 real alternatives. Not a list of 20 tools. Four hand-picked tools, each matched to a specific situation, with honest notes on who each one is and isn’t for.
The short answer: If you run a WordPress or WooCommerce site and want something affordable with heatmaps and session recordings built in, Sigmize is the closest match to what Google Optimize offered, and it goes further. If you’re running a large team with enterprise-level experimentation needs, VWO is the better call.
Why Did Google Shut Down Optimize?
Google announced it in January 2023 and followed through on September 30, 2023. The official reason was that Optimize “does not have many of the features and services that our customers request and need for experimentation testing.”
Which is corporate language for it wasn’t keeping up.
The honest version is that Google Optimize was a good entry-level tool that never grew into anything more.
It capped you at 5 concurrent tests, had no heatmaps, no session recordings and no way to see whether a variant actually generated more revenue rather than just more clicks.
The traffic limits made it unsuitable for anything beyond a small site.
And because it was free and tied to old Google Analytics, it was never going to get the investment it would have needed to compete with tools like VWO or Optimizely.
So they cut it. No replacement, no transition tool, no warning beyond a few months.
Just a shutdown date and a suggestion to check out their list of third-party partners.
That left a lot of site owners who’d built their entire testing workflow around Optimize suddenly needing to start over.
Many just stopped testing altogether. Others jumped between tools trying to find something that fit the same way.
That’s probably a familiar story if you’re reading this.
What to Look for in a Google Optimize Replacement
If, like us, you’ve drifted from tool to tool trying to find ‘the one’, here’s what we think matters most:
Visual editor. Google Optimize let you change headlines, buttons, images and layout without touching a line of code. Your replacement should do the same.
If you need a developer to make a simple copy change, the tool slows you down instead of helping.
Real conversion tracking. Clicks and page views tell part of the story. Revenue and actual orders tell the whole one. For WooCommerce stores in particular, you want a tool that connects directly to your order data so you can see which test variant generated more sales, not just more clicks to a buy button.
Heatmaps and session recordings. Google Optimize didn’t offer these. Now’s the time to get them. Heatmaps show you where visitors click, where they scroll to, and where they stop engaging.
Session recordings let you watch real visitor journeys. Together they tell you why a test won or lost, not just that it did. That context makes your next test smarter.
Statistical reliability. A result that looks good after 3 days is often just noise. Your testing tool needs to tell you when a result is statistically significant, meaning it reflects a real pattern in visitor behavior rather than a random fluctuation.
Without this, you’ll make decisions based on data that doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Site speed and anti-flicker. A testing tool that loads slowly or causes a flash of the original content before showing the variant is giving some visitors an inconsistent experience. Good tools handle this at the script level so visitors never see anything odd.
Pricing that makes sense for your site. Google Optimize was free, so anything feels like a step up in cost. But the right tool doesn’t have to be expensive. Several solid options exist in the $0 to $150 per month range that work well for small to mid-size sites.
The 4 Best Google Optimize Alternatives
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free trial | Heatmaps | WooCommerce revenue tracking |
| Sigmize | WordPress and WooCommerce | See pricing | 7 days | Yes | Yes |
| VWO | Enterprise teams | $299/month | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Crazy Egg | Non-WordPress sites | $99/month | 30 days | Yes | No |
| Convert | Statistical rigor, privacy | $399/month | Yes | No | No |
Sigmize: Best for WordPress and WooCommerce Sites
Most A/B testing tools treat WooCommerce stores like an afterthought. They track clicks, form submissions, maybe a thank-you page visit and call that a conversion.
Sigmize does something much more useful. It connects directly to your WooCommerce order data and shows you actual revenue per variant.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Imagine running a headline test on a product page. Variant B drives 12% more add-to-cart clicks.
Looks like a win, right?
But if Variant B also drops your average order value by 20%, you just optimized yourself into a pay cut. Sigmize will show that, where most tools leave you to figure it out yourself.
Setup is genuinely fast. Install the plugin, connect your account, run your first test, all within about 30 minutes. No developer required.
What You Get
| Feature | Sigmize | Most mid-tier tools |
| A/B testing | ✅ | Yes |
| Heatmaps | ✅ | Paid addon |
| Session recordings | ✅ | Paid addon |
| WooCommerce revenue tracking | ✅ | Rarely |
| Statistical significance indicator | ✅ | Sometimes |
| GDPR consent controls (Cookiebot) | ✅ | Varies |
Heatmaps and session recordings are bundled in, so you’re not paying separately for behavior analytics.
After a test wraps, you can watch recordings from each variant’s converters side by side. That’s how you stop guessing why one version worked.
A Quick Real-World Example
A handmade goods store tests two product page headlines: “Handcrafted Italian Leather Wallet” vs. “A Wallet That Gets Better Every Year.”
Sigmize doesn’t just show which headline got more clicks. It shows which one completed more orders and at what cart value.
That’s the data that drives business decisions.
Worth Knowing
Sigmize is built exclusively for WordPress, which means the WooCommerce revenue tracking works exactly as advertised rather than as a bolt-on compromise.
If your store runs on WordPress and WooCommerce, the 7-day free trial is a low-risk way to see it in action.
VWO: Best for Enterprise Teams
Most A/B testing tools are built for one person running one test at a time. VWO is built for teams running dozens.
It covers A/B testing, multivariate testing, server-side testing, feature flags, heatmaps, session recordings and program management tools for teams coordinating large testing programs across multiple products or audiences.
The part that actually separates VWO is server-side testing. That means experiments on backend logic: pricing, recommendation engines, feature rollouts.
Not just what’s visible on the page. For a SaaS company or large eCommerce operation that wants to test business decisions rather than button colors, that capability changes what’s possible.
Setup reflects the enterprise focus. You get a visual editor for front-end changes, a code editor for CSS and JavaScript and a targeting engine that lets you segment by country, device, UTM parameter, behavioral history, and more.
You can run a test for one audience while leaving everyone else untouched.
What You Get
| Feature | VWO |
| A/B + multivariate testing | ✅ |
| Server-side testing + feature flags | ✅ |
| Heatmaps + session recordings | ✅ |
| Advanced audience segmentation | ✅ |
| Collaboration + audit trails | ✅ |
| Starting price | $299/month |
$299/month is $3,588/year at the base level, for 100,000 tested users. That’s intentional. VWO is priced for teams, not individual site owners.
A Real-World Example
A fashion retailer with 500,000 monthly visitors tests a “Low Stock” label on product pages, but only for their UK audience.
They track revenue per visitor as the primary metric and watch session recordings to see how the label changes purchase behavior. Three weeks later, results are statistically significant and the winning variant rolls out automatically.
That’s the environment VWO is designed for.
Worth Knowing
VWO makes sense when your traffic, team, and testing volume have outgrown simpler tools
If you’re a solo owner or small agency, you can run all the tests you need for a fraction of the cost.
Crazy Egg: Best for Visual Behavior Data on Any Platform
Most behavior analytics tools are built for one platform. Crazy Egg works on all of them.
WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Webflow, Wix. Paste one snippet in your header and you’re collecting data in 5 minutes or less.
No plugin. No developer. No configuration.
The standout feature is the confetti map. Most heatmaps show you where people clicked. Crazy Egg shows you who clicked there, organic visitors, paid traffic, mobile users, returning customers, all broken out visually.
Different audiences interact with the same page in completely different ways. Seeing that changes how you prioritize your tests.
A/B testing is included from $99/month. The visual editor handles text, images, colors and layout with no code required.
What it doesn’t do is connect to eCommerce order data. If your test goal is reaching a thank-you page, it works well.
If you need to know which variant drove more revenue, you’ll be calculating that yourself.
What You Get
| Feature | Crazy Egg |
| Heatmaps (7 report types) | ✅ |
| Confetti map by traffic source | ✅ |
| A/B testing | ✅ |
| WooCommerce revenue tracking | ❌ |
| Platform support | Any site |
Crazy Egg uses multi-armed bandit testing, which automatically shifts more traffic toward the better-performing variant as the test runs.
Less exposure to a losing variant. The tradeoff is less statistical precision at the end, which matters more for some teams than others.
A Quick Real-World Example
A Squarespace course creator wants to know if changing their hero headline increases signups.
They add the snippet, build a variant in the visual editor and set the thank-you page as the goal.
Crazy Egg splits traffic and shows click behavior, scroll depth, and conversion numbers for each variant side by side.
One clear answer, no eCommerce integration needed.
Worth Knowing
Crazy Egg is the fastest way to get heatmaps and A/B testing running on any platform. If you need WooCommerce revenue tracking or deep statistical controls, it isn’t the right fit.
Convert: Best for Teams That Need Statistical Rigor and Privacy Controls
Most A/B testing tools decide how to measure your results. Convert lets you decide.
That distinction matters more than it sounds.
Frequentist testing, the traditional approach, runs a test until you hit a preset significance threshold, then calls a winner.
Bayesian testing continuously updates the probability that one variant is better, which means you get a reliable signal faster on lower-traffic sites.
Convert gives you both and lets you choose per experiment.
For a CRO team that knows the difference, that kind of control is rare.
Anti-flicker is handled at the script level, not through a separate tag manager setup. That means no flash of the original content before a variant loads, cleaner page performance and more reliable test results.
What You Get
| Feature | Convert |
| A/B testing | ✅ |
| Statistical methodology | Frequentist or Bayesian |
| Anti-flicker | Script-level |
| Server-side testing | ✅ |
| GDPR compliance | Built-in by design |
| Starting price | $399/month |
Convert is also a Conscious Business. They only partner with companies that meet their standards around environmental and social impact.
For some organizations shortlisting vendors, that matters.
A Real-World Example
A SaaS company tests three onboarding flows. Their goal isn’t account creation, it’s feature adoption within the first 7 days.
They run the experiment server-side, segment results by acquisition source and apply Bayesian testing to get a reliable signal faster given moderate traffic. They also iterate weekly.
That kind of workflow is exactly what Convert is built for.
Worth Knowing
If you’re running your first tests or managing a small store, Convert’s depth and price are more than you need right now.
Build your testing maturity with a simpler tool like Sigmize first, then move here when you’ve outgrown it.
Which Google Optimize Alternative Is Right for You?
The honest answer depends on two things, what platform your site runs on and how seriously you want to build a testing program.
If you’re on WordPress or WooCommerce and you want something you can set up today, run real tests on and actually understand the results, Sigmize is where we’d start.
It’s the closest thing to what Google Optimize was, with the revenue tracking and behavior tools it never had.
The 7-day free trial gives you enough time to run a meaningful test and see real data before you commit.
If you’re not on WordPress, Crazy Egg is the most practical option.
It works on any platform, takes 5 minutes to install and gives you heatmaps alongside basic A/B testing for $99 a month.
It won’t connect to your store’s revenue data, but for landing page tests and element-level experiments, it does the job.
If you’re part of a larger team running high-traffic experiments across multiple audiences or products, VWO is built for that.
The starting price of $299 a month reflects that it’s a team tool. If you’re using it solo, you’re paying for a lot of features you won’t use.
If your team has a dedicated CRO function and you need full control over how tests run statistically, Convert is the professional choice.
It’s not for beginners, but it’s great for experienced teams as it’s one of the most rigorous tools available.
Try Sigmize free, no credit card required →
Frequently Asked Questions
What replaced Google Optimize?
Nothing from Google. They shut it down and pointed users toward GA4 for analytics and a shortlist of third-party partners for experimentation. In practice, the tools that absorbed most of the Google Optimize audience are Sigmize (for WordPress and WooCommerce stores), Crazy Egg (for non-WordPress sites that want a simple starting point), VWO (for teams with larger budgets and more complex needs), and Convert (for agencies and CRO professionals).
None of them are free like Optimize was, but all of them go further than Optimize did.
Is there a free Google Optimize alternative?
Not a like-for-like one, no. Microsoft Clarity is free and gives you heatmaps and session recordings, but it doesn’t include A/B testing. Google’s own Optimize replacement story ends at GA4, which tracks behavior but doesn’t run experiments.
Most tools that include real A/B testing (a proper visual editor, statistical measurement, and conversion tracking) start around $50 to $100 a month. Sigmize and Crazy Egg both offer free trials long enough to run a real test before you pay.
What is the best A/B testing tool for WordPress?
For most WordPress and WooCommerce sites, Sigmize. It’s the only tool on this list built specifically for WordPress. Plugin setup is straightforward, WooCommerce revenue tracking works natively without extra configuration and the interface is designed for site owners rather than data teams.
If you’re running a WordPress site but not WooCommerce, like a blog, a membership site, or a service business, Sigmize still works well. You can see how the setup works in the Sigmize docs before signing up.
Does A/B testing actually work?
Yes, but the size of the impact depends entirely on what you’re testing and whether your traffic is large enough to generate reliable results. Tests on high-impact elements like your main headline, your primary CTA, or your product page layout tend to show the biggest swings.
Changing button color on a low-traffic page often produces nothing statistically meaningful. The most important habit is picking one element that actually affects whether visitors convert, running the test long enough to be confident in the result, and then using what you learn to inform the next test. That compounding effect is where the real gains come from.
How long should I run a test before calling a winner?
At minimum, two full weeks. Not because of a rule, but because traffic behavior varies significantly by day of the week and a test that runs Monday to Friday misses the weekend patterns that can look completely different.
For WooCommerce stores in particular, weekend purchase behavior often differs from weekday behavior. Beyond the two-week minimum, you want to reach a point where your testing tool signals statistical significance, where the result is unlikely to be noise.
Sigmize shows you this directly in the results dashboard. If you call a winner early based on a promising-looking lead, you’ll often find the gap closes or reverses when the test runs to completion.
What should I test first?
Start with the element that has the most direct connection to whether someone converts. On a product page, that’s usually the headline or the primary call to action. On a landing page, it’s the hero section. On a checkout page, it’s often the form layout or trust signals.
The instinct is to test design changes like colors, images and layout, but copy changes (what the page says) tend to produce bigger and faster results. Once you’ve found a headline that converts better, you’ll have a clearer picture of what your audience responds to, and every subsequent test builds on that knowledge.
Will A/B testing affect my SEO?
Not if it’s set up correctly. Google’s own documentation states that properly implemented A/B tests do not violate their guidelines. The key is using JavaScript-based variation delivery rather than separate URLs for each variant, and not cloaking content from Google’s crawler (showing Google one version while visitors see another).
All four tools in this list handle this correctly by default. Sigmize is specifically built to be lightweight on WordPress, so there’s no meaningful page speed impact that would affect your rankings.