Visual Website Optimizer (VWO): AB Testing Review & Pricing 2026

This information is correct as of March 2023, updated August 2026. Growth Method has made every attempt to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information provided.

Since the shutdown of Google Optimise, many of our clients have been searching for a low-cost Google Optimise alternative, particularly after the sunset announcement was revised making it clear that A/B testing functionality would not be added to GA4. Rather than building native functionality in Google Analytics, Google’s focus is now on integrating third-party A/B testing solutions.

We work with mid-size and enterprise B2B clients, companies that don’t have to deal with e-commerce-like transaction volumes but nevertheless need a reliable A/B testing tool to run experiments and accelerate growth.

The two most popular Google Optimise alternatives that have emerged since the Optimize sunset announcement are Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) and Convert. In this article, we look at VWO in depth, including its VWO Plan roadmap tool and how it compares to Convert.com and PostHog.

VWO Introduction

The VWO platform is split into five products as below. The main AB testing product is called VWO Testing. Whilst traditionally more of a high-end solution, they recently launched a free plan for Google Optimise users called the VWO Testing Starter plan.

• VWO Testing: A/B, multi-variate, split, multi-device, and multi-page tests

• VWO Full Stack: Mobile app and server-side testing

• VWO Insights: CRO tools for session recording, surveys, and form analysis

• VWO Personalise: Advanced personalisation campaigns

• VWO Deploy: Deploy winning tests without development

• VWO Services: AB testing strategy, design, and development agency

• VWO Plan: Manage and prioritise your testing roadmap

Typically, VWO pricing for web-based testing ranges from $99 per month to $467 per month, but the new VWO Testing Starter plan is free for users for up to 50k tested visitors a month and available for $199 a month for users for up to 100K monthly tested visitors.

The number of different products and pricing options in the VWO platform can be confusing. For example, whilst VWO has the capability for form analysis and testing, analysis requires the VWO Insights product, whilst testing requires the VWO Testing product.

VWO Plan: Managing Your Testing Roadmap

VWO Plan provides functionality for collecting and managing ideas to improve website performance. To support a growth marketing strategy, the workflow is to gather observations (using VWO Insights), turn these observations into hypotheses (using VWO Plan), and test your hypotheses (using VWO Testing).

With VWO Plan, your teams can collaboratively discover growth opportunities in your visitors’ journey, build a pipeline of high-impact experimentation ideas and see them all the way to completion. Warner Music Group increased their testing velocity by 3X using VWO. So can you.

https://vwo.com/plan/

VWO Plan includes 3 core pieces of functionality: Observations, Hypotheses, and Ideas.

1. Observations

VWO Observations is an area to collect and manage insights and observations. These are things you have seen or experienced that could improve your website or application experience. Observations can then be tested by creating a hypothesis.

Use Observation to collect data on user behavior that can help you understand the motivations and apprehensions of visitors on your website.

Observations are the basis of identifying common patterns or problems that can eventually lead you to potential optimization opportunities. Link one or more observations as evidence to construct your test hypothesis.

https://app.vwo.com/#/plan/observations

2. Hypotheses

Hypotheses enable you to manage and prioritize testing ideas, similar to Growth Method and other growth marketing platforms.

Build a hypothesis to describe a proposed change and the potential impact of that change on your website conversions.

For example, you assume that increasing CTA button size and changing colors attract more Signups. To test this hypothesis, you would run a campaign and set up your goals to test if your assumptions are true.

https://app.vwo.com/#/plan/hypotheses

New hypotheses are entered in a structured format, prioritization is based on the ICE framework (Impact, Confidence, and Effort). A strong point is the need to tie a hypothesis to an existing observation, moving it through Backlog, Selected for Testing, Testing, Completed, and Archived stages.

3. Ideas

The ideas section (branded the “Idea Factory”) includes Ideas Gallery, Case Studies, and Resources and Articles, filterable by industry, implementation time, and element tested. Many of the ideas are rather dated and lack detail, with some being a single screenshot with minimal supporting text.

VWO Chrome Extension

The main function of the VWO Chrome Extension is the ability to add observations from anywhere.

If you notice anything interesting on your website, quickly make a note and create an observation. The observation is saved along with a screenshot of the page and can be referred to whenever required.

VWO Chrome Extension

AB testing functionality review

The core features in VWO, Convert, and others are very similar, and for any team that is newer to growth marketing, agile marketing, or experimentation, either will be more than sufficient to get started.

Here are some questions to consider:

• How many tested visitors do you need? Over 100k with VWO shoots up in price massively. At 50k and below, both are very similar.

• What test types does the product offer? AB tests, Split tests (split-url tests), multi-variant tests (MVT), multi-page tests.

• How many tests can you run? Are there limits?

• How do you edit tests? Most products come with both a visual editor and a code editor.

• How do you get support? Typically a mix of live chat, email, and phone support, depending on your plan level.

• Is there zero flicker? Unlike Google Optimise, all commercial offerings should provide zero-flicker as standard.

• What statistical model is used?

VWO vs Convert.com vs PostHog

We have reviewed VWO functionality in-depth below and compared it against Convert (the most common direct competitor) and PostHog (a common choice for teams that want AB testing bundled with product analytics), for ease of reference.

See our full PostHog vs Google Analytics comparison for more on PostHog’s approach to bundling AB testing with product analytics.

Final thoughts

When considering VWO as an AB testing solution or as a replacement for Google Optimise, there are two main questions to ask:

• Are you likely to go above 100,000 tested visitors per month? If so, the VWO plans suddenly become extremely expensive.

• Do you require targeting beyond basic URLs or device type (desktop or mobile) as the VWO Starter Plan provides no other targeting or segmentation options?

VWO does offer form analytics solutions, but they come at an extra cost as they require the (separate) VWO Insights plan.

As always, we recommend any AB testing is informed by good conversion research. Growth marketers should aim to understand users’ needs, issues, doubts, and fears and use these to generate high-quality growth ideas that have a higher likelihood of success.

As always, remember that with typical B2B traffic volumes, you will likely need to make big, bold changes in order to get statistical significance on tests.

About Growth Method

Choosing an AB testing tool is a one-time decision, but running a disciplined test-and-learn practice on top of it is the harder, ongoing problem. It’s telling that VWO’s own Plan product mirrors this: Observations become Hypotheses, Hypotheses get prioritised, and only then do they become tests. Growth Method is built around that exact loop, but as the system of record for the whole team, not a bolt-on to one testing tool.

Growth Method is the agentic marketing platform for B2B teams: plan your strategy, ship campaigns, and learn what works, all in one place, for people and agents. Whichever AB testing platform you land on, VWO or otherwise, Growth Method is where the hypothesis gets written down, the test gets launched against a real before-metric, and the result gets analysed against that baseline, rather than left as a “did we ship it” checkbox.

Get started to see how.

Got questions? Ping me on LinkedIn or on Twitter.

Frequently asked questions

Is VWO (Visual Website Optimizer) free?

Yes. VWO Testing offers a free Starter plan for up to 50,000 tested visitors per month. Paid plans start at $99/month and scale up depending on traffic volume and which VWO products (Insights, Full Stack, Personalise) you add.

What is VWO Plan?

VWO Plan is VWO’s roadmap and prioritisation tool. It lets teams collect Observations (insights about user behaviour), turn them into Hypotheses scored with the ICE framework, and browse an Ideas Gallery of experiment inspiration, all before a test is built in VWO Testing.

How does VWO compare to Convert.com?

VWO and Convert.com cover very similar core AB testing functionality. VWO’s key advantage is a free tier for up to 50,000 tested visitors a month, while Convert.com offers deeper targeting and segmentation options and more third-party integrations from its entry-level paid plan.

What are the best VWO alternatives?

The most common alternatives to VWO for B2B teams are Convert.com (stronger targeting and integrations), PostHog (if you already use it for product analytics and want AB testing bundled in), AB Tasty and Optimizely for enterprise-scale programmes.