Best free waitlist tools in 2026and what “free” actually means on each.
Disclosure: we make Mendoop, one of the tools on this list. We’ve tried to be accurate about the others, and every price links to the vendor’s own pricing page — check them, because they change.
Almost every waitlist tool advertises a free plan. Read the pricing pages and most of them turn out to be one of two things: a trial with a clock on it, or a cap around 100 signups. That’s the useful information, so it comes first.
What “free” means in this category
A trial, not a plan
GetWaitlist closed its free tier to accounts created from June 12, 2025 onward; new accounts get a 7-day trial, then $15/mo. Prefinery has a 14-day trial and no free plan. Viral Loops has a 14-day trial capped at 10 participants — and if you don’t subscribe by the end, its FAQ says you can’t export the emails you collected.
A cap around 100
Waitlister stops at 100 subscribers. LaunchList stops at 100 submissions — later signups are still collected, but hidden until you upgrade. KickoffLabs allows a mini-campaign to 100 uniques a month.
The exceptions
WaitlistKit allows 500 signups, while it’s in beta with paid plans not yet launched. Mendoop is free to start with no signup cap — and no email sending or referrals, which is the trade.
The comparison
| Tool | Free plan | Paid plans | Emails your list | Referrals | Hosted page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GetWaitlist | None for new accounts — a 7-day trial of Basic. The free tier is kept only by accounts created before June 12, 2025. | $15 / $50 / $250 per month (Basic / Advanced / Pro) | Yes — automated emails; blasts on any paid plan; custom templates at $250/mo | Yes — referral links, queue position, leaderboards | No — an embeddable widget or API for a page you build elsewhere |
| Waitlister | 100 subscribers, 1 waitlist, no emails | $19–$129/mo billed monthly ($16–$108/mo billed yearly) | On paid plans — 2,500 a month on the $19 plan | From the $19/mo plan | Yes — a drag-and-drop page builder, on every plan |
| LaunchList | Up to 100 submissions | One-time: $29 for 500 submissions, $79 for 10K, custom above | Welcome email from the $29 plan; from your own domain at $79 | Yes — on the free plan too | Embeddable form (no hosted page listed on the pricing page) |
| KickoffLabs | A “mini-campaign to 100 uniques a month” | $19–$289/mo billed monthly ($13–$202/mo billed yearly) | Autoresponder emails on every plan | Yes — every plan | Yes — landing pages, popups and embeds |
| Prefinery | None — a 14-day free trial | $49 / $249 / $499 per month, billed monthly | Yes — unlimited emails on every plan | Yes — referral links, rewards, queues | Signup form builder (no hosted page listed on the pricing page) |
| Viral Loops | None — a 14-day trial of the Growing plan, up to 10 participants | $49–$399/mo billed monthly ($35–$279/mo billed annually) | Email notifications on every plan | Yes — it’s the core product | Widgets, plus Viral Loops Pages |
| WaitlistKit | 1 campaign, up to 500 signups (in beta) | Pro $19/mo and Business $49/mo are listed, marked “launching soon” | Not listed on the pricing page | Yes — referral tracking | Yes — a hosted waitlist page |
| Mendoop | Free to start — no credit card, no signup cap | No paid plan today | No — export a CSV to your own email tool | No | Yes — pitch, cover image, countdown, 5 layouts |
Tool by tool
GetWaitlist
The category default, and built around referrals: every signup gets a link, and bringing in friends moves them up the queue, with leaderboards to show it. It’s a widget and an API rather than a page — you paste it into a site built somewhere else. New accounts get a 7-day trial of the $15/mo Basic plan, which already includes unlimited signups, data export and email blasts. Removing GetWaitlist’s branding is $50/mo; sending from your own domain is $250/mo.
Best for: Referral loops, queue positions and leaderboards, on a site you already have.
Waitlister
The closest thing to Mendoop on this list, and further along in places: every plan, the free one included, gets a drag-and-drop landing page builder and CSV export. The free plan stops at 100 subscribers and one waitlist, and sends no email. Referrals and email start on the $19/mo Launch plan; a custom domain on the $29/mo Pro plan.
Best for: A designed landing page with a builder, if you’ll stay under 100 subscribers or pay.
LaunchList
The one that doesn’t bill monthly: paid plans are a one-time payment for lifetime access, priced by how many submissions you expect. (The pricing page’s intro says Launch is “from $19”; its plan card shows $29 for up to 500 submissions.) The free plan covers 100 submissions and includes referral management and export. Past a plan’s limit, signups are still collected but hidden until you upgrade. It’s an embeddable form, so you need a page to put it on.
Best for: Paying once instead of every month.
KickoffLabs
Built for giveaways, contests and sweepstakes as much as waitlists, with landing pages, popups, embeds and referral links on every plan. Paid plans are sized by leads per month, starting at 500 on Hobby. Some older roundups describe the free plan as test-only and unable to collect real leads; the pricing page no longer says that — it now offers a mini-campaign to 100 uniques a month.
Best for: Giveaways, contests and sweepstakes.
Prefinery
A referral and beta-management platform: referral links, rewards, waiting-list queues, invitation codes and unlimited emails on every plan. There is no free plan — every plan starts with a 14-day trial — and the entry Lite plan includes 1,000 users and one campaign. It is priced for a team with a launch budget rather than a weekend project.
Best for: Referral programs and invite-gated betas, with a budget.
WaitlistKit
A newer, simpler referral waitlist with a hosted page. It’s in beta: the free plan allows one campaign and up to 500 signups, and Pro ($19/mo) and Business ($49/mo) are listed but marked as launching soon, so treat those prices as announced rather than charged. More than one product uses this name — this entry is waitlistkit.org. A different WaitlistKit at waitlistkit.dev didn’t respond when we checked, so it isn’t listed.
Best for: A simple referral waitlist, while its beta is free.
Mendoop
A hosted waitlist page first: your pitch in markdown, a cover image, a launch countdown, five layouts and ten colour themes, at mendoop.com/w/your-idea. If you already have a site, a one-line embed puts the same join form on it. The dashboard puts views next to signups so you can read the conversion rate, and CSV export comes with every account. It’s free to start, with no credit card and no signup cap. It doesn’t send email and has no referral system.
Best for: A good-looking hosted page with no signup cap, if you don’t need email or referrals from the tool.
How to choose
- Want signups to recruit their friends? Referral links, queue positions, leaderboards: GetWaitlist, Viral Loops or KickoffLabs. Not Mendoop.
- Need to email your list from the same tool? Any of the paid plans above. Not Mendoop — it exports a CSV for your own email tool.
- Already have a site and just need a form? Something with an embed: GetWaitlist, LaunchList or Prefinery — or Mendoop’s one-line embed, if a plain join form is all you need.
- Hate subscriptions? LaunchList’s one-time pricing.
- Want a page builder with full design control? Waitlister — free up to 100 subscribers.
- Want a good-looking hosted page, free to start, with no signup cap? Mendoop.
Coming from GetWaitlist specifically? Here’s what changed there and how to move a list.
Try the free one
Free to start, no credit card. A hosted waitlist page in about a minute.
Create your waitlist pageSources
Every competitor figure was read from the vendor’s own site — not from other roundups, several of which are written by these vendors and some of which describe plans that no longer exist.
- GetWaitlist — Pricing page and FAQ · Homepage (7-day trial) · Platforms and integrations · Their landing-page guide
- Waitlister — Pricing page
- LaunchList — Pricing page and FAQ
- KickoffLabs — Pricing page
- Prefinery — Pricing page
- Viral Loops — Pricing page and FAQ
- WaitlistKit — Homepage pricing section
EasyWaitlist appears in some older roundups. It isn’t listed here: its domain registration had expired when we checked on September 13, 2026.
Last verified: September 13, 2026. We re-check these quarterly.