Top 6 Progress Bar WordPress Plugins Compared for 2025

Do you want to add a reading progress bar to your WordPress website? Then you have come to the right place. In this article, we compare the five best progress bar WordPress plugins in 2025 to help you make an informed choice. We recommend analyzing the key features, pros, and cons before making up your mind.

A reading progress bar is an excellent way to improve your website’s readability. It enhances the user experience by providing a visual indicator of how far a post has been read. It acts as a digital bookmark, allowing readers to keep track of a post. So, join us as we discover the best reading progress bar WordPress plugins in 2025. Let’s go!

What is a Reading Progress Bar?

A reading progress bar in WordPress is a highly effective tool that enhances user engagement by visually indicating how much of an article or page a visitor has read. As the reader scrolls down the page, the progress bar gradually fills, offering an interactive sense of completion.

This feature can be particularly beneficial on longer blog posts, where it provides readers with a subtle motivation to keep going, improving both user experience and time spent on your site. Adding a reading progress bar to WordPress is straightforward. You can place the bar at the top, bottom, or sides of the page, ensuring it integrates smoothly into your website’s design without distracting the user.

Adding a progress bar encourages readers to finish reading the content. Studies suggest users feel a sense of accomplishment when they complete reading a post. This can motivate them to engage with additional content or make purchasing decisions. This makes a reading progress bar a subtle yet strategic tool for boosting site engagement and conversions​. So, by combining a progress bar plugin with an affordable blog hosting plan, you can improve user experience and minimize bounce rates.

5 Best Reading Progress Bar WordPress Plugins for Your Website

The best reading progress bar WordPress plugins are user-friendly, lightweight, and customizable. Here are the five best progress bar WordPress plugins for your website in 2025.

Read Meter

Read Meter is a popular WordPress progress bar that lets you automatically add a reading progress bar at the top of the screen. You can also showcase the estimated reading time along with the progress bar.

Key Features

1. Lightweight Plugin: Read Meter uses clean codes, is optimized for WordPress environments, and does not increase page loading time.
2. Easy to Use: The plugin has a beginner-friendly interface and comes with clear instructions for installation and customization.
3. Globally Compatible: It works flawlessly with third-party WordPress tools, including live chat plugins and custom posts extensions.

Pros

• You can automatically add the estimated read time to different parts of the post
• Easily display the progress bar at the top or bottom of a page
• Customize the color and style of each element to match your website

Cons

• The plugin can freeze at times

Reading Progressbar

Reading Progressbar is an excellent WordPress progress bar plugin that is scalable and flexible. You can customize the plugin to match the rest of your website and it packs several useful features, including custom styling and targeting.

Key Features

1. Flexible Positioning: You can display the progress bar at the top or bottom of the page.
2. Fully Customizable: Easily customize the colors and height of the plugin using the visual editor.
3. Custom Targeting: Control the posts and pages where the progress bar will appear.

Pros

• It is a lightweight plugin and works well with all popular WordPress Hosting plans
• You can customize visual elements, including height, foreground and background color, and more
• Choose from multiple premade templates

Cons

• Lacks customer support

Worth the Read

Worth the Read is a popular WordPress reading progress bar plugin that offers plenty of unique touches, such as custom bar placement, post type and device targeting, comment progress, etc.

Key Features

1. Horizontal and Vertical Bar Placement: Add a horizontal progress bar at the top or bottom of the screen or a vertical bar on the left or right side.
2. Style Options: Customize the color, style, and opacity to match the rest of your website.
3. RTL Support: The plugin supports RTL, meaning you can easily combine it with a WordPress translation plugin and build a multilingual website.

Pros

• The plugin has a user-friendly interface
• You can enable the reading time commitment feature separately
• You can place the time commitment label anywhere using the [wtr_time] shortcode

Cons

• Puts ads in the customizer

Catch Scroll Progress Bar

The Catch Scroll Progress Bar by Catch Plugins is an excellent tool for enhancing user experience. It visually represents how much content remains, which helps read longer blogs. The plugin is free and offers bottomless customization options.

Key Features

1. Easy to Use: The plugin is extremely easy to operate and customize, making it ideal for users across different skill levels.
2. Lightweight Design: The plugin is extremely lightweight and can be combined with a WP performance extension to further improve page load speed.
3. Flexible Display Options: You can easily display the progress bar on the front page, blogs, or individual posts and pages.

Pros

• The plugin offers limitless customization options
• It is user-friendly and comes with clear instructions
• The plugin is lightweight and globally compatible

Cons

• Very few active users

WP Reading Progress

WP Reading Progress is another excellent free WordPress progress bar plugin. It offers a clean and minimalist UI and features multiple customization options. It is basic compared to other plugins on this list but will suffice for most users.

Key Features

1. Post Type Targeting: Include a post type of specific posts or sitewide with a single click.
2. Flexible Positioning: Add a progress bar to the top or bottom of the page  
3. Fully Customizable: You can customize the height, thickness, and color of the progress bar using the front-end editor.

Pros

• The plugin is visually appealing and easy to use
• The bar can be displayed at the top of all pages/posts or a select few
• You can also display the estimated reading time

Cons

• None at the time of writing

Conclusion

The best progress bar WordPress plugins are user-friendly for different skill levels, feature-packed, and fully customizable. We handpicked the five most popular extensions in 2025 to help you make an informed choice. We suggest you try a few free tools first before making up your mind.