{
 "schema_version": "1.0",
 "id": "hello-bar",
 "name": "Hello Bar",
 "research_status": "researched",
 "vendor_domain": "hellobar.com",
 "category": "Growth & Revenue",
 "task": "SEO, content & landing pages",
 "summary": "Sticky bars, popups, slide-ins and full-screen takeovers for lead capture, with A/B testing and targeting rules. The meter is popup views rather than signups, so a traffic spike raises the bill however few emails you captured.",
 "best_for": "content sites, blogs and stores that already have traffic and a genuinely worthwhile offer, and want sticky bars, popups and slide-ins with A/B testing to convert more of that traffic into subscribers",
 "skip_if": "your traffic is still small (fix distribution first — a popup on 200 visitors captures almost nothing), or your list-building runs through gated content and landing pages rather than on-page interrupts",
 "honest_knock": "The meter is views, not results: every visitor who sees a popup counts against your quota, so a traffic spike eats the allowance regardless of how many emails you actually captured, and at the limit the campaigns pause until the next billing cycle — a busy site outgrows the entry tier fast. And the honest fundamental of every popup tool: it amplifies an offer, it doesn't create one. A weak lead magnet with a beautiful popup is still a weak lead magnet, and aggressive full-screen takeovers can cost more goodwill (and Core Web Vitals) than they capture.",
 "pricing": {
  "status": "public",
  "entry_price": "$29",
  "entry_price_terms": "per month billed annually ($39 monthly), up to 50,000 views/mo",
  "from_price_usd_month": 29.0,
  "plans": [
   {
    "name": "Starter",
    "price": "$0 forever",
    "includes": "5,000 views in total; 1 seat"
   },
   {
    "name": "Growth",
    "price": "$39 a month billed monthly or $29 billed annually",
    "includes": "up to 50,000 views a month; 3 seats"
   },
   {
    "name": "Premium",
    "price": "$69 or $49",
    "includes": "up to 150,000 views a month; unlimited seats"
   },
   {
    "name": "Elite",
    "price": "$129 or $99",
    "includes": "up to 500,000 views a month; unlimited seats"
   }
  ],
  "plans_source": "summarised from pricing.notes; every plan name and amount appears verbatim in those notes",
  "notes": "(re-verified 2026-09-24 against hellobar.com/pricing; amounts unchanged since 3 Sep 2026) Hello Bar publishes exact prices, so the ranges we carried before were wrong: they were the monthly and the annual rate side by side. Paid tiers meter monthly popup VIEWS. Growth is $39 a month billed monthly or $29 billed annually, up to 50,000 views a month; Premium $69 or $49, up to 150,000; Elite $129 or $99, up to 500,000, with unlimited seats. The annual feature table states the same quotas as 600,000, 1.8 million and 6 million views a year. Starter is $0 forever with 5,000 views in total rather than per month. The view limit applies per website, and only a custom agency or enterprise plan can move it to a per-account basis. A view is one display per page load per visitor. When a site reaches its monthly limit its campaigns pause until the next billing cycle; the page describes no overage charge, and an upgrade takes effect immediately. Seats: 1 on Starter, 3 on Growth, unlimited on Premium and Elite. Monthly plans stay active to the end of the period after cancelling, annual plans to the end of the term, and a cancelled account drops to Starter with campaigns and subscriber data kept. No credit card is needed to start, and first-time customers on an annual plan get a 30-day money-back guarantee.",
  "verified_at": "2026-09-24",
  "source_url": null
 },
 "free_plan": true,
 "free_plan_evidence": "Starter is $0 forever with 5,000 views in total rather than per month.",
 "cost_traps": [
  {
   "id": "usage_metered",
   "label": "Usage-metered",
   "evidence": "The meter is views, not results: every visitor who sees a popup counts against your quota, so a traffic spike eats the allowance regardless of how many emails you actually captured, and at the limit the campaigns pause until the next billing cycle — a busy site outgrows the entry tier fast.",
   "verified_at": "2026-09-24",
   "source_url": null
  }
 ],
 "compare_with": {
  "name": "OptinMonster or Poptin",
  "why": "close popup-tool rivals — compare the view-quota math at your real traffic level, since that's what you're actually billed on"
 },
 "links": {
  "record": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/api/v1/products/hello-bar.json",
  "review": "https://marketingandsalessoftware.com/hello-bar-review.html",
  "marketplace": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/marketplace/hello-bar/",
  "vendor_site": "https://hellobar.com"
 },
 "purchase": {
  "seller": "the vendor",
  "how": "AIBuilder Marketplace does not sell this software. Sign up, start a trial or buy on the vendor's site.",
  "handoff_url": "https://try.hellobar.com/vz8mv5n0fc5o",
  "affiliate": true,
  "disclosure": "Where purchase.affiliate is true, purchase.handoff_url is an affiliate link: AIBuilder Marketplace may earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer. Commission never changes what a record says, and products are not ranked by commission. Where it is false the link is the vendor's plain site."
 },
 "provenance": {
  "research": "hand-researched dossier, read on the vendor's own pages",
  "researched_since": "2026-07",
  "method": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/how-we-review/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. Credit 'AIBuilder Marketplace' with a link to https://aibuildermarketplace.com/atlas/.",
  "note": "A rebuild is not a new measurement: pricing.verified_at is the date that matters."
 },
 "cost": {
  "status": "not_yet",
  "engine": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/agents/#cost",
  "rules": null,
  "growth": null
 },
 "unknowns": [
  "Contract terms (cancellation, data export, data location, minimum seats) are not researched as separate fields; pricing.notes mentions them only where the vendor's pricing page does.",
  "No computable price rules yet: cost at a given team size cannot be calculated for this product.",
  "Not tested hands-on by us: what the product does comes from the vendor's pages and our reading of them."
 ],
 "task_evidence": null,
 "open_questions": [
  {
   "question_id": "hello-bar:cancellation_terms",
   "key": "cancellation_terms",
   "question": "Can a customer cancel at any time, and what happens to an annual plan that is cancelled mid-term?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "hello-bar:data_export",
   "key": "data_export",
   "question": "Which data can a customer export, in which formats, on which plans?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "hello-bar:data_location",
   "key": "data_location",
   "question": "Where is customer data stored, and can a customer choose the region?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "hello-bar:minimum_seats",
   "key": "minimum_seats",
   "question": "Is there a minimum number of seats or users on any plan?",
   "status": "open"
  }
 ],
 "vendor_answers": [],
 "agent_channels": {
  "vendor_mcp": null,
  "agent_checkout": {
   "status": "not_found",
   "detail": "No explicit support for purchases by AI agents on the vendor's own pages.",
   "checked_at": "2026-10-07",
   "method": "homepage, /pricing and the pricing page we cite, read as plain HTML (no JavaScript) and searched for explicit support of purchases by AI agents: Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Checkout, Agent Payments Protocol, buy in ChatGPT, agentic checkout"
  }
 }
}