Monarch by Elegant Themes 2026: Social Sharing for WordPress, Honestly Reviewed

Social share buttons are small, but they decide whether your best post travels across the internet or dies quietly on your site. Monarch is Elegant Themes' answer to that problem: a social sharing and follow plugin for WordPress with floating sidebars, automatic pop-ups, and fly-ins. One thing to know upfront — it is not sold separately. It lives inside the Elegant Themes membership, and that fact shapes the whole value equation. See Monarch on the official Elegant Themes site.

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What you actually get

Monarch puts share buttons in five places: a floating sidebar (which collapses into a sliding toggle on mobile), above and below your content, on images and videos when a reader hovers, plus automatic pop-ups and automatic fly-ins. The pop-ups and fly-ins are the interesting part — six triggers decide when they appear: a timed delay, reaching the bottom of a post, after a reader comments, upon scroll, after a purchase, or after a period of inactivity.

Sharing covers over 20 social networks on the official page, and follow links cover over 35 networks with dynamically pulled follow counts — you place those via a widget area or a shortcode (the official docs even note placing the shortcode inside a Divi Text Module). Design control is generous: 3 button shapes, 5 sidebar hover effects, 4 inline hover effects, native network colors or your own, optional network names and share/follow counts, icon orientation, and mobile-responsive output. Everything is managed from a dedicated panel in your WordPress admin with display settings, share/follow/like statistics, and settings import/export.

Pricing: membership-only, no separate sale

Monarch is not available as a standalone purchase — the only way in is an Elegant Themes membership: Divi at $89 per year or $249 one-time (lifetime), which also includes the Divi theme, Extra, and Bloom. Divi Pro at $277 per year adds AI, Cloud, VIP, and Teams on top. All plans carry the same promise stated on the Monarch page itself: "We offer a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee, so joining is Risk-Free!"

The honest math: if you need only social buttons, you are buying a whole membership for one plugin. The deal only makes sense if the rest of the bundle has value for you — Divi alone is one of the most-used WordPress themes in the world, and Bloom handles your email opt-ins. As a bundle buyer, Monarch is essentially a free extra; as a buttons-only buyer, it is overpriced by definition. Check the current membership plans on elegantthemes.com.

Who it is for — and the honest limit

Monarch fits WordPress site owners already inside the Elegant Themes world — if you run Divi, Monarch is the natural sharing layer, and the trigger-based pop-ups beat most free sharing plugins. It also fits bloggers who want fly-ins and timed pop-ups without bolting on a separate tool.

The honest limit: it is WordPress-only and bundle-only. Not on WordPress? Skip it entirely. Only want social buttons and nothing else? Do the math above first — a lightweight free sharing plugin may serve you better than a $89 membership. And one gap to note: unlike the feature list, we could not verify any official version or changelog on elegantthemes.com, so treat update claims from third-party sites with suspicion. Read the official Monarch page on elegantthemes.com before you decide.

Verdict

Monarch is a genuinely good social sharing plugin trapped inside a bundle: floating sidebars, smart triggers, follow counts, and clean design controls. If you are already buying Elegant Themes for Divi, it is one of the best free extras in WordPress. If you are buying it for the buttons alone, be honest with yourself about the price. See Monarch and the membership on the official site — and use the 30-day guarantee if the bundle does not fit.