Forms are an integral part of a website. For many site owners, this means doing some research in order to find the best form plugin for your WordPress site that will meet your needs.
The good news is that if you use WordPress.com to build your website, you get a built-in form block as part of the default Block editor, which we’ll discuss in more detail below.
If you want additional functionality, or you’re not yet using WordPress.com, you’ll need a form builder plugin. Since there are hundreds of contact form plugins for WordPress websites, evaluating different options and picking the best form plugin for your business can be overwhelming.
WordPress.com offers upgrade options to give you the freedom to build the site you want. Plans vary, but possible features include: the ability to use any WordPress theme or plugin – including the form plugin of your choice. Other essential business tools are also available for SEO, social media scheduling, and site statistics. A range of storage to meet your needs, best-in-class security, lightning-fast hosting, and multiple options for resources and getting the support you need. Whatever your vision for your form-enriched website, WordPress.com has you covered.
In this post, we’ll walk you through the best WordPress form builder plugins, along with their pros and cons, to help you make an informed decision.
But first, let’s take a look at the default form that comes built-in with any WordPress.com site, regardless of plan options.
Creating a Form with WordPress.com
As we mentioned above, WordPress.com comes with a built-in form block that you can use to add simple contact forms anywhere in your site. You can use this block to create different types of forms such as a contact form, event registration form, feedback form, appointment booking form, and more.
To use this feature, click the + Block Inserter icon when editing a post, page or widget area and search for “Form”. Then click on the Form block to add it.
You’ll be presented with some pre-designed form options, or you can skip this step and start from scratch.
Once you’ve selected the type of form you need, use the settings panel on the right to configure options such as email notifications and what will happen after form submission. To learn more, read our guide to the WordPress.com Form block.
As you can see, WordPress.com makes it easy for you to create simple forms without any coding. But in some cases, you might need complex features such as conditional logic, math calculations, or the ability to attach files. That’s when WordPress’s integration with powerful third-party form plugins will come in handy.
WordPress Form Capabilities
Each WordPress form plugin comes with its own unique set of functionalities. Here are the main features you may want to consider:
- Form Templates: A great WordPress form plugin allows you to build any type of form with minimal effort, such as contact form, user registration form, payment form, subscription form, and so on.
- Ease of Use: You should be able to create a form easily even if you’re not tech-savvy, preferably with a drag and drop editor.
- Mobile-Responsive: A WordPress form plugin should allow you to create forms that look great on all devices.
- Thorough Documentation: The documentation should be extensive enough for you to understand and apply the features you want.
- Customer Support: The WordPress form plugin should have a solid team behind it, along with prompt customer service.
- Form Customization: The more fields and settings you have to customize your form, the more versatile forms you’ll be able to make. Also, consider whether you can make changes that enhance user experience, like splitting your form into multiple pages or making it conversational.
- 3rd-Party Integrations: Your WordPress form plugin should support the other tools and technologies you have in place, like a CRM, email automation software, WooCommerce, Stripe, Zapier, etc.
- Conditional Logic: Altering form fields and sections based on user input makes your form less overwhelming and more efficient.
- Email notifications: Check if the WordPress form plugin lets you notify multiple people when the form is submitted.
- Frontend File Submission: You may want users to be able to attach different types of files, including images, videos, PDFs, and more.
- Form Publishing: Does the WordPress form plugin enable you to display the form anywhere on your website with widgets, shortcodes, or blocks?
- Spam Protection: Spam messages are a real challenge for anyone using the internet. So your WordPress form plugin should have features to minimize spam, like reCaptcha, Honeypot or another anti-spam device.
It’s important to keep your business needs in mind when evaluating these features. For example, if you’re running an employment website for employers and employees, you’ll need forms like the employer registration form and a job application form. Similarly, e-commerce merchants will need specific forms like order placement, user login, and more.
The Best WordPress Form Builder Plugins
Without further adieu, let’s dive into a detailed overview of the best form plugins for your WordPress site. This list includes basic plugins with bare-minimum features, advanced custom form building solutions with extensive customization, file submission, conditional logic, and everything in between. While we list a number of the features available for each form plugin, be sure to visit the plugin links provided to further investigate additional features for each.
Jetpack Contact Form
Jetpack is a powerful multi-purpose plugin for WordPress websites. It has a number of different functionalities, one of which is a WordPress contact form with a drag-and-drop editor you can use to add, edit, and reorganize form fields. It’s also the built-in form block that comes with all WordPress.com sites, which means no plugin add-on is needed if your site is hosted with WordPress.com.
You can create unlimited forms and embed them in different areas of your website. The plugin uses native WordPress settings to send email notifications when a form is submitted.
Features:
- Create simple contact forms on both the Classic and the Block editor
- Basic templates provided
- Dashboard notifications
- Spam filtering with Akismet plugin
- Configure custom email to get form notifications, for multiple people
- Many other site management, performance, and security modules in addition to forms
- On submit actions
- Detailed documentation and support provided
WPForms
WPForms is a beginner-friendly WordPress form plugin offering both a free version and a premium version. The free, WPForms-Lite plugin is available within the WordPress.com Plugin Marketplace. It has a powerful drag-and-drop form builder workflow to make WordPress forms without coding.
With WPForms, you can create different types of mobile-responsive forms with ready-made templates for survey forms, order forms, email subscription forms, donation forms, and more.
Features:
- Pre-made templates for commonly used forms even in the free version
- User-friendly drag and drop form builder with custom field types and editing in real-time
- Integration with email marketing or CRM software such as Salesforce
- View or get email notifications for form entries
- Connect forms to Uncanny Automator to integrate with Elementor, WooCommerce, MailPoet, and more
- Multi-step forms and deep customization with Webhooks
- Form abandonment email notifications
- Display forms anywhere on the website with blocks, widgets, and shortcodes
- Create surveys, polls, and star ratings
- Build distraction-free form landing pages
- Users can upload files, documents, or images when submitting the form
- Integration with Stripe, PayPal, and more to collect payments
- Forms are mobile-responsive
- ReCAPTCHA for anti-spam protection
- Conditional logic to customize form based on user responses
Formidable Forms
Formidable Forms is an advanced online forms plugin for WordPress that allows you to make complex forms easily. Both a free version and a premium version are available. The free, Formidable Forms plugin is available within the WordPress.com Plugin Marketplace. In addition to receiving form data on the backend, Formidable allows you to show submitted information on the front end.
There are lots of really powerful features to make sophisticated forms for not just a website, but also for data-driven web apps like directories, listings, etc.
Formidable Forms also comes with premium add-ons that you can purchase separately. You may not need them as a small business, but as your business grows, the whole package with extra add-ons can get expensive.
Features:
- Drag and drop builder and form styler
- Conditional logic feature that lets you show/hide elements based on user preferences
- Spam protection
- Calculation fields to create complex calculator forms
- Gather, display, modify, and filter submission data without any extra plugins
- Mobile-responsive forms
- A range of pre-made templates to choose from
- Email notifications and autoresponders
- Ability to export form settings and form entries
- Create multi-page forms for users’ convenience
- Accept payments via forms
- Users can upload files when filling the form
- Integration with email marketing tools including Mailchimp, MailPoet, Aweber, and more
- Create schedule forms for event registration
Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is a popular, premium contact form plugin for WordPress that is good for both beginners and advanced users. Its drag and drop form builder allows you to create forms without any programming knowledge.
An advantage it has over other plugins is that some of the top premium WordPress themes are optimized for Gravity Forms. It includes features that allow you to create advanced forms, such as conditional logic, numeric calculations, and more.
If you are running a real estate website, for example, you can set up a form to calculate mortgage payments from user input in fields such as purchase price, interest rate, down payment, and mortgage period.
Features:
- Visitors can save and continue a form later
- Limit the number of submissions for a form
- Ability to schedule forms
- Multi-page and mobile-responsive forms
- Create posts from a form submission
- Supports file uploads
- Conditional logic to hide or show form fields in real-time
- Variety of form fields that can be organized with the drag and drop builder
- Perform advanced calculations on input values
- Accept payments for purchases by users
- Spam protection to prevent unwanted form entries
- Email marketing integration with Mailchimp, Aweber, and more
Ninja Forms
Ninja Forms is yet another form plugin for WordPress that lets you create contact forms with ease.
The core plugin is free and the Ninja Forms plugin is available within the WordPress.com Plugin Marketplace. You can extend the feature set with various premium add-ons as required. These include multi-page forms, conditional logic, front-end post submission, user analytics, and more.
If you’re unsure about what type of needs you’re going to have in the future and just want a free contact form plugin, then Ninja Forms is a good fit for you. You can always extend its features later by buying the add-ons you need.
Features:
- Beginner-friendly drag and drop builder
- Add custom CSS to style your WordPress contact forms
- Manage and export your form submission data
- Integration with popular email automation and CRM software including Zoho CRM, Mailchimp, Aweber, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, and Capsule CRM
- Accept payments via Stripe, PayPal, and Elavon
- Conditional Logic that lets you control layout based on user selection
- Supports multi-page form and multi-column layout
- Users can upload files
- User analytics tool to see data regarding form submissions
- Developer-friendly plugin with hundreds of hooks and functions. It can be enhanced with custom features
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Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is one of the most popular contact form plugins for WordPress, and has been around for 10+ years. It’s also totally free. Because of its popularity, there are several premium 3rd-party add-ons you can find to enhance its features. The Contact Form 7 plugin is available within the WordPress.com Plugin Marketplace.
It was one of the first free contact form plugins in the WordPress plugin repository. The basic user interface hasn’t changed much since then, while newer and better plugins have flooded the market. But if you just want a basic contact form at no cost and don’t mind learning a bit of HTML, then Contact Form 7 is what you need.
Features:
- Create simple forms with form fields like text boxes, checkboxes, dates, and more
- File submission fields
- Integration with Google reCaptcha to filter spam
- Many free add-ons in the WordPress plugin repository to enhance its features
WS Form
WS Form is relatively new to the WordPress community but it is off and running with an amazing feature set. The free version is powerful on its own, but the Pro version takes it to levels that, in some cases, are unrivaled. Developers, especially, will find powerful features that they’ve never had access to before. But if you aren’t a developer, don’t let those words stop you. It’s an intuitive and powerful no-code form builder for non-developers, with all the extras a developer might want or need as well.
Features:
- No-code form design at its best
- Responsive forms
- Drag and drop layout
- GDPR ready
- Accessibility friendly
- Lots of templates to start with
- Page builder compatible
- Framework compatible
- Clean interface
- Lots of integrations
- Many more impressive features (check them out on the site)
ARForms
ARForms is a WordPress form plugin available in both free and premium versions. The free, ARForms plugin is available within the WordPress.com Plugin Marketplace. The plugin is simple to use, even for beginners. You can create a range of different types of forms such as contact forms, pop-up forms, order forms, subscription forms, survey forms, and more.
Additionally, you can create advanced forms with videos and maps by making use of helpful form-creation workflows. If you’re comfortable with advanced customization, you have the ability to style forms with custom CSS.
Features:
- Real-time editor with drag and drop functionality
- Several unique form field elements
- Different input field styles such as bounded rectangle, material style, etc.
- Conditional logic to adapt based on user input
- Perform mathematical calculations
- Unlimited repeatable fields
- Supports multi-step forms
- Pre-built sample forms
- Ability to autosave form progress
- Forms are mobile responsive
- Built-in analytics to see form views and entries
- Determine submit action after a visitor completes the form
- Integration with popular email automation tools
- Payment gateway integration
- Email notifications to admins and users
- Customize colors, fonts, and other styling aspects
- Google ReCaptcha for spam prevention
HappyForms
HappyForms is a free and simple contact form plugin for WordPress. The free, HappyForms plugin is available within the WordPress.com Plugin Marketplace. A plugin-enabled plan is also available. It comes with a drag-and-drop form builder with customization options and a variety of form fields.
It allows you to add the contact forms to your posts, pages, template files, and widgets. The best part is that you can build multi-column forms with a single click.
You get features to create conversational forms and check a live preview before publishing a form. Upon form submission, users can be shown a custom message or redirected to any URL.
Features:
- Enables you to use Google ReCaptcha and HoneyPot to filter spam
- Form duplication feature allows you to create a duplicate form
- Create mobile-responsive forms
- Supports multi-page forms
- Users can upload files and attachments to the form
- Analytics dashboard so to track user submissions
- Connect to email software like MailPoet, Mailchimp, and more
- Integration with Stripe or PayPal for online transactions
weForms
weForms is a free drag-and-drop form builder plugin for WordPress. It also has a premium version. The free, weForms plugin is available within the WordPress.com Plugin Marketplace.
With weForms, you can create as many forms as you want and embed them anywhere on your WordPress website. These include payment forms that can integrate with PayPal or Stripe. There is also an option to preview the form before you publish it.
The form builder has predefined templates to create common types of forms with ease. Using the expiration feature, you can make a form invalid past a certain date. And you get integrations with third-party email solutions and other services.
Features:
- Predefined and customizable form templates
- Drag & drop form builder
- View live preview before publishing the form
- Set a form expiration date to prevent from being filled after a certain date
- Limit the number of entries for a form
- Form submission notifications
- Form export and import options
- Forms are mobile-friendly
- Connect forms to email services
- Minimize spam entries by using reCaptcha
FormCraft
FormCraft is a premium form plugin that’s unique because of its specialty in design. The forms created with FormCraft look better than the generic forms you generally see on the web. There is a free version available too, and the free, FormCraft plugin is available within the WordPress.com Plugin Marketplace.
The drag and drop form builder, along with a wide range of ready-made templates, makes it easy to create any type of form without coding. You can create and embed multiple forms on your website.
Another notable benefit of FormCraft is the popup form. You can configure the form to appear in a popup based on an action taken by the user.
Features:
- Drag & drop style of editing
- Integration with payment gateways
- Integration with MailChimp, MailPoet, Campaign Monitor, and more
- Customize fonts, layouts, background, etc. without coding
- Add custom CSS for deeper customization
- Forms are mobile-friendly
- Supports conditional logic and math calculations
- Embed forms anywhere or trigger with a popup
- Real-time web form analytics to check form views and submissions
QuForm
Quform is a premium but affordable WordPress plugin that allows you to build mobile-responsive contact forms with a drag and drop form builder. The dashboard is easy to navigate as you build different types of forms.
You can build several advanced contact forms without coding, including multi-page forms. It comes with many different themes to change the form styling.
Features:
- Drag & drop builder
- Preview while building
- On submit conditions
- reCAPTCHA for protection from spam.
- Conditional logic to automatically hide/display elements
- Users can upload files
- Loads of new features
Pick the Best WordPress Form Plugin
That completes our overview of the best form plugins for WordPress that we recommend considering. Learning about and comparing the different features in various form plugins can be overwhelming. So here are some quick suggestions to make it easy for you.
For a simple contact form that doesn’t cost anything, pick Jetpack Forms or WPForms free version. If you’re a WordPress beginner with a reasonable budget, go with the WPForms premium version. If you’re an advanced user or developer trying to create complex forms, there’s no better option than Formidable Forms. Also, be sure to follow best practices when choosing plugins.
Hopefully this information will help you zero in on the best form plugin for your WordPress site. Remember that WordPress.com offers you the best options to create a WordPress website that includes forms with simple built-in tools on any plan, to a robust form solution using plugins on eligible plans.
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