Are you interested in determining if WPForms is the suitable form builder for your needs?
WPForms stands out as a robust form builder designed for WordPress. It empowers you to craft diverse forms for your website, such as contact forms, registration forms, surveys, polls, and more.
Nevertheless, each WordPress plugin comes with its advantages and disadvantages. Having utilized this form builder plugin for an extended period, we can provide you with an unbiased assessment of its features and limitations.
Within this comprehensive review, we aim to assist you in determining whether WPForms is the appropriate plugin for your requirements.
What is WPForms?
WPForms stands out as the premier and widely embraced WordPress plugin crafted for the seamless creation of forms on your website.
This intuitive form builder simplifies the process of incorporating contact forms, registration forms, survey forms, payment forms, and a myriad of other form types into your WordPress site, eliminating the need for advanced technical expertise or coding proficiency.
Benefiting from pre-designed form templates, you can swiftly establish the desired form. Additionally, the drag-and-drop visual builder empowers you to effortlessly make modifications and edits according to your preferences.
Each design is optimized for mobile responsiveness, ensuring a consistent appearance across various devices without any concerns.
Furthermore, WPForms offers advanced functionalities like smart conditional logic, allowing you to pose follow-up questions based on the user’s responses to previous inquiries.
In addressing the pervasive issue of spambots infiltrating forms on WordPress sites, WPForms takes a proactive stance. It incorporates built-in spam protection and captcha features to thwart spambots effectively.
Concerning integrations, WPForms seamlessly connects with third-party services such as email marketing platforms and payment gateways, all achievable with just a few clicks—no intricate coding required.
WPForms is available in both free and premium versions, accommodating a spectrum of needs—from simple contact forms to intricate payment forms, all achievable with unparalleled ease.
ow let’s take a look at where WPForms shines and where it can be improved.
Pros and Cons of WPForms
WPForms is a robust plugin, there’s no denying that. But every software has its highlights and drawbacks. Here are the pros of WPForms
Pros
- User-Friendly Interface: WPForms is incredibly easy to use, even for beginners. It offers a drag-and-drop form builder that allows you to create forms quickly without any coding knowledge.
- Multiple Form Types: Create as many forms as you like including contact forms, survey forms, payment forms, subscription forms, and more.
- Pre-Built Templates: There are 1000+ templates that you can use as a starting point for your forms. This can save you time and effort in form creation.
- Conditional Logic: Make your forms smarter using this feature to show or hide fields, sections, or even entire forms based on user responses, making your forms more interactive and user-friendly.
- Responsive Design: Every form is mobile-responsive, ensuring it looks and works well on different devices.
- Spam Protection: There’s built-in spam protection with features like CAPTCHA, Honeypot, and custom anti-spam measures to prevent unwanted form submissions.
- Email Notifications: Set up email notifications to receive instant alerts when someone submits a form on your website. This is useful for staying updated and responding promptly to user inquiries.
- Integrations: Connect your form to popular email marketing services, payment gateways, CRM systems, and more.
Now let’s take a look at the cons of this plugin.
Cons
- Limited Free Version: While there’s a free version of WPForms available, some of the more advanced features and integrations are only accessible in the premium versions.
- Complex Settings: Some of the advanced features like conditional logic and integrations maybe complicated for beginners to use.
- Pricing: The pricing of premium WPForms plans can be a bit higher compared to some other form plugins, which may be a drawback for those on a tight budget.
WPForms Versus the Competition
WPForms aims to simplify the process of adding forms to a WordPress website, ensuring accessibility for users of all levels, including those with advanced requirements.
While the free Contact Form 7 plugin effectively enables WordPress users to integrate basic contact forms, WPForms faces formidable competition in this domain. The Form Maker plugin, a notable and free alternative, boasts five prebuilt form templates, a user-friendly drag-and-drop form builder interface, an array of form fields, and a collection of premium add-ons. Despite its slightly less polished appearance compared to WPForms, the extensive feature set of Form Maker cannot be overlooked.
On the higher end of the spectrum, the commercial Gravity Forms plugin provides a comprehensive solution for adding nearly any type of form to a WordPress website. Alternatives like the free Ninja Forms, with its commercial add-on system, and Visual Form Builder are also noteworthy.
However, driven by user experience and insights from audience surveys, the WPForms team identified a genuine demand for a user-friendly form plugin. Their objective was to cater to the needs of new WordPress users while offering upgrade options for more sophisticated projects.
WPForms Lite Versus WPForms Pro
WPForms adopts the freemium pricing model, offering the lite version for free through the WordPress Plugin Directory.
As your requirements expand, you have the option to upgrade and select from the four distinct WPForms license choices, each accompanied by its own array of features. Nevertheless, the free version is designed to furnish sufficient functionality, enabling you to effortlessly incorporate appealing contact forms into your WordPress website with just a few clicks.
WPFORMS FEATURES: PRO VERSUS LITE
The complimentary edition of WPForms offers several fundamental form fields to select from, complete with a prebuilt contact form template. This template is prepared for personalization through the drag-and-drop form builder. However, individuals desiring a standard contact form can effortlessly save and publish it on their website without any customization requirements. Additionally, the free version of WPForms Lite provides two other templates: a ‘newsletter signup’ form and a ‘suggestions’ form.
All the forms are entirely responsive to mobile devices, ensuring a visually appealing appearance on any screen size. They are also optimized for swift loading, minimizing the risk of slowing down your website and negatively affecting SEO and user experience. Additionally, built-in honeypot protection and optional captcha fields are included to effectively deter spam form submissions.
WPForms User Experience
A prominent feature of WPForms is its intuitive drag-and-drop form builder. This user-friendly interface is consistent across both the free and premium versions of WPForms, though the paid version extends additional features and functionality.
To provide a comprehensive understanding of the plugin’s ease of use, we’ll guide you through the form creation process of the lite version. Subsequently, we’ll delve into the enhanced features offered by the premium versions.
This walkthrough aims to assist you in determining whether WPForms aligns with your project requirements. It also helps you evaluate whether the lite version is sufficient or if upgrading to one of the premium licenses is warranted.
GETTING STARTED WITH WPFORMS LITE
Upon activating the WPForms Lite plugin on your WordPress website, a welcoming screen will appear. This screen provides convenient links to user documentation, an embedded walkthrough video, and a user-friendly button to initiate the form builder, enabling you to commence work on your inaugural form.
As observed, during the form creation process, WPForms substitutes the usual WordPress Dashboard with its own distinct user interface.
The substitution of the WordPress Dashboard with the WPForms interface provides a more spacious working environment, enhancing the form creation process. This alteration also eliminates distractions typically present on a bustling WordPress Dashboard, such as plugin update notifications and other alerts.
CREATING A CONTACT FORM WITH WPFORMS LITE
Setting aside considerations about interfaces, crafting a contact form with WPForms is remarkably straightforward. Just assign a name to your form and select the Simple Contact Form template. Alternatively, you can commence with a blank form, but the recommended choice in this instance is to utilize the prebuilt template.
Upon selecting a template, you will be directed to the form builder screen, where WPForms distinguishes itself from the competition. While Contact Form 7 offers a basic prebuilt contact form, making modifications to that form can become challenging, particularly for users without technical expertise.
The screenshot above illustrates the form builder interface of Contact Form 7. To add new form fields, you need to click on the respective button and then input the field labels, along with any required formatting. While the process of adding new form fields is not overly complex, there is certainly room for improvement in the user experience offered by Contact Form 7.
Recognizing this opportunity, the creators of WPForms introduced a user interface that, upon experiencing, clearly demonstrates why they deemed it necessary to provide a more refined option.
In WPForms, the contact form template incorporates fields for name, email, message, and a submit button, typically sufficient for most users. Even with WPForms Lite, you have the option to include a few additional fields, such as dropdown and checkbox fields. Once you’ve completed the form customization, simply click the save button before proceeding to the next step.
PUBLISHING A WPFORMS CONTACT FORM
To publish the form, you need to click the save button, exit the form builder, and then either open an existing post or page for editing or create a new one. WPForms adds a handy button to the WordPress Editor that allows you to quickly insert an existing form into your content.
After you’ve chosen which form to insert, the relevant shortcode is added to your post or page.
Then, upon publication, the shortcode is replaced with the contact form.
All mandatory fields are distinctly labeled, and the form’s neutral design seamlessly integrates with your selected WordPress theme. By default, a confirmation message is presented to the user upon a successful form submission.
Nevertheless, WPForms provides the flexibility to redirect the user to a designated URL or page on your site following a form submission.
Form entries are dispatched to the email linked to the admin user account of your WordPress website and should promptly appear in your inbox. Nevertheless, you have the ability to customize the recipients through the form settings.
If your objective is to integrate a simple contact form into your WordPress website, the aforementioned steps cover the entire process using the free WPForms Lite plugin.
If you intend to stick with the default contact form, there isn’t a significant difference between Contact Form 7 and WPForms Lite. However, should you ever require modifications to the form, you’ll find the WPForms form builder offers enhanced ease of use.
FORM TEMPLATES
As previously noted, the free WPForms Lite plugin provides a contact form template and a few additional options for initial setup. Nonetheless, opting for the premium version of WPForms grants you access to three extra form templates. Moreover, Pro and Elite license holders gain access to even more templates through the Form Templates Pack add-on.
The fundamental WPForms templates are generally practical, whether you opt to use them as-is or as a foundation for your customized forms. While some may be considered somewhat uninspiring, like the ‘newsletter signup’ form, it may not match the functionality offered by a dedicated free newsletter form plugin such as Optin Forms.
The ‘billing/order’ form template proves beneficial if you are engaged in online product or service sales. However, it’s advisable to assess the features provided and compare them with eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads to determine the option that aligns best with your specific requirements.
However, as mentioned, if you do choose the Pro or Elite license, you’ll get access to the template add-on. This includes 100 prebuilt forms for a wide range of projects that could really help to save you a lot of time when creating your own forms.
WPForms Review Conclusion
Is WPForms the optimal forms plugin for WordPress? It largely hinges on your specific requirements.
For incorporating a basic contact form into your WordPress website, the free WPForms Lite plugin is strongly recommended. Beyond simplifying the process of adding a contact form, this plugin offers an intuitive drag-and-drop builder, providing a straightforward method to include extra fields in your form and adjust their display order.
