Gravity Forms Basic vs. Freemium WordPress Form Plugins (2024)

You know you need a form plugin to collect messages and leads from your website visitors, but which plugin is right for you? Which plugin offers the best value?

There are more than a thousand contact form plugins available on the WordPress directory, but you don’t need to try them all. In this post, we compare the most popular WordPress form plugins: WPForms Lite, Ninja Forms, Contact Form 7, and Gravity Forms Basic.

Let’s dive into each!

(Full disclosure: As the maker of one of the plugins on this list, we admit we’re a little biased. But we promise to be honest!)

WPForms Lite

The Lite (free) version of WPForms is pretty basic. Forms are mobile responsive and load quickly on every device, but you only get access to eight form fields and four templates.

WPForms is a great plugin, but almost all of its features are locked behind a paid account. You’ll have to upgrade to the basic plan ($79/year regular price for one site) if you want to create an unlimited number of forms, manage submissions through the WordPress backend, and gain features like conditional logic, multi-page forms, and advanced fields (file uploads, address, URL, phone, and more). You’ll also need to upgrade if you want to integrate WPForms with anything else. Additionally, some very popular Add-Ons like Mailchimp, AWeber, Campaign Monitor, and Constant contact are behind a $199/year pay-wall while all those Add-Ons and much more are included in Gravity Forms Basic for $59/year.

Creating a form is straightforward and easy. Navigate to Forms > Add New. If you’re new to using contact forms, you can start with a pre-built template. These are fully customizable once you get inside.

If those templates aren’t enough for you, you can install an additional template pack. Or you can build your form from scratch. Adding fields to you form is simple with the drag-and-drop form editor. Click on each field to make changes to how it works.

One nice benefit of WPForms Lite is that you can add CSS classes to each field. With a little CSS knowledge you can control exactly how your form looks.

You can configure settings on the Settings tab, such as on-page confirmations and email notifications. You can only create one email notification without upgrading.

Publishing your form is simple. Just add the WPForms content block wherever you’d like the form to appear on your page.

Our thoughts: WPForms is an easy-to-use form builder, but the free version is stripped down to the most basic features. There isn’t much you can do with the Lite version. Even the Basic version lacks critical features, like integrations with email marketing tools and payment portals.

Ninja Forms

Ninja Forms is a freemium contact form. You can install it on as many sites as you like. Features are limited, however, unless you buy premium add-ons to extend the base plugin’s functionality.

Here’s a list of Ninja Form features:

• Drag-and-drop form builder
• Mobile responsive
• Unlimited forms
• Unlimited submissions
• Unlimited emails and actions
• 30+ field types (some cost extra)
• Submission management
• Spam protection
• Export and import forms
• Developer friendly
• Customizable field templates

To create a new form, navigate to Ninja Forms > Add New. Like WPForms, you can start with a template, though you may not be able to use all of the template’s features if you haven’t purchased those add-ons yet.

Once you’re in the form, you can use the drag-and-drop editor to make changes or add new fields.

You can configure form settings under Emails & Actions, including email notifications, on-page success/failure messages, and display settings.

Add a form to a page by clicking the Ninja Forms widget and selecting the form you want to appear.

Ninja Forms comes with detailed documentation to help you build effective forms, as well as several tutorials. You can create support tickets on their site whether you’re a free user or a paid user, though paid users get priority responses.

Ninja Form add-ons are a little disappointing. You have to buy them separately. At $20 to $50 each, they add up quickly. Features like conditional logic, file uploads, and multi-page forms are considered premium add-ons, even though they come free with most form plugins. Ninja Forms is the most expensive option on this list if you want more than two add-ons. In contrast, Add-Ons and Features like Conditional Logic, Layout and Styles, Mailchimp, AWeber, Campaign Monitor, Ema and Constant contact are behind a $99/year pay-wall in Ninja Forms while all those add-ons and much more are included in Gravity Forms Basic for $59/year.

Our thoughts: Ninja Forms is a highly flexible tool, but it’s quite expensive once you add up all the add-ons most businesses would use. You can get the same features for less in other tools.

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is one of the oldest free form plugins. It’s a lightweight tool to create basic forms. It’s still popular because of its legacy and because many free WordPress themes prompt you to install it. Not much has changed since its initial release.

The plugin lets you create as many contact forms as you like. Creating a new form is similar to most form plugins. Select Contact > Add New from the sidebar.

Unlike the other drag-and-drop form editors on this list, Contact Form 7 requires a bit of HTML knowledge. You have to add specialized tags to a text editor in the order you want them to appear on the form. The interface is not intuitive or easy for beginners. You cannot preview the form before publishing.

You can customize who receives messages each time the form is filled. By default, the first message is set up to send the site administrator an email. You can add a second message to email the submitter. There is no way to view form responses in aggregate.

Contact Form 7 only has a limited number of fields: Text, number, date, checkboxes, drop-downs, file uploads, and reCAPTCHA. If you want more kinds of fields, you’ll have to install additional plugins that aren’t supported by Contact Form 7.

You’ll also need additional plugins by third-party developers if you want to integrate Contact Form 7 with other services, like MailChimp, Salesforce, or Woocommerce.

Contact Form 7’s major advantage is that it’s absolutely free. You can donate to the team if you want to support their work, but they don’t charge to use the plugin.

Unfortunately, since the plugin is free, there’s little support. The Contact Form 7 website has fairly detailed documentation and an FAQ, but you can only get your questions answered through the WordPress Plugin Directory Support Forum. But free plugins are not required to respond to support requests.

Our thoughts: Contact Form 7 is hard to use and lacks modern features. Yes, it’s free, so we can’t expect much, but it won’t add much value to your business.

Gravity Forms Basic

Gravity Forms is a powerful drag-and-drop form builder. Most features are available at all pricing tiers, including…

• License for one site
• Unlimited forms
• Unlimited entries
• 33 form fields
• Conditional logic
• Email notifications
• On-page confirmations
• Responsive design
• Spam prevention
• Dozens of integrations
• Multi-page forms
• File uploads
• Automatic updates
• Standard support

The Basic tier comes with a number of Add-Ons for only $59/year.

Newsletter/Email Marketing Add-Ons

• AWeber
• CleverReach
• Constant Contact
• Emma
• GetResponse
• iContact
• Mad Mimi
• Mailchimp

Campaign Management Add-Ons

• ActiveCampaign
• Campaign Monitor

Email Notifications Add-Ons

• Postmark
• SendGrid
• Mailgun

33 form fields give you a great deal of control when it comes to the kinds of information you collect and how users interact with your form. This makes Gravity Forms massively customizable. You can create any kind of form you like – contact forms, application forms, surveys, support forms, quizzes, payment forms, etc.

Additionally, you can use conditional logic to adjust which fields users see. You and display or hide fields based on their responses to previous fields.

Unlike the other entries on this list, there is no free version of Gravity Forms. Even though you pay $59 a year, Gravity Forms Basic comes packed with great features and Add-Ons for which you have to pay $99+ a year with some of the other options listed previously. Additionally, most features are available with all licenses. Higher priced licenses only let you use Gravity Forms on more sites and open up more integrations.

Like WPForms and Ninja Forms, the drag-and-drop editor makes creating forms a breeze. Select Forms > New Form from the WordPress dashboard. Build your form by dragging fields into the editable space.

You can adjust the settings of each form in the Settings tab. Here you can create unique on-page confirmation messages and email notifications for each form.

Like the other plugins on this list, displaying a form on a page is simple – our Gutenberg Block feature comes included with Gravity Forms. Add the block on a page where you want the form to appear and select the form you want to embed. Preview your page to see an accurate representation of block.

Our thoughts: Gravity Forms has every feature you could possibly need in a WordPress form plugin. You can’t avoid the price, but consider the facts:

• You can’t do much with WPForms without a paid license
• Ninja Forms is quite expensive once you buy all the add-ons you need
• Contact Form 7 is free, but lacks every feature of a modern form.

With that in mind, Gravity Forms’ price is in line with – and in some cases cheaper than – other comparative contact forms with far more features. With Gravity Forms Basic, you get Add-Ons and functionality included that would need to pay almost double and sometimes 4x more with some of the other competitors. Gravity Forms has been around for over a decade and it is trusted by many Fortune 500 companies all around the world. Those companies know how dependable our plugin is and they rely on our product to provide services and support to their vast number of clients.

You Decide

Ultimately, you should choose the WordPress form plugin that meets your business needs. Sometimes you make cheap tools work because your budget is tight. Sometimes you pay a little more for flexibility. Hopefully this breakdown will help you make your decision!