I have been fumbling through contact form plugins for a few years. I tried Contact Form 7 and Fast Secure Contact Form. Both were nice, but seemed to be lacking something. That’s when my search continued and I came across Gravity Forms. Hands down this is the best form plugin for WordPress.
Sweet holy rollers, forget the freebies. Forget Jetpack’s new form addition. Throw down a few bucks and get your hands on the Gravity Forms premium WordPress forms plugin. Seriously, it’s awesome.
Using Gravity Forms
Creating forms is a snap. From the fairly simple (name, email, and paragraph text) to the more complex form (name, email, create post, and place order) just start in the plugin’s overview page and click New Form.
All you need to do is click and of Gravity Forms field inputs, adjust their settings, and click Update Form.
- Standard Fields. Single Line Text, Paragraph Text, Drop Down, Number, Checkboxes, Multiple Choice (Radio Button), Hidden Field, HTML, Section Break and Page Break fields.
- Advanced Fields. Name, Date, Time, Phone, Address, Website, Email, File Upload and CAPTCHA Fields.
- Post Fields. Title, Body, Excerpt, Tags, Category, Image and Custom Fields.
- Pricing Fields. Product, Option, Quantity, Shipping, Donation and Total Fields.
When your form is complete, you can add a confirmation, set up notifications, and drop it into a post or page with a shortcode.
Add-Ons
Gravity Forms allows you to integrate with a variety of third-party services through optional Add-Ons.
Basic Form Add-Ons (Business/Developer licenses)
Advanced Form Add-Ons (Developer license)
- Authorize.Net
- Freshbooks
- PayPal Payments (Standard | Pro)
- Signature
- Twilio
- User Registration (a WP registration form replacement)
Keep in mind that the Add-Ons are only available with the pricier business and developer licenses. They’re a bit more, but way worth it.
A Few Tips
- Use the heck of conditional logic because as Borat says, “It’s very nice!“
- Play with each field’s additional settings (e.g. drop downs have predefined lists so you don’t have to type in all 196 world countries) .
- Display entries on a web page using Gravity Forms Directory.
- Check out the other free add-ons in the WP Plugin repository.
- If you get stuck, check out GravityHelp.com or just Google your question.
Final Thoughts
Gravity Forms is way better than Contact Form 7 and Fast Secure Contact Form. It’s chock full of features and is dead simple to use. Their support team is top notch, and documentation is crazy detailed. On the downside, Gravity Forms comes with a price tag, add-ons come with an even heavier price tag, and after a year you will lose access to updates and support. Still, I am really impressed with the plugin and more than willing to suggest you go out and download it.
Plugin: Gravity Forms
Author: RocketGenius
Price: $39-$199
Rating: ★★★★☆
Got thoughts on Rocket Genius’ Gravity Forms plugin? Share ‘em below or send me an e-mail at me@y2kemo.com.
