WPForms Plugin : The Best Form Plugin For WordPress
WPForms is one of the best WordPress form plugin in WordPress to create forms. With it, you can create from basic contact forms to more advanced forms using conditional logic.
This plugin first came to light relatively recently, in 2016, and since then it has been very well received by users to this day, with more than two million active installations.
And it is not for less, since the founder of WPForms is the creator of WPBeginner, a reference blog on WordPress in English.
After having tried it and having used it in some projects, I only have good words to talk about it.
I couldn’t tell you if it’s better or worse than Gravity Forms, because each of them has its peculiarities and both are excellent, but of course, it’s one of the first options to consider.
For this reason, in this post, I am going to explain everything you need to know about WPForms, both in its free version and in its paid version, in case you are looking for something advanced for your forms.
WPForms Lite, the free version of the plugin
As I have already mentioned, WPForms has a free version, known as “ WPForms Lite ”, which you can download from the official WordPress repository. Here you can see the page of the plugin in WordPress.
I am not going to deceive you, it is a very basic version of the plugin since it has covered the use of most of the interesting fields and a good number of form configurations.
However, it is a good start to try it out and decide if it is worth going for the paid version .
The fields that are available are the following: text line, paragraph text, dropdown, multiple options, checkboxes, numbers, name, and email.
What you can’t do in the free version is use conditional logic, set up more than one prompt or confirmation, use the 20 advanced fields for forms, or use WPForms addons, which, in the end, is all that makes the plugin in an interesting option.
That said, WPForms Lite is fine to test the plugin before purchasing the paid version. If all you want is to create a simple form, you can also use that, but you also have the option of using Contact Form 7, which, although it has a less friendly interface, has more fields available.
WPForms in its Premium version
If you want to get the most out of the plugin, you will need to purchase the paid version, which consists of four different pricing plans.
Depending on the price of the plan, more or fewer add-ons are included. That is, in the cheapest plan, some of the plugin add-ons are included, in the next plan, some more add-ons are included, etc.
BASIC
As its name suggests, it is the most basic plan of all, but it includes the necessary features to make it a good option.
With this plan, you can create unlimited forms, use the most advanced fields to create forms, use templates, create multi-page forms, allow file uploads, use conditional logic, protect your forms against spam and connect them with the Constant Contact platform.
Its price is $39.50 per year, and you can install the license on a single site.
Plus
It includes everything in the Basic plan, but it also allows you to use the forms to get subscribers and connect them to Mailchimp, AWeber, GetResponse, Campaign Monitor, and Drip email marketing platforms.
Its price is $99.50 per year, and you can install the license on three sites.
Pro
It includes everything in the Plus plan, but it has more interesting things.
Among them, accept payments by PayPal and Stripe through the forms, creating landing pages with forms to get leads, creating conversational forms (instead of showing all the fields at once, they are shown as the user fills in each field ), creating surveys and polls, store forms that have been abandoned, geolocate users, create a field for users to sign, customize registration and login forms, allow users to publish posts through a form, create an offline mode in case submitting the forms fails, and give permissions to the forms.
In addition, it includes a connection with Zapier and more templates to create forms.
Its price is $199.50 per year, and you can install the license on five sites.
Elite
It includes everything in the Pro plan and doesn’t really include any other functionality apart from WordPress Multisite support and priority support.
Its price is $299.50 per year, and you can install the license on unlimited sites.
As you can see, all plans are for annual renewal. After a year passes, you can renew the license for another year to continue receiving updates and support.
In the case of not renewing it, you will be able to continue using the plugin, but you will not receive updates or use the support.
Create forms with WPForms
Now that you know all the possibilities you have to get hold of WPForms, let’s see how the plugin works, and the first thing we’re going to see is how to create a form.
The first thing you have to do is go to “WPForms – Add New”. The form creation interface will open. While you’re here, you’ll feel like you’ve stepped out of WordPress because there’s no trace of any of its elements:
Here you can give the form whatever name you want and choose whether to create one from scratch or choose one of the ready-made templates for different types of forms, such as simple contact forms, quote request forms, donation form, etc.
For the example, I select “Blank Form” to create one from scratch. The window to create and configure the form then opens:
As you can see, on the left side are all the fields that you have available to add to the form. To insert them, you can either click on them or grab them with the mouse and drag them to the right.
Once added to the right, if you click on it, its configuration options open on the left:
We are going to see each of the elements that you can configure.
Label: the title that the field will have. For example, if it is a field to ask for the user’s name, it can have the title “Name”, “Type your name” or similar.
Description: You can put a small description that helps the user to understand what you are requesting.
Required: If you want the user to have to fill in the required field in order to submit the form, check this box.
Field Size – You can choose from three sizes for the length of the field: small, medium, or large.
Placeholder text: You can write here the text that you want to appear inside the field, which will disappear as soon as the user starts typing. This field is also known as a placeholder.
Hide the label – If you don’t want the label to be visible on the form, check this box. It is useful if you have written a placeholder.
Length Limit – You can assign a length limit for the field, either in characters or words.
Default value: if you want the field to appear filled by default, write the text here.
CSS Classes – You can assign a CSS class to customize the field. If you click on the text “Show the designs”, a drop-down appears with the different designs that you can give to the form. For example, if you want fields to appear in two columns, select one of the two-column layouts.
Once you choose it, it will tell you to select the column that corresponds to the field you are configuring at that moment. Since it is the first element, we would select the column on the left.
Automatically, the typed CSS class will appear.
Now, what we would have to do is, in the next field that we add to the form, repeat the process, indicating the column on the right, and in this way, each field would be in a different column, forming a line of two columns.
Input mask: You can create an input mask, which is used to guide the user when entering dates, postal codes, telephone numbers, etc. For example, if the field were to enter a phone number, we could write the following:
You can click on the “See examples and documents” link for more information.
Conditional Logic – Conditional logic allows you to show or hide a field based on the user’s answer in a previous field. You can create the rules you want and achieve advanced forms that request the necessary information from users based on their responses.
Form settings: notifications and confirmations
Once you have created the form, it is time to configure its settings, which you will find in the tab with the same name.
Without installing any of the addons available on WPForms, these settings are divided into general, notice, and confirmation.
General adjustments
In the general settings, you can put or change the name of the form, add a description about it, put a CSS class on it, change the text of the submit button, as well as the text that is displayed once the user has clicked on it. button, while the submission is being processed, and even add a CSS class to the button to customize it.
You can also enable or disable anti-spam, enable or disable the saving of form inputs, or advanced options such as dynamic field completion or AJAX form submission.
Notifications
In the notification settings, you can modify the default notification or create new ones.
The default notification is sent to the web administrator’s email, but from here you can change the sending email. You can also change the subject of the email, the sender’s name and email, the email to reply to, and the message to include in the email.
You can even enable conditional logic for the notification to be sent and choose when it will and won’t be sent.
With the paid version of WPforms, you can create as many notifications as you need.
You can create a notification that is sent to the user who has submitted the form. To do this, in the “Send to email address” field, click the text “Show smart tags” and choose the field you created for the user to enter their email.
Confirmations
Finally, in the confirmation settings, you can choose how to show the user that their form has been submitted successfully.
Message: show the message that you want to the user once they have submitted the form.
Show page: you can redirect it to one of the pages of your web. A good idea may be to create a thank you page and take it there once you have submitted the form.
Go to URL (Redirect) – You can also enter any URL you want to redirect the user to when submitting the form. It can be a URL of your website or any other website.
In the paid version of the plugin, multiple confirmations can be created.
How to display WPForms forms
Now we are going to see how to insert the forms on your website. If you go to the “WPForms – All Forms” tab, the forms you have created are displayed.
Each of them has a shortcode assigned, what you have to do is copy the shortcode of the form you want to insert on the web.
Now, you simply have to copy the shortcode to the place on the web where you want the form to be displayed.
If you use the classic WordPress editor, you can paste it as HTML.
If you use the Gutenberg editor, you can add a shortcode block or insert the WPForms widget directly.
Lastly, if you use a visual builder like Elementor or Visual Composer, you can embed it using the HTML module or similar
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