There are plenty of options available to you if you want to include a form on your WordPress site and in this post I will discuss some of WordPress form builders benefits. Once you start to research options, you will soon see that some are far better than others.
You will also find that some form plugins are designed for advanced users, while others are elementary, which is ideal for beginners. Most people are in the middle of these two, and there are plenty of plugins that are suitable for these people as well.
A contact form is a great way for your audience to get in touch with you and so it should be included on any website. This is just as true for a small blog as it is for a large corporate business.
There are also a number of other forms that may be needed, depending on the purpose of your website. You need a plugin that will let you create a form easily, without being too complicated.
Most modern websites need more than just a contact form. They need other forms too, like request a quote form, surveys, bookings, content submission, and so on.
The key is to find a form plugin that offers enough advanced functionality and design that you can create something truly unique, but not so complicated that you get lost trying to do so.
Table of Contents
What Are WordPress Form Builders Benefits?
Form builder plugins offer many advantages, and below I have mentioned few.
User Experience
There are a number of features of a form builder that make for excellent user experience.
- Users can edit the information on their form even after it has been submitted
- All information that is entered in the form will be auto-saved so that it can be completed at a later time
- There is built-in spam protection so that users do not have to keep completing captchas
- There are pre-populated fields in the form which makes it much easier for visitors to fill in
- You can add your own tips to assist your visitors in filling out the form
Popup Forms Triggers
Many form builder plugins allow you to set your own triggers for when a popup form appears. This can help you to boost your conversion rates.
There are several instances when it can be beneficial for a form to appear.
- When someone is about to leave your site, a form could appear which would remind them that you can help them and to ask them to subscribe.
This could be the last opportunity you get to connect with the visitor.
- If someone has been idle on your site, then a form could be used to help the visitor find what they are looking for.
You could even use it to offer a discount on the item they have been looking at.
- If they are scrolling through your content, then they are obviously enjoying what they are seeing.
This is an excellent opportunity to ask them to fill in a form which will allow them to subscribe.
- If you want your visitors to know you are there when they need you but don’t want to keep bugging them, you can add a form to the sidebar.
This is a good way to build your email list as the form is always there at the point when visitors decide that they want to subscribe.
- There may be a page on your site, which you feel is the most important in terms of gaining sales.
This is a great place to have a form popup which gives the visitor the chance to subscribe. Those are great ways to grab the attention of site visitors as an option to boost conversions and increase site engagement.
Conditional Logic
Conditional logic can be used to determine which form fields are displayed to a user based on the values entered in previous fields.
This is something that not all plugins have, but it can be a handy tool to have. It is used to customize the rest of the form based on the information that has already been entered.
This can help to make sure that the form gets submitted to the right department at your business so that your visitors will get a speedy reply to their question.
The fact that only specific fields get shown means that you are only getting the information that you need from your visitors.
You will also be able to set the questions you ask based on whether a visitor is a repeat customer, or it is the first time that they have used your site.
This can give you valuable insights into what customers are looking for when they first come to your site so you can make sure this information is available. You can also learn more about what it is about your site that keeps people coming back.
Integration With Email Marketing Tools
You can integrate your form builder plugin with email marketing tools like Campaign Monitor so that it is much easier to email your new subscribers directly (see how to integrate Campaign Monitor with WordPress form).
When someone signs up using a form on your site, then their email address will automatically be added to your mailing list so they can start to receive regular communications from you.
Mathematical Calculations
Mathematical calculations can be an essential part of a form that is used to submit an order. These calculations will enable your customer to see the running total of the items they have placed in their basket.
This makes it less likely that they will lose track of what they are ordering and then abandon the basket when they see the total (see how to reduce shopping cart abandonment in WordPress).
Another advantage of using a form with these calculations is that the information can be sent directly to the payment page. This means that the transaction runs seamlessly for the customer, which will improve their overall experience.
Built-in Analytics
If you have forms on your website, then you need to make sure they are working in the way you want them to. If you use built-in analytics, then this information can be used to make improvements to the forms and the site if needed. You can use these analytics to view statistics on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, whichever you prefer.
You will also be able to see the details of everyone that has filled in a form on your site. Another way that analytics can be used is to compare what percentage of visitors to your site are actually filling in the forms that appear.
When you have information about the way your visitors behave on your website, then you can use this to ensure that they are getting the experience they are looking for.
Integration With Payment Gateways
Being able to accept payments is vital if you are running your business online, and this is another area that having a good form builder plugin can help with.
The plugin can be used whether you are just asking for donations or you need people to pay for services. The form that you create can provide people with the reassurance that your brand is one that can be trusted.
Using multiple payment gateways has its pros & cons. Most form builders will integrate with several payment gateways, so you can offer your customers a choice of ways to pay.
For example, WPForms plugin comes with Stripe and PayPal addon so you can accept payments using forms while Gravity Forms comes with even more gateways. You can also accept payments via forms using plugin like WPPayForm (see WPPayForm review).
Creating Conversational Forms
If you have a lot of information that you want to find out from visitors to your site, then you need to bear in mind that a long form with a lot of questions can be quite off-putting. In this situation, a conversational form may be a better choice.
The questions in these forms will only appear one at a time as if the visitor is having a conversation with you. This is also a perfect way to get more detailed responses from your visitors as they are more likely to go into details if they feel as if they are having a conversation. And it is not hard to create conversational forms in WordPress thanks to plugins like WPForms and Gravity Forms.
Request a Quote
If you run a business that offers a service, then your customers will likely want to get a quote from you. Using request a quote plugin you can create inquiry forms which allow you to get all the information you need from customers to be able to give them the quote they have requested.
You will also be able to integrate the form with your email tools so that when the quote is ready, it can be sent immediately. This kind of quick response will increase customer satisfaction, and this can lead to more conversions.
Create Surveys
One of the best ways to find out what people think of your site or the service that you offer is to ask them. This can be done by including surveys on your site and asking visitors to fill them in.
These surveys do not have to be long, and they should be quick and easy for your visitors to fill in. You should be able to filter the results to see the information that you need after the surveys have been completed. This can give you valuable insight into the next steps that you need to take to grow your business.
Create Polls
If you want instant feedback, then polls may be a better choice than surveys. The benefits of a poll are that you can get results instantly and you have complete control over what you choose to do with this information.
You can view the results of the poll yourself and keep them for your purposes, or you can share them with your visitors. Many people find that visitors are more likely to answer the poll if they are shown the results as soon as their votes have been cast.
This is because they like to see whether their opinion is the same or different to the other people who have taken part in the poll and what the overall result is.
Implement Coupon Functionality
Offering coupon codes to your customers so they can get a discount on their purchase is one way to increase conversions on your site. You can use forms to both offer codes to your customers, and they can also be used by customers to redeem the codes that they have been given.
You can set a form with a coupon code to appear when a visitor has been on one page for a certain amount of time as an extra incentive to get them to buy.
Content Submission
If you want to include content from your customers or other businesses on your site, then this content can be submitted to you via a form. This overcomes the issue of you having to provide back end access to other users.
You will be able to review and edit any post that is submitted to you before it is posted on your site. This means that you do not have to worry about any spam or troll posts.
Additional Features
Forms also have a wide variety of add-ons that lets you extend its built-in functionalities and integrate with other popular tools and apps.
For example:
1. Custom Captcha – Combat spam form submissions.
2. Geolocation – Collect and store your website visitors’ location data along with their form entry.
3. Signature – Create a contract form or agreement form and allow users to sign it online with their mouse or touch screen (se best WordPress digital signature plugins).
4. User Registration – Create a custom user registration form and embed it on the most convenient location, so users can create an account on your site without visiting the default login page.
5. Zapier – Connect your form with 500+ web apps.
6. Booking – Create an option so that form plugin can act as booking with dates, times, available seats, etc.
7. Form Abandonment – Connect with your leads even if they abandoned the form halfway (see how to reduce form abandonment in WordPress).
8. Offline Forms – Save forms data in the browser while offline and submit the data when the internet is restored.
9. Form Templates Pack – Choose from a wide variety of pre-built templates to save you time.
WP Forms vs. Gravity Forms
- Name
- Price
- Unlimited Forms
- Unlimited Entries
- Conditional Logic
- Multi-Page Forms
- File Uploads
- ActiveCampaign addon
- AWeber
- Campaign Monitor
- CleverReach
- Constant Contact
- Emma addon
- GetResponse
- iContact
- Mad Mimi
- MailChimp
- Mailgun
- Postmark
- SendGrid
- Agile CRMIntegration with with Agile's Sales and Marketing CRM
- Batchbook addonIntegration with Batchbook's small business CRM
- BreezeIntegration with Breeze, a simple tool for project management
- CampfireIntegration with Campfire, a team collaboration and real time chat service.
- Capsule CRM
- Dropbox
- FreshbooksAutomatically add clients to your FreshBooks account when a form is submitted.
- Help ScoutIntegration with Help Scout simple to use Help Desk platform
- HighriseIntegration with Highrise, a flexible contact management tool that helps you stay organized
- PayPal Payments Standard
- Pipe Video Recording
- Slack
- Trello
- Twilio integration
- Zapier
- Zoho CRM
- 2Checkout
- Advanced Post CreationAllows you to create a post on form submission. Create a standard post, page or use any available custom post type.
- Authorize.net
- Chained SelectsCascading drop-down select fields
- Coupons feature
- Partial Entries
- PayPal Payments Pro
- Polls
- Quiz
- Signature
- Stripe
- Survey
- User Registration
- Webhooks
- Spam Protection
- Advanced Fields
- Form Layouts
- Entry Management
- Form Confirmation
- Form Notification
- Custom CSS
- Custom Captchas
- Drip Forms
- Login Form
- Geolocation
- Post Submissions
- Signatures
- Form Abandonment
- Offline Forms
- Form Locker
- Form Landing Pages
- Conversational Forms
- Form Templates
- GRAVITY FORMS
- $59/year for one site, $159/year for 3 sites or $259/year for unlimited sitesUpdates and support are for 1 year. With each pricing plan you have access to more or less addons
- CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA v2 and Invisible reCAPTCHA are included. Really Simple CAPTCHA can be added via plugin
- You can create a page on your site and have just the form there on your landing page. A specific form landing page does not exist.
- WPFORMS
- $79/year for 1 site, $199/year for 3 sites, $399/year for 20 sites and $599/year for unlimited sitesUpdates and support for 1 year. Number of features you receive depend on pricing plan you choose.
Here is a comparison between two popular WordPress form builder plugins – Gravity Forms vs. WP Forms.
WordPress Form Builders Benefits Final Words
When you are looking for a WordPress form builder, you will want something easy to use and understand but can provide you with all the advanced features that you need.
This may seem obvious, but sometimes people can focus too much on the features of the plugins and then realize that they are quite difficult to use, which prevents people from making the most of them.
If you only want a contact form on your website, then there are several established plugins that you can choose from. Contact Form 7 is one such example of this, but there are many others available.
It can be helpful if you read reviews of the plugins before you download one as this can give you some insight into whether it will do what you want it to. There are also several other plugins that can help you to build forms that do more than provide visitors with a way to contact you.
If this is the case, then you will need to use a form builder that allows you to customize the fields that you want the form to contain. There are several drag and drop tools that you can use, which make it very easy to create the exact form that you want with all the fields that are needed.
The free Contact Form 7 plugin already does a great job of allowing WordPress users to add a basic contact form to their website. There’s also the impressive and free Form Maker plugin to consider, which includes five prebuilt form templates, a drag-and-drop form builder interface, a wealth of form fields and a library of premium add-ons.
While Form Maker may not be as polished as WPForms, its list of features is hard to dismiss. At the other end of the spectrum, you have the popular Gravity Forms plugin and WPForms. This commercial plugins gives WordPress users a way to add almost any type of form to their website.
Other options include the free Ninja Forms, with its commercial add-on system, WP Fluent Form (see WP Fluent Form review), and Visual Form Builder. You can also check Typeform alternatives for WordPress.
Some plugins are free, and others that you will have to pay for. As with most things, you will get more features from the plugins that you pay for compared to a free version.
It will be down to you to decide whether the features you get in a paid version are worth the price that you have to pay. Another option is that you can choose a free version and then pay for the only options that you want.
DISCLOSURE: Posts may contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, I might get a small commission, without any extra cost to you. Read more about it here.