beyond gravity forms: form plugins for wordpress

Main Program:WordPress Form PluginsSallie Goetsch & Laura Steiner

Forms Are Everywhere in WordPress

Uses of Forms• Comments

• Search Forms

• Email Signups

• Contact Forms

• Payment

• Registration

• Testimonials

• Quizzes

• Polls & Surveys

WordPress Has No Native Form Builder

Early Form Plugins Looked Like This

Oh, wait. Contact Form 7 still looks like this.

Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms Was the First Commercial WordPress Plugin of Any Kind

What Gravity Forms Looked Like in 2011, when I first started using it.

It Shows

The Gravity Forms editor today. Six years without significant UI changes.

You Saw It Here First

Dynamic Population: Populate a field with a value. This value can be passed via Query Strings, Shortcode and/or Hooks.

Conditional Logic: Show or hide a field depending on the values of another field.

Gravity Forms: Form Settings

• Change submit button label

• Show submit button conditionally

• Enable save and continue for long forms

• Limit entries• Schedule form• Enable anti-spam honeypot

Gravity Forms Confirmations

Gravity Forms Notifications

Send notifications to different recipients depending on field values, or create different emails.

Gravity Forms: All Forms

• Toggle Active/Inactive• Form Name & ID• Number of Entries• Number of Views• Conversion Rate

Gravity Forms Entries

Gravity Forms Import & Export

Gravity Forms Official Add-Ons• Active Campaign

• Agile CRM

• Authorize.net

• Aweber

• Batchbook

• Breeze

• Campaign Monitor

• Campfire

• Capsule CRM

• CleverReach

• Coupons

• Dropbox• Emma• FreshBooks• GetResponse• Help Scout• Highrise• HipChat• iContact• Mad Mimi• MailChimp• Partial Entries• PayPal (+Pro)• Polls

• Quiz• Signature• Slack• Stripe• Survey• Trello• Twilio• User Registration• Zapier• Zoho CRM

Gravity Forms Third-Party Add-Ons

More GForms Third-Party Add-Ons

Still More…

Free Add-Ons in the Plugin Directory

Of Particular Note

• Gravity Forms + Custom Post Types

• Gravity Forms Constant Contact

• HubSpot for Gravity Forms

• Drip Email Campaigns

• Personality Quiz

• Infusionsoft Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms Pro & Con

• Flexible, extensible, and well-supported

• Straightforward to use

• Huge ecosystem of extensions & integrations

• Developer license for all official extensions is $199/year for unlimited sites

• Styling them is a bear.

• You need the developer license to get most of the add-ons, even if you only want to use them on one site.

• The UI has gotten dated.

Ninja Forms

Ninja Forms When I First Used It

Ninja Forms Now

Ninja Forms Confirmations

Ninja Forms Notifications

Ninja Forms Settings

Ninja Forms Submissions

Ninja Forms Import/Export

Ninja Forms Add-Ons• Layout & Styles

• File Uploads

• Conditional Logic

• Multi-Part Forms

• MailChimp

• PayPal Express

• User Management

• Front-End Posting

• Stripe

• Webhooks

• Zapier

• Salesforce• Campaign Monitor• Constant Contact• AWeber• Zoho CRM• Table Editor• Capsule• Insightly CRM• PDF Form Submissions• Trello• Vimeo Uploader• Excel Export• WebMerge

• Emma• Recurly• Twilio• ClickSend

Ninja Forms Pro & Con

• Slick Interface

• Solid Free Version

• Add Your Own CSS Classes

• Only buy and install the add-ons you need.

• Conditional logic, entry export, file upload, & multi-part forms are paid add-ons

• Agency package with all add-ons is $499

Caldera Forms

Caldera Forms Form List with Entries

Hover over form name to get edit link. (This is a little janky.)

Caldera Forms: Form Templates

Caldera Forms Layout Builder

Caldera Forms Field Types

Yes, these are all FREE field types.

Caldera FormsPage Navigation

Email Settings

Caldera Forms Conditions

Caldera Forms Settings

• Enable or Disable Entry Capture (storing entries in database)

• Edit Success Message

• Anti-Spam Honeypot

• Custom Callbacks

Caldera Forms Responsive Settings

Caldera Forms Free Add-Ons

• Custom Fields

• Run Action

• Verify Email

• Slack

• Conditional Fail

• Easy Digital Downloads

• Translations

Caldera Forms Paid Add-Ons• Easy Pods

• MailChimp

• Stripe

• Users

• Entry Limiter

• Geolocation

• Nexmo

• Mail Templates

• Easy Queries

• Connected Caldera Forms

• Braintree

• Authorize.net

• Dwolla

• Ingot

• ConvertKit

• Aweber

• Members

• YouTube

• Zapier

Caldera Forms Pros & Cons

• Templates & Layout Builder

• Advanced Features in Free Version

• Good Free Add-Ons

• Third-Party Add-Ons

• All Add-On Bundle is $499

• Individual Add-Ons Are Expensive

WPForms

WPForms Welcome Page

WPForms Form List

WPForms General Settings

Of note here is the ability to choose an email header image and background color.

WPForms Form Templates Not surprising that the makers of OptinMonsterinclude a newsletter signup among their free templates.

WPForms Form Fields

WPForms Form Settings

WPForms Notifications

Note frequent and prominent up-sell messages.

WPForms Confirmations

WPForms Marketing

Only Constant Contact is available for the free plugin. Paid marketing integrations include Aweber, Campaign Monitor, GetResponse, MailChimp, and Zapier.

WPForms Payments

Embedding a Form in WPForms

WPForms Entries

This is the deal-breaker: WPForms Lite does not store form entries in the WP database.

WPForms Paid Add-Ons

WPForms Pros & Cons

• Easy to use

• Decent UI

• Marketer-friendly

• Pricing structure matches GravityForms: $39 basic, $99 pro, $199 developer, $499 lifetime VIP

• Email formatting

• Free version is extremely limited

• Very few free add-ons

• Endless upsells

• Fewer integrations than Gravity Forms (no polls or quizzes)

Formidable Forms (Free)

Formidable Add Form

Helpful prompts and option to load template. Most fields are limited to pro version.

Formidable Contact Form Template

This is the only template available for the free version of Formidable.

Formidable Field Options & Layout

Though there are many options for form field layout, the interface is a little kludgy.

Formidable Form Settings

“Show message” is the only confirmation option in the free version.

Formidable Form Actions

Email notification is the only free option, but you can create several emails.

Formidable Email Notification

Formidable Form Styling

Some people love these things. I would personally just rather write CSS, because you never really get what you want with these. You can only have 1 style in the free version.

Formidable Customize HTML

This looks a little confusing, but lets you use your own classes and wrappers for complete customization.

Formidable Global Settings

Choose where to load form styling & whether to use HTML5, set user permissions for form management, enter reCAPTCHAkeys, and modify the default messages.

Formidable Form Export/Import

Entry export and import are available in the pro version.

Formidable Insert Form

Formidable Official Add-Ons

These are available either separately or as part of a pro bundle. Some interesting ones: action automation, WPML, Polylang, Locations, User Tracking.

Formidable Third-Party Add-Ons

Okay, I was impressed with how many of these there were relative to the comparatively small collection of official add-ons.

Formidable Pro-Only Features

Laura demonstrates these in her presentation.

Formidable Pros and Cons• Add-ons can be purchased

either separately or as part of a pro package.

• Customize HTML

• Styling options (for those who like them)

• Lifetime unlimited package available.

• Views and many other features are built in to Pro

• Great for data wonks

• Free version is very limited

• Styling options (for those who don’t)

• Form layout and shortcodes-for-everything are a bit clunky

• Pro prices a little higher than GF except for Lifetime

• Definite learning curve

Tying It All Together

Best Free Option: Caldera Forms

• Multiple free templates

• Terrific layout builder

• Great selection of field types

• Advanced features like conditional logic

• Good free add-ons

Best Paid Option: Gravity or Formidable

Both are great in terms of features and add-ons, though neither has a UI as slick as Caldera. Formidable has built-in views that GF needs add-ins for. GF provides better pricing for annual licensing, but Formidable has a good lifetime package. It’s going to come down to personal preference and the specific requirements of the site you’re building.

Don’t forget to watch Laura Steiner’s presentation on Formidable Pro!

About Your Presenter@salliegoetsch on Twittersallie@wpfangirl.com(510) 969-9947

Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with ‘sketch’) built her first HTML website in 1994. Since discovering WordPress in 2005, she hasn’t looked back. Sallie became the organizer of the East Bay WordPress Meetup in Oakland, California, in 2009. She runs her WP Fangirl consulting and development business from her home and appears regularly on the WP-Tonic Live panel.