When website owners want to tell their users and clients something, they write or record it and publish it on web pages. But to create two-way communication with users and, after all, achieve the business goals, various types of forms are required.
Each form has its own job, tackling specific needs and adding to the mix of how users engage online. Let’s sort them out and find the best WordPress plugins that can cover all these needs.
First, I will describe the most frequently used web form types and their essential fields.
Note that the consent field with opt-in for collecting personal information must be presented in almost each of the forms; however, a lot of things depend on your region or country’s policies and the information you collect.
Contact forms are used to gather basic information from visitors who want to get in touch with the website owner or organization.
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Subscription forms, along with contact ones, are powerful lead-generating tools. Subscription forms are designed to collect user information for newsletter sign-ups or subscription services.
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Registration forms are employed to sign up users for a service, membership, or account.
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This type is common in eCommerce and is used to collect information necessary for processing purchases.
Booking forms (for properties or services, daily or hourly based) are one of the variations of order forms. Order forms often require a calculation functionality as well to calculate the shipping cost or the final price.
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Feedback forms allow users to provide comments, suggestions, or opinions about a product, service, or the website itself.
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Now, it’s time for the list of WordPress form plugins that are pretty universal and able to cover most of a website’s needs for form-building functionality.
Some of them are more advanced than others; some offer a huge number of features for free, and others charge a few hundred dollars per year. So, let’s figure out what their key features are and whether they are worth being used in your next project.
🏆 Great for forms of any complexity, especially with dynamic content.
JetFormBuilder stands out as a solid form plugin you can snag for free from the WordPress plugin directory. It’s focused on working with dynamic content and is a great combo with JetEngine, which powers it up even more, so you can use the potential of Glossaries, Option Pages, CCTs, and much more.
Another specific thing is that JetFormBuider uses a native Gutenberg interface, which may seem not so cool at first glance but actually has a lot of benefits, such as full freedom in designing the forms because you are not limited by the available form fields and blocks, e.g., shortcodes, social logins, etc.
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Pricing: free; premium add-on package is $49 for one site/year and $129 for unlimited sites/year.
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🏆 A powerful plugin with a focus on dynamic content and AI.
This plugin has a Lite version, but to enjoy its advantages, you should purchase a Pro version because this is where all the perks are. It’s easy to use, with many input types, actions, and settings.
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Pricing: free (very limited); $49 for one site per year (only core functionality), $149 for up to 5 sites per year (some premium add-ons included), and $249 for unlimited sites per year with 30+ add-ons included.
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🏆 Good choice for simple forms with custom code.
This form is worth mentioning because it has the components for creating the most popular types of web forms. Still, there is also a choice of appearance options (embedded, pop-up, scroll box, topbar) and access to the HTML code of the form and adding JavaScript code, so you can modify every detail of it.
It has a friendly user interface with a drag-and-drop editor. Another advantage is that you can map the fields in the database and use both local and remote ones.
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Pricing: free (limited); the Pro starts at $30 per 1 site per 6 months (limited functionality). The full functionality is available at $100 per 6 months with the full bundle of 10Web plugins.
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🏆 Good choice for simple forms with custom code.
I consider this plugin Premium because the Lite version is very limited, and all the cool features are paid. It has a lot of add-ons and integrations that can’t be bought separately, but you need an upgrade, so it can get really expensive if you want the full functionality. The interface is also a bit complicated.
However, it offers a quite unique view builder feature to display submissions on the front end, so this plugin can be a core tool of a website.
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Pricing: free (very limited); Basic is $79 a year with only basic functionality; Plus is $199 a year for up to 3 sites and some advanced functionality including Views; Business is $399 a year for up to 7 sites for proper functionality; Elite is $599 for unlimited sites, more integrations, WooCommerce, and full Views functionality.
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There are a lot of form builder plugins, but most of them cover the contact form functionality. However, many sites require something more: to make calculations, register users, submit content from the front end, create quizzes, or gather feedback. It’s definitely a good idea to find one powerful plugin that will cover all your needs instead of using many. I hope this article will help, and feel free to add your favorite plugins that can do it all.
It’s a set of inputs on a web page where users can submit certain information from the front end. The most popular type of web form is a contact form.
It’s a specified sequence of actions that will take place after the form is submitted by a user. For example, there can be a redirect to another page or e-mail.
No, if you are not a web developer.