Do you want to know everything about Contact Form 7 vs Gravity Forms? Read this article.
WordPress contact form plugins will make the form-building process super simple. Without using HTML for structuring the fields, CSS for styling them, and PHP for data processing, anyone can create various forms with a form builder plugin.
But, choosing a form builder plugin would be a challenging task. If you check the internet, you will see so many contact form plugins. There will be free plugins, freemium plugins, and premium plugins.
In this article, we will be covering the Contact Form 7 vs Gravity Forms comparison. If you want to choose a plugin from these two, keep reading this article. In the end, we will have a clear winner.
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is one of the oldest WordPress contact form plugins available in the market. It comes with basic features and forms building experience. As of now, more than 5 million people are using the plugin.
If you are looking for a simple contact form plugin with limited features, Contact Form 7 can be your best choice. Like other form builders, you won’t get a drag and drop builder here. Instead, you will be working with shortcodes when you need to add fields to the form.
Finally, it can be integrated with Google reCAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering. On top of that, using third-party integrations, you will be able to combine multiple email marketing services or payment gateways.
Visit Contact Form 7
Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is a premium WordPress form builder plugin with extraordinary features and integrations. Sadly, there is no free version plugin available. But if you are interested, you can get a free trial.
Some of the most popular features of Gravity Forms are:
- Drag and drop form builder
- 30+ form fields
- Conditional logic
- Email notifications
- File uploads
- Calculations
- WordPress post creation
- Fight spam
- Email marketing integrations
- Payment gateway integrations
and so on.
If you are looking for a premium solution, Gravity Forms is best.
Visit Gravity Forms
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Contact Form 7 vs Gravity Forms: Compared
We will compare multiple options like:
- Ease of use
- Features
- Payment gateway integrations
- Email marketing integrations
- Pricing
- Support and documentations
Ease of Use
These days, most contact forms come with a drag and drop form builder. This will make the job easier. Instead of using HTML, CSS, and PHP, a drag and drop form builder will help you create forms without touching a single line of code.
Now, let’s see which plugin offers easy form builder and customization.
Contact Form 7
Right now, Contact Form 7 doesn’t have a drag and drop form builder. Instead, the plugin works with shortcodes.
From the Form section, you can choose the fields you need to add. Once you have selected a field, the plugin will add the appropriate shortcode to the builder. Of course, you can also manually customize the field label.
This way, you can create forms using the Contact Form 7 WordPress plugin.
Gravity Forms
When you choose Gravity Forms, you will get a complete drag and drop form building option.
On the left-hand side, you will see the builder. On the right-hand side, you will see all the available fields according to your license type. You can simply drag the fields you want, drop them inside the builder.
This way, you can create forms.
Winner: Gravity Forms
Features
Features of the plugin really matter. This is how you can choose the perfect form builder plugin for your business. Below, we will look at some of the Contact Form 7 and the Gravity Forms plugin features.
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is a basic plugin when it comes to features. Some of its features are:
- Limited form fields
- Multilingual
- CAPTCHA integration
- SendinBlue integration
- Akismet integration
To get more integrations and features, you need to rely on a third-party developer.
Gravity Forms
The most popular features of Gravity Forms are:
- 30+ form fields to use
- Conditional logic
- Email notifications
- File uploads
- Save and continue
- Calculations
- Limit forms
- Schedule forms
- Spam protection
and so on.
The development team is continuously fixing the core plugin for bugs and adding more security features.
Winner: Gravity Forms
Payment Gateway Integraions
Some of us are selling digital products or digital services through a WordPress website. For example, let’s say that you are offering a premium SEO service through your website. Since you use your website as the medium, you need to integrate a payment gateway to collect the funds.
As of now, the popular two payment gateways are PayPal and Stripe. Well, there are more payment gateways available. Now, let’s see which form builder will support payment gateway integration and easy configuration.
Contact Form 7
As of today, the Contact Form 7 plugin doesn’t come with inbuilt payment gateway integrations. You will need to use third-party plugins for connecting PayPal and Stripe with the forms.
Several third-party developers developed the solution and created multiple standalone plugins like Addon Paypal and Stripe With Contact Form 7, Contact Form 7 – PayPal & Stripe Add-on, etc. On top of that, you can also check marketplaces like Codecanyon for another premium solution.
Several plugin authors created some add-ons for connecting the Square payment gateway there.
So if you need to integrate any payment gateway when using the Contact Form 7 WordPress plugin, you should use an additional plugin created by a third-party developer or team.
Gravity Forms
By using the Gravity Forms add-ons, you will be able to integrate
- PayPal
- Authorize.net
- 2Checkout
- Stripe
- Mollie
to the website.
All the mentioned add-ons are developed by the Gravity Forms developers. So, the code will be secure, and there will be no compatibility issues. Plus, if you need help setting up the add-ons or integrating the fields, you can directly contact the Gravity Forms support staff.
Configuring the add-ons will also be simple. You can complete the payment gateway integration just by pasting some keys inside the settings.
Winner: Gravity Forms
Email Marketing Integrations
Email marketing is no more optional. No matter you are running a personal blog or a business website. You need to invest in email marketing for a better future. To automate the lead generation process, we can integrate the email marketing service with the available forms.
This way, when someone submits the form, their email address would be automatically added to the assigned list. So, for example, if you need to collect emails from users interested in free SEO training, create a new form using the plugin, integrate the email marketing service, create a new list and assign it.
The email address would be automatically added to the newly created email list when someone submits the form. This will reduce your workload. So, when you need to send a mass email, you can log in to the email marketing service provider, select the list, start creating campaigns.
Let’s see which plugin will offer excellent email marketing service integrations.
Contact Form 7
By default, the Contact Form 7 plugin can be integrated with Sendinblue and Constant Contact. Both are the best email marketing service providers in the market. But, there are more available.
Some of the integrations they miss now are MailChimp, AWeber, ConvertKit, Emma, Drip, MailerLite, and so on. So, they still need to work on the inbuilt email marketing integration opportunities.
If you need to integrate any unsupported email marketing service by default, you must use third-party plugins. Contact Form 7 Extension For Mailchimp and Contact Form 7 AWeber Extension are good examples of add-on plugins.
Gravity Forms
When you have Gravity Forms, you do not need to rely on third-party plugins or plugins. Instead, the in-house developers have created several add-ons which you can use to integrate several email marketing services with the core plugin.
Some of the email marketing integrations you can see on Gravity Forms are:
- ActiveCampaign
- AWeber
- Campaign Monitor
- CleverReach
- Constant Contact
- Emma
- GetResponse
- Mailchimp
- EmailOctopus
and so on.
According to your license type, you will get access to the email marketing service. And when it comes to integration, it would be simple and straightforward.
By pasting some API keys to the add-on settings, you can complete the email marketing service integration.
So, when comparing the available options and ease of integration, Gravity Forms can be selected as a clear winner.
Winner: Gravity Forms
Pricing
Pricing will be one of the main concerns when someone is planning to get a product or service. In this section, we will talk about the pricing model of Contact Form 7 and Gravity Forms.
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is an entirely free solution. The core and basic integrations are always free. However, several third-party developers have some premium add-ons. From marketplaces like CodeCanyon, you can see them.
Gravity Forms
When it comes to Gravity Forms, they do not have a free version plugin. Gravity Forms is a complete premium solution. They do have three pricing models.
- Basic – $59/year
- Pro – $159/year
- Elite – $259/year
You can pick a plan according to your requirements. After completing the payment, you will be able to log in to your WordPress site, download the premium plugin files, access the licensing details.
Winner: Contact Form 7
Support and Documentations
Having a team of experts to help you is always great. Plus, if there is written instruction, much better. In this section, we will take at the support offered by both plugins and their documentation section.
Contact Form 7
You won’t get support through ticketing when you’re using the Contact Form 7 WordPress plugin. Instead, you can use the WordPress support forum.
You can create an account, publish your issue there. One of the developers will help you. And they do have a documentation section.
The categories are:
- Getting started
- Creating forms
- External API integration
- Tips
- Troubleshooting
You can refer to the guides, find a solution.
Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms offers much better support than Contact Form 7 plugin. If you need help with any form customization, you can contact the support team through ticketing. Their support hours are Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM.
And if you check the documentation section, you will see everything you need is well organized.
They have categorized the docs section like:
- Getting started
- Gravity Forms 2.5
- Account
- User guides
- Add-ons
- Developers
- Knowledgebase
You can go through the archives, and you will find what you are looking for.
Winner: Gravity Forms
Conclusion
A robust contact form plugin is no more optional. By using it, you will be able to create simple contact forms to complex payment forms. However, choosing the right contact form plugin might be a challenging task for most beginners.
However, if you are just looking for a simple contact form plugin with limited features, we recommend using Contact Form 7. On the other hand, if you need more premium, unique features, take a look at Gravity Forms.
Gravity Forms is one of the famous and heavily recommended WordPress form builder plugins in the market.
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