You need a way for people to contact you via your website. No matter what your site is about, that’s a fact. But there’s a problem…there’s no default WordPress contact form tool. So to create an effective way for readers to contact you, you’ll need to turn to an external solution.
Whether you’ve already tried (and been disappointed by) a contact form plugin or this is your first go round, keep reading to learn all about the best contact form solutions for WordPress and how you can implement them on your site. I’ll give you options for both free and premium plugins, as well as some unique non-plugin contact form solutions.
What Are the Best Free WordPress Contact Form Plugins?
If you search “contact form” at the free wordpress.org plugin repository, you get an impressive 1,001 results. I don’t know about you, but I think wading through over 1,000 plugins sounds like just a bit of a chore. So to help you separate the wheat from the chaff, I handpicked the three best free contact form plugins.
Contact Form 7
With over a million active installs, Contact Form 7 is one of the most popular solutions for adding contact forms to WordPress. It’s lightweight and open source. And because of its popularity, Contact Form 7 is well supported by both its devs and the WordPress community as a whole.
What are the Pros of Contact Form 7?
For moderate to advanced users, Contact form 7 has a lot going for it…
- It’s lightweight. No bloat or unnecessary features.
- It has a boatload of extensions to add functionality.
- It’s highly customizable… if you know CSS.
- You can create multiple different forms.
What are the Cons of Contact Form 7?
But beginners may want to be wary because…
- The form builder is not very beginner friendly.
- There’s no out-of-the-box way to style contact forms. You need to use custom CSS for all styling.
How to Use Contact Form 7
Once you install and activate Contact Form 7, you can create a new form by going to the Contact tab in your dashboard and clicking Add New:
On the next page, you first need to give your form a name. Then, you can add additional fields by clicking on the appropriate button:
You can choose whether or not to require each field, add placeholder text, and add custom CSS styling if needed:
Once you’re happy with your form, you need to go to the mail tab and configure your notification message. This is the message that Contact Form 7 will send you whenever someone fills out your form:
Once you’re done, make sure to save your changes. Then, you can insert your contact form in any post or page by pasting in the shortcode for that form:
Jetpack
Jetpack isn’t just a contact form plugin, it’s a complete toolbox that adds heaps of functionality to your WordPress site. In addition to its handy contact form functionality, Jetpack can also help you speed up and secure your website, analyze your traffic, add image galleries, and lots more.
What are the Pros of Jetpack?
- Jetpack comes from Automattic, the same company behind WordPress.
- You can create different forms for each post or page.
- You get access to lots of other helpful tools.
What are the Cons of Jetpack?
- If you don’t want the added features, you might find it bloated.
- There’s no dashboard to manage all of your contact forms. You have to manage them on a per page/post basis.
How to Use Jetpack
Once you’ve installed and activated the Jetpack plugin, go to Jetpack → Settings → Writing and enable Contact Form by clicking the toggle button:
Once it’s enabled, you can add new contact forms directly from your WordPress Editor:
You can always add new form fields by clicking the link on the right (below). Once you set up your form, you need to go to the Email Notifications tab to configure where you want to receive notifications for form submissions:
If you need multiple forms, you can repeat the same process for different posts/pages.
Ninja Forms
Ninja Forms is a user-friendly tool for beginners to create contact forms. While the plugin locks some functionality behind paid add-ons, the free plugin has more than enough power for most contact forms.
What are the Pros of Ninja Forms?
- It has the most beginner friendly user interface.
- You can rearrange forms via drag and drop.
- You can manage form submissions directly from your WordPress dashboard.
What are the Cons of Ninja Forms?
- Some advanced functionality requires paid add-ons
How to Use Ninja Forms
Once you install and activate Ninja Forms, you can create a new form by going to Forms → Add New Form:
You can start from a pre-made contact form template to make things easy:
Once you’ve picked a template, you can drag form fields around to rearrange them or click the Plus button to add new fields:
You can configure your notification preferences in the Emails & Actions tab or set advanced options in the Advanced tab. Once you’re happy, click Publish to save your form:
Then, you can add your new form to any post or page by pasting in the provided shortcode:
What Are Some Good Non-Plugin Alternatives for Contact Forms?
Plugins aren’t the only way to add a contact form to WordPress. You can actually find some external tools that integrate well with WordPress and offer added functionality.
Typeform
Typeform might just change the way you look at contact forms. Instead of boring, static form fields, Typeform lets you embed engaging scrolling forms.
What Advantages Does Typeform Have Over Plugins?
Typeform calls their forms “beautifully human online forms.” Instead of presenting all form fields at once, Typeform shows one field at a time. As the user enters data, the form continues.
This method allows for some interesting applications. For example, if the first field asks your user to input their name, you can make the second field display something like this:
Personally, I think Typeform is absolutely the most engaging way to create forms.
How to Embed Typeform in WordPress
There are two ways to embed Typeform into WordPress.
- Use a third-party plugin called Typeform.
- Paste the embed code provided by Typeform into the Text tab of the WordPress Editor:
Google Forms
You’ve probably encountered a Google Form at some point in your life. But did you know that it’s actually quite easy to use Google Forms with WordPress?
What Advantages Does Google Forms Have Over Plugins?
First off, when you use Google Forms you get access to the incredibly user friendly Google Forms builder.
But that’s not the only benefit:
Google Forms also allows conditional logic in your forms. That means you can display different fields based on how a person answered previous questions. It’s actually surprisingly difficult to find a WordPress plugin that lets you use conditional logic for free, so this is a big plus.
How to Embed Google Forms in WordPress
You can embed Google Forms anywhere in your WordPress site by simply pasting the embed code into the Text tab of the WordPress Editor. Check out our post on embedding a Google Form for a full overview on how to use this free service:
Formspree
If you’re familiar with HTML, Formspree is an app which makes it easy to add your own contact form code to WordPress. No PHP or JavaScript required.
What Advantages Does Formspree Have Over Plugins?
Because the entire code takes up about 5 lines, you can be 100% certain there’s no bloat. All you need to do is send your form to Formspree’s URL and Formspree will forward it to your email.
The only downside is that you need to know CSS to make your forms look aesthetic.
How to Embed Formspree in WordPress
You need to be at least somewhat familiar with code to use Formspree with WordPress. Go to the Formspree site for specific instructions.
What Are the Best Premium Contact Form Plugins and Are They Worth It?
If you need more functionality than the free contact form plugins offer, you can consider a premium option. For simple contact forms, I don’t think you need a premium plugin. But if you want to add form fields beyond the basic text/email options included with free plugins, then these premium plugins are the easiest way to do it.
Gravity Forms
In addition to a user-friendly interface, Gravity Forms includes these advanced features:
- Multi-page forms
- Conditional logic
- Fields to allow scheduling
- Pricing fields and payment integration
- Lots more!
Gravity Forms starts at $39 for a single-site license. It’s overkill for a basic contact form, but powerful if you need more.
WPForms
WPForms offers one of the smoothest drag and drop form builders that I’ve ever encountered. In addition to that major carrot, WPForms also features:
- Multi-page forms
- Conditional logic
- File uploads
- Fields to allow scheduling
- Pricing fields and payment integration
- Lots more!
WPForms starts at $39 for a single-site license. They also have a Lite version which is available for free, though it’s quite limited.
How Many Form Fields Should a Contact Form Have?
I want to end with one caveat. Though all of these tools make it easy to add fields to your forms, it’s not a good idea to pack your form with fields. Data consistently shows that shorter forms get more responses:
- Marketo compared forms with 5, 7, and 9 fields and found that the shorter forms got filled out more.
- Expedia lost $12 million per year because of one unnecessary form field.
- Imaginary Landscape found that a 4-field form got filled out 120% more often than a similar 11-field form.
The moral of the story is this:
Don’t get too trigger-happy with form builders. Only make your forms as long as they need to be to collect 100% necessary information. No longer.
Wrapping Things Up
If all you need is a basic contact form, you should use one of the free plugins I listed.
On the other hand, if you want to get a little fancy or add advanced fields like scheduling and pricing, you may want to consider one of the premium plugins or non-plugin alternatives.
If you need help making your decision, leave a comment and I’ll give you my thoughts!
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