Buyer's guide
Every comparison in this category is a grid of ticks, and the ticks are broadly the same. Two things that are not on those grids will affect what you pay far more than any feature: what the licence costs in year two, and whether the plugin takes a cut of your payments.
Three of the four commercial plugins here display a permanent-looking 50% discount. Each carries a footnote saying renewals are at full price. The footnotes are real, they are theirs, and they are the numbers to budget with.
| Entry tier, 1 site | First year | Renews at | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trinity Forms | $49 | $49 | Yes |
| Gravity Forms | $59 | $59 | None listed |
| Fluent Forms | $63 | $79 | Yes |
| Formidable Basic | $39.50 | $79 | Lite build, limits unverified |
| WPForms Basic | $49.50 | $99 | Lite build, 3% fee |
| Contact Form 7 | Free, no paid tier | It is the free tier | |
If your forms only collect enquiries, skip this section. If they take money, it is the most expensive line on the page and it is never in the comparison grids.
WPForms state it plainly: “If you're on WPForms free version or using an inactive license, then a 3% platform fee will apply on all transactions.” The second half matters — a renewal that quietly fails brings the fee back on forms that were working fine yesterday.
Formidable's fee reaches further up the range. Their Basic plan's own bullet reads “Upgrade to Business to remove the 3% transaction fee”, and Business is $399 at renewal. Both vendors are clear that the fee disappears on a valid higher licence, so this is a cost for specific buyers rather than a permanent tax — but you should know which buyer you are before you choose.
This is the question that actually splits the category, and it is more useful than any feature list.
| If a submission is… | You need | Look at |
|---|---|---|
| A message — enquiry, registration, order, survey response | Storage, notifications, export, retention | Trinity Forms, Fluent Forms, WPForms, Gravity Forms |
| A published record — a directory entry, listing, calendar event | Front-end views of entry data | Formidable Forms |
| Just an email, nothing kept | Very little | Contact Form 7 |
Contact Form 7 belongs in that last row honestly rather than dismissively. It is free, it is GPL, it has no vendor and no upsell, and for a single contact form emailing one address it is entirely sufficient. Its real limitation is that it does not store submissions — if the email fails or is deleted, the enquiry is gone. That is the reason most people eventually leave, and it is what our Contact Form 7 comparison is about.
If you need a specific integration or field type we do not have, buy the plugin that has it — usually WPForms or Fluent Forms, both of which carry far larger catalogues than ours. If your submissions need to be published as a browsable directory, Formidable Views goes considerably deeper than the front-end tables we added in 2.3.0. If you run unlimited sites, Gravity Elite at $259 and Fluent Unlimited at $239 are both cheaper than our $299. And if you are handing a site to someone else, the plugin with six million installs is a defensible choice on its own.
And what counts against us right now. Trinity Forms' free build is not currently installable from the WordPress plugin directory — the listing is closed while an account matter is resolved and we do not control that timeline. The free version is a direct download from us in the meantime. Every other plugin on this page installs in one click. If that matters to you, it is a fair reason to wait.
Found something wrong on this page? Every vendor here changes pricing without notice and runs rolling promotions. Tell us and we will fix it — [email protected].
At renewal prices for a single site, Trinity Forms is $49 a year, Gravity Forms $59, Formidable Basic $79, Fluent Forms $79 and WPForms Basic $99. Introductory pricing makes several of them look cheaper in year one: Formidable at $39.50, WPForms at $49.50 and Fluent Forms at $63. Checked August 2026.
Some do. WPForms applies a 3% platform fee on transactions when you are on the free version or an inactive licence. Formidable Basic carries a 3% transaction fee until you upgrade to their Business tier. Trinity Forms, Gravity Forms and Fluent Forms charge nothing per transaction on a valid licence.
Yes, several. Contact Form 7 is free with no paid tier, though it does not store submissions. Trinity Forms has a free tier with no site limit that includes the drag-and-drop builder, conditional logic, entry storage, CSV export and survey scoring. Fluent Forms and WPForms both have free builds, though WPForms applies a 3% fee to payments on theirs. Gravity Forms lists no free tier at all.
It was designed to send email rather than to be a database. Submissions exist only as the notification email, so if delivery fails or the message is deleted the enquiry is gone. Add-on plugins can store entries, but storage is not part of the core plugin, and it is the most common reason people move to a different form builder.
Often. WPForms, Formidable Forms and Fluent Forms all display introductory pricing, and WPForms and Formidable both state that renewals are at full price. Gravity Forms and Trinity Forms show flat pricing with no introductory rate, so the displayed price is also the renewal price.
It varies, and it is worth checking. Most plugins stop updates and support and disable premium features. Trinity Forms gives a 15-day grace period in which existing Stripe and PayPal forms keep taking payments, then reverts the form to its free tier rather than switching it off, so it still submits, notifications still send and entries still store. On WPForms, a lapsed licence brings back the 3% platform fee on payments.
Occasional, concrete posts on forms, entries and getting data out of WordPress. No sequences, unsubscribe in one click.
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