Contact Form 7 vs Gravity Forms (2026)
Contact Form 7
★410,000,000+
vs
Gravity Forms
★4.75,000,000+
Quick Verdict
Choose Contact Form 7 if...
Simple Contact Us email forms on sites where budget is zero and simplicity is paramount.
Choose Gravity Forms if...
Developers and agencies building complex, data-driven forms who need calculated fields and a rich add-on ecosystem.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Contact Form 7 | Gravity Forms |
|---|---|---|
| Drag & Drop Builder | ✗ | ✓ |
| Conditional Logic | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multi-Step Forms | ✗ | ✓ |
| File Uploads | ✓ | ✓ |
| Payment Forms | ✗ | ✓ |
| Calculated Fields | ✗ | ✓ |
| User Registration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Frontend Post Submission | ✗ | ✓ |
| Conversational Forms | ✗ | ✓ |
| Gutenberg Block | ✓ | ✓ |
| Gutenberg-Native | ✗ | ✗ |
| AI Form Builder | ✗ | ✗ |
| Digital Signatures | ✗ | ✓ |
| Surveys & Polls | ✗ | ✓ |
| Quizzes | ✗ | ✓ |
| Scheduling / Date Limits | ✗ | ✓ |
| Entry Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Export Entries | ✗ | ✓ |
| Partial Entries | ✗ | ✓ |
| Geolocation | ✗ | ✓ |
| Webhooks | ✗ | ✓ |
| Custom CSS | ✓ | ✓ |
| Responsive Design | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ajax Submission | ✓ | ✓ |
| Anti-Spam | ✓ | ✓ |
| reCAPTCHA | ✓ | ✓ |
| hCaptcha | ✗ | ✓ |
| Cloudflare Turnstile | ✓ | ✓ |
| Honeypot | ✗ | ✓ |
Pricing Comparison
| Plan | Contact Form 7 | Gravity Forms |
|---|---|---|
| Free Version | ✓Free | ✗ |
| Starting Price | Free only | $59/year |
| Top Tier | — | Nonprofit: $129/year |
Integrations
Email Marketing
| activecampaign | ✗ | ✓ |
| aweber | ✗ | ✓ |
| campaign monitor | ✗ | ✓ |
| constant contact | ✗ | ✓ |
| drip | ✗ | ✓ |
| hubspot | ✗ | ✓ |
| mailchimp | ✗ | ✓ |
Payment
| 2checkout | ✗ | ✓ |
| authorize net | ✗ | ✓ |
| mollie | ✗ | ✓ |
| paypal | ✗ | ✓ |
| square | ✗ | ✓ |
| stripe | ✗ | ✓ |
CRM
| hubspot | ✗ | ✓ |
| salesforce | ✗ | ✓ |
| zoho | ✗ | ✓ |
Automation
| make | ✗ | ✓ |
| zapier | ✗ | ✓ |
Other
| akismet | ✓ | ✗ |
| brevo | ✓ | ✗ |
| dropbox | ✗ | ✓ |
| flamingo | ✓ | ✗ |
| google sheets | ✗ | ✓ |
| recaptcha | ✓ | ✗ |
| rest api | ✗ | ✓ |
| slack | ✗ | ✓ |
| stripe | ✓ | ✗ |
| turnstile | ✓ | ✗ |
Pros & Cons
Contact Form 7
Pros
- ✓10,000,000+ active installs — the most installed form plugin ever
- ✓Completely free, always
- ✓Maximum compatibility with all themes and plugins
- ✓Simple, clean markup-based form creation
- ✓Battle-tested over 15+ years
Cons
- ✗No drag-and-drop builder — requires knowledge of shortcode markup
- ✗Does not save submissions to the database by default — email only
- ✗No conditional logic, calculations, multi-step forms, or payments natively
- ✗Has not evolved significantly in years; feels dated
- ✗Heavy reliance on third-party add-ons for any advanced functionality
Gravity Forms
Pros
- ✓Calculated fields built into every plan (no add-on needed)
- ✓Best-in-class third-party ecosystem (GravityView, Gravity Perks, Gravity Flow)
- ✓All core form capabilities identical across plans — only add-ons differ
- ✓Strong REST API and developer hooks
- ✓Nonprofit pricing ($129/yr for Elite-level) is excellent
Cons
- ✗No free version or trial — requires upfront payment
- ✗Most advanced features (signatures, surveys, geolocation, webhooks) require Elite ($259/yr)
- ✗Third-party ecosystem can make total cost unpredictable
- ✗No AI form builder
- ✗Conversational forms only available at Elite tier ($259/yr)
- ✗Not Gutenberg-native; block merely embeds the classic builder
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