WPForms Lite vs Pro: Which Version Is Right for You?

WPForms Lite is packed with basic features that make it ideal for simple contact forms, and it’s free, so it’s perfect for anyone just starting out or needing a straightforward solution.

But if you’re curious about WPForms Pro, you might be wondering if the added features, integrations, and addons are worth the investment or can help grow your business or nonprofit.

In this article, we’ll run through a complete comparison of WPForms Lite and WPForms Pro so you can easily see what you’ll get when you upgrade.

WPForms Free vs Pro Explained

Both versions share the same builder, the same templates, and the same basic fields. Pro layers on advanced fields, an entry database, conditional logic, payment power-ups, and most of the addons that turn a contact form into a working tool for your business.

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Getting Started: WPForms Lite vs Pro

WPForms Lite and WPForms Pro share the same awesome drag and drop form builder that’s super easy for beginners. No matter which version you start with, the WPForms editor works in exactly the same way.

The WPForms user interface is easy to learn, too. To add a field, you just drag it from left to right. To open the field options, click once on the field in the editor.

You can easily make and publish a contact form in less than 5 minutes. And because WPForms runs as a WordPress plugin, you can also expand the builder so it fills your entire monitor, which makes longer forms much easier to work on than a hosted form builder cramped inside a sidebar.

Both versions include WPForms AI right inside the builder. You can describe the form you want in plain English, and the AI generates a draft you can refine.

The AI Choices feature also helps when you’re filling out dropdowns and checkboxes, since it suggests choice values based on the field label. Both WPForms AI and AI Choices are available in Lite and Pro.

So it’s a WordPress plugin, but it works like a professional form builder platform! Next, here’s another great tip. There are also no usage limits in WPForms Lite or WPForms Pro either:

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
Unlimited forms	✓	✓
Unlimited submissions	✓	✓
Unlimited views	✓	✓
Unlimited disk space	✓	✓
AI Form Builder	✓	✓
AI Choices	✓	✓

Keep in mind that your hosting company might have limits on things like disk space for files. But unlike hosted form builders such as JotForm, WPForms won’t impose limits of its own.

You definitely don’t want your form to be disabled right when your traffic is increasing!

Our free version has more than has 13+ thousand 5-star reviews on WordPress.org . And 6+ million customers like you are already using it!

• If you want to learn why WPForms has so many awesome ratings, check out this comparison of WPForms Lite vs Contact Form 7 to see how much easier it is to make forms without writing code.
• You can also see this Zoho Forms vs Jotform vs WPForms comparison to see how WPForms provides extra value with some unique form features that you don’t get elsewhere.

Up next, we’ll look at the components you can use to make your forms. When you upgrade and buy a WPForms license, you get to use more fields and unlock way beyond what you get in WPForms Lite features. Let’s take a look.

Form Fields in WPForms Lite vs Pro

The form fields you can use are different in WPForms Lite and the Pro version. Let’s look at the similarities before we check out the differences:

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
Name	✓	✓
Email	✓	✓
Text	✓	✓
Number	✓	✓
Number Slider	✓	✓
Dropdown	✓	✓
Multiple Choice	✓	✓
Checkbox	✓	✓
Payment fields (Items fields)	✓	✓
reCAPTCHA/ hCaptcha/Akismet/Turnstile	✓	✓
GDPR Agreement	✓	✓

These basic fields let you easily make forms for your business, hobby site, or nonprofit. With these fields, you can easily:

• Create a simple contact form
• Create an order form and accept credit card payments with Stripe
• Customize your form with dropdowns, radio buttons, and checkboxes
• Add spam protection to your forms with CAPTCHAs, email blocklists, and more
• Easily add a GDPR agreement to any form.

If you upgrade to Pro, you get access to the ‘fancy’ fields in the plugin too:

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
Smart Phone (with country detection)		✓
Address / Map		✓
Date / Time		✓
Website / URL		✓
File Upload		✓
Calculations		✓
Password		✓
Rich Text		✓
Repeater		✓
Layout (multi-column form)		✓
Page Break		✓
Section Divider		✓
HTML		✓
Content		✓
Entry Preview		✓
Hidden Field		✓
Custom CAPTCHAs		✓
Signature		✓
Survey fields (star ratings, Likert scale, NPS)		✓

These fields are super helpful when you want to:

• Make longer forms easier to fill out: Splitting a form into sections and creating multi-page forms helps to make your visitors feel comfortable answering longer questions. It also avoids form abandonment because they won’t feel overwhelmed.
• Make surveys and polls so you can conduct your own research and find out what makes your customers tick.
• Get signed contracts, which is awesome for any business or freelancer who needs to get signed agreements.
• Prevent spam with your own custom CAPTCHAs.

There are a few fields in the Pro list that are especially handy, so let’s focus on those next. First, here’s an example of the ‘smart’ phone field in action:

This field will automatically show the correct phone number input based on your visitor’s location.

This really helps to avoid confusion when you’re getting phone numbers for sales leads, especially if you have visitors from different countries.

Next up, we also wanted to show you how the address autocomplete works because it’s awesome!

The Pro Geolocation addon connects to Google Maps or Mapbox and will automatically detect the address and complete it for your visitor. It’s a great way to add an interactive map to your address field too!

Next, let’s take a look at the Rich Text field. This allows visitors to format their entry with bold, italics, lists, colors, and more. And they can upload images too.

This is the perfect field if you want to allow users to submit blog posts through your forms.

And finally, let’s look at 1 more field that could make your workflow a lot more efficient. Using the Signature addon, your visitor can draw their signature on any form you create.

You can use this to create your own:

• WordPress contract forms
• Model release forms
• Video release forms
• And more.

But wait. Are you wondering if these fields will make your forms look too complicated? Let’s take a look at how conditional logic can help with that.

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Why Use Conditional Logic on Forms?

If you’re still on the fence about upgrading, conditional logic is one of the #1 benefits of upgrading to a WPForms paid license.

With conditional logic, you can set up specific fields to show or hide automatically.

For example, you could show and hide fields based on previous answers.

Conditional logic can be used in other ways too. You can:

• Process payments only if certain conditions are met
• Filter your survey questions according to a demographic question
• Get more control over when marketing integrations fire and when they don’t.

With WPForms Pro, you can hide all of the fields that aren’t immediately needed, then reveal them when necessary. That way, your visitor will never see tons of empty fields that don’t apply to them.

Notifications and Entry Storage: Lite vs Pro

Both WPForms Lite and WPForms Pro will send notification emails when your form is submitted. (If you don’t receive notifications, this guide on how to fix WPForms not sending email will show you the easy way to fix it.)

On top of that, WPForms Pro gives you more ways to send and manage your notifications. Here’s a quick breakdown to give you an idea of the differences.

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
Form notification emails	✓	✓
CC recipients on 1 notification	✓	✓
Confirmation message on form submission	✓	✓
Multiple notifications on a form		✓
1-click notification cloning		✓
Form abandonment notifications		✓
Conditional notifications		✓

If you want to have every form entry saved in your WordPress dashboard, WPForms Pro is the best choice. You can search and filter your entries to find exactly what you need.

And you can even get notifications for forms that aren’t submitted. In fact, WPForms Pro has the best entry storage features in any WordPress form builder plugin:

Lite Connect backs up form entries to the cloud while you’re on Lite, and you can pull those entries back into your dashboard if you upgrade later.

For a real entry database, Pro is the only option. Every submission gets saved in your WordPress dashboard where you can search, filter, star, and export.

You can even get notifications for forms that aren’t submitted, which is incredibly useful for catching warm leads before they go cold.

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
Form entry storage in WordPress		✓
Automatic entry export to Google Sheets		✓
PDF export of entries		✓
Save & Resume partial entries		✓
File uploads stored in Media Library (optional)		✓
Survey and poll reporting		✓
Show visitors’ location		✓
Show user journey		✓
Export to CSV, Excel, or print entries		✓
Mark entries read or unread, star entries		✓
Get form entries offline		✓

A few of those Pro storage features deserve a closer look. For instance, the Surveys and Polls addon turns WPForms into a full survey platform.

What I like most about it is the built-in reporting. Compared to standalone survey tools, you get three solid advantages.

• Surveys live on your site: Every form has an embed button right inside the builder, so you can drop a survey or poll into any page or post in a couple of clicks.
• All responses sit in your dashboard: No logging into a separate platform to read results.
• Charts generate automatically: WPForms creates downloadable charts from your survey data, ready to drop into reports.

Honestly, the Surveys and Polls addon by itself is enough to justify the Pro license for a lot of marketing teams I’ve worked with.

The User Journey addon is the other one I find myself coming back to. It traces every visitor’s path through your site, all the way up to the moment they submitted the form.

That’s the kind of insight Google Analytics technically gives you, but it takes ten clicks to find and twenty more to interpret. With User Journey, it shows up next to the entry itself.

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Form Templates: WPForms Lite vs Pro

Both WPForms Lite and WPForms Pro come with 2,100+ WordPress form templates. You can access them right in the form builder.

You can hover your mouse over any template to open up a preview or use it right away by clicking on Use Template. The form builder will automatically prompt you to install the addons needed for the form to work.

And if you need to upgrade your WPForms license to use the selected template, a message will pop up to explain what you need to do.

When you combine our form templates and addons, you can easily make advanced forms like:

• Blog post submission forms to get more user generated content for your site
• Frontend submission forms for an events calendar
• Custom user registration and login forms
• Custom calculation forms
• File upload forms
• And more!

All of this extra functionality can help you:

• Save time by reducing the amount of admin work you have to do
• Simplify hiring using customized job application forms
• Make more money from your site
• Accept WordPress user submitted posts for increased efficiency and better rankings
• Make lead forms to generate more sales leads
• Take your marketing campaigns to the next level!

Payments: WPForms Lite vs Pro

All license levels of WPForms enable you to create order forms and accept credit card payments via Stripe or Square.

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
Stripe	✓	✓
Square	✓	✓
PayPal	✓	✓
Authorize.net		✓

So at any tier, you can take credit card payments through Stripe and PayPal payments through PayPal Core. The catch is the 3% WPForms fee that gets added on top of the standard processor fees on Lite, Basic, and Plus.

Once you’re on Pro or higher, that 3% fee disappears and you only pay your payment processor’s normal rates. Pro also unlocks several payment-specific power-ups.

• Stripe Pro and Square Pro add conditional logic on payments. You can let customers choose between one-time and recurring options on the same form, or only charge people who select certain choices.
• PayPal Commerce replaces PayPal Core with no fees, conditional logic, both one-time and subscription payments on the same form, advanced notifications, and full refund management from your WordPress dashboard.
• The Coupons addon applies fixed or percentage discounts to payment forms, perfect for promo codes.
• Recurring subscriptions work with Stripe (all paid tiers), Square Pro (monthly, yearly, or custom cadence), and PayPal (PayPal-only payments, not credit cards).

All versions of WPForms include a Payments screen that lets you track the payments you’ve collected via your forms.

The Payments screen gives you the convenient to monitor your sales over time right within your WordPress dashboard.

Upgrade to WPForms Pro Now!

Ways to Publish Your Forms

WPForms has a flexible drag-and-drop editor and you can publish forms anywhere on your WordPress site. Pro adds three premade layout styles for moments when you want forms to feel a bit more polished.

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
Embed forms in WordPress pages and posts using a wizard	✓	✓
Classic editor, shortcodes, and block editor support	✓	✓
Conversational forms		✓
Landing page forms		✓
Lead forms		✓

Are you wondering what these extra layouts look like?

Conversational forms show questions one by one. When your visitor answers a question, the form automatically skips to the next one.

This addon makes WPForms Pro the perfect TypeForm alternative. Additionally, you can easily publish any form on its own landing page.

Here’s the awesome thing about the form pages addon: you don’t need to write any code. In fact, once you activate the addon, all the settings you need to create your page are right here in the form builder:

It’s that easy! You can convert any form into a standalone landing page and convert it back whenever you want to. Finally, here’s our favorite: Lead Forms.

Lead forms are similar to conversational forms, but they’re embedded. That means you get all the benefits and ease of use of a conversational layout, but you keep the visitor on your page.

The Lead Forms addon is the perfect partner to the Calculations addon. To see both in action, here’s an example of a mortgage lead generator form. (The calculations in this form really work! You can try it out in real time.)

Page Builder Integrations

If you’re using a page builder, WPForms works in both Lite and Pro versions across all the popular ones. The Block Editor support is native, so you can drop a form block right into any post or page in seconds.

For example, there’s a native Elementor widget in both versions of the plugin. So WPForms is a great option if you want to make a free Elementor contact form!

The WPForms plugin also has integrations for Divi and SeedProd so you can easily embed your forms without shortcodes if you want to.

Popular Email Marketing Integrations

Email marketing is one of the most powerful ways to get more leads from your WordPress site.

After creating a basic contact form, you could also create a newsletter signup form and use any WordPress email subscription plugins so people can subscribe to your email marketing list.

The Lite version handles the most popular free option already. You can build a Constant Contact signup form right out of the box.

And WPForms Pro extends this with support for many popular email automation and marketing platforms:

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
Constant Contact	✓	✓
Mailchimp		✓
AWeber		✓
GetResponse		✓
Drip		✓
Campaign Monitor		✓
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)		✓
MailerLite		✓

Plus also adds Slack, Notion, and Twilio integrations, which aren’t email marketing per se but show up in the same workflow space.

Slack is great for getting a real-time ping when someone submits a form. Notion lets you sync entries straight into a database. Twilio sends SMS or WhatsApp notifications on submission.

The Elite tier adds ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, and Airtable for the more enterprise integrations.

If your email tool isn’t on the list, don’t worry. There are still ways to connect, which we’ll cover next.

Cloud Storage and Productivity Integrations

Pro also unlocks deeper integrations with the cloud tools most people already use. These don’t get talked about as much as the email integrations, but they’re often the most useful in practice.

• Google Sheets auto-exports entries to a spreadsheet, with conditional filtering so you can route entries to different sheets based on form selections. This is the integration I end up setting up the most for clients tracking leads.
• Google Drive automatically uploads file uploads from forms into a Drive folder of your choice.
• Google Calendar creates calendar events from form submissions, which is incredibly handy for booking and scheduling forms.
• Dropbox does the same as Google Drive but for Dropbox folders.

If you’re working with cloud-first workflows, these alone make Pro pay for itself.

Upgrade to WPForms Pro Now! 🙂

Bonus Integrations

Sometimes you’ll want to connect WPForms to a service that doesn’t have a dedicated addon. Pro gives you four ways to bridge that gap, and Lite gives you one.

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
Uncanny Automator	✓	✓
Zapier		✓
Make		✓
n8n		✓

Want to see how they work?

Uncanny Automator is one of our favorite WPForms integrations. It lets you easily send WPForms submissions to other plugins automatically.

If you’d like to see Uncanny Automator and WPForms in action, check out this tutorial on how to integrate WPForms and MailPoet.

The Zapier addon also lets you create your own custom connections from WPForms Pro to 7,000+ 3rd party services.

With this Pro addon, you can:

• Integrate WordPress forms with SendFox
• Make custom Pardot forms
• And send your form entries to hundreds of other services that you already use.

If you want even more control, keep in mind that Elite license holders get Salesforce integration, HubSpot CRM integration, and our powerful webhooks addon too.

Other Pro Features Worth Mentioning

A few Pro features didn’t fit neatly into the categories above but are worth knowing about because they earn the upgrade for many use cases.

• Quiz addon builds graded quizzes, personality quizzes, and weighted quizzes that capture leads while assessing knowledge.
• PDF addon generates styled PDFs from any form entry. Great for receipts, certificates, summaries, and any time a customer needs a document on file.
• Save & Resume lets visitors save partial entries and finish later. They get an email link to pick up where they left off, which is huge for long applications.
• Form Locker password-protects forms, restricts them to logged-in users, schedules availability windows, and limits the number of entries.
• User Registration creates custom registration, login, and password reset forms with role assignment and verification, so you can onboard members without exposing the WordPress admin.

Support in WPForms Lite vs Pro

Support is definitely one area where the Lite version and the Pro version are different. If you want the best possible experience, Pro is worth it.

	WPForms Lite	WPForms Pro
WordPress.org support	✓
Ticket support		✓
Typical response time	1-3 business days	~1 business day

As a Lite customer, you’ll always get support in the WordPress.org form for the WPForms Lite plugin.

But with Pro, you can get help even faster.

Once you’re a Pro customer, you’ll also be able to open a support ticket right from your WPForms account.

So Pro gives you access to a team of WPForms experts who are standing by to help from 9 am–5 pm EST every weekday.

Find out more about WPForms support resources in our detailed WPForms review.

WPForms Pricing: How Much Does WPForms Pro Cost?

Looking for the WPForms Pro cost? Plans typically start at $49.50 per year and go up depending on the number of features and websites you need to cover.

While WPForms Lite features are very useful, the paid plans unlock a whole new variety of features that can make form building extremely easy for you. All WPForms plans have affordable pricing, especially for the features you get.

The Pro license unlocks almost all of the features and addons in the plugin. Pricing starts at $199.50/yr, and you can use your license on 5 sites. With Pro, you can easily create:

• Simple contact forms
• Surveys and polls
• File upload forms
• Application forms
• Payment forms
• Donation forms
• And a lot more!

Upgrade to WPForms Pro Now! 🙂

Conclusion: Which Version of WPForms Is Best?

Now you have the full lowdown on WPForms Lite and WPForms Pro, you can see that WPForms Pro is definitely worth the investment and at very affordable pricing!

If you’re creating different types of WordPress forms for a business, or you want to drive donations for your nonprofit, the Pro license unlocks all of the tools and addons you’ll need.

Compared to Lite, Pro gives you:

• All fields
• 2,100+  templates
• Almost all addons and integrations
• Extra ways to publish and display your forms
• Full survey functionality
• Payment fields for one-off or recurring charges
• Awesome visitor insights
• And tons of ways to make forms smarter and easier to use!

Even better, WPForms Pro comes with a fuss-free 14-day money-back guarantee.

If it’s not the right fit for your website, you can get a refund for any reason—or no reason! Our support team is here to help with any billing or technical query you have.

Ready to upgrade? Buy WPForms Pro today! In just a few minutes, you’ll unlock access to almost every addon, field, and integration we’ve talked about in this review.

Upgrade to WPForms Pro Now! 🙂

FAQs on WPForms Pro vs. Lite

Here are some common questions regarding the two versions of the WPForms plugin.

Does WordPress have a form builder?

No, WordPress doesn’t have its own form builder. You’ll need to install WPForms to publish a contact form on your site.

Is WPForms free?

Yes, the Lite version is 100% free forever! The free version of WPForms includes basic fields, templates, drag-and-drop editing, and spam protection with CAPTCHA and Constant Contact integration.

How do I use WPForms Lite in WordPress?

WPForms Lite provides much of the same functionality as WPForms Pro.

To use it and create forms, simply click on WPForms » Add New.

This will open the form builder view where you can select a template and edit it by adding or removing fields using simple drag and drop functionality.

Where does WPForms’ data Go?

WPForms sends entries by email in the Pro and Lite versions. In the Pro version, it also stores your entries in WordPress. For a more detailed explanation, check out our guide: where does WPForms data go?

How do I style my forms?

WPForms makes it easy to style forms without CSS. We have a guide on how to style your forms in WordPress to explain how it works.

What is the best form plugin for WordPress?

WPForms is the best WordPress form plugin for WordPress, having over 6 million active installations across WordPress sites on the web.

What’s more, many of the core features and functionalities are available for free if you use WPForms Lite. And if you want an upgrade to get some of WPForm’s exclusive features, you can do so at reasonable pricing.

For these reasons, WPForms WordPress form plugin of choice for businesses both big and small.

Is WPForms secure?

Yes, WPForms sends notifications via email in the Lite version. In the Pro version, it stores them in your WordPress database.

As long as you maintain your WordPress site and keep it secure, your form entries are only visible to you.

What is the difference between WPForms Lite and Pro?

WPForms Lite lets you build basic forms like contact or newsletter signup forms. WPForms Pro adds features like file uploads, surveys, calculations and more!

Is WPForms free or paid?

WPForms Lite is free and available on WordPress.org, while WPForms Pro is a paid upgrade that unlocks premium features for growing businesses and nonprofits.

What is the cost of WPForms Pro?

WPForms Pro starts at around $49.50 per year. The price can change during sales or if you choose a bigger plan.

Is WPForms better than Contact Form 7?

For beginners, WPForms is easier to use than Contact Form 7. It has a visual form builder, built-in spam protection, and works without writing code.

Next, How to Stop Contact Form Spam in WordPress

Do you want to stop contact form spam forever? A lot of us have been there, annoyed and looking for a way to stop the spam.

The good news is you don’t have to go through tons of spam emails to find genuine questions and leads anymore. WPForms makes it super easy to stop email spam from reaching your inbox.

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Ready to build your form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. WPForms Pro includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.

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