WPForms vs Fluent Forms: An Honest Feature-by-Feature Comparison

You start with WPForms Lite, build a contact form, and it works. Then you need entry management or conditional logic, so you upgrade. Then you want a payment form without the fee, so you upgrade again. By the time you have the features you need, that $99 plan has reached $399/y or more.

WPForms is a solid, trusted plugin, and I’ll give it full credit throughout. But a lot of its core features sit behind paid tiers, and Fluent Forms gives you many of them for free, without compromising quality. Explore WPForms vs Fluent Forms: what each gives you for free, what costs extra, and where each one wins.

WPForms vs Fluent Forms at a Glance

Here’s how the two plugins stand on the features that shape most forms. “Free” means the base plugin includes it, and “Pro/Paid” means you need a paid license.

The table shows the pattern. Fluent Forms puts a lot on the free side, and WPForms gates more behind its tiers. 

What’s Available in the Core Plugin

Before the feature-by-feature detail, here’s what you get for free with each.

WPForms Lite (what you get free)

WPForms Lite runs the same drag-and-drop builder as the paid version, so the building experience never feels stripped down. You get the basic fields (name, email, text, number, number slider, dropdown, multiple choice, checkboxes, payment items, and a GDPR agreement field), email notifications, basic templates, and Constant Contact for email marketing.

The Lite version also accepts payments through three gateways: Stripe, Square, and PayPal. For a simple contact form, newsletter signup, or basic order form, WPForms Lite does the job.

Fluent Forms free version

Fluent Forms free covers the same ground as WPForms Lite: the drag-and-drop builder, basic fields, Stripe payments, spam protection, an AI form builder, and email notifications. If your needs stop at a contact form, both plugins handle it.

The difference is what Fluent Forms adds on top of these. Its free version includes field-level conditional logic, full entry management inside your WordPress dashboard, conversational forms, multi-column layouts, additional input fields, PDF, custom CSS and JS. 

Form Building and Design

This first cluster covers the day-to-day building experience: the builder itself, how you lay out fields, how forms look, and how AI speeds things up.

Builder and interface

Both plugins use a drag-and-drop builder, and both are easy for beginners. You drag a field from the panel into your form and click it to open its settings. 

Input fields

Fluent Forms gives you 65+ fields, with 35+ free. WPForms offers a total of 40+ fields, with 15+ available in the free version. Here are some of the fields you get with each plugin.

Fields unique to each plugin:

• Fluent Forms only: mask input, ranking, chained select, color picker, action hook, accordion/tab fields, and post/taxonomy fields.
• WPForms only: Camera (captures a photo on the spot) and Entry Preview, which lets users review their answers before submitting.

Some fields look unique but do the same job:

• Survey matrix: WPForms calls it Likert Scale, Fluent Forms calls it Checkable Grid.
• Slider: WPForms calls it Number Slider, Fluent Forms calls it Range Slider. Both pick a single value.
• User-formatted text: both have a rich text field for formatted text. WPForms also lets users add images inside it, while Fluent Forms handles media through its separate File Upload or Image Upload field.
• Admin content inside a form: WPForms uses its Content field, Fluent Forms uses Custom HTML. Both edit visually, no code needed.

Layout (columns, containers, repeaters, and multi-step)

Fluent Forms free version lets you build multi-column forms with up to six columns per row using container fields. In WPForms, the Layout field for multi-column forms is exclusive to paid plans.

Fluent Forms also offers tab and accordion containers in its Pro version. You can keep other sections collapsed when users expand one section. In WPForms, this requires custom code. 

Both plugins offer multistep forms and repeat fields in their paid plans. Multi-step forms split a long form across pages, and repeat fields let users add repeating sets of fields (handy for listing multiple people or items). 

Form styler

Both plugins let you style forms without writing CSS, and both do it well. But if you’re more comfortable with CSS, both plugins offer it for free.

WPForms styles forms right in the builder under Settings > Themes, and it’s freemium.

Free in the Lite version:

• 4 color themes
• Field styles: size, border, border radius, background, border, and text colors
• Label styles: sizes and colors for labels, sublabels, and error messages
• Button styles: size, border, radius, and colors

Paid additions:

• Container styles: padding, border, shadow, and colors
• Background styles: color and image, including a stock photo library
• The rest of the color themes
• An Advanced tab with a custom CSS box and copy-and-paste style settings to reuse on another form

Fluent Forms takes a different route with its free Gutenberg Block Styler. You add the Fluent Forms block to any page or post, and the block settings sidebar gives you two tabs with a live preview:

• General tab: pick a style template (Modern, Classic, Bootstrap, Inherit, or Custom), then style labels, inputs and textareas, placeholders, radios and checkboxes, and buttons, including colors, typography, spacing, borders, box shadows, and button hover state.
• Misc tab: style the form container with a solid or gradient background, background image, padding, margin, borders, and shadow, plus asterisk color, inline error messages, and after-submit success and error messages.

For deeper brand work, Fluent Forms Pro adds Advanced Form Styler, which lets you import styles from another form. You can also set a global default style that all your forms will inherit (but you can edit them individually).

AI form builder

Both plugins offer an AI form builder (builds forms from a text prompt) in their free version. You describe the form you want in plain language and get a draft that you can fine-tune. 

WPForms offers AI Choices, which generate the options for dropdown, multiple choice, and checkbox fields based on the field label. It lets you connect outside assistants like Claude or ChatGPT to build and edit forms as well. 

Fluent Forms Pro also covers ChatGPT integration.

Smart Features and Data

Conditional logic

Conditional logic shows or hides fields based on what a user selects, so people only see the fields that apply to them. 

In WPForms, conditional logic is a paid feature. 

In Fluent Forms, field-level conditional logic (showing or hiding a field) is free. Settings-level conditional logic, like conditional email routing and conditional confirmation messages, is Pro. 

Calculation

Both plugins keep calculations in paid plans. WPForms uses a Calculations add-on and field, and Fluent Forms uses its numeric calculation feature.

Both let you build price quotes, order totals, loan or mortgage calculators, and BMI-style tools that update as the user types. 

Although calculation is a Pro feature in Fluent Forms, the automatic payment total calculation (which multiplies price and quantity and sums up the total) is free.

Entry management

Fluent Forms stores and manages entries inside WordPress for free. You can view and import them anytime. 

WPForms Lite sends entries by email only, with a Lite Connect cloud backup that you access after upgrading. Full in-dashboard entry management is a paid feature in WPForms.

Conversational forms

Conversational forms show one question at a time and advance as the user answers, the way a chat feels. That format increases completion rates on longer forms because people focus on a single question instead of all the fields at once.

Fluent Forms includes conversational forms for free. In WPForms, conversational forms are a Pro add-on.

Both let you share a conversational form on its own page or embed it. Fluent Forms also gives you layout (alignment) and sharing options. Fluent Forms Pro offers conversational forms’ styling flexibility. 

Quiz and survey

Both plugins put quizzes and surveys in Pro. WPForms offers Surveys and Polls with Likert scale, NPS, and star-rating fields, plus automatic charts, and a separate Quiz add-on for graded, personality, and weighted quizzes. 

Fluent Forms Pro includes surveys that show users the results visually in real-time and offers standard survey fields like ranking, Likert, NPS, and star-rating. It also offers a quiz module that supports total points, fraction points, weighted & percentage scoring, and personality-type scoring. 

Reporting and analytics

Fluent Forms includes a reporting dashboard in its free version, with basic analytics like submission and payment summaries, form ranking, API logs, and visual charts. It isn’t fully free, though. Advanced metrics like partial entry rates, submissions by country, and subscription analytics are Pro. 

WPForms keeps its richer reporting in paid plans, including the User Journey add-on that traces a visitor’s path to submission. 

PDF generation

Fluent Forms offers a free PDF add-on (available on WordPress.org) that turns submissions into downloadable PDFs for invoices, order summaries, or reports. WPForms keeps its PDF add-on in Pro. 

Both plugins turn form submissions into downloadable PDFs for invoices, order summaries, receipts, or contracts. The difference is the price of entry.

Fluent Forms’ PDF Generator can create a PDF feed for each submission, with general or invoice templates, portrait or landscape orientation, paper sizes, custom fonts and colors, logo and watermark, password protection, multilingual support with LTR or RTL direction, and automatic sharing by download link or email attachment.

WPForms’ PDF Addon generates a PDF copy of a form’s notification email or fully customized documents like invoices, certificates, and contracts, with template choices, brand styling, and a download link in the confirmation message.

Payments, Security, and More

Payment

Both plugins let you take payments on a free form, with a small transaction fee. 

WPForms Lite accepts payments through three gateways: Stripe, Square, and PayPal, with a 3% WPForms fee added on top of the processor’s own fee. Fluent Forms free accepts Stripe, including recurring payments through its Subscription field, with a 1.9% fee. So Fluent Forms free has the lower fee, and WPForms free supports more gateways.

On the paid version, both remove their platform fee. Here’s how each plugin compares on payment features.

If you need more gateways, Fluent Forms Pro offers the wider set. If you’re already in the Stripe, Square, or PayPal world, both serve you well.

Spam protection

Both free tiers protect your forms well. WPForms Lite includes Akismet, reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile, and an email blocklist. 

Fluent Forms free includes honeypot, token-based protection, empty submission blocking, Akismet, CleanTalk, Turnstile, reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, and keyword-based restriction.

The paid differences: Fluent Forms reserves double opt-in, IP and country-based restriction, and advanced validation for Pro. WPForms keeps its Custom CAPTCHA behind a paywall. 

Other features

A few remaining features are worth knowing:

• Form scheduling and restriction: free in Fluent Forms, Pro in WPForms (Form Locker Add-on).
• Migration: both migrate from each other. In Fluent Forms, go to Fluent Forms > Tools > Migrator and import your forms and entries.
• User registration and front-end post creation: Pro in both.
• Save and resume (partial entries): Pro in both.

Templates

WPForms has the larger library by a wide margin (thousands), organized into detailed categories like business operations, education, event planning, customer service, registrations, health and wellness, marketing, nonprofit, feedback, calculators, entertainment, and quizzes. If volume matters to you, WPForms wins.

But many of these are repeat templates. For example, the Newsletter Signup, Mailchimp, Drip, GetResponse, AWeber, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, and Brevo templates are the same form (name, email, submit) relabeled for each service. 

Fluent Forms offers a growing library (hundreds of templates) that covers the same practical ground: payment, quiz and survey, lead generation, healthcare, finance, education, business and admin, application, booking, non-profit, registration, calculators, conversational forms, and multi-step forms. Though fewer in number, the templates are tailored for distinct use cases. 

Integrations and Ecosystem

Third-party integrations

WPForms has a large native catalog, tiered across plans. Constant Contact is free, Mailchimp and AWeber and similar email tools come with Plus, and Salesforce, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, and Pipedrive are Elite. Zapier (9,000+ apps) is available on Pro. As every plan only unlocks some integrations, your costs may add up when you need to connect certain tools. 

Fluent Forms offers 60+ integrations. Several are free, including FluentCRM, Slack, Mailchimp, Mautic, and MailPoet, with the rest in Pro, plus Zapier for everything else. Fluent Forms free connects to more marketing tools than WPForms Lite, which is limited to Constant Contact.

The native suite advantage

Fluent Forms connects natively to its own family of plugins: FluentCRM for email marketing, Fluent Support for helpdesk, FluentBooking for scheduling, FluentBoards for project management, FluentSMTP for email delivery, and more. 

WPForms sits inside the Awesome Motive, alongside tools like WP Mail SMTP and MonsterInsights. Both give you a broader toolkit from one maker. The choice depends on which suite fits your needs.

Support

Both plugins are well-rated for support quality. WPForms gives Lite users support through the WordPress.org forum, and paid users get ticket support with roughly a one-business-day response. 

Fluent Forms offers both free and Pro users priority ticket support. They also receive support via the WordPress.org forum. There’s a dedicated community for discussions as well.

Pricing Comparison

Here’s what each plugin costs (without discounts).

Fluent Forms Pro pricing

Every plan includes all features. You pay only for the number of sites. 

WPForms pricing

Features unlock as you move up the tiers. Renewals are at full price, and there’s no lifetime option. 

Which Should You Choose?

Choose WPForms if you want the reassurance of the biggest forms brand in WordPress or the wide Awesome Motive ecosystem.

Choose Fluent Forms if you want the most capable free version, care about site speed, want every feature in your paid plan, run multiple sites, or prefer a one-time lifetime license over annual renewals.

For most users, Fluent Forms is the better value. It puts more in the free version (more room to grow before you pay), loads lighter, costs less, includes all features at every paid plan, and offers a lifetime license. 

WPForms is still a trustworthy choice, especially for beginners who rely on its template volume, its three free payment gateways, and the comfort of a widely used brand.