While the Contact Form 7 (CF7) plugin is widely known by millions of WordPress (WP) users, many people may not be aware of these really useful free Contact Form 7 extensions.
As one on the most popular plugins in the WordPress Plugin Repository, it is not surprising that WordPress Developers are willing to spend their time developing and releasing plugins that extend Contact Form 7’s natural capabilities.
Advantages of Contact Form 7 extensions
Indeed, the range is such that Contact Form 7, with its many extensions, can give users many of the functions available in the well known premium form plugins.
The advantage in sticking with Contact Form 7 is often familiarity with this well known form plugin. The learning curve for most of the premium form plugins can be substantial. If you only require one or two extra features, and not the full range of extra functionality available in the premium form plugins, it can make a lot of sense to use a Contact Form 7 extension or two.
In this article, our aim is to make people aware of some very useful Contact Form 7 extensions, what they do and how they can be used to meet additional needs they may have with their website forms.
Our Recommended Contact Form 7 Extensions
- Save Contact Form 7 (Store Form Submission Data)
- Contact Form 7 Dynamic Text Extension (Dynamically Set Form Field Values)
- MailChimp for WordPress (Connect to MailChimp)
- Contact Form 7 Honeypot (Prevent Form Spam)
- Contact Form 7 Skins (Form Styling)
1. Store Form Submission Data
Store your Contact Form 7 form submission data in the WP database
Save Contact Form 7
Saves submitted form data to the WP database.
Save Contact Form 7 will save all your Contact Form 7 form submissions to the WordPress database.
It can be used to provide a record of all form submissions. It is very robust and will rarely fail to save a Contact Form 7 submit, even if the email is not sent due to a JavaScript Conflict or other email sending problem.
You can search and filter through your form entries and save your form data by exporting the form entries in popular formats like PDF and CSV.
Website – Save Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 Extensions can give users many of the functions available in the well known premium form plugins.
2. Dynamically Set Form Field Values
Dynamically set the default values of your Contact Form 7 fields
Contact Form 7 Dynamic Text Extension
Provides dynamic generation of content via a shortcode.
While default values in CF7 are static, this extension lets you create dynamic pre-populated fields based on other values. Some examples might include:
- Auto-filling a URL, Post ID, title, or slug
- Pre-populating a Product Number
- Referencing other content on the site
- Populating with post or user info
- Including info from custom fields.
The plugin creates an extra dynamic Contact Form 7 tag type which provides dynamic generation of content in form fields via a shortcode. The plugin comes with several built-in shortcodes which can altered via options available in the Contact Form 7 tag generator. You can also write your own shortcodes as well – any shortcode which is implemented as explained in the plugin documentation will work.
Further reading:
- How to Create a Dynamic WordPress Contact Form
- How to Dynamically Set the Recipient (To) Email Address in Contact Form 7
- How to add dynamic values into Contact Form 7 inputs
- Auto Populate Contact Form 7 Input Fields with URL Parameter
- Getting Default Values from the Context
Website – Contact Form 7 – Dynamic Text Extension
3. Connect to MailChimp
Subscribe to MailChimp using a Contact Form 7 form
MailChimp for WordPress
Add MailChimp sign-up to your Contact Form 7 forms.
The features available include:
- 1-click MailChimp sign-up for Contact Form 7 forms
- Complete control over form fields – send anything you like to MailChimp
- Show sign-up forms in posts or pages using the form shortcode, or in sidebar or footer using the MailChimp widget
- Redirect users to a “thank you” page after subscribing to a MailChimp list.
You can also add simple checkbox which encourages people to subscribe on any form on your site.
Further reading:
- MailChimp for WordPress
- How-To Article: Setup MailChimp for WordPress
- How to integrate Mailchimp with WordPress (Video)
Website – MailChimp for WordPress
4. Prevent Form Spam
Prevent unwanted spam from your Contact Form 7 forms
Contact Form 7 Honeypot
Adds honeypot anti-spam functionality to Contact Form 7 forms.
This plugin adds basic honeypot anti-spam functionality to thwart spambots without the need for a Captcha on your forms.
The principle of a honeypot is simple. While some spam is hand-delivered, the vast majority is submitted by bots scripted to submit spam to the largest number of form types. In this way they somewhat blindly fill in fields, regardless of whether the field should be filled in or not.
Contact Form 7 Honeypot foils these bots by introducing an additional field in the form which is visible to bots but not to humans. If this is filled out by the bot it will cause the form not to validate and thus not sent.
Further reading:
Website – Contact Form 7 Honeypot plugin page
5. Form Styling
StyleStyle When you select a CF7 Skins Style the aesthetic design (CSS code) is automatically created and applied to your form. your Contact Form 7 forms
Contact Form 7 Skins
Makes styling of Contact Form 7 forms much easier – even if you don’t have HTML + CSS skills.
Contact Form 7 Skins works right within the normal Contact Form 7 interface, making it easier for regular WordPress users to create professional looking Contact Form 7 forms using a range of compatible Templates and Styles.
Simply select from a list of compatible Templates that cover many common forms and then choose a Style for your form from a range of professional and beautiful Styles.
- Each TemplateTemplate CF7 Skins Templates are the structure of your form, providing the content and layout. They act as an easy to follow guide that can be adjusted to your particular needs. acts as an easy to follow guide, which can be adapted to your particular requirements.
- Every Style covers the full range of Contact Form 7 form elements.
- CF7 Skins is highly customizable and easy to learn, even for beginners.
UPDATE: CF7 Skins now includes a drag and drop visual editor for Contact Form 7
There is a range of Add-ons available which bring the functionality available in other premium WordPress Form plugins directly within Contact Form 7 including:
- CF7 Skins Pro – additional Templates and Styles to use with your forms
- CF7 Skins Ready – useful pre-defined styles that can be used in all Contact Form 7 forms
- CF7 Skins Multi – includes the features you need to make user friendly multi-part Contact Form 7 forms.
- CF7 Skins Logic – allows you to add Conditional Logic to Contact Form 7 forms.
Further reading:
- Understanding Templates and Styles
- CF7 Skins Ready – Ready Classes
- CF7 Skins Multi – multi-part forms
- CF7 Skins Logic – Conditional Logic
Website – CF7 Skins
Disclosure: We are the authors of the CF7 Skins range of plugins.
Have Questions or Need Help
If you are using the free version of CF7 Skins and have any questions, get in touch via the CF7 Skins community and also the Contact Form 7 Support forum.
If you are using the premium version, CF7 Skins Pro, then Premium Email Support is provided to deal with your questions and problems.