WordPress Contact Form

For beginners we recommend WPForms Lite with its drag-and-drop editor and ready-made templates. For advanced users who want full control, Contact Form 7 is an excellent choice. Both plugins are completely free, regularly updated and have millions of active users. WPForms is easier to use; CF7 offers more flexibility.

The most effective protection is Google reCAPTCHA v3, which works in the background without bothering visitors. Additionally, you can use honeypot fields (hidden fields only bots fill), Akismet anti-spam plugin, CAPTCHA questions or message-per-IP limits. The combination reCAPTCHA + honeypot blocks 99.9% of spam.

The most common reason is that WordPress uses the PHP mail() function, which often lands in spam or fails to deliver. The fix is installing an SMTP plugin (WP Mail SMTP) that sends emails through a proper SMTP server. On BeoHosting, SMTP settings are: server mail.yourdomain.com, port 465 (SSL), username info@yourdomain.com. Also check the spam folder.

In WPForms: open the form in the editor and drag new fields from the left column (text, email, dropdown, checkbox, file upload, date). In Contact Form 7: add HTML tags to the form template using the tag generator. The most common extra fields: phone, company name, query-type dropdown, newsletter checkbox and file upload for documents.

Quality form plugins have minimal impact on site speed — they typically add 20-50 KB of CSS/JS. Problems arise when the plugin loads scripts on every page instead of only the page with the form. WPForms and CF7 are optimized for speed. Avoid loading unnecessary styles — in WPForms settings turn off "Load Assets Globally".