Every site we build at Shout Websites ships with Gravity Forms as the default form engine. It's not the cheapest WordPress form plugin and it's not the simplest — but for the kind of work we do for Devon businesses, nothing else handles the awkward cases as cleanly. This post covers what we actually do with it on client sites, what GravityView adds on top, and where the limits are.
Why Gravity Forms is the default on every Shout site
A contact form sounds simple until you need it to do real work. Send the enquiry to two different addresses depending on the postcode. Calculate a price from a few inputs. Take a £50 deposit through Stripe before the booking confirms. Drop the lead into Mailchimp and tag it. Email the client a PDF of what they submitted. None of that is unreasonable for a small business website, and Gravity Forms handles all of it without us writing custom code.
Because we hold an unlimited developer licence, every client site we build gets the full version included — and any add-on we own works on your site at no extra charge. That includes the official Stripe, PayPal and GoCardless gateways, the Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign integrations, conditional logic, multi-page forms, file uploads with virus scanning, signature capture, and entry export to CSV.
We are ready to talk things through!
Contact HereReal examples from Devon client sites
A few patterns we build over and over:
- Tradesmen quote forms. A roofer in Newton Abbot has a quote form that asks for postcode first. If the postcode is outside TQ12-TQ13, the form politely says they don't cover that area. If it's inside, the next step asks for property type, roof material and rough square metres, then sends the lead to two engineers' phones by SMS via Twilio.
- B&B booking deposits. A small hotel in Torquay takes a refundable £50 deposit through Stripe at the booking step, then the form posts the booking detail into their channel manager via webhook. The customer gets an email; the owner gets an email and a Slack ping.
- Driving instructor block-booking calculator. Number of lessons in a block, manual or automatic, theory test add-on — Gravity Forms calculates the total live and shows it before the customer pays.
- Charity event sign-ups. A Dartmoor charity uses a 70-field form for a fundraising walk including emergency contact, dietary needs and t-shirt size, and exports the lot to CSV the morning of the event.
Where GravityView fits
GravityView turns the entries collected by Gravity Forms into web pages. That's it, but it's surprisingly useful. Some of the things we've built with it:
- A members-only directory on a trade association site, where each member fills in a profile form and GravityView publishes those profiles as searchable listings.
- A live "available van" page for a Devon hire firm, where the back-office team marks vans as available via a Gravity Form and the website updates automatically.
- A protected entries dashboard for a B&B owner so they can see all their bookings without logging into WordPress admin.
It is not a replacement for a proper database-driven application, but for the messy middle ground between "static page" and "build us a custom web app", GravityView covers a lot of ground at a fraction of the cost.
When Gravity Forms isn't the right tool
We're honest about this. If you only ever need a single contact form with name, email and message — Contact Form 7 or WPForms Lite would do, and we'd argue the same for any one-form site that doesn't need integrations. Gravity Forms costs more in licensing if you ever leave us; on the small-shop end, that overhead doesn't pay back.
It's also not a CRM. The integrations are excellent, but data still has a home — Mailchimp, HubSpot, a Google Sheet, your accounting system. Gravity Forms is the front door, not the filing cabinet.
FAQ
Do I need to pay for Gravity Forms separately? No. The licence comes with your site for as long as you host with us on the £300/month retainer.
Can I edit forms myself? Yes. The drag-and-drop editor is the friendliest part of WordPress for non-technical users.
Can it handle GDPR consent properly? Yes — we set up explicit consent checkboxes, honour opt-in records, and store entries on UK servers.
Does it slow the site down? Properly configured, no. We disable forms on pages that don't need them and load the JavaScript only where required.
If you'd like a demo of any of this on your own use-case, call or WhatsApp 07887 988780. Sites start from £250 with everything above included.