Creating simple forms for your WordPress website is, well, simple.

But what if you wanted to get a little advanced and offer your site visitors only the information they require to complete the form?

Well, you can using conditional logic WordPress forms. In fact, you can create forms that are dynamic in nature, ones where information appears, disappears, and changes all while your site visitor fills in the various fields.

Previously, we have given you plenty of options to choose from when it comes to which form builder you should use on your website. Moreover, we have reviewed two of the most popular form builder plugins, Gravity Forms and WPForms.

However, today we are going to look at what conditional logic is, the popular types of conditional logic you might want to include on your website forms, and which WordPress plugins offer the best solutions.

What is Conditional Logic?

Although it sounds advanced (and in technical terms, it is), the truth is, conditional logic is just a way to create a WordPress form that interacts with your users.

For instance, when a user clicks something on your form, other fields on the form interact with that input and change accordingly. New forms may appear, dropdown menus may show up, other fields may disappear, and so on.

This way of interacting with your site visitors is user-friendly, allows you to control how your forms behave, and guides visitors so information is sent to you in the most efficient, and effective, way.

Popular WordPress Plugins Using Conditional Logic

Since user experience is crucial to keeping site visitors on your site, engaging with your content, and connecting with you in various ways (think subscribing, commenting, purchasing, and more), it should come as no surprise that there are many WordPress form builder plugins that boast the use of conditional logic.

Here are some of the most popular:

Toolset Forms

Toolset Forms lets you add conditional logic to front-end forms which users can fill in to create or edit content on your website.

You can use Toolset’s brand new drag and drop forms builder to create your forms with conditions by using the conditional display feature. Toolset Forms allows you to hide and display some sections depending on what the taxonomy and custom fields information users add.

Toolset Forms is part of the Toolset family of plugins. When you get Forms you also get all the other plugins which you can use to create a complete website.

Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms is a WordPress form builder plugin that has four types of conditional logic built-in:

• Field Conditional Logic. Show or hide a form field based on a user’s previous selection.
• Section Conditional Logic. Break to show or hide an entire form section based on user behavior.
• Page Conditional Logic. Show or hide an entire page on your form. In addition, apply settings to the Next Button of any page.
• Submit Button Conditional Logic. Apply conditional logic to the submit button of a form preventing it from submitting until specific fields are filled in by the user.

Ninja Forms

Ninja Forms is another WordPress form builder plugin that provides conditional logic as an extension. In short, this extension allows website owners to build forms for their website that can show or hide fields or send specific notifications to users based on their input.

More so, you can change field values based upon a list selection or display text or links based on user behavior. Lastly, you can hide or show entire pages when used with the Multi-Part Forms extension.

WPForms

Also offering website owners the ability to apply conditional logic to forms built using their form builder plugin is WPForms. Here is a roundup of things you can do with WPForms’ add-on:

• Show or hide fields based on a selected item
• Display custom text or set custom field values
• Send site visitors to an email list only if they check the box to subscribe
• Only show a visitor the next question if their selected budget is above X amount
• Hide entire form questions based on user input
• Show an HTML block with an exclusive offer if a customer purchases the highest priced option

Caldera Forms

Caldera Forms is a form builder plugin that lets you create beautiful and responsive forms for your website with an easy to use drag & drop builder. In addition to pre-designed templates, anti-spam protection, and plenty of field types, Caldera Forms also includes conditional logic.

Common Types of Conditional Logic Found in WordPress Form Plugins

Now that you know some of the form builder plugins that have conditional logic capabilities, let’s look at how they match up against one another.

Here are three of the best rules you want in a form builder that boasts conditional logic features:

Field Rules

Field rules affect the behavior of your forms as site visitors fill them out. For instance, show or hide certain fields as a user inputs information.

Each plugin mentioned above supports field rule conditional statements. All of Gravity Forms, WPForms and Toolset Forms let you manage field rules while you are creating forms, whereas Ninja Forms and Caldera Forms let you manage them from a central hub.

For instance, while building a form using WPForms, you can enable AND or OR settings during form creation.

With AND conditional logic, two or more requirements must be met by the site visitor in order for the condition to display.

On the other hand, for the OR conditional logic to work, a condition will display so long as one or more of the requirements are met by the site visitor inputting information.

Setting conditional logic is simple and easy to understand when performed during form creation. In addition, it allows you to set conditions individually to each form you have on your website.

Unlike WPForms or Toolset Forms, Ninja Forms has a centralized section for setting field rules. For example, they offer a Conditional Logic tab under the Advanced heading in the form builder where you can set the conditional statement or add new ones, after you have built the form and set up the fields.

Although still quite simple, setting up conditional statements separate from the form makes things less intuitive. However, this way of applying conditional logic prevents issues should a person change an earlier form option that may affect the behavior of your form. This is because the conditional statements you set apply to all forms, regardless of field changes.

Autoresponder Rules

Autoresponder rules apply when specific conditions are met after the visitor has submitted your form. With this type of conditional logic, you can trigger autoresponders, such as emails, to send out automatically to anyone once the Submit button is selected.

Again, each plugin I discussed has the ability to send out emails automatically after users submit forms on your website:

• Toolset: Send emails automatically to anyone you wish. You can specify which person (the user, admin or any other account) receives an email when content is submitted and when it is edited.
• Gravity Forms: Send out an email if specific actions occur. More so, this plugin allows you to apply advanced conditional logic based on your site visitor’s actual field answers (e.g. send an email to school administrator if site visitor chooses a request for more information and send an email if site visitor chooses additional fields such as interested in getting more education, making more money, attending online classes, etc.).
• Ninja Forms: Send unlimited emails to anyone after a form is submitted.  In addition, easily create the body of your email from the same section you set your conditional logic rules.
• WPForms: Easily determine who will receive an email once a user submits a form. This interactive response makes sure the right people are notified when a site visitor completes your website’s form.
• Caldera Forms: Unlike the other plugins, Caldera Forms makes you set up the conditional logic for autoresponders in one section, and the email message in another, making the UI more challenging. However, the same goal is achieved notifications are sent to the right people.

Form Rules

Form rules redirect site visitors to a specific URL, show a message, or show a specific web page on your website after they have met certain conditions after submitting a form. Check out what this features lets you do:

• Display thank you messages and inform users their form has been submitted properly
• Offer exclusive offers, encourage site exploration, or persuade visitors to buy more by redirecting them to another one of your popular website pages
• Redirect users to landing pages on other third-party websites

Unfortunately, not all form plugins allow website owners to apply this type of conditional logic. However, Gravity Forms, WPForms, and Ninja Forms are three powerful plugins that have this capability.  This allows them to stand out amongst even the toughest competition.

Cost Comparison and Final Recommendations

In the end, each form builder plugin I shared with you can get the job done when it comes to conditional logic. However, each plugin has their own price point and may affect your purchasing decision:

• ToolsetToolset Built-in conditional logic. From $149, but that also includes other features to help create a complete website.
• Gravity Forms. Built-in conditional logic – $39/year 
• Ninja Forms. Requires conditional logic add-on – $0 for core plugin, $49 for add-on
• WPForms. Requires conditional logic add-on – $39/year for core plugin, $0 for add-on
• Caldera Forms. Built-in conditional logic – $0

Deciding which plugin to use when you need conditional logic is going to depend on your individual needs and budget. However, no matter your needs or budget, it is safe to say that all of the above-mentioned plugins offer you plenty of conditional logic functionality and affordable pricing plans to get the job done.

Have you ever used any of these form builder plugins for your conditional logic needs? I would love to hear all about it in the comments below!