As 2023 draws to a close, it’s time to reflect upon the year, and all that’s been achieved! As usual, it’s been an action packed year for the team at Gravity, with a new product in the works, new features for Gravity Forms, numerous new add-ons, a new podcast, and much much more!

As always we’d like to thank our customers and everyone in the Gravity Forms community for your ongoing support and commitment. It’s been awesome to meet so many Gravity fans at the different in-person and online events that we’ve attended and run this year, and we look forward to connecting with more of you in 2024.

But for now, let’s jump into the nitty-gritty of 2023, and we’ll also share a few sneak peeks of what’s coming in the new year…

Gravity Forms: New Features All Round!

Gravity Forms has seen not one but two major releases in 2023, both of which contained a number of much requested features. We were delighted with the response from our community to the releases of 2.7 and 2.8 – if you’re yet to receive the 2.8 update you’re in for a treat!

Gravity Forms 2.7: A Superior User Experience

Gravity Forms 2.7 saw a focus on streamlining processes for both new and existing customers – from the installation of the plugin, to the creation and styling of forms.

Since the release of 2.7, customers now benefit from a redesigned Setup Wizard, a built-in template library, and significantly improved form styling options via a new form theme and block styling settings. Let’s take a closer look at each of these and more…

• Form Template Library – Our premade, fully customizable form templates help you get started in minutes, or can be used as a jumping off point for more complex form builds.
• Form Theme and Block Styling Options – A new front-end form theme, named Orbital, and block styling settings now enable you to easily customize the appearance of your forms within the block editor, no CSS needed.
• Setup Wizard – A redesigned Setup Wizard gives new customers a user-friendly experience from the get-go.
• Honeypot Field Enhancements – JavaScript is now used to inject another honeypot field into the form right before it is submitted, helping to identify and reduce the number of spam entries.
• Developer Features – A  shift in how we build our products sees us now using React and our new component library to create our back-end UI. This has significantly benefited our developer community, and the experience of building on Gravity Forms.

Find out more about the features that were included in Gravity Forms 2.7.

Gravity Forms 2.8: Introducing Compact View

The recently released Gravity Forms 2.8 incorporates a brand new, much requested feature that we’re calling Compact View!

With the new Compact View feature, you can now easily review and navigate your way around large forms. Once you enable Compact View, you’ll find all your fields compressed down to single lines, giving you a full overview of the fields used and the form’s layout.

Within Compact View, you can edit your forms in the usual way – adding and deleting fields, configuring field settings, using the drag-and-drop functionality to change field order or add and alter form columns, and much more – allowing you to quickly make any necessary customizations to your form.

For more information on the new Compact View feature, check out our 2.8 documentation.

Gravity Forms 2.8 is currently being released via a phased rollout to ensure smooth adoption. This means that customers will receive the 2.8 update through WordPress Admin at some point during the rollout period (that commenced Dec, 7th, 2023), which is expected to be a few weeks long.

However, if you don’t want to wait, Gravity Forms 2.8 is also available to all our customers via a direct download from your Gravity Forms account dashboard.

For more information on Gravity Forms 2.8, check out this 2.8 article.

New Add-Ons and Updates

Alongside Gravity Forms core features, 2023 has seen the release of a number of powerful add-ons that can help extend the functionality of any form. These include…

• Conversational Forms Add-On – With the new Conversational Forms Add-On, you can give your users a conversational and more personal experience via the forms on your site. By simply asking one question at a time, forms appear more interactive and less daunting, helping to engage users and remove barriers to completion. Check out our gallery of inspirational conversational forms!
• Cloudflare Turnstile Add-On – Turnstile is Cloudflare’s smart CAPTCHA alternative, and delivers a frustration-free, CAPTCHA-free experience for website visitors, while reducing spam form entries on your site. So if you’re looking for a powerful alternative to Google reCAPTCHA, the Cloudflare Turnstile Add-On is a must!
• ConvertKit Add-On – ConvertKit is a go-to email marketing tool for many small businesses, creators, and entrepreneurs. And with the Gravity Forms ConvertKit Add-On you’ll be able to automatically send form data to your ConvertKit account when a form is submitted, helping you to easily grow your mailing list and manage your contacts.
• Geolocation Add-On – With Geolocation you can now integrate Google Places-powered geolocation information into your forms to easily create geolocation WordPress forms. On the frontend, you can offer user friendly features like address autocomplete. And on the backend, you’ll be able to view more detailed geolocation information about each form entry.
• Moderation Add-On – With Moderation, you can filter your form entries based on toxicity, helping to protect your team from inappropriate and potentially threatening or damaging content. For many businesses and individuals, online abuse and harassment has become commonplace, and the Moderation Add-On aims to create a safe environment and reduce toxicity and abusive behavior.
• Stripe Add-On 5.0 – Stripe 5.0 gives you access to 20+ payment methods, including ACH Debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, as well as Link, Stripe’s accelerated checkout option. Stripe reports that businesses using Payment Element have seen a 10.5% average increase in sales. For more information on Stripe’s extensive feature list, check out this article – Gravity Forms and Stripe: Ultimate Guide to WordPress Payments.
• Google Analytics Add-On 2.0 – Google’s Universal Analytics stopped processing data on July 1, 2023. Google replaced Univeral Analytics with GA4 and to facilitate this change, we released Google Analytics Add-On 2.0 – this update enables all users to continue to track form data using GA4.

Would you like to have a say on the future of Gravity Forms? Use the Gravity Forms Roadmap to submit a new idea or share your thoughts on other issues that you think would help make Gravity Forms an even better and more well-rounded product.

Continued Support for Gravity Flow

Last year Rocketgenius, the company behind Gravity Forms, announced the acquisition of Gravity Flow and Gravity Experts. A powerful workflow tool built on Gravity Forms, Gravity Flow was a natural addition to the Rocketgenius suite of products.

This year, Gravity Flow has benefitted from continuous updates and support from the Gravity Product team, including support for new add-ons and new Gravity Forms features.

Additionally, the major release of Gravity Flow 2.9 saw an important addition – Editable Fields for all step types. A much requested feature, you can now define or select Editable Fields on all step types, streamlining your workflows and allowing assigned users to easily edit specific fields.

We’re also looking forward to the imminent update of the Gravity Flow Checklists Extension. This update will add a Checklists block to the Block Editor, providing the same functionality that the shortcode currently supports. Coming very soon!

If you’re a Gravity Flow customer, head on over to the Gravity Flow Roadmap to vote on future features you’d love to see.

Find out more about Gravity Flow.

Brand New Product: Gravity SMTP

This year has seen the Gravity team working hard on a brand new product – Gravity SMTP!

Sending emails via your WordPress website can be a headache. Unreliable emails can cause customer frustration, affect user experience and engagement, and negatively impact the reputation of your business.

With Gravity SMTP, you’ll be able to reliably send emails from your WordPress website. Don’t rely on the default PHP Mail function used by WordPress, instead integrate your site with secure and trusted SMTP providers and API-based services, helping you to confidently send and track emails from your website.

Demo Gravity SMTP today!

Gravity SMTP has been released as a beta and we can’t wait to launch the official v1.0 in early January 2024 – watch this space!

Reliably Send Emails from WordPress

We have numerous features and integrations planned for this product that are coming soon. But for now, here’s what you can expect with Gravity SMTP beta…

• Integrations – Quickly integrate with the most trusted email providers, including SendGrid, Mailgun, and Postmark, as well as other SMTP and API-based services via a Custom SMTP feauture.
• Email Logging – Easily track any email sent from your WordPress website. A detailed record of all emails will let you see at a glance email status and date/time sent, as well as further information including sender and recipient email addresses.
• Gravity Forms Notifications – Seamlessly integrate Gravity SMTP with Gravity Forms, to reliably send form notifications from your WordPress website.

As Gravity SMTP is developed, we’ll be adding more out-of-the-box integrations, including Microsoft 365 / Outlook, Gmail / Google Workspace, and Amazon SES, which are all currently in the works!

We also have a number of additional email logging features planned in and coming soon to help you track and record all email activity, including tracking for email open rates, click-through rates, and more.

To have your say on the integrations you’d like to see, head on over to our Gravity SMTP Roadmap and let us know what’s important to you.

Test the Beta Today!

Gravity SMTP has been released as a beta and we are asking members of our community to install the plugin in a sandbox environment and provide us with feedback.

If you have an active Gravity Forms license, simply head on over to your Gravity Forms Account to download the beta.

It is important to note that after the beta period ends, Gravity SMTP will initially only be available with an Elite license. However, while in beta, the plugin can be installed and tested by anyone with an active Gravity Forms license.

For in-depth information on how to get started with Gravity SMTP beta, check out the documentation.

Gravity Forms on WordPress.com

This year, Gravity Forms launched on the WordPress.com plugin marketplace. An exciting new venture for the Gravity team, we are excited to help a new demographic of WordPress users reach their data capture potential!

That means that if you choose to run your site, or a client’s site, through WordPress.com, you can now buy Gravity Forms via the WordPress.com premium plugin marketplace.

Here’s what’s included in the Gravity Forms WordPress.com License…

• Unlimited forms and entries
• Automatic updates
• Access to all Gravity Forms’ built-in features
• Access to our library of official Gravity Forms Add-Ons
• Email support

The license will set you back $12 a month or $120 annually (and you’ll need to be using a WordPress.com Business plan or above).

If you’re an existing WordPress.com customer, simply head on over to your WordPress.com plugin page, where you can purchase Gravity Forms directly through your dashboard.

New Gravity Forms Nonprofit License

During 2023 we were delighted to launch a dedicated Nonprofit License to help support nonprofits around the globe.

Giving back is close to our hearts here at Gravity Forms, and although we have always offered nonprofits a special discount, we felt it important to take this a step further and formalize those cost savings with a dedicated license option for nonprofit organizations.

The Nonprofit License is feature packed, giving you access to all Gravity Forms’ built-in functionality, all of our current add-ons, licensing for three sites, standard support, and more.

Let’s take a closer look at what you can expect with our new license:

• Price – The Nonprofit License will cost your organization just $129 (renewable annually).
• All Built-in Features – Use all our templates and built-in features to easily create one-time or recurring donation forms, donor lead generation forms, volunteer or staff application forms, surveys, quizzes, and lots more.
• All Current Add-Ons – Integrate with marketing, payment, and automation solutions, or install our feature enhancement add-ons, including Conversational Forms, User Registration, Survey, Quiz, Signature, and more, supporting all your nonprofit’s data capture needs.
• Licensing for Three Sites – The Nonprofit License supports licensing for three websites. Create unlimited forms and collect unlimited form entries across three sites.
• Support – The Nonprofit License includes standard support.
• No Multisite – It is important to note that multisite functionality is not included with the Nonprofit License.

So if you’re a nonprofit looking for the best form and data capture solution for WordPress, or you’re working with nonprofit clients, then you’re going to love our new license offering. (Available to registered nonprofit organizations via an application process.)

Breakdown Podcast: Listen Now!

Breakdown is a podcast from Gravity Forms that launched back in May, 2023. Hosted by Matt Medeiros, it covers all of the latest Gravity updates, behind-the-scenes insight from our team, and interviews from around the ecosystem.

Some of the latest episodes include…

• Behind the Scenes at Gravity Forms Support – Join Matt as he talks to Chris Hajer, one of our long-time Support Engineers about all things Support at Gravity.
• Gravity Forms, ConvertKit and Dynamic Workflows – One of Matt’s favorite episodes to date, featuring Jason Resnick and Amber Hinds, listen in as they discuss accessibility, email marketing, and much more!
• A Clever Way to Use ChatGPT and Gravity Forms – In this episode of Breakdown, Matt interviews Hazel Quimpo about how she has built a “marketing machine” using Gravity Forms, Zapier, and ChatGPT.

If you’re a Breakdown listener, we’d love to hear what you think of Breakdown so far. Take our 5 minute survey to help us make Breakdown your #1 podcast of choice!

Video Library Relaunch!

In August of this year we relaunched our video library. With a focus on educating our viewers on Gravity Forms – the types of forms you can create, the features available to use, and how to create custom solutions for your business or new project – we’ve created numerous videos that we know you’re going to love!

You’ll also find a variety of playlists to help us reach the needs of our diverse community – from a Getting Started playlist, to Lead Generation, Accepting Payments, and Integrations playlists, we have something for everyone, whatever your form building requirements.

• Getting Started Playlist – The videos in this playlist will walk you through how to get started with the Gravity Forms, how to build your first contact form, introduce you to our many add-ons, and even help you accept your first online payments.
• Form Building Guides Playlist – Want help building out a specific type of form? From basic lead generation forms to donation, webinar, and registration forms, our Form Building Guides playlist has you covered!
• Accepting Payments Playlist – Let our numerous payment-focused videos walk you through the different Gravity Forms payment integrations and form templates – and how to utilize them to start processing payments on your website.

Ready to become a Gravity Forms expert? Head on over to our video library, check out the playlists mentioned above (as well as many others), and watch the videos relevant to your business to help take your forms to the next level!

Gravity Forms 101 Webinars

If you’re new to Gravity Forms, or you’re looking to do more with the plugin, then our new Gravity Forms 101 webinar series can help you up your form building game.

During these “open office hours” Matt Medeiros and other Gravity team members discuss all things Gravity Forms, from setting up basic contact forms and exploring templates, to building payment forms, as well as answering questions from the audience.

If you’re yet to join a 101 webinar, you can catch up via the links below…

• Gravity Forms 101: Build Forms on WordPress – The Gravity Forms team explains the basics of Gravity Forms, its top features and integrations, and how to get started with the plugin.
• Gravity Forms 101: Basics and Payments –  Learn more about the installation and setup of Gravity Forms, how to create more complex custom forms, and how to start accepting payments through Stripe.

More webinars coming soon!

Events!

Meeting our Gravity fans and community in person is extremely important to us. It’s great to hear first hand how people are using Gravity Forms and Gravity Flow, talk over different use cases, and gain insight into individual needs and requirements. These discussions help us shape our Roadmaps and ensure that our products continue on their paths of adaptation and innovation.

WordCamps

This year we sponsored WordCamp Asia, Europe, and the US, and we’d like to thank all the WordCamp volunteer teams for running such interesting and successful events. We pride ourselves on supporting WordPress through the sponsorship of events, helping to foster relationships and engage with WordPress users around the globe.

Our next event in 2024 will be WordCamp Europe in June. We’ll be sending a team so if you’re attending be sure to come and say hi – we love to chat!

WordPress Accessibility Day

As well as in-person events, we also sponsored WP Accessibility Day for a second year in a row. WP Accessibility Day is a 24-hour global event, and is dedicated to promoting and learning website accessibility best practices for WordPress websites.

Gravity Forms is fully committed to accessibility and helping to make the web accessible to everyone – 2024 will see us continue to support and advocate for online accessibility!

The Gravity Summit

Last month we ran our first ever online event – the Gravity Summit. During the half-day virtual summit, we explored agency and freelancer opportunities in WordPress, and how to use our form builder and its add-ons to propel your business in 2024.

Comprising of six virtual sessions, delivered by a range of experts, the sessions included advice on how you can provide new services and solutions for your new and existing clients and customers as well as other related topics.

As a first ever online event, the Gravity Summit was a great success, and we are looking forward to hosting similar events in 2024.

If you missed the Gravity Summit, you can watch the whole event here.

Giving Back: TechLit Africa Match Campaign

As we mentioned earlier, giving back is close to our hearts. We believe in supporting nonprofits and organizations around the globe, and as a company we provide ongoing sponsorship to a range of environmental and humanitarian causes and initiatives, as well as charities closer to home. These include Girls Who Code, Climate Generation, CEPIA, and Blankets of Hope.

This year we’ve also been proud to support the efforts of TechLit Africa, who provide computers to schools throughout rural Africa! We’re currently running a match campaign, and we’ll match every donation, dollar for dollar, up to $25,000.

Your donation will help TechLit Africa provide more computers, in more classrooms, and in more locations throughout rural Africa. With this campaign, your contribution will go twice as far and help reach even more children. If you’d like to donate to the campaign, you can do so here.

Keep Up to Date With Gravity Forms News

As you can see, 2023 has been an action packed year for us here at Gravity Forms, and we can’t wait to jump into 2024!

To keep up to date with future announcements, make sure you sign up for our newsletter, where we share the latest Gravity Forms news, monthly updates, resources, articles from the blog, and much more…