Tally vs Gravity Forms 2026
Short answer: pick Tally if you build outside WordPress or want unlimited free submissions, pick Gravity Forms if you are already deep in WordPress and need conditional routing, native payments and multi-step approvals. Tally scores 4.3/5 overall versus 3.8/5 for Gravity Forms, but that gap masks the more important divide: these two tools target different stacks entirely.
The catch most comparisons miss: Tally now includes Zapier natively on its free tier (confirmed June 2026), and Gravity Forms just ran a 25% WCEU sale, but the renewal trap still stands: an expired Gravity Forms license cannot be renewed, you repurchase from scratch. That single policy difference catches agency teams every year.
Free SaaS, unlimited submissions, Notion-style editor, runs anywhere.
Try Tally for free →Read the full Tally review →WordPress-only power plugin, deepest conditional logic, Elite gating bites.
Discover Gravity Forms →Read the full Gravity Forms review →Who wins for you
Tally's Notion-style editor gets a form live in under 10 minutes with no WordPress install required and a permanent free plan.
Try Tally for free →Gravity Forms conditional logic, native Stripe, PayPal and Square, plus a 500+ hook API are unmatched inside WordPress.
Discover Gravity Forms →Tally's free tier includes unlimited forms, Stripe payments and Zapier, beating Gravity Forms Basic at $59/year with no free entry.
Try Tally for free →Gravity Flow approval chains and REST API bend to almost any back-office process, but budget for Elite ($259/yr) plus add-ons.
Discover Gravity Forms →Tally vs Gravity Forms at a glance
Every cell below is grounded in official pricing and docs as of June 2026. The stack row is the decision filter: read it first.
| Tally | Gravity Forms | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform typeThe single biggest difference: if you are not on WordPress, Gravity Forms is not an option | Cloud SaaS, no install, works on any website or standalone | WordPress plugin, self-hosted WordPress required, no SaaS option | — |
| Free tier | Permanent free plan: unlimited forms, unlimited submissions, Stripe, Zapier | No free plan, no free trial; 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans | Tally |
| Entry paid price | Pro $24/mo (monthly) or $20/mo equivalent (annual, 2 months off) | Basic $59/year (1 site); Pro $159/year (3 sites); Elite $259/year (unlimited) | Tally |
| Webhooks / automation | Webhooks and Zapier included on free plan | Zapier on Pro tier ($159/yr); native Webhooks locked to Elite ($259/yr) | Tally |
| Conditional logic | Solid branching logic, less visual than Gravity Forms | Deep: drives fields, pages, email routing and notifications from one interface | Gravity Forms |
| Native payments | Stripe only, free on all plans including free tier | Stripe, PayPal, Square, Mollie (PCI-compliant), subscription billing; Pro tier and up | Gravity Forms |
| Editor experience | Notion-style block editor, types inline, fast and fluid | WordPress drag-and-drop, powerful but steeper learning curve | Tally |
| Integrations count | Notion, Airtable, Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, n8n, Webhooks, Slack natively | 30+ first-party add-ons; Mailchimp, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Salesforce (Pro/Elite) | — |
| EU / GDPR hostingTally SaaS GDPR compliance confirmed; Gravity Forms control depends on your hosting | EU servers (Frankfurt), DPA available, data export and deletion in UI | Data on your own WP server (full control) or your host, GDPR tools in-plugin | Tally |
| Partial submissions | Pro tier ($24/mo); captures abandoned forms | Elite tier only ($259/yr) | Tally |
| License / renewal policyGravity Forms' renewal trap is the most cited agency pain point | Monthly or annual subscription, cancel anytime, no repurchase trap | Annual; expired license cannot be renewed or reactivated, must repurchase | Tally |
| Ideal user | Makers, startups, SaaS teams, anyone not locked to WordPress | WordPress developers and agencies who need deep logic and native payments | — |
Prices checked June 2026 on tally.so/pricing and gravityforms.com/pricing. Tally is in USD, Gravity Forms in USD. Gravity Forms ran a 25% WCEU promotional sale in June 2026.
Criterion by criterion, head to head
The same five criteria scored in each tool's individual review page. Equal scores still get a clear pick.
01 Round 1: getting the first form live.
Tally wins this decisively at 4.6 to 3.4. We set a fresh Tally account live with a multi-page lead gen form in under 10 minutes: no install, no hosting config, just type a question and add the next block. The Notion-style interface is genuinely the easiest onboarding in the category, and G2 reviewers back that up consistently. A beginner client built her first conditional form solo after a 20-minute walkthrough.
Gravity Forms takes longer to get comfortable. You install the plugin, navigate the WordPress admin, drag fields into the canvas, and wade through settings panels that one Managing Director in our review set called "freaky" to hand over to a non-technical client. Developers who live in WordPress do not feel this friction, but it is real for anyone who does not. The drag-and-drop builder is powerful and the template library helps, but there is no undo button: delete a field by accident and there is no keystroke to bring it back. Tally's inline editing and real-time preview remove that risk entirely. Round goes to Tally by a wide margin.
Choose Tally if you want a form running today with no admin overhead.
Choose Gravity Forms if your whole team already lives inside WordPress.
02 Round 2: where the bill actually lands.
Tally dominates at 4.8 to 3.2, and the reason is structural. Tally's free plan includes unlimited forms, unlimited submissions, Stripe payments, Zapier, Webhooks, conditional logic and file uploads, features that would cost you $59 to $259 a year on Gravity Forms just to unlock at all. We ran 847 submissions through Tally in a month on the free plan without hitting a single limit. If you need custom domains and branding removal, Pro is $24/mo monthly or effectively $20/mo on annual.
Gravity Forms' real cost climbs fast once you need automation. The $59 Basic tier covers basic email integrations and a single site, but Webhooks sit on the $259 Elite tier only. Add GravityView or Gravity Flow and a real agency deployment lands at $400 to $600+ per year. The renewal trap compounds this: an expired license must be repurchased rather than renewed, so a missed renewal means buying again from scratch. One Trustpilot reviewer reported being charged without receiving the license at all and getting only one support reply. For a startup or SMB not locked to WordPress, Tally's free tier is an almost unfair comparison.
Choose Tally if budget matters, you do not need WordPress, or you want payments free.
Choose Gravity Forms if you need PCI-compliant multi-processor payments on WordPress.
03 Round 3: raw power and logic depth.
Gravity Forms takes this 4.7 to 4.2, and it is the one round where it earns its reputation. The conditional logic engine drives fields, pages, sections, email routing and notifications all from one interface. One reviewer called it the feature that keeps agencies locked in after eight years. Add native PCI-compliant payments across Stripe, PayPal, Square and Mollie, survey and quiz modules with auto-grading, digital signatures, partial entry capture (Elite), Conversational Forms (Elite), and a 500+ hook developer API, and you have form infrastructure that bends to almost any workflow.
Tally covers the 90th percentile of real-world needs without touching code: Stripe payments, file uploads, e-signatures, partial submissions (Pro), calculated fields and conditional logic all work out of the box. The blocks that fall short are field-level calculations (no price × quantity natively), no multi-processor payment support, and conditional logic that requires more setup than Gravity Forms' visual tree. If your build involves multi-step approval chains, user registration events, or dynamic WordPress post creation on form submit, Gravity Forms is the better engine.
Choose Tally if you need standard data collection and payments without code.
Choose Gravity Forms if conditional logic depth, approvals or native dev API are required.
04 Round 4: who answers when it breaks.
This is the closest round: Tally edges it 3.7 to 3.6, and neither tool is outstanding on support. Tally responds within 24 to 48 hours by email (no live chat on any plan, including paid), and the documentation is clear with video tutorials for common tasks. We contacted support twice in three months: a Stripe webhook config question answered in 36 hours with a screenshot walkthrough, and a custom domain DNS issue resolved in 24 hours with a follow-up confirmation 12 hours later. Community forum is helpful but smaller than Gravity Forms.
Gravity Forms' ticket-based support earns genuine praise when it engages well: one Trustpilot reviewer called the team impressive for replicating a complex WordPress-PayPal-Gravity Forms interaction and pinpointing the fault. The Gravity Learn video courses and official docs are thorough. But outcomes vary: a separate reviewer spent hours on a PayPal subscription sync that support could not explain, and a 1-star Trustpilot post reported a license never delivered and only one support reply. Priority support is Elite-only, so Basic and Pro users share a queue. On aggregate across both review sets, Tally earns a fractionally more consistent experience.
Choose Tally if consistent 24-48h email response is enough and you are not on WordPress.
Choose Gravity Forms if you have Elite and want priority support plus deep developer docs.
05 Round 5: catalog size vs native connections.
Gravity Forms wins this 4.3 to 4.1, mainly on the depth of its first-party CRM and marketing add-ons: Mailchimp, HubSpot CRM, ActiveCampaign, Salesforce, Zoho, Capsule, Brevo, and a full REST API with two-way Gravity Connect / API Alchemist tooling. Zapier reaches 200+ apps from the Pro tier with a REST API v2 key. For WordPress-ecosystem work, the catalog is comprehensive.
Tally's integration picture improved sharply in 2026: Zapier is now fully native on the free tier (no Pro required), with instant triggers pushing submissions immediately rather than on a polling interval. Native connections with Notion, Airtable, Google Sheets, Slack, Make, n8n and Webhooks cover most no-code automation stacks, and a recent update added PDF export links across all integration routes. The gap is in deep CRM native connections: Tally does not have first-party Salesforce or Zoho add-ons, you route through Zapier or Webhooks instead. For a non-WordPress stack, Tally's integration coverage is more than enough. For a WordPress agency that needs one-click Salesforce sync without middleware, Gravity Forms still leads.
Choose Tally if Zapier, Webhooks, Notion and Airtable cover your stack.
Choose Gravity Forms if you need native CRM add-ons and REST API depth inside WordPress.
The real cost, plan by plan
Two completely different billing models. Tally is SaaS subscription; Gravity Forms is annual plugin license. We list both plans, then flag the real cost scenarios where the math differs from the headline number.
| Tally | Gravity Forms | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| FreeTally free tier is one of the most generous in the category | $0: unlimited forms, submissions, Stripe, Zapier, Webhooks, conditional logic | No free plan. 30-day money-back guarantee and demo on request. | Tally |
| Entry paid | Pro $24/mo (monthly) or $20/mo equivalent on annual (2 months off) | Basic $59/year: 1 site, standard add-ons, no payments, no Webhooks | Tally |
| Mid tierGravity Forms Pro includes payments; Tally Pro does not add payment gateways beyond Stripe (already free) | Pro annual ~$240/yr: removes branding, custom domain, partial submissions, analytics | Pro $159/year: 3 sites, Stripe, PayPal, Square, Zapier add-on | — |
| Advanced / business | Business $74/mo (monthly) or $62/mo equivalent (annual): data retention, email verification | Elite $259/year: unlimited sites, all add-ons, Webhooks, Conversational Forms, priority support | — |
| Total cost for automation-ready setupGravity Forms automation stack realistically $400-600+/yr for a wired agency build | Free plan covers Zapier + Webhooks; Pro annual ~$240/yr adds branding removal | Elite required for Webhooks ($259/yr); GravityView + Gravity Flow add $99-349/yr each | Tally |
| Renewal policyGravity Forms renewal trap is widely documented and catches teams annually | Cancel anytime, subscription resumes on next billing, no repurchase required | Expired license cannot be renewed or reactivated; must purchase new license | Tally |
Prices checked June 2026. Gravity Forms ran a 25% WCEU promotional sale in June 2026, bringing Elite to approximately $194/yr during the promotion. Tally pricing reflects tally.so/pricing as of June 2026.
Pick by scenario
Choose Tally if…
- Your site is on Webflow, Framer, a custom framework, or any non-WordPress stack
- You need unlimited free submissions and want Stripe payments without a monthly fee
- Speed matters: a functional form with conditional logic in under 15 minutes
- You want Zapier and Webhook access on the free plan without upgrading first
- GDPR compliance on EU-hosted infrastructure matters and you want a clear DPA
Choose Gravity Forms if…
- Your full stack is WordPress and you want a form builder that integrates at the database level
- You need conditional logic that controls email routing, page flow and notification triggers together
- Native PCI-compliant payments across Stripe, PayPal, Square and Mollie are required
- Multi-step approval workflows (Gravity Flow) or user registration on form submit are on your spec
- You have a development team comfortable with a 500+ hook PHP API for custom integrations
Frequently asked questions
Can Tally replace Gravity Forms on a WordPress site?
For most use cases, yes. Tally embeds on WordPress via iframe or the Tally block, loads asynchronously with no performance impact, and covers contact forms, surveys, lead gen and payment collection. The gap is in deep WordPress integration: Tally cannot create WordPress users on submit, push data into custom post types, or fire WordPress hooks the way Gravity Forms does natively. If your form needs to talk to the WordPress database or trigger PHP hooks, Gravity Forms is the right tool. For standalone data collection on a WordPress site, Tally handles it well.Is Gravity Forms really free to try?
No. Gravity Forms has no free tier and no free trial in the traditional sense. They offer a 30-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee on all paid plans and a full-featured Elite demo on their website, so you can evaluate the interface before buying. But you cannot install and run it on your own site for free indefinitely. Every direct WordPress form builder competitor, WPForms, Ninja Forms, Formidable Forms, Fluent Forms, offers a freemium version. If a zero-risk free entry point matters, Tally is the natural alternative.What happens when a Gravity Forms license expires?
This is the policy that surprises most teams: an expired Gravity Forms license cannot be renewed or reactivated. You must purchase a brand-new license. The plugin keeps running on already-installed sites after expiry, but with no updates, no security patches and no support, and it cannot register new sites. A cancelled license is also ineligible for renewal before its expiry date. The practical fix is simple: diarise the annual renewal and keep the subscription active, because letting it lapse means buying again from scratch and running without patches in the meantime.Does Tally work without a WordPress site?
Yes, and this is Tally's core advantage over Gravity Forms. Tally is a standalone SaaS with no install required. You create an account, build a form, share it via a direct link or embed it on any website or web app with a single code snippet. We tested it on WordPress, Webflow, Framer and a custom React app: zero compatibility issues in all cases. The form is fully hosted by Tally, so there are no server costs, no plugin updates to manage, and no WordPress dependency. Gravity Forms is strictly a WordPress plugin with no SaaS equivalent.Which form builder is better for lead generation?
Tally for volume and speed; Gravity Forms for deep CRM integration on WordPress. Tally's free plan handles unlimited submissions, integrates with HubSpot, Mailchimp and 6,000+ apps via Zapier, and partial submissions on Pro recover abandoned fills. We ran a lead gen campaign with 847 submissions in a month on the free plan with zero issues. Gravity Forms connects natively to Salesforce, HubSpot CRM and ActiveCampaign via first-party add-ons, which removes middleware for WordPress-first teams. The lead data lives in your WP database alongside everything else. Pick Tally if speed and cost matter, Gravity Forms if your CRM workflow requires deep WordPress event hooks.Tally vs Gravity Forms for payment collection: which is better?
It depends on your processor needs. Tally integrates Stripe natively on every plan including free, with no transaction fees beyond Stripe's standard rates. If Stripe covers your market, Tally is the cheaper and simpler path. Gravity Forms supports Stripe, PayPal, Square and Mollie, all PCI-compliant with recurring billing and coupon codes, but payments require at least the Pro tier ($159/year). Two reviewers specifically flagged the PayPal Checkout add-on sync as unreliable, so test recurring billing in Gravity Forms during the 30-day money-back window. For multi-processor or subscription billing on WordPress: Gravity Forms. For a Stripe-only setup anywhere: Tally.Is Tally GDPR compliant for European businesses?
Yes. Tally is hosted on EU servers (Frankfurt), provides data processing agreements on request, and the interface lets you export and delete all submission data. We verified this on two European client projects with strict GDPR requirements. The main responsibility on your end: add consent checkboxes to your forms, write a compliant privacy policy, and configure data retention settings (available on the Business plan). Gravity Forms puts all data on your own WordPress hosting, which can give tighter sovereignty but means your GDPR posture depends entirely on your hosting provider's infrastructure and configuration.Can Gravity Forms connect to n8n, Make or Zapier?
Yes, with a tier caveat. The native Zapier add-on is available from the Pro tier ($159/year) and reaches 200+ apps, but needs a Gravity Forms REST API v2 key to connect. For n8n, Make or Pabbly Connect, the cleanest route is the native Webhooks add-on, which pushes form data to any endpoint, but Webhooks is locked to the Elite tier ($259/year). There is also a full REST API for custom builds and the Gravity Connect add-on for two-way API conversations. Tally, by contrast, includes Webhooks and Zapier on its free plan, confirmed as of June 2026.Which is better for conditional logic: Tally or Gravity Forms?
Gravity Forms, if you need deep cross-field logic. Gravity Forms conditional logic drives field visibility, page flow, email routing and notification triggers all from one interface. Reviewers who have used it for years consistently praise how it handles complex scenarios without code. Tally's conditional logic handles standard branching well (show or hide questions based on answers, route to different thank-you pages), but it lacks a visual flow diagram and requires more manual setup for chains of 10 or more conditions. For a contact form or survey: Tally is sufficient. For a multi-step onboarding or intake form with 50+ field interactions: Gravity Forms.Is the Gravity Forms Elite license worth $259 per year?
It depends on what you build. If your agency workflow uses Webhooks, Conversational Forms, User Registration, Partial Entries or Surveys, all Elite-only features, then yes, and Elite covers unlimited sites which compounds the value across a multi-client portfolio. The honest caveat: add GravityView or Gravity Flow and total annual cost lands between $400 and $600+. For a team running complex multi-site client automations on WordPress, Elite is the sensible floor. For a solo developer with one site who just needs a contact form, Basic at $59 is plenty and Elite is overkill. Always compare the Elite cost against what Tally Pro annual ($240/yr) gives you on the same project before committing.
Test both, then decide
Tally starts free with no card required. Gravity Forms offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. The fastest way to know is to rebuild one real form on each.
Best for non-WordPress stacks, unlimited free submissions, and Stripe payments out of the box. No install, Notion-style editor, live in under 10 minutes.
Try Tally for free →Read the full Tally review →Best for WordPress developers and agencies that need conditional logic depth, native payments across four processors, and a full PHP developer API. Budget for Elite tier.
Discover Gravity Forms →Read the full Gravity Forms review →Affiliate links: signing up through them supports our independent hands-on tests at no extra cost to you. We score both tools the same way and call out the weak spots on each.
Get the next comparison in your inbox
Join 2,400+ makers who get our independent tool tests every week.