Gravity Forms Zero Spam

Gravity Forms Zero Spam stops spam submissions without CAPTCHAs, checkboxes, or puzzles. Install it, switch it on for a form, and it starts working. Nothing changes for the people filling in your forms.

You get four spam checks. One runs out of the box, and three more are there when you need them:

• Invisible token check. On by default. Blocks automated submissions using a signed, time-limited token.
• Email rejection rules. Reject submissions by email address, domain, wildcard, or regular expression.
• AI spam review. Optional. Catches spam the token check missed, and rescues good submissions it blocked by mistake.
• Shield silentCAPTCHA. Optional. Uses Shield Security’s bot detection as an extra signal.

Run one, or run all four. Every check happens on your own server, and optional summary emails keep you posted on what was caught.

Spam blocking your visitors never see 🕵️

The plugin adds a signed, time-limited token to your form and checks it on submission. Most spam bots post directly to your site without loading the page or running its JavaScript, so they never pick up a token and their submissions are marked as spam.

No CAPTCHAs, no puzzles, no extra fields, no cookies, and nothing to configure to get started.

Reject unwanted emails by address, domain, or pattern ✉️

Filter submissions against a list you control. Useful when spam keeps arriving from one domain, or when a business enquiry form should not accept free consumer addresses.

• Match by exact address, domain, wildcard, or regular expression
• On a match, block the submission (requires Gravity Forms 2.9.15 or newer), flag it as spam, or log it with an entry note
• Add rules in bulk, and enable or disable them individually while you test
• Override or replace the global rules on a single email field

Email rejection rules guide

Let AI review the edge cases 🤖

An optional second opinion on submissions the token check has already judged. Two separate tools, both off until you turn them on:

• Catch what was missed. AI reads a submission that passed the spam checks and flags it if it looks like spam.
• Rescue what was wrongly blocked. If the token check blocked a submission but the content looks genuine, AI can let it through before notifications are sent.

It runs on WordPress 7.0’s built-in AI connectors, so you connect OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google once and every plugin on the site shares it. Zero Spam never stores API keys, and nothing is sent until you opt in. You can write your own instructions, skip fields that collect sensitive data, and cap how many submissions are reviewed per hour.

AI spam review guide

Add Shield silentCAPTCHA as an extra signal 🛡️

If the free Shield Security plugin is active, its silentCAPTCHA bot detection can act as an additional check, globally or per form. Like the token check it runs server-side and stays invisible to visitors, and if Shield is deactivated or returns an error, submissions are never blocked. Contributed by Shield Security developer Paul Goodchild.

Shield silentCAPTCHA guide

Control how and when the checks run 🎛️

• Each form gets a “Prevent spam using Gravity Forms Zero Spam” setting, so you protect only the forms you want (requires Gravity Forms 2.5 or newer)
• Set the global default once, then switch off the individual forms you want excluded
• When more than one check is active, choose the order they run in and whether to stop at the first detection

Spam summary report emails 📬

Off by default. Turn them on and you get a summary of how many entries were marked as spam, broken down per form.

• Send after a threshold is reached, or on a schedule
• Nothing is sent when there is no spam to report
• Customize the email body, and drop in the total spam count or a per-form breakdown

Works with your other anti-spam tools 🤝

Zero Spam does not interfere with other spam-blocking plugins, including Gravity Forms’ own honeypot field and reCAPTCHA integration. Honeypots catch simple bots and reCAPTCHA asks real people to click traffic lights; Zero Spam asks nothing of your visitors at all, and you can layer it on top of either rather than replacing them.

Requires Gravity Forms. That is an affiliate link: if you buy through it we earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

Read the documentation for setup guides and troubleshooting.

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