CalcWidget vs Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is one of the most established WordPress form plugins on the market — installed on hundreds of thousands of sites since 2008. It does a lot: contact forms, multi-step submissions, conditional logic, payments, and yes, calculator fields. If you run your site on WordPress and want a pricing calculator there, Gravity Forms is a reasonable in-stack option. The catch is that it's a form plugin first, with calculations layered on top. CalcWidget is the other shape — calculator-first, real-time math, leads in an inbox, and not tied to WordPress at all.
CalcWidget is for
Service businesses (plumbing, HVAC, cleaning, landscaping, painting) who want a live-updating quote calculator on their website — and aren't tied to WordPress. Visitors enter job details, watch the price update in real time, leave their email, you get the lead. $19/mo, no annual contract.
Gravity Forms is for
WordPress site owners who already run other Gravity Forms forms (contact, registration, checkout) and want to add a calculator alongside them under one license. If your whole stack is WordPress and Gravity Forms is already installed, the marginal cost of adding a calculator is just learning the calc-field syntax.
| Feature | CalcWidget | Gravity Forms |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, 1 calculator, 50 quote views/mo | No free plan — license required (annual) |
| Starting paid price | $19/mo Pro (monthly billing) | $59/yr Basic (~$5/mo equivalent, annual upfront) |
| Tier with full calculations + conditional logic | $19/mo Pro | $159/yr Pro license (~$13/mo equivalent) |
| Where it runs | Anywhere — WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, plain HTML | WordPress only (plugin) |
| Built for pricing / quoting | Yes — this is the product | General-purpose form builder; calc fields are an option |
| Live-updating dollar price (no submit) | Yes — visitors watch the price change live | Calculation field updates inline, but UI is form-shaped |
| One-line embed script | Yes — works on any site | Plugin install (WordPress only); embeds via shortcode |
| Lead inbox + CSV export | Yes, built in | Yes, via WordPress entries dashboard + add-ons |
| Pre-built templates for trades | 20 free industry quote calculators (plumbing, HVAC, etc.) | Form templates exist but tuned for general data collection |
| Setup time for a quote calculator | 5–15 minutes | 30–90 minutes (install plugin, license, build form, wire calc fields) |
| Tier | CalcWidget | Gravity Forms |
|---|---|---|
| Free / Trial | Free plan, 1 calculator, no expiration | No free plan; annual license required |
| Entry paid | $19/mo Pro — unlimited quote views, custom branding, monthly billing | $59/yr Basic license — single site, no calc / conditional logic |
| Calculation-capable tier | $19/mo Pro (included) | $159/yr Pro license — calculations, conditional logic, 3 sites |
| Higher tier | $49/mo Agency — multi-calculator, white label | $359/yr Elite — unlimited sites + premium add-ons |
Approximate Gravity Forms license rates at publication. Gravity Forms is annual-billing only; monthly comparison numbers above are derived from annual cost ÷ 12. Confirm on gravityforms.com. Last reviewed: 2026-04-26.
Pick Gravity Forms if your site is on WordPress, you already use Gravity Forms for contact / registration / checkout flows, and a pricing calculator is the next form in a portfolio of forms. The license already covers it (at the Pro tier or above), the editor is consistent across all your forms, and entries land in one WordPress dashboard. For an established WordPress shop, that consolidation is real value. Also pick Gravity Forms if you need calculation logic deeply intertwined with multi-page workflows, payments, conditional approval routing, or integrations with WordPress-native plugins (WooCommerce, ACF, membership sites). That's home turf for Gravity Forms and CalcWidget can't match it.
Pick CalcWidget if you're not tied to WordPress, you want monthly billing instead of an annual license up-front, and what you actually need is a quote calculator that works on whatever site you have — WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, Wix, or a custom HTML page. Pick CalcWidget if you'd rather start free, ship in 15 minutes, and use a tool that's calculator-first instead of a form plugin's calculator field. For a plumbing or HVAC business that wants visitors to see a real dollar estimate as they adjust square footage, fixture count, and access difficulty — and wants the lead to land in an inbox without paying for an annual WordPress plugin license — CalcWidget fits cleaner.
This is the actual Plumbing demo. Adjust the fields and watch the price update. No login, no trial countdown.
Prices update in real time as you adjust options.
Estimated Price
$85.00
Updates in real time as you adjust options above
This is an illustrative estimate — not a formal quote. Build your own calculator with your own rules.
If your Gravity Forms build is mostly a pricing calculator with input fields and a calculated total, yes — and probably with cleaner UX. Most service-business calculators rebuild in 5 to 15 minutes in CalcWidget's builder. The 20 free demos at /free cover plumbing, HVAC, cleaning, landscaping, and other common service trades and clone into your account as starting points. If your Gravity Forms build relies on multi-page workflows, payment gateways, or conditional routing into other WordPress plugins, those features won't transfer.
Yes — the embed is a single <script> tag you paste into a page or widget. It also works on Webflow, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, plain HTML, or any site that lets you paste a script. That's the main difference: Gravity Forms is WordPress-only by design; CalcWidget is platform-agnostic.
Compared on a per-month basis, the numbers are close at the entry tier ($19/mo CalcWidget Pro vs ~$13/mo Gravity Forms Pro license amortized). The real differences are billing model and lock-in: Gravity Forms charges yearly upfront and your license expires (you keep the plugin but lose updates and support); CalcWidget bills monthly with no annual commitment. For a small service business that wants to test for a month before committing to a year, monthly billing matters.
Because it's a form. The calculation field lives inside a form, alongside name / email / phone fields, and the visitor scrolls a form layout. CalcWidget puts the price front and center — every field change re-renders the dollar amount in a big number at the bottom, and the lead-capture is a separate step. Different rhythm, different conversion feel. For service-business pricing pages where visitors want to scrub options and see numbers move, calculator-first tends to convert better than form-first with a calc field.
No. Gravity Forms has Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net, and Square add-ons (most behind the Elite license). CalcWidget shows a price and captures the visitor's email — payment happens in your normal sales process after the lead lands in your inbox. If your form is the payment flow, Gravity Forms (or Stripe Payment Links direct) is a better fit.
Absolutely — and it's a common setup. Gravity Forms handles your contact form, intake form, or appointment-request form on a WordPress site; CalcWidget handles the pricing calculator on the service / quote page. Lead data flows separately, but most CRMs accept email-based lead intake from both tools without extra wiring. For agencies running WordPress sites for service-business clients, this combo is straightforward.
Service type (drain cleaning, leak repair, fixture install, water heater, full re-pipe), fixture count, water heater type and age if relevant, access difficulty (easy / moderate / hard), and after-hours / emergency add-on. Visitors adjust the inputs and watch the dollar amount update live. When they're ready, they leave their email and submit. The lead lands in your inbox with all the inputs included so you know exactly what you're quoting against — and you can call back ready instead of asking the same questions again on the phone.
Free plan, no credit card. Build your first calculator in under 10 minutes and embed it anywhere.
Or see pricing first.
20 working calculators you can try without an account. Clone any of them into your account once you sign up.
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