Anti-Spam Protection – No API Key, GDPR Friendly vs Mailgun

Is Contact Form 7 spam destroying your mornings? No API key. No data leaving your server. No charges for commercial use. Just effective spam protection that works the moment you activate it. What Gets Protected (FREE) ✅ Contact Form 7 – Block bot spam automatically ✅ WPForms Lite & Pro – Stop automated submissions ✅ Jetpack Contact Forms – Filter bot spam instantly ✅ Fluent Forms – Eliminate bot attacks ✅ SureForms – Block bot spam submissions ✅ WordPress Comments – Clean comment spam from badbots ✅ Business sites included – No commercial fees ever Works immediately after activation. No configuration. No learning curve. No monthly costs. How It Works 3 Steps to Spam-Free Contact Forms: Install – Search “Contact Form 7 spam” in your WordPress dashboard Activate – One click to turn on protection Relax – Your Contact Form 7 and WPForms and others are now protected from bots The moment you activate, spam bots are automatically blocked on all your forms and comments. No settings to configure. No technical knowledge required. No ongoing maintenance. Most users report 95-100% spam reduction within the first 24 hours. Tomorrow morning, check your inbox. Instead of dozens of spam submissions, you’ll see only real customer inquiries. That’s the peace of mind this plugin delivers. Why Contact Form 7 Needs This Contact Form 7 is WordPress’s most popular form plugin with over 5 million active installations. It’s lightweight, flexible, and completely free. But it doesn’t include spam protection. Without protection, Contact Form 7 sites get hammered. Bot networks discover unprotected forms and flood them with submissions. Your inbox fills with junk. You waste time sorting real inquiries from spam. Worse, you risk missing legitimate customers buried in the noise. This plugin fixes that problem. For free. Forever. Free vs Pro: What You Get FREE Version (Most Sites Need Only This): ✅ Contact Form 7 bot spam blocked ✅ WPForms automated spam stopped ✅ Jetpack forms protected ✅ Fluent Forms secured ✅ SureForms protected ✅ WordPress comment spam eliminated ✅ Works on business/commercial sites ✅ Spam statistics dashboard Automated bots cause 95%+ of spam. The free version handles this completely. PRO Version (For Advanced Needs): ⚡ Private Machine Learning human spam detection (runs on your own server, learns from your spam) ⚡ Gravity Forms integration ⚡ WooCommerce registration protection ⚡ Email quarantine for review ⚡ Custom IP blocklists ⚡ Allow/deny pattern rules ⚡ Priority support Most Contact Form 7 users never need Pro. But if you’re getting manually-typed spam or need enterprise features, Pro has you covered. Why This Works Better Than CAPTCHA CAPTCHA makes your visitors prove they’re human by solving puzzles. It’s annoying, hurts conversions, and still lets some spam through. This plugin takes a smarter approach: Invisible honeypot fields – Bots can’t resist filling hidden fields that humans never see Timing analysis – Bots submit forms instantly; real people don’t Behavioral fingerprinting – Bot patterns are detectable and consistent No user friction – Your visitors never know the protection exists Lightning fast – All processing happens locally on your server Your Contact Form 7 stays fast. Your conversion rates stay high. Spam disappears. It just works. Quietly. Effectively. Completely free. Common Questions Answered “Will this work with my existing Contact Form 7 setup?” Yes. It integrates automatically with all CF7 configurations, custom fields, and extensions. Nothing breaks. Spam just stops. “I’m not technical. Can I install this?” If you can install a WordPress plugin, you can use this. There’s literally nothing to configure. Install, activate, done. “What about sites that aren’t in English?” Works perfectly on all languages. The spam detection doesn’t depend on language – it detects bot behavior patterns. “My site sells products. Do I have to pay?” No. Unlike some popular anti-spam solutions that charge business sites, this is free for commercial use. No exceptions. No hidden fees. Ready to Stop Contact Form 7 Spam? Installation takes 30 seconds: In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins → Add New Search for “Contact Form 7 spam” Click Install, then Activate Done – your forms are now protected Check your email tomorrow. Enjoy the silence. For detailed statistics and settings, visit Settings → Anti Spam after activation. Go Pro Most Contact Form 7 users never need Pro – the free version eliminates their spam problem completely. What makes Pro unique – private Machine Learning: Unlike cloud filters that ship your visitors’ messages off to an external service, the Pro classifier runs entirely on your own server. It learns from the spam you classify, gets smarter the more you use it, and never sends data to a third party outside your control – no external cloud service, no data sharing, no privacy trade-off. Pro delivers: ✅ Private Machine Learning Human Spam Detection – Stops manually-typed spam that gets past basic filters, using Machine Learning that runs entirely on your own server and learns from your spam classifications – your visitors’ data never leaves your site or goes to a third party outside your control ✅ Gravity Forms Integration – Complete protection for premium form users ✅ WooCommerce Registration Blocking – Stop fake account spam ✅ Email Quarantine – Review and rescue any legitimate messages caught by mistake ✅ Quarantine / Audit Log – Full spam traceability: see every submission the plugin checks, allowed or blocked, and exactly why it was decided (bot trap, Machine Learning human-spam score, single-word, deny rule, real-time IP blocklist or allow list) – with the analysed content, masked IP and country, plus one-click allow/deny actions to fix any mistake ✅ Custom Allow/Deny Rules – Block specific IPs, patterns, or keywords ✅ IP Blocklist Checking – Automatic blocking of known spam networks ✅ Priority Support – Get help directly from the developers Perfect for: – High-traffic sites getting manually-entered spam – Agencies managing multiple client installations – Enterprise sites requiring advanced controls – Gravity Forms and WooCommerce users Start Your Free 30-Day Pro Trial Try Pro features risk-free for 30 days. A card is required to start, but you won’t be charged if you cancel before the trial ends. No pressure, no hassle.

Most email validators look for an @ and a .(dot) some go further and blacklist certain domain names. But Mailgun’s Advanced email validation service goes deeper and looks for the existence of the domain name, presence of a MX record and the custom ESP(Email Service Provider) grammar. The grammar here is the rules defined by each email provider. For example, Yahoo Mail addresses can only contain letters, numbers, underscores, and one period. So [email protected] perfectly passes the is_email() function but can never exist as it contains more than one period. Such addresses can’t escape Mailgun’s Email validation. Why use Mailgun’s email validation service? Performs the usual email syntax check. Checks the existence of the email domain. So [email protected] can’t escape. Checks if the email domain has a MX record. So [email protected] is caught. Checks if the username complies with the grammar of its ESP (Email Service provider). Eg Gmail doesn’t allow usernames less than 6 characters and hyphens so [email protected] and [email protected] can’t get away. Why use this plugin? Integrates with the is_email() function of WordPress. So it works seamlessly with Contact Form 7, Jetpack/Grunion contact forms, WordPress registration form and any form which uses the is_email() function. Kicks spam before it is inserted into the database Ensures that the commenting process is uninterrupted even if Mailgun suffers a downtime Works completely transparent, nothing changes in the frontend This plugin requires a Mailgun Public API Key which can be obtained by signing up at Mailgun. If you’re trying out this plugin on a local WAMP/LAMP/MAMP installation make sure your system is connected to the Internet for this plugin to contact Mailgun. Available Languages English Serbo-Croatian by Borisa Djuraskovic Spanish by Andrew Kurtis Further Reading Read about Mailgun’s email validation service. http://blog.mailgun.com/post/free-email-validation-api-for-web-forms/ http://blog.mailgun.com/post/weekly-product-update-improvements-to-email-validation-api/ Mailgun Address Validator demo and its source code The Mailgun Email Validator Plugin official homepage.