Mastering Gravity Forms: Setting Up a User-Friendly Review Page
Gravity Forms Review Page: 2025 Ultimate Guide
Why a Pre-Submission Review Page Is Crucial for Your Forms
The gravity forms review page lets users verify every field before they officially hit Submit. One extra screen may sound minor, but the impact is huge, changing both user experience and data integrity:
- Fewer typos and duplicate entries: Inaccurate data is a silent killer for any business process. A simple typo in an email address means lost communication, while a duplicate entry can skew analytics or lead to redundant follow-ups. A review page empowers users to self-correct, ensuring the data you collect is clean and actionable from the start. This proactive approach significantly reduces the need for manual data cleaning or correction later on, saving valuable time and resources.
- Better payment accuracy: For e-commerce or donation forms, payment accuracy is paramount. A review page allows customers to confirm order totals, shipping addresses, and billing details before the transaction is finalized. This prevents costly chargebacks due to user error, reduces refund requests, and builds trust by giving customers a final chance to ensure everything is correct. It’s a critical step in minimizing financial discrepancies and enhancing customer satisfaction.
- Lower support volume for “I typed the wrong email” tickets: How often do you receive support requests from users who made a mistake during form submission? Whether it’s an incorrect email, a misspelled name, or a wrong product selection, these errors generate avoidable support tickets. By providing a review step, you empower users to catch and fix these common mistakes themselves, drastically reducing the inbound support volume related to submission errors. This frees up your support team to focus on more complex issues, improving overall operational efficiency.
- Higher completion rates on long or sensitive forms (think job applications or checkout flows): Long forms can be intimidating. Users might feel overwhelmed or anxious about making a mistake, especially when submitting sensitive information like financial details or personal data for a job application. A review page acts as a safety net, reassuring users that they can double-check their input before committing. This transparency and control boost user confidence, making them more likely to complete the form rather than abandoning it out of fear of error. It transforms a potentially stressful experience into a reassuring one, leading to significantly improved conversion rates.
Quick setup options:
- Native code filter – enable
gform_review_pagein a child-theme or snippets plugin. This method offers deep customization and integrates directly with Gravity Forms’ core functionality. - No-code workaround – add a final page with an HTML field plus merge tags. This approach is ideal for those who prefer a visual builder and want the review step to appear within the form’s natural progression, often with a visible progress bar.
- Third-party plugin – Gravity Wiz Better Pre-submission Confirmation adds a visual builder. This premium add-on provides a user-friendly interface for creating sophisticated review pages without writing any code, offering advanced features and a streamlined workflow.
I’m Kevin Gallagher. Over 15 years—and hundreds of sites—wpOncall has used these methods to keep data clean and customers happy, ensuring robust and reliable form submissions for businesses of all sizes.
Know your gravity forms review page terms:
Understanding the Native Gravity Forms Review Page
Gravity Forms includes a robust, albeit somewhat hidden, review feature exposed through the developer filter: gform_review_page. When activated, the plugin inserts an interim confirmation step after the final page but before the real submission. This acts as a final checkpoint, giving users a chance to review their input.
When a Review Page Matters Most
While beneficial for almost any form, a review page becomes indispensable for specific types of forms where accuracy and user confidence are paramount:
- E-commerce checkouts: Customers confirm product quantities, shipping addresses, and the final total before their credit card is charged. This reduces order errors, minimizes disputes, and builds trust.
- Event registrations: Attendees verify details like dietary restrictions, accessibility needs, and name-badge spellings. This prevents common errors, ensuring a positive experience for participants and reducing administrative headaches.
- Applications (Job, Scholarship, Grant): Applicants can carefully verify personal details, educational history, work experience, and uploaded attachments. This ensures their application is complete and correct before official submission, enhancing application quality.
- Surveys and Quizzes: For detailed surveys or quizzes, a review page ensures the integrity of collected data, allowing participants to confirm answers for more reliable research outcomes.
Our internal numbers at wpOncall consistently show a dramatic reduction – up to 40 percent fewer support emails – after implementing a review step on complex forms. This directly translates to improved operational efficiency and higher customer satisfaction.
Enabling the Feature With Code
To activate the native Gravity Forms review page, add a small snippet of PHP code to your child-theme’s functions.php file or a code-snippets plugin. This ensures your customizations are not overwritten during updates.
To enable the review page globally for all Gravity Forms on your site, use the following filter:
add_filter( 'gform_review_page', function ( $review ) {
$review['is_enabled'] = true; // Activates the review page.
$review['content'] = 'Please double-check your information before submitting.'; // Default message.
return $review;
});
This snippet hooks into the gform_review_page filter, setting 'is_enabled' to true and defining a default message. The $review array allows for further configuration.
To limit the review page to a single, specific form – for instance, a form with ID 6 – append the form ID to the filter name. This is a common best practice for targeted implementations:
add_filter( 'gform_review_page_6', function ( $review ) {
$review['is_enabled'] = true; // Activates for form ID 6.
$review['content'] = 'Review your order below.'; // Custom message for this form.
return $review;
});
This granular control is invaluable for sites with multiple forms serving different purposes.
Best practice reminders for working with code snippets:
- Always work in a child theme or snippets plugin: Protects customizations from theme updates.
- Test on a staging site: Prevents issues like a “white screen of death” on your live site.
- Keep Gravity Forms and WordPress core updated: Vital for security, performance, and compatibility. wpOncall handles this daily for clients in Santa Rosa, CA and beyond.
Customizing the Review Page for a Better UX
Once enabled, tailoring your Gravity Forms review page to your brand and specific needs significantly improves user experience. A well-customized review page looks professional and makes the final confirmation intuitive.
Displaying Submitted Data with Precision
Gravity Forms offers flexible ways to display entered data. The choice between all fields or a custom summary depends on your form’s complexity and what information you want to highlight.
The fastest way to show everything is using the {all_fields} merge tag within the content parameter:
$review['content'] = GFCommon::replace_variables( '{all_fields}', $form, $entry );
While convenient, {all_fields} can display too much information. For a more curated and user-friendly experience, build a manual summary using specific merge tags. This gives you granular control over content and formatting:
$content = '<h3>Order Summary</h3>';
$content .= '<p><strong>Name:</strong> {Name:1}</p>';
$content .= '<p><strong>Email:</strong> {Email:2}</p>';
$content .= '<p><strong>Total:</strong> {Order Total:10}</p>';
$content .= '<p><strong>Shipping Address:</strong> {Shipping Address:3}</p>';
$review['content'] = GFCommon::replace_variables( $content, $form, $entry );
In this manual summary, you construct HTML, embedding specific merge tags. This allows you to add headings and structure information logically, making it easier for users to quickly scan and verify critical details. GFCommon::replace_variables processes this string, replacing merge tags with actual submitted data.
Renaming Buttons and Headings for Clarity
Default button labels and page titles might not convey the right message for a review step. Customizing these elements significantly improves UX by providing clear, context-specific calls to action.
$review['title'] = 'Confirm Your Details';
$review['nextButton']['text'] = 'Complete Order';
$review['previousButton']['text'] = 'Edit My Information';
Using clear labels like “Complete Order” instead of “Submit” calms nervous users, especially on payment forms. Renaming “Previous” to “Edit My Information” explicitly tells users they can easily return to make corrections, fostering control and reducing anxiety.
Styling With Custom CSS for Brand Consistency
To seamlessly integrate your review page with your website’s design, apply custom CSS. Add a custom CSS class to the review page container, then target it with your stylesheets.
First, add a class to the $review array:
$review['cssClass'] = 'wpoc-review';
Then, in your theme’s style.css or a custom CSS plugin, target this class and its child elements:
.wpoc-review {
background: #f9f9f9;
padding: 20px;
border-radius: 8px;
box-shadow: 0 2px 5px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);
margin-bottom: 30px;
}
.wpoc-review h3 {
border-bottom: 2px solid #0073aa;
color: #333;
padding-bottom: 10px;
margin-top: 0;
}
.wpoc-review p {
font-size: 1.1em;
line-height: 1.6;
margin-bottom: 10px;
}
.wpoc-review .gform_button {
background: #0073aa;
color: #fff;
border: none;
border-radius: 4px;
padding: 12px 25px;
font-size: 1em;
cursor: pointer;
transition: background-color 0.3s ease;
}
.wpoc-review .gform_button:hover {
background-color: #00568c;
}
Adjust colors, fonts, and spacing to match your website’s design. For more advanced styling and a comprehensive list of selectors, refer to Gravity Forms’ official CSS Targeting Samples documentation.
Making the Review Step Visible in Multi-Page Forms
One common user experience challenge with the native gravity forms review page is its placement in multi-page forms. Its default behavior can lead to user confusion.
The Problem with Native Integration in Multi-Page Forms
The native gform_review_page filter inserts the review step after the final page of your multi-page form. If your form has a progress bar (e.g., “Step 3 of 3”), the review page appears as an unexpected, additional screen after the progress bar indicates completion. Users might think they’re done, only to be presented with another screen before final submission. This can be jarring and confusing, undermining user confidence and leading to abandonment, especially on mobile or for screen reader users.
No-Code Workaround: Build Your Own Review Page Within the Form Flow
An neat no-code workaround integrates a review step directly into your multi-page form’s flow, making it visible in the progress bar and providing a more intuitive user journey. This method leverages Gravity Forms’ HTML field and merge tag capabilities.
Here’s how to implement it:
- Disable any
gform_review_pagecode for this form. - Add a Page Break to create a new, final page. Title it clearly, e.g., “Review Your Information.” This title will appear in your form’s progress bar.
- Drag an HTML field onto that new page.
-
Populate the HTML field with specific merge tags: Manually insert merge tags for each field you want to show. This gives you complete control over layout and content.
<h3>Review Your Information</h3> <p>Please double-check the details you've entered before submitting.</p> <hr> <h4>Personal Details</h4> <p><strong>Name:</strong> {Name:1}</p> <p><strong>Email:</strong> {Email:2}</p> <p><strong>Phone:</strong> {Phone:3}</p> <hr> <h4>Order Details</h4> <p><strong>Product:</strong> {Product:5}</p> <p><strong>Quantity:</strong> {Quantity:6}</p> <p><strong>Total:</strong> {Order Total:10}</p> <hr> <p>If all details are correct, click 'Submit' below.</p>Use standard HTML tags to structure and style your review content. Replace example merge tags with your form’s actual field merge tags.
Advantages of the No-Code Workaround:
- Seamless progress indicator: The “Review” step becomes a visible part of your form’s progress bar (e.g., “Step 4 of 4 (Review)”), providing a clear and expected user journey.
- Full control over layout and conditional logic: You have complete freedom to design the layout using HTML/CSS and apply conditional logic to show/hide sections based on user selections.
- Works great with accessibility tools: Uses standard HTML, making it inherently more accessible.
- Visual editing: Building the review page within the visual Gravity Forms editor is intuitive.
Trade-offs to Consider:
- Manual upkeep of merge tags: If you add new fields or change field IDs, you must manually update merge tags in your HTML field.
- No automatic “Edit” links: Unlike the native review page, you’d need to manually implement “Edit” functionality if desired.
For quicker setup that automates layout while retaining the visible step, Gravity Wiz’s Better Pre-submission Confirmation is an excellent premium add-on, combining visual control and automated field display.
Advanced Tips and Best Practices
Beyond basic setup, advanced techniques can lift your Gravity Forms review page. These tips improve user experience through dynamic content and ensure data security.
Conditional Logic for Cleaner Summaries
Leveraging conditional logic on your review page allows you to dynamically show or hide sections based on user input. This presents only relevant information, preventing clutter and making the review process faster. For instance, if a user selects a “Premium Package,” you’d show details specific to that package; otherwise, they remain hidden.
Gravity Forms merge tags support conditional display using special tokens:
{Premium Package:8:show}
<h4>Premium Features Selected</h4>
<p><strong>Package Name:</strong> {Premium Package:8}</p>
<p><strong>Included Add-ons:</strong> {Add-ons:9}</p>
{/Premium Package:8:show}
{Standard Package:11:show}
<h4>Standard Features Selected</h4>
<p><strong>Package Name:</strong> {Standard Package:11}</p>
<p><strong>Basic Support:</strong> Included</p>
{/Standard Package:11:show}
Content between {field_name:ID:show} and {/field_name:ID:show} tags will only display if the specified field has a value. This is useful for optional fields, conditional sections, product variations, or tax breakdowns, ensuring a concise summary custom to user choices. For more on conditional merge tags and dynamic population, refer to Gravity Forms documentation on Dynamic Population.
Security Essentials for Review Pages
A review page aggregates all submitted data, often including sensitive information. Treating it with utmost security is crucial to protect user data and your business’s reputation.
- HTTPS on every page, always: Encrypts data transmitted between browser and server, protecting it from eavesdropping. A padlock icon builds user trust.
- reCAPTCHA or similar bot protection: Blocks automated bots from reaching the review screen, saving resources and enhancing security.
- Regular plugin and core updates: Consistently update Gravity Forms, WordPress core, and all plugins. Updates include security patches for vulnerabilities. wpOncall applies these daily and monitors change logs.
- Strict access controls: Limit who can view form entries in your WordPress admin. Grant access only to essential personnel, use strong passwords, and consider two-factor authentication (2FA). Regularly review user roles.
- Robust backup strategy: Implement nightly snapshots of your WordPress site (files and database). Store encrypted backups off-site. Reliable backups allow quick rollback in case of data corruption or breach. Our Santa Rosa team stores encrypted copies off-site for 30 days.
- Data Minimization and Retention: Collect only necessary data. Less stored sensitive data means lower risk. Establish clear retention policies and regularly purge old, unnecessary entries to comply with privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
For deeper fixes related to form functionality, see our guide on form email confirmations. To ensure your WordPress site remains secure and performant, explore our professional maintenance plans.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I build a review page without PHP?
Yes, with the HTML-field workaround or a plugin like Gravity Wiz Better Pre-submission Confirmation. Both avoid touching functions.php.
How do I show only certain fields?
Swap {all_fields} for individual merge tags ({Email:2}, {Product:5}) or wrap blocks in conditional shortcodes to hide blanks.
Does it work with Stripe or PayPal?
Yes. The review screen appears before payment processing, letting customers confirm totals and billing info. Always run a few test transactions to verify the flow on your specific gateway.
Conclusion: Enhancing Form Accuracy and User Trust
After helping hundreds of businesses implement gravity forms review page solutions over the past 15 years, I can confidently say that this single feature has transformed how our clients handle form submissions. The difference is remarkable – fewer support tickets, cleaner data, and happier users who feel confident about their submissions.
The beauty of a well-implemented review page lies in its ability to catch problems before they become headaches. When users can spot that typo in their email address or notice they forgot to include their phone number, everyone wins. Your database stays clean, your automated emails reach their intended recipients, and your users feel like they’re in control of the process.
Choosing your implementation method comes down to your comfort level with code and your specific needs. The native gform_review_page filter offers incredible flexibility and integrates seamlessly with Gravity Forms’ existing functionality. It’s the method I recommend for developers who want maximum control and aren’t afraid of a little PHP.
For those who prefer a more visual approach, the custom HTML field method provides excellent results with easier maintenance. You can see exactly what your users will see, and making changes doesn’t require diving into code. This approach also plays nicely with multi-page forms and progress indicators, solving one of the biggest user experience challenges with the native method.
User experience should always be your north star when designing your review page. Clear, well-organized information presented in a logical flow makes all the difference. Instead of generic “Submit” buttons, use specific language like “Complete Order” or “Confirm Registration” that tells users exactly what happens next. These small details build trust and reduce anxiety, especially for high-stakes forms like payment processing or job applications.
Security considerations become even more critical when you’re asking users to review sensitive information. At wpOncall, we’ve seen how proper security measures protect both businesses and their customers. SSL encryption, regular updates, and proper access controls aren’t just technical requirements – they’re fundamental to maintaining user trust. When someone is reviewing their credit card information or personal details, they need to feel confident that their data is protected.
The testing phase often reveals insights you wouldn’t expect. We’ve found that what seems obvious to developers isn’t always clear to users. Real-world testing with actual users helps identify confusion points, unclear instructions, or missing information that could derail the submission process. This feedback is invaluable for creating review pages that truly serve their purpose.
Maintenance and monitoring ensure your review page continues to perform well over time. As you add new fields or modify your forms, remember to update your review page accordingly. Nothing frustrates users more than seeing outdated information or missing fields in their summary. Regular monitoring also helps identify patterns – maybe users frequently make the same type of error, suggesting you need clearer instructions earlier in the form.
The data integrity benefits extend far beyond just having cleaner submissions. When users catch their own mistakes, it reduces the workload on your customer service team and prevents cascading issues like failed email confirmations or incorrect order processing. We’ve seen support request reductions of 30-40% for clients who implement well-designed review pages.
Building user trust through transparency is perhaps the most valuable long-term benefit. When users can see exactly what they’re submitting and feel confident about the process, they’re more likely to complete the form and more likely to return for future interactions. This trust-building is especially crucial for new visitors who might be hesitant about sharing their information with an unfamiliar website.
The investment in a thoughtfully designed gravity forms review page pays dividends in improved user experience, reduced support overhead, and higher quality data. Whether you’re handling simple contact forms or complex multi-step applications, giving users that final moment to review and confirm their information shows respect for their time and attention to detail.
At wpOncall, we’ve built our reputation on helping businesses create WordPress solutions that work reliably and serve users well. The review page implementations we’ve created have consistently delivered measurable improvements in form performance and user satisfaction. Our expertise in WordPress security and support ensures these solutions remain stable and secure over time.
For businesses serious about form optimization and user experience, explore more WordPress plugin reviews to find how the right combination of tools can transform your website’s functionality and create genuinely helpful experiences for your users.