LEAD MAGNET DOWNLOAD · WORDPRESS

Lead Magnet Download for WordPress

Email-gated download form for ebooks, PDFs, checklists, and templates. Free for 1,000 submissions per month — no backend, no SDK, no plugin.

Get free access key Copy the code

1,000/mo free·no card·drop-in for WordPress

submit.phpphp28 lines

01<?php
02// Drop into a PHP page. Receives a form POST and proxies it to splitforms.com.
03// Useful when you want to add server-side validation or rate limiting.
04 
05if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
06    $allowed = ['name', 'email', 'company', 'role'];
07    $payload = ['access_key' => 'YOUR_ACCESS_KEY'];
08    $payload['subject'] = 'New lead magnet download';
09 
10    foreach ($allowed as $f) {
11        if (isset($_POST[$f])) $payload[$f] = $_POST[$f];
12    }
13 
14    $ch = curl_init('https://splitforms.com/api/submit');
15    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
16    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($payload));
17    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
18    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, ['Accept: application/json']);
19    $response = curl_exec($ch);
20    $status   = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
21    curl_close($ch);
22 
23    header('Content-Type: application/json');
24    http_response_code($status);
25    echo $response;
26    exit;
27}
28?>

1,000

submissions / mo, free

fields, ready to ship

code outputs

60s

from copy to inbox

§ 00Quick answerPHP · marketing

Yes — this is the shortest safe path for WordPress.

Use the PHP snippet on this page, keep the lead magnet download fields visible in your WordPress UI, and let splitforms handle delivery, spam filtering, storage, and webhooks.

best implementation

Paste the PHP version, then replace YOUR_ACCESS_KEY.

The posted payload contains first name, work email, company, what's your role?. Required fields are first name and work email.

native wordpress reality

use case fit

Ungated content gets read; gated content builds your list. The lead-magnet form trades the PDF for an email plus 1-2 qualifying questions, so the nurture sequence segments by intent.

§ 01Lead Magnet Download × WordPresswhy this combination, in 80 words

Built for WordPress developers who hate operating a backend.

Splitforms is the form-to-email API for WordPress sites. One POST endpoint, no SDK, no plugin — drop the lead magnet download into a page and ship.

Splitforms is the form-to-email API for WordPress sites. One POST endpoint, spam filtering, signed webhooks, file uploads, a real dashboard — drop-in, no server, no PHP. Free for 1,000 submissions per month, $5/mo Pro for 5,000, $59 for 4 years if you hate recurring SaaS bills.

✦ what you get on the free plan

✓1,000 form submissions per month
✓Unlimited forms — one key, many pages
✓Spam protection (honeypot + classifier)
✓Webhooks: Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, custom
✓CSV export of all submissions
✓Email notifications (CC and BCC on Pro)

§ 02Copy-paste codePHP · 28 lines

Drop into any WordPress project.

Replace YOUR_ACCESS_KEY with your splitforms key, paste into a WordPress page, and ship. No build-time integration required.

submit.phpphp28 lines

01<?php
02// Drop into a PHP page. Receives a form POST and proxies it to splitforms.com.
03// Useful when you want to add server-side validation or rate limiting.
04 
05if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
06    $allowed = ['name', 'email', 'company', 'role'];
07    $payload = ['access_key' => 'YOUR_ACCESS_KEY'];
08    $payload['subject'] = 'New lead magnet download';
09 
10    foreach ($allowed as $f) {
11        if (isset($_POST[$f])) $payload[$f] = $_POST[$f];
12    }
13 
14    $ch = curl_init('https://splitforms.com/api/submit');
15    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
16    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($payload));
17    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
18    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, ['Accept: application/json']);
19    $response = curl_exec($ch);
20    $status   = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
21    curl_close($ch);
22 
23    header('Content-Type: application/json');
24    http_response_code($status);
25    echo $response;
26    exit;
27}
28?>

ALTPrefer plain HTML? View the universal lead magnet download HTML snippet26 lines

form.htmlHTML

<form action="https://splitforms.com/api/submit" method="POST">
  <input type="hidden" name="access_key" value="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY">
  <input type="hidden" name="subject" value="New lead magnet download">

  <label for="name">First name *</label>
  <input id="name" type="text" name="name" placeholder="Jane" required>
  <label for="email">Work email *</label>
  <input id="email" type="email" name="email" placeholder="jane@company.com" required>
  <label for="company">Company</label>
  <input id="company" type="text" name="company" placeholder="Acme Inc">
  <label for="role">What's your role?</label>
  <select id="role" name="role">
    <option value="">Choose…</option>
    <option>Founder / CEO</option>
    <option>Engineer</option>
    <option>Designer</option>
    <option>Marketer</option>
    <option>Product manager</option>
    <option>Other</option>
  </select>

  <!-- honeypot — bots fill every field -->
  <input type="checkbox" name="botcheck" style="display:none" tabindex="-1" autocomplete="off">

  <button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>

§ 03Setup3 steps · 60 seconds · zero config

Generate, embed, receive.

Three actions stand between you and your first lead magnet download submission. None of them require a backend, a database, or a CAPTCHA library.

STEP 01GENERATE

Generate a free splitforms key

Create your form

key=sk_live_••••••••

STEP 02EMBED

Paste the lead magnet download into your WordPress project

Drop the form snippet into a WordPress page, component, or layout. Replace YOUR_ACCESS_KEY with the key from your dashboard. The form action is a hard-coded URL — no env vars or build-time wiring needed.

snippetphp

<?php
  …
</form>

STEP 03RECEIVE

Receive submissions

Email arrives within seconds. Webhook fires in parallel. Dashboard updates live. CSV export, Slack/Discord forwarding, BCC to your team — all included free.

inbox · 1 newjust now

FROM contact@yoursite.com

New lead magnet download

Maya Iyer maya@studio71.co

Loved the demo — quick question about pricing on the 4-year plan. Are usage limits per project or account-wide?

§ 03bLead Magnet Download Form (Ebook / PDF / Checklist Gate)template-specific playbook

The reason this lead magnet download exists.

Multi-step (Typeform-style) · webhooks into ConvertKit / HubSpot / Mailchimp.

why it matters

Lead magnets — ebooks, checklists, templates, swipe files, mini-courses — are the workhorse of B2B content marketing. Gated downloads convert at 25-50% of landing-page visitors (vs 1-2% for newsletter signups), but only when the magnet is truly valuable. The form captures email plus 1-2 qualifying questions ('what's your role?', 'what's your team size?') so the nurture sequence segments by intent. Multi-step boosts completion vs a single form. After submit, the user is redirected to the PDF or it's emailed via webhook + auto-responder. Push the email to your ESP segmented by lead-magnet topic — that's how content marketers build audience taxonomies that actually convert downstream.

route the submission

Step 1: capture email

Single email field — frictionless step 1. Once the email is in, momentum carries through later qualifying questions.

Step 2-3: qualify role / team

One or two questions on role and team size. Optional but most users complete because they're invested. Each answer becomes a tag in the ESP for downstream segmentation.

Deliver the magnet

Auto-respond with the PDF link (or redirect to a thank-you page that auto-downloads). Webhook to ConvertKit / HubSpot / Mailchimp into a 'lead-magnet:[topic]' audience for the nurture sequence.

§ 03cWordPress production notesnative path · deploy · gotchas

What changes when this lead magnet download lives in WordPress.

These notes come from the WordPress platform registry and are rendered on this template page so crawlers see the framework-specific answer without opening a separate guide.

without splitforms

WordPress core has no contact-form feature — every contact form on a WP site is either a plugin (Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms, Forminator, Fluent Forms, Ninja Forms) or a custom theme template. Plugins add 3-7 database tables, increase TTFB by 50-300ms, and most require a paid SMTP plugin (WP Mail SMTP) on top because shared-host PHP mail() lands in spam. CF7 alone is 1.2MB of JS/CSS loaded on every page. Anti-spam is a separate Akismet subscription ($10/mo for commercial use) or a paid CAPTCHA plugin. Splitforms replaces the plugin: a <form> tag in a Custom HTML block, pointing at our endpoint, with a hidden access_key field. No plugin, no extra DB tables, no SMTP gymnastics.

deploy notes

WordPress runs on shared hosts (Bluehost, Hostinger), managed WP hosts (Kinsta, WP Engine, Pressable), or self-hosted Apache/nginx. The form's POST is cross-origin to splitforms.com, so the host doesn't matter for delivery. Caching plugins (WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache) cache the page that hosts the form — that's fine, the form action URL is static. Don't proxy through WP's admin-ajax.php or wp_remote_post — adds latency and re-introduces the SMTP problem. For Multisite, use one access key per site or a shared key with form-name to disambiguate. Headless WP (Next.js/Astro front) doesn't involve PHP at all — use the matching framework's snippet.

WordPress gotcha

WordPress wpautop() mangles your form HTML in posts

If you paste a <form> directly into a Classic Editor post, WordPress's wpautop filter wraps random <p> tags around your inputs and breaks the markup. Use a Custom HTML block (block editor) or a theme template file instead — wpautop doesn't touch those.

WordPress gotcha

Caching plugins (WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache) cache the form page itself

Page caching is fine — your form posts to splitforms.com directly, not a WordPress endpoint, so the cached HTML still works. But if you ever switch to a WP-side handler (e.g. wp_ajax), exclude /contact/ from the page cache or submissions will hit a stale page.

WordPress gotcha

Theme-injected JavaScript can hijack form submission

Some themes (Astra, OceanWP, GeneratePress 'Premium') auto-attach AJAX handlers to every form on the page. Add data-no-ajax="true" or a custom class your theme excludes — or use a Custom HTML block which most themes leave alone.

WordPress gotcha

Cloudflare Bot Fight Mode blocks splitforms responses

If you proxy your WP site through Cloudflare with Bot Fight Mode on, the redirect from splitforms.com → /thanks may be flagged. Whitelist your domain in splitforms's allowed-domains list AND ensure /thanks is reachable without a Cloudflare challenge.

PATTERN A

Pattern A — Custom HTML block (Block Editor / Gutenberg)

Drop a Custom HTML block on any page or post. Survives theme switches and plugin updates. No PHP required, no theme file editing. Reusable Patterns let you save the form once and drop it on every page. Use the same wiring for the lead magnet download fields on this page.

pattern-a.phpphp9 lines

01<form action="https://splitforms.com/api/submit" method="POST">
02  <input type="hidden" name="access_key" value="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" />
03  <input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="/thanks/" />
04  <p><label>Name <input name="name" required /></label></p>
05  <p><label>Email <input name="email" type="email" required /></label></p>
06  <p><label>Message <textarea name="message" required></textarea></label></p>
07  <input type="checkbox" name="botcheck" style="display:none" tabindex="-1" />
08  <p><button type="submit">Send</button></p>
09</form>

PATTERN B

Pattern B — theme template with key from wp-config constant

For developer-managed themes (Bedrock/Sage/classic), define SPLITFORMS_KEY as a constant in wp-config.php and echo it via esc_attr(). Keeps the key out of the theme repo, lets staging and production read different keys via environment. Use the same wiring for the lead magnet download fields on this page.

pattern-b.phpphp8 lines

01<?php // page-contact.php in your theme ?>
02<form action="https://splitforms.com/api/submit" method="POST">
03  <input type="hidden" name="access_key" value="<?php echo esc_attr( SPLITFORMS_KEY ); ?>" />
04  <input type="hidden" name="redirect"   value="<?php echo esc_url( home_url('/thanks') ); ?>" />
05  <input name="email" type="email" required />
06  <textarea name="message" required></textarea>
07  <button type="submit">Send</button>
08</form>

§ 04Field-by-field rundown4 fields · names you POST

What every field actually does.

Each field below ships in the lead magnet download template — rename, remove, or add your own. Splitforms accepts any name you POST.

nameREQUIRED

TEXT

First name

Greeting + dashboard label so submissions don't all read 'anonymous'.

placeholder · Jane

emailREQUIRED

Work email

Reply-to address — splitforms wires this so hitting reply goes back to the sender.

placeholder · jane@company.com

company

TEXT

Company

Lets you sort enterprise vs SMB inquiries before you reply.

placeholder · Acme Inc

role

SELECT

What's your role?

Buyer-persona signal — IC vs decision-maker changes the follow-up cadence.

Founder / CEOEngineerDesignerMarketerProduct managerOther

§ 05Lead Magnet Download on other frameworks4 frameworks · same backend

One backend. Every framework.

The same lead magnet download template works on every framework splitforms supports. Pick yours.

§ 06Questions9 answered

Lead Magnet Download on WordPress — FAQ.

Direct answers, no marketing fluff. Missing one? Email hello@splitforms.com.

01Does this lead magnet download work on WordPress?

Yes. The form is plain HTML with a single POST endpoint, so it runs on any WordPress site without server-side code, plugins, or SDKs. Drop the snippet into a WordPress page or component and submissions land in your inbox via splitforms.com.

02How much does the lead magnet download cost on WordPress?

Free for 1,000 submissions per month — no credit card, no trial. Pro is $5/mo for 5,000 submissions, and there's a one-time $59 4-year plan (15,000 submissions/mo for 48 months). The same pricing applies regardless of which framework hosts the form.

03Can I customize the fields?

Yes. The template ships with sensible defaults (first name, work email, company, what's your role?…) — add, remove, or rename any of them. Splitforms accepts whatever fields you POST.

04How does spam protection work on the lead magnet download?

A hidden honeypot field catches dumb bots, and a tuned classifier scores the rest. You only see real submissions in your dashboard. No CAPTCHA, no friction for human users — and it works the same on WordPress as on any other framework.

05Can I send the lead magnet download submissions to Slack or Discord?

Yes. Webhooks are free on every plan, with auto-formatted payloads for Slack, Discord, and WhatsApp (via CallMeBot). Or send raw signed JSON to any URL — Zapier, n8n, your own server. Configure in the splitforms dashboard.

06Will it work on a static WordPress site?

Yes — the form posts directly to splitforms from the browser, so no server is involved. Works on Vercel, Netlify, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, S3, or any plain Apache host.

07Should I redirect to the PDF or email it?

Email it. Redirects to a Drive / S3 link mean the user gets the PDF without confirming the email — and the email might be a typo or a temporary address. Email delivery confirms the address by requiring an open. Add a 'didn't get it?' resend button on the thank-you page for the rare typo case.

08Can I integrate with ConvertKit / HubSpot / Mailchimp?

Yes — webhook the JSON into the ESP. ConvertKit's 'tags' map naturally to lead-magnet topics; HubSpot's 'lists' do the same. The nurture sequence triggers on tag-add and the topic-specific drip starts immediately. Most B2B teams use this exact pattern.

09Is gating content GDPR-safe?

If you have EU visitors, the consent for marketing email needs to be explicit and unbundled — meaning a separate checkbox 'I want to receive emails about [topic]' that's not pre-checked and not bundled with 'I accept the download'. Bundled consent has been challenged in EU rulings; unbundled is the safe play.

§ 07Comparisonvs Web3Forms · vs Formspree

splitforms vs everything else.

Same drop-in API. More free submissions, real webhooks on the free tier, MCP support no other backend has.

Feature	Web3Forms	Formspree	splitforms
Free monthly submissions	250	50	1,000
Custom fields beyond contact	Yes	Pro tier	Free
Webhooks (Slack / Discord)	Pro tier	Pro tier	Free, signed
AI / MCP submission inbox	No	No	Yes
Long-term plan (4-year flat)	—	—	$59 once

§ 08More templates for WordPress5 adjacent patterns

Ship a lead magnet download on WordPress in 60 seconds.

1,000 submissions per month, free forever. No credit card. Copy the snippet above and paste it into your WordPress project.

Get free access key →Read the docs

v0.1 · founders pricing locked in · early access open

Lead Magnet Download for WordPress

Yes — this is the shortest safe path for WordPress.

Paste the PHP version, then replace YOUR_ACCESS_KEY.

Built for WordPress developers who hate operating a backend.

Drop into any WordPress project.

Generate, embed, receive.

Generate a free splitforms key

Paste the lead magnet download into your WordPress project

Receive submissions

The reason this lead magnet download exists.

Step 1: capture email

Step 2-3: qualify role / team

Deliver the magnet

What changes when this lead magnet download lives in WordPress.

WordPress wpautop() mangles your form HTML in posts

Caching plugins (WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache) cache the form page itself

Theme-injected JavaScript can hijack form submission

Cloudflare Bot Fight Mode blocks splitforms responses

Pattern A — Custom HTML block (Block Editor / Gutenberg)

Pattern B — theme template with key from wp-config constant

What every field actually does.

First name

Work email

Company

What's your role?

One backend. Every framework.

Lead Magnet Download on WordPress — FAQ.

splitforms vs everything else.

Other ready-to-ship WordPress forms.

Ship a lead magnet download on WordPress in 60 seconds.