How to Limit Form Submissions in Elementor Forms?

A graphic titled "How to Limit Form Submissions in Elementor Forms," featuring a "Rate Limit" road sign, a curving road illustration, and the OOPSpam logo at the bottom.

Forms are essential in connecting with your audience, whether you’re collecting feedback, managing registrations, or capturing leads. However, they can sometimes attract spam and abuse, making it harder to focus on genuine submissions. Fake entries and bot attacks can disrupt your workflow and affect your site’s performance.

If you use Elementor Forms, you know how easy it is to create beautiful and functional forms. But keeping them secure from excessive or harmful submissions often requires additional tools. That’s where OOPSpam can help by adding advanced rate-limiting and anti-spam features.

In this post, we’ll guide you through using OOPSpam’s rate-limiting functionality to protect your forms while maintaining a positive experience for real users.

What Is Rate Limiting, and Why Does It Matter?

Rate limiting works like a gatekeeper for your forms. It controls how frequently a user can submit a form within a defined period. 

For example, you might allow only five submissions per hour to deter spam while catering to authentic users.

Why Rate Limiting Is Critical

Spam submissions can lead to significant issues:

Implementing rate limiting ensures your forms remain secure, your data stays clean, and your users enjoy a smooth experience.

The Common Challenges of Elementor Forms Without Rate Limiting

A contact form designed in Elementor with fields for name, company, email, and message on a pink background.

Elementor Forms is a powerful tool for building forms, but like many form builders, its default spam protection features have limitations. Without additional protections such as rate limiting, you might face:

According to our 2024 annual spam report, Elementor Forms is the third most targeted form builder, accounting for 19.7% of spam attacks. This statistic highlights the importance of robust protections. 

Considering that bots account for over 40% of internet traffic and WordPress sites are prime targets for spam, using advanced tools like OOPSpam is crucial to mitigate these risks. 

How OOPSpam Improves Elementor Forms with Rate Limiting

OOPSpam (that’s us! 👋) integrates seamlessly with Elementor Forms, providing robust rate-limiting features that not only block excessive submissions but also enhance overall security with anti-spam tools.

Key Features

Let’s go step-by-step to set up rate limiting with OOPSpam for Elementor Forms.

Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Rate Limiting in Elementor Forms with OOPSpam

Follow these instructions to enable rate limiting for your Elementor Forms:

1. Install and Activate OOPSpam

Start by adding the OOPSpam Anti-Spam Plugin:

Once activated, you’ll see the OOPSpam menu in your WordPress dashboard.

📌 Pro Tip: Enable spam protection for Elementor Forms in the OOPSpam settings to activate all its features.

2. Access OOPSpam Settings

The OOPSpam plugin's "General Settings" page, showing API key settings, spam detection sensitivity adjustment, and an option to move spam comments.

Navigate to the OOPSpam menu in your WordPress dashboard. Open the settings tab to access the rate-limiting configuration options.

3. Enable Rate Limiting

Turn on the “Enable Rate Limiting” option. This ensures that all forms linked to Elementor are governed by the specified rate-limiting rules.

4. Configure Submission Limits

The "Rate Limiting Settings" page in the OOPSpam plugin, displaying options to enable rate limiting, set maximum submissions per IP and email per hour, define block duration in hours, and configure data clean-up frequency.

Customize the following parameters:

5. Save and Test

After making your changes, click “Save Changes.” Test your form by submitting multiple entries to confirm that the rate-limiting settings work as expected.

📌 Helpful Tip: For high-traffic forms, start with more lenient settings and adjust based on activity patterns.

Additional Tips to Secure Elementor Forms

The OOPSpam dashboard showing API usage, average response time, active API key, and a "Test with your data" section featuring sample data for spam detection testing.

To further enhance your form security, consider these best practices:

Why OOPSpam Is the Best Choice for Elementor Forms

While Elementor Forms includes basic spam protection, OOPSpam adds advanced capabilities that tackle modern threats. Here’s why OOPSpam stands out:

1. Advanced IP and Email Blocking

OOPSpam’s extensive database proactively blocks known malicious IPs and email addresses. You can also manually blacklist suspicious entries for added control. Here’s an example:

The "Manual Moderation Settings" in the OOPSpam Anti-Spam plugin, displaying fields for managing blocked emails, IPs, keywords, and allowed emails or IPs. The "Blocked emails" field is filled with example entries.

2. Geo-Blocking and Language Filtering

Spam filtering settings showing options to allow messages only from selected countries and specific languages.

Restrict form submissions to specific geographic regions or languages. This feature is invaluable for businesses targeting local audiences or operating in specific countries.

3. Keyword Filtering

Use OOPSpam’s machine learning technology to block submissions containing specific keywords or phrases. This feature adapts to evolving spam tactics while allowing customization for your needs.

4. Precise Rate Limiting

Unlike generic tools, OOPSpam offers detailed controls, including:

5. Seamless Integration

OOPSpam integrates effortlessly with Elementor Forms and other popular form builders like Gravity Forms, WS Forms, and Contact Form 7. This ensures enhanced functionality without disrupting your workflow.

6. GDPR Compliance and Privacy

The OOPSpam Anti-Spam plugin's "Privacy Settings" page, showing toggle options for disabling IP and email address analysis, and removing sensitive information from messages. All toggles are set to "OFF."

OOPSpam prioritizes user privacy by adhering to GDPR and other regulations. It doesn’t store sensitive user data, giving both you and your users peace of mind.

7. Comprehensive Spam and Ham Logs

Detailed logs offer insights into blocked and legitimate submissions, helping you:

For more details, check out our guide on logging form entries.

Consolidating Your Form Security

A banner for OOPSpam Anti-Spam featuring the tagline "Automate your Spam and Abuse Detection" with logos of Webflow, bettermode, and readme, indicating companies that use the service.

OOPSpam simplifies and strengthens your form security by integrating multiple features into a single plugin. 

Instead of relying solely on Elementor Forms’ default protections, OOPSpam enhances your security with advanced features like keyword filtering, geo-restrictions, and detailed logging. Whether you’re dealing with bot attacks, manual spamming, or region-specific abuse, OOPSpam simplifies and strengthens your defenses.

📌 Note: OOPSpam supports other form builders like WPForms and Contact Form 7. Check the OOPSpam WordPress Plugin page for an updated list of supported platforms.

Final Thoughts

Maintaining secure and spam-free forms is crucial for keeping your website efficient and your data reliable. Elementor Forms is a fantastic tool on its own, but adding OOPSpam’s advanced features ensures a higher level of protection against modern spam challenges.

Take control of your forms with OOPSpam’s rate-limiting capabilities. Start now to create a smoother, safer experience for you and your users.

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Since our launch in 2017 we’ve been perfecting our API to be the trusted option for small businesses to enterprise— and continue to stick to our values of being the accessibility and privacy-friendly option. Give us a shot!

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