hCaptcha for WordPress

The hCaptcha plugin supports WordPress core and many plugins with forms automatically. You should select the supported forms on the hCaptcha Integrations settings page.

For non-standard cases, you can use the [hcaptcha] shortcode provided by the plugin.

For example, we support Contact Forms 7 automatically. However, sometimes a theme can modify the form. In this case, you can manually add the [cf7-hcaptcha] shortcode to the CF7 form.

To make hCaptcha work, the shortcode must be inside the

…

tag.

Open a PR on GitHub: or just email the authors of plugin X. Adding hCaptcha support is typically quite a quick task for most plugins.

Full list of arguments:

[hcaptcha action="my_hcap_action" name="my_hcap_name" auto="true|false" force="true|false" size="normal|compact|invisible"]

The shortcode adds not only the hCaptcha div to the form, but also a nonce field. You can set your own nonce action and name. For this, use arguments in the shortcode:

[hcaptcha action="my_hcap_action" name="my_hcap_name"]

and in the verification:

$result = hcaptcha_request_verify( 'my_hcap_action', 'my_hcap_name' );

For the explanation of the auto=”true|false” argument, see the section “How to automatically verify an arbitrary form”. By default, auto="false".

The argument force=”true|false” allows forcing verification of hCaptcha widget before submitting the form. By default, force="false".

The argument size=”normal|compact|invisible” allows setting the size of hCaptcha widget. By default, size="normal".

First, add the hCaptcha snippet to the form.

If you create the form as an HTML block in the post content, insert the shortcode [hcaptcha] inside it. It may look like this:

<form method="post">
    <input type="text" name="test_input">
    <input type="submit" value="Send">
    [hcaptcha]
</form>

If you create the form programmatically, insert the following statement inside it:

?>
<form method="post">
    <input type="text" name="test_input">
    <input type="submit" value="Send">
    <?php echo do_shortcode( '[hcaptcha]' ); ?>
</form>
<?php

Secondly, verify the result of hCaptcha challenge.

$result = hcaptcha_verify_post();

if ( null !== $result ) {
    echo esc_html( $result );
    // Block processing of the form.
}

Arbitrary user forms can be verified easily. Just add auto="true" or auto="1" to the shortcode:

[hcaptcha auto="true"]

and insert this shortcode into your form.

Auto-verification works with forms sent by POST on frontend only. It works with forms in the post content and in widgets.

You can add also force="true" or force="1" argument to prevent sending a form without checking the hCaptcha.

[hcaptcha auto="true" force="true"]

hCaptcha starts early, so you cannot use standard WP functions to determine the page. For instance, to block it on my-account page, add the following code to your plugin’s (or mu-plugin’s) main file. This code won’t work being added to a theme’s functions.php file.

/**
* Filter hCaptcha activation flag.
*
* @param bool $activate Activate flag.
*
* @return bool
*/
function my_hcap_activate( $activate ) {
  $url = isset( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ) ?
  filter_var( wp_unslash( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ), FILTER_SANITIZE_FULL_SPECIAL_CHARS ) :
  '';

  if ( '/my-account/' === $url ) {
    return false;
  }

  return $activate;
}

add_filter( 'hcap_activate', 'my_hcap_activate' );

The plugin has a filter to skip adding and verifying hCaptcha on a specific form. The filter receives three parameters: current protection status (‘true’ by default), source and form_id.

The source is the plugin’s slug (like ‘directory/main-plugin-file.php’), the theme name (like ‘Avada’) or the WordPress core (like ‘WordPress’).

The form_id is the form_id for plugins like Gravity Forms or WPForms, the post id for comments or a general name of the form when the form does not have an id (like WordPress core login form).

Filter arguments for some plugins/forms are listed below.

Affiliates
$source: ‘affiliates/affiliates.php’
$form_id: ‘login’ or ‘register’

Back In Stock Notifier
$source: ‘back-in-stock-notifier-for-woocommerce/cwginstocknotifier.php’
$form_id: product_id

BBPress
$source: ‘bbpress/bbpress.php’
$form_id: ‘new_topic’ or ‘reply’

Beaver Builder
$source: ‘bb-plugin/fl-builder.php’
$form_id: ‘contact’ or ‘login’

Brizy
$source: ‘brizy/brizy.php’
$form_id: ‘form’

BuddyPress
$source: ‘buddypress/bp-loader.php’
$form_id: ‘create_group’ or ‘register’

Classified Listing
$source: ‘classified-listing/classified-listing.php’
$form_id: ‘contact’, ‘login’, ‘lost_password’ or ‘register’

Divi
$source: ‘Divi’
$form_id: post_id for comment form, ‘contact’, ’email_optin’, or ‘login’

Download Manager
$source: ‘download-manager/download-manager.php’
$form_id: post_id of download item in the admin

Easy Digital Downloads
$source: ‘easy-digital-downloads/easy-digital-downloads.php’
$form_id: ‘checkout’, ‘login’, ‘lost_password’ or ‘register’

Elementor Pro
$source: ‘elementor-pro/elementor-pro.php’
$form_id: Form ID set for the form Content->Additional Options or ‘login’

Jetpack
$source: ‘jetpack/jetpack.php’
$form_id: ‘contact’

Kadence Form
$source: ‘kadence-blocks/kadence-blocks.php’
$form_id: post_id

Kadence Advanced Form
$source: ‘kadence-blocks/kadence-blocks.php’
$form_id: form_id

LearnDash
$source: ‘sfwd-lms/sfwd_lms.php’
$form_id: ‘login’, ‘lost_password’ or ‘register’

Login/Signup Popup
$source: ‘easy-login-woocommerce/xoo-el-main.php’
$form_id: ‘login’, or ‘register’

MemberPress
$source: ‘memberpress/memberpress.php’
$form_id: ‘login’ or ‘register’

Paid Memberships Pro
$source: ‘paid-memberships-pro/paid-memberships-pro.php’
$form_id: ‘checkout’ or ‘login’

Passster
$source: ‘content-protector/content-protector.php’
$form_id: area_id

Profile Builder
$source: ‘profile-builder/index.php’
$form_id: ‘login’, ‘lost_password’ or ‘register’

Subscriber
$source: ‘subscriber/subscriber.php’
$form_id: ‘form’

Support Candy
$source: ‘supportcandy/supportcandy.php’
$form_id: ‘form’

Theme My Login
$source: ‘theme-my-login/theme-my-login.php’
$form_id: ‘login’, ‘lost_password’ or ‘register’

Ultimate Member
$source: ‘ultimate-member/ultimate-member.php’
$form_id: form_id or ‘password’

UsersWP
$source: ‘userswp/userswp.php’
$form_id: ‘forgot’, ‘login’ or ‘register’

WooCommerce Wishlist
$source: ‘woocommerce-wishlists/woocommerce-wishlists.php’
$form_id: ‘form’

wpDiscuz
$source: ‘wpdiscuz/class.WpdiscuzCore.php’
$form_id: post_id

WPForms
$source: ‘wpforms-lite/wpforms.php’ or ‘wpforms/wpforms.php’
$form_id: form_id

wpForo
$source: ‘wpforo/wpforo.php’
$form_id: ‘new_topic’ for new topic form and topicid for reply form. Topicid can be found in HTML code searching for ‘data-topicid’ in Elements.

Wordfence Login Security
$source: ‘wordfence-login-security/wordfence-login-security.php’
$form_id: ‘login’

Wordfence Security
$source: ‘wordfence/wordfence.php’
$form_id: ‘login’

WordPress Core
$source: ‘WordPress’
$form_id: post_id for comment form, ‘login’, ‘lost_password’, ‘password_protected’, or ‘register’

WooCommerce
$source: ‘woocommerce/woocommerce.php’
$form_id: ‘checkout’, ‘login’, ‘lost_password’, ‘order_tracking’, or ‘register’

Below is an example of how to skip the hCaptcha widget on a Gravity Form with id = 1.

/**
 * Filters the protection status of a form.
 *
 * @param string     $value   The protection status of a form.
 * @param string[]   $source  Plugin(s) serving the form.
 * @param int|string $form_id Form id.
 *
 * @return bool
 */
function hcap_protect_form_filter( $value, $source, $form_id ) {
    if ( ! in_array( 'gravityforms/gravityforms.php', $source, true ) ) {
        // The form is not sourced by Gravity Forms plugin.
        return $value;
    }

    if ( 1 !== (int) $form_id ) {
        // The form has id !== 1.
        return $value;
    }

    // Turn off protection for Gravity form with id = 1.
    return false;
}

add_filter( 'hcap_protect_form', 'hcap_protect_form_filter', 10, 3 );

The plugin loads the hCaptcha script with a delay until user interaction: mouseenter, click, scroll or touch. This significantly improves Google Pagespeed Insights score.

To load the hCaptcha widget instantly, you can use the following filter:

/**
* Filters delay time for hCaptcha API script.
*
* Any negative value will prevent API script from loading at all,
* until user interaction: mouseenter, click, scroll or touch.
* This significantly improves Google Pagespeed Insights score.
*
* @param int $delay Number of milliseconds to delay hCaptcha API script.
*                   Any negative value means delay until user interaction.
*/
function my_hcap_delay_api( $delay ) {
  return 0;
}

add_filter( 'hcap_delay_api', 'my_hcap_delay_api' );

hCaptcha defaults to using the user’s language as reported by the browser. However, on multilingual sites you can override this to set the hCaptcha language to match the current page language. For this, you can use the following filter:

/**
* Filters hCaptcha language.
*
* @param string $language Language.
*/
function my_hcap_language( $language ) {
  // Detect page language and return it.
  $page_language = 'some lang'; // Detection depends on the multilingual plugin used.

  return $page_language;
}

add_filter( 'hcap_language', 'my_hcap_language' );

You can use the following filter:

/**
 * Filter user IP to check if it is whitelisted.
 * For whitelisted IPs, hCaptcha will not be shown.
 *
 * @param bool   $whitelisted Whether IP is whitelisted.
 * @param string $ip          IP.
 *
 * @return bool
 */
function my_hcap_whitelist_ip( $whitelisted, $ip ) {

  // Whitelist local IPs.
  if ( false === $ip ) {
    return true;
  }

  // Whitelist some other IPs.
  if ( '1.1.1.1' === $ip ) {
    return true;
  }

  return $whitelisted;
}

add_filter( 'hcap_whitelist_ip', 'my_hcap_whitelist_ip', 10, 2 );

Please make sure you have removed the reCAPTCHA keys under WPForms > Settings > reCAPTCHA to avoid a conflict.

Please see our website.