Akismet vs CleanTalk vs Antispam Bee: Which WordPress Spam Plugin Fits Your Site?

If your site promotes a business, sells anything or runs ads, the real choice is CleanTalk vs Akismet, and for Akismet that means a paid plan. At the time of writing (October 2026), CleanTalk costs $12 a year for one site and covers comments, contact forms, registrations and WooCommerce orders, while Akismet's commercial plans start at $9.95 a month, billed yearly. Antispam Bee is free for any site and runs its main checks on your own server, but it only protects WordPress comments.

What is the difference between Akismet, CleanTalk and Antispam Bee?

The main difference is where the checking happens. Akismet and CleanTalk send each submission to their own cloud service, which compares it with spam reported across the many sites that use it. Antispam Bee checks comments on your own server, using rules and your site's own spam history.

	Akismet	CleanTalk	Antispam Bee
Made by	Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com)	CleanTalk Inc.	Pluginkollektiv
Where it checks	Akismet's cloud service	CleanTalk's cloud service	Your server (three optional checks call outside services)
Comment spam	Yes	Yes	Yes
Contact form spam	Yes, through many form plugins	Yes, through many form plugins	No
Business sites	Paid plan required	Paid for every site	Free
Price (October 2026)	Personal: pay what you can. Pro: from $9.95 a month, billed yearly	Free trial, then $12 a year for one site	Free

CleanTalk vs Akismet: which is better for a business site?

For most small business sites, CleanTalk costs less and covers more kinds of spam. Akismet suits sites that already use Jetpack or forms connected to Akismet, and owners who would rather have Automattic run their spam filter. Both are cloud filters, both work quietly without puzzles for visitors, and both connect to the popular form builders.

Pricing

Akismet charges by spam checks. A spam check is counted each time Akismet looks at a comment or form submission. Its Pro plan is $9.95 a month, billed yearly, for one site and 500 checks a month. Higher Pro tiers add sites and checks, up to four sites and 2,000 checks for $39.80 a month, and the Business plan is $49.95 a month for unlimited sites and 5,000 checks. Akismet says protection keeps working if you go over your allowance now and then.

CleanTalk charges by number of sites, with unlimited spam checks on every package: $12 a year for one site, $24 for three and $36 for five. There is no free plan, but the plugin starts with a free trial.

For one small business site, that is about $119 a year for Akismet Pro against $12 for CleanTalk.

Coverage

Akismet checks WordPress comments, and it checks contact forms when the form plugin is set to use it. Its own list includes Jetpack forms (automatic), Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WPForms, Formidable Forms, Forminator, Ninja Forms and Fluent Forms, each switched on in that plugin's settings.

CleanTalk covers comments, contact forms from a long list of form plugins, user registrations, and WooCommerce fake orders, spam registrations and spam reviews. It also has a Spam FireWall, which stops the most active spam bots before they load your pages at all.

Setup

Both need an account. With Akismet, you connect the site to akismet.com and then turn Akismet on in each form plugin you use. With CleanTalk, you enter an access key and it works across its supported forms. One thing to know: CleanTalk sets a few cookies by default to spot bots, and on sites that use Varnish caching it skips the cache on pages where those cookies are set. A setting turns the cookies off.

Can I use Akismet for free on a business website?

No. Akismet's free keys come with its Personal plan, and Akismet states that they do not support commercial activity. Its examples of commercial activity are:

• ad code such as Google AdSense
• affiliate links
• live chat plugins or services
• promoting a business or service
• a domain recognized as commercial
• accepting donations
• running an e-commerce plugin or platform

Akismet says breaking these terms can lead to immediate suspension without notice. In practice, almost every small business site and every WooCommerce store needs the Pro or Business plan. Qualified nonprofits can apply for a free license, although schools, universities and government bodies do not qualify.

If your business site was set up with a free Akismet key, check which plan that key is on.

What is a good Akismet alternative?

CleanTalk is the closest alternative if you want a cloud filter for every form at a lower price. Antispam Bee is the free alternative if comments are your only problem and you would rather keep visitor data on your own server. It needs no account or key and is free for commercial sites too.

There is a third route: the spam tools built into your form plugin. Modern form builders include some or all of these:

• A honeypot: a hidden field that people never see but bots fill in, which marks the entry as spam.
• Cloudflare Turnstile: a free check from Cloudflare that usually runs without showing visitors a puzzle. Your site does not need to use Cloudflare's network, and Cloudflare says Turnstile does not read form entries.
• Google reCAPTCHA or hCaptcha: challenge services that score or test visitors.

Fluent Forms, for example, offers a honeypot, Turnstile, reCAPTCHA and hCaptcha, and can also pass entries to Akismet or CleanTalk.

Antispam Bee vs Akismet: which is better for privacy?

Antispam Bee is the more private option, because its core checks run on your own server and it needs no account. Akismet sends each commenter's IP address, browser details, referring page and your site address to Automattic's servers, along with the name, email and comment they typed.

Akismet keeps most spam-related data for between two weeks and 90 days, says its servers are located around the world, and covers transfers out of the EU with Standard Contractual Clauses in a data processing addendum available to all users. The plugin can also show a short notice under your comment form telling visitors that Akismet processes their comment data.

CleanTalk receives the visitor's IP address, email address, message text and the value of each form field. It keeps that data for 7 days by default, or 45 days on its extended package, and its servers are in the US and EU. You can choose EU-only storage in your CleanTalk dashboard and exclude form fields from being sent.

Antispam Bee has one detail worth knowing. Three of its checks, all optional and off by default, do contact outside services: the Gravatar check sends a hashed email address to Gravatar, the country check sends a shortened IP address to an IP-location service, and the language check sends the comment text to the plugin team's language service. Leave them off and everything stays on your server.

None of this makes a cloud filter off-limits under the GDPR, but it does mean personal data leaves your site. Name the service in your privacy policy, review its data processing terms, and ask whoever advises you on privacy if you need a firm answer.

Which plugin stops contact form spam, not just comment spam?

CleanTalk and Akismet both stop contact form spam; Antispam Bee does not. Antispam Bee's own documentation says it works best with default WordPress comments, does not protect form plugins and does not stop spam registrations. It also does not work with comment systems that load in a frame, such as Jetpack comments, wpDiscuz or Disqus.

If your site has comments turned off, your contact form is probably where spam arrives, so a comment-only filter will not help. Use CleanTalk, a paid Akismet plan connected to your form plugin, or the form plugin's own honeypot and Turnstile.

For WooCommerce stores, spam also shows up as fake accounts and fake orders. Of the three, CleanTalk is the one that names both in what it blocks.

How do you choose the right spam protection for your site?

Choose by the kind of site you run and where its spam comes from:

• Choose CleanTalk if you run a business site or store with several forms, user registrations or WooCommerce checkout, and want one low-cost subscription that covers all of them.
• Choose Akismet Pro or Business if you already use Jetpack or forms connected to Akismet, are comfortable with pricing by spam checks, or want Automattic running the service.
• Choose Antispam Bee if comments are your only spam source, you want to pay nothing, and keeping visitor data on your server matters most. Pair it with your form plugin's honeypot or Turnstile for the contact form.
• Use Akismet's Personal plan only for a personal blog with no ads, affiliate links, sales or business promotion.

Whichever you pick, use one main filter per form, so it is clear which tool blocked a message, and look through the spam folder now and then for real messages caught by mistake.

Spam is one of many small jobs that keep a WordPress site healthy. If you would rather not watch them yourself, WP Resolve's care plans include weekly updates with visual checks, daily off-site backups, malware scanning and uptime monitoring, from $79 a month with no minimum term. Or start with a free site health check of your updates, backups, security and speed.

Frequently asked questions