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Receive your contact form by email, without a server

A contact form needs something behind it to send each message. A site made of plain files has no server to do that, so the form hands every message to a service that emails it to you. Web3Forms is one of those services, and it has a free plan.

Time
5 minutes
Cost
Free, up to 250 messages a month

The steps below were written for a site made with Promti, where the key goes into the wizard, and where the form offers your email address instead if there’s no key or a message fails to send. On any other static site, the form posts to Web3Forms’ address and carries the key in a hidden field named access_key; their homepage shows the code.

It’s quick to set up, and up to 250 messages a month cost nothing. Below: what the free plan includes, how to keep spam out, what your privacy page should say, and what to check when a message doesn’t turn up.

Before you start

  • The inbox where messages should arrive, open on your phone or computer: Web3Forms verifies that address before it gives you a key.
  • On a form you built yourself, a name attribute on every field — Web3Forms only reads fields that have one.
  • A thank-you page on your site, if you’d rather send people there after they write; the free plan allows it.
  • Your privacy page, or notes for it: the form collects names and email addresses.

Step by step: receive your form’s messages by email

  1. Go to web3forms.com and click Create your form.
  2. Sign up for the free plan with the email address where you want the messages, and confirm it from the email they send.
  3. Create a form and copy its access key, a long code of letters and numbers. Paste it here.

At the end: Every message sent from your site’s form lands in that inbox. The key can be public: all it lets anyone do is send you a message.

What’s free, and when you’d pay

The free plan takes 250 submissions a month across unlimited forms and domains, with spam protection, hCaptcha and your own redirect page. Each form sends to one address, and the dashboard keeps 30 days of history.

At 90% and again at 100% of the limit, Web3Forms emails you a warning. Past it, new submissions are refused until the next month, so a busy month can leave messages undelivered.

Seen from Spain, the pricing page lists Pro at €16 a month, or €13 a month billed yearly (€158), for 10,000 submissions, with file uploads, auto-replies, more recipients, reCAPTCHA or Turnstile, and restriction to your domains. Agency costs €41 a month, or €423 a year, for 20,000. Students, early startups and non-profits can apply for a €52 yearly plan with 5,000 submissions but no file uploads or auto-replies. Taxes are added at checkout.

Keeping spam out

Web3Forms checks every submission for spam on its own servers. For more, its docs recommend a captcha: hCaptcha works on the free plan, while reCAPTCHA and Cloudflare Turnstile need Pro. The same docs admit hCaptcha can be awkward for people to solve, so add it when spam starts rather than before.

A hidden honeypot field is still supported, but Web3Forms now calls it deprecated and less effective than a captcha.

Your access key sits in the page’s code, where anyone can read it. Web3Forms says that’s expected: the key isn’t a secret, only an alias for your address. On Pro you can restrict it to your own domains.

What your privacy page should say about the form

A name and an email address are personal data, so the GDPR asks you to tell people, when you collect them, who you are, why you want them, how long you’ll keep them, who else receives them and what their rights are (article 13).

Web3Forms is one of those recipients. Its data processing agreement makes it your processor, says it operates from India and relies on the EU’s standard contractual clauses for transfers, and keeps submissions for up to three years unless you set a shorter period for a form. It also lists the services it uses, among them two spam filters in the United States that receive the sender’s IP and email address.

Spanish law lets you put the essentials by the form — who you are, the purpose, and that people have rights — with a link to the full text (LOPDGDD, article 11).

When a message doesn’t arrive

Messages normally land within seconds, occasionally a minute or two later. If one is missing, look in the spam folder first; Web3Forms says Outlook and Hotmail addresses are the most likely to put it there.

If your inbox bounces a message, Web3Forms may stop sending to that address, so use one that works and has room.

Once the site is live, send yourself a test from a phone and another from a computer: that’s how you know the whole path works.

Questions

Do I need an account?
Yes, a free one. Web3Forms verifies your email address before giving you a key, and signing up includes agreeing that they may contact you for marketing.
Can messages go to more than one address?
Not on the free plan, which sends each form to a single address. Paid plans raise that: up to five recipients on Pro and ten on Agency.
Can people attach files, or get an automatic reply?
Both are paid features: file uploads and auto-replies start with Pro.
What happens if the service fails?
The message can’t be delivered, so it’s worth showing your email address as a fallback near the form.
Is Web3Forms the only option?
No. Other form services work the same way, and a plain email link needs no service at all, though it opens the visitor’s mail app instead of sending from the page.