Connecting your HTML form

This page lays out exactly what FormPost does and what it does not. All you need is a form in your HTML and the address we show you once you have created the form.

Ready in three steps

1. Create a form

Sign in and create a form. You give it a name, choose the recipient address and enter the domain the form will live on. We then show you your own address, in the shape of https://www.formpost.eu/f/abc123.

2. Add the address

Put that address into your form's action attribute and set the method to POST. Nothing else on your website has to change.

3. Send a test

Your form's detail page carries a test form that triggers a real submission without touching your website. Once the email arrives, you are done.

The bare bones

This form is enough. Replace abc123 with your own form's identifier.

<form action="https://www.formpost.eu/f/abc123" method="POST">
  <label for="email">Email</label>
  <input type="email" id="email" name="email" required>

  <label for="message">Message</label>
  <textarea id="message" name="message" required></textarea>

  <input type="text" name="_gotcha" style="display:none;" tabindex="-1" autocomplete="off">

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

Every field with a name attribute is stored and listed in the notification email. You choose the names yourself – calling the text area message, nachricht or enquiry makes no difference to us. Only names starting with an underscore are reserved for FormPost.

Field names and special cases

_gotcha
The hidden spam field. People never see it and leave it empty; automated scripts fill in everything they find. If it arrives filled in, the submission goes to the spam folder instead of your inbox. Leave it in the form.
email
Not required, but worth having: without a sender address you cannot reply to an enquiry. Add required and the browser checks the input before anything is sent.
All other fields
Text fields, dropdowns, checkboxes, multi-line text – everything is taken over and shown in the email and in the dashboard. File attachments are not supported at present.

What happens after sending

Your visitors land on a FormPost confirmation page with a button back to your website. On the Pro plan you can write the text of that page yourself, per form. At the same time the notification goes to the address you configured, and the submission appears in your dashboard.

If the arithmetic question is switched on for the form, an intermediate page with a simple addition appears before the confirmation page. It runs on our own servers; no external captcha service is embedded and nothing is sent to Google.

Static sites, WordPress and site builders

Static sites

On GitHub Pages, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, Hugo or Jekyll there is no server to accept a form. That is exactly what FormPost is for: paste in the HTML block above and you are done.

WordPress

Add a "Custom HTML" block in the editor and put the form inside it. You then need no form plugin – and therefore no plugin to keep updated.

Builders such as Wix, Squarespace or Webflow

These systems all have an element for custom HTML or an embed widget. The form works there in the same way. Just make sure the domain you entered matches the address the page will actually be served from.

Understanding domain binding

Every form is bound to a domain. With each submission we check which page it came from and reject anything that does not match. That way nobody can copy your form address out of the source and send you messages from somewhere else.

  • example.com and www.example.com always count as the same site.
  • Other subdomains such as shop.example.com are allowed only if you enter them – or, on the Pro plan, if you allow all subdomains for the form.
  • Testing from your hard drive or from a preview without a real domain will be rejected. Use the test form in your account for that.

What FormPost cannot do today

So that you know before signing up rather than after.

  • Forms are submitted the classic way, meaning the page changes. Sending in the background via JavaScript is not supported at present.
  • We do not accept file attachments.
  • Webhooks and a REST API are planned for the Business plan but not available yet.
  • FormPost does not collect consent from your visitors. The notice in your own privacy policy remains your job – the wording for it is waiting, ready to copy, next to your form.

Create a form and try it

The Free plan covers one form with ten notifications a day and costs nothing, permanently.

Sign up for free See the plans