No single form backend is best for every site. Netlify Forms is cheapest if you stay on Netlify, FormSubmit is free with no signup, Web3Forms gives 250 free submissions a month, Formspree has the deepest integrations, and splitforms offers a host-independent endpoint with 500 free submissions (no card, no time limit) and paid plans from $5/month.
No credit card required. Free tier is 500 submissions total with unlimited forms, spam filtering, email notifications, and the full dashboard; signed webhooks and integrations start on Pro at $5/month.
If you want a host-independent endpoint with a real dashboard and paid plans from $5/month, pick splitforms. If you want a long-running brand with a marketing-team UI, Formspree still wins on integration depth. If you want a monthly free allowance for a hobby project, Web3Forms is fine. If your form is the front door of a survey or conversational flow, a builder like Typeform is the better tool.
Among dashboard backends that work on any host, Web3Forms has the largest monthly free allowance we could verify on a vendor page, at 250 submissions a month, while FormSubmit (email only, no dashboard) and Netlify Forms (Netlify-hosted sites only) are unlimited. splitforms Free is 500 submissions in total with no card: more than any monthly cap here in the first month, but it doesn't renew.
Basin Free includes 100 MB of upload storage, Tally Free (a form builder) accepts uploads up to 10 MB per file, and FormSubmit emails attachments from multipart forms up to 10 MB per submission without storing them. Formspree, Web3Forms, FormKeep and splitforms keep file uploads for paid plans.
splitforms keeps submissions with no automatic expiry on every plan, Free included. Formspree, Web3Forms and Basin keep 30 days on Free, FormKeep 1 month, and FormSubmit 30 days that you can only read through its API.
Every endpoint backend in this table, splitforms included, accepts a POST from a form on any host: Vercel, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, WordPress or plain HTML. Netlify Forms is the exception: it only works on sites deployed to Netlify, because Netlify detects the form when the site builds.
Each row links the vendor page its numbers came from and the date we checked it (September 27, 2026 to October 2, 2026 for the sourced rows). Where we couldn't verify a number, the cell points you to the vendor's pricing page instead of guessing. Want a recommendation instead of a table? Read our best free form backend guide. If a number looks wrong, email [email protected] and we'll correct it.
| Backend | Free tier | Cheapest paid | Free history | File uploads | Webhooks | Multiple forms | Spam protection | Source · checked | Last changed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| splitforms YOU ARE HERE | 500 total, no card, unlimited forms | $5/mo (Pro, 5,000/mo) or $49/yr (Annual, 15,000/mo) | No automatic expiry | Paid only | Paid only | Unlimited | Automatic spam scoring + honeypot | splitforms.com | Pricing set September 28, 2026 |
| Formspree | 50 submissions/month, unlimited forms | Personal: $15/month, or $10/month billed yearly (200/month) | 30 days | Paid only | Paid only | Unlimited | Honeypot + reCAPTCHA | formspree.io | No change since May 22, 2025 |
| Web3Forms | 250 submissions/month, unlimited forms | Pro: $149/year, about $12/month billed yearly (10,000/month) | 30 days | Paid only | Paid only | Unlimited | hCaptcha + honeypot | web3forms.com | Seen January 4, 2026 |
| Forminit (Getform) | 100 submissions/month, 1 form | Pro: $15.83/month billed yearly (5,000/month) | — | Yes | Yes | Limited | Honeypot + CAPTCHA | forminit.com | Not tracked before September 27, 2026 |
| Basin | 50 submissions/month, 1 form | Starter: $12.50/month billed yearly, $15 monthly (250/month, 3 forms) | 30 days | Yes | Paid only | Limited | Honeypot + Akismet | usebasin.com | Seen May 16, 2026 |
| Netlify Forms | Unlimited on credit-based plans (Netlify-hosted sites only) | No separate Forms price; Personal hosting is $9/month | — | Yes | Yes | Multiple | Honeypot + reCAPTCHA | docs.netlify.com | Changed April 14, 2026 |
| FormSubmit | Unlimited submissions, no signup, no dashboard | No paid plans | 30 days (API, 5 reads/day) | Email only | Yes | Unlimited | reCAPTCHA + honeypot | formsubmit.co | Seen February 21, 2026 |
| Formcarry | 50 submissions/month, 1 form | Starter: $5/month billed yearly, $6 monthly (500/month) | — | Yes | Yes | Multiple | Honeypot + CAPTCHA | formcarry.com | Not tracked before September 27, 2026 |
| Formspark | 250 submissions total (never expire), 10 forms | $25 one-time for 50,000 submissions (list price $50) | — | Paid bundle | Paid bundle | Multiple | Honeypot | formspark.io | Not tracked before October 2, 2026 |
| FormKeep | 50 submissions/month | Essential: $4.99/month (1,000/month) | 1 month | Yes | Yes | Multiple | CAPTCHA + honeypot | formkeep.com | Not tracked before October 2, 2026 |
| Static Forms | 250/mo (our July 2026 research) | See Static Forms pricing page | — | Paid only | Paid only | Unlimited | reCAPTCHA v2 | staticforms.dev | Not tracked |
| FormBold | 100 submissions/month, 5 forms | Starter: $6/month billed yearly (3,000/month) | — | Yes | Yes | Multiple | Honeypot + CAPTCHA | formbold.com | Not tracked before September 27, 2026 |
| Typeform | 10 responses/month | Basic: $39/month, or $28/month billed yearly (100 responses/month) | — | Yes | Yes | Limited | CAPTCHA | typeform.com | Not tracked before October 2, 2026 |
| Jotform | 100/mo, 5 forms | $39/mo, or $34/mo billed yearly (Bronze, 1,000/mo) | — | Yes | Yes | Limited | CAPTCHA | jotform.com | Not tracked |
| Google Forms | Unlimited via Sheets | Free | — | Yes | No | Unlimited | None native | google.com | Not tracked |
| Tally | Unlimited forms and submissions (fair use) | Pro from $24/month | — | Yes | Yes | Unlimited | Honeypot, minimal on free | tally.so | No change since August 18, 2026 |
Static Forms figures come from our own July 2026 research; its pricing page blocks automated checks. Click any competitor name to read the full splitforms vs X head-to-head, including a migration walkthrough.
Download this dataset: JSON / CSV (same rows, sources and dates as this table).
No single backend is best for everyone. Here's an honest breakdown of which one wins for each common scenario — including the cases where splitforms isn't the right answer.
Astro, Hugo, Eleventy, plain HTML — both use a form action endpoint. splitforms includes a dashboard on Free and webhooks on paid plans; Web3Forms includes 30 days of submission history on Free.
Indie SaaS forms often need webhooks, file uploads, and a searchable dashboard. splitforms includes the dashboard on Free and unlocks delivery features on paid plans; compare exact allowances before choosing.
If you need a drag-and-drop builder, branching logic, conditional questions, and 10,000+ pre-built templates, you want a form builder, not a form backend. splitforms is built for the developer who'd rather POST to an endpoint — wrong tool for a non-technical operator.
splitforms' Annual plan covers 15,000 submissions/month for $49/year (about $4.08/month). Formspree Business covers 20,000/month and Basin Agency 25,000/month; compare support and delivery guarantees too.
Web3Forms' free tier is 250 submissions/month with unlimited forms, hCaptcha, and 30 days of history. splitforms includes 500 total with no automatic expiry and spam filtering; paid plans adds signed webhooks and retained file uploads.
splitforms Pro is $5/mo for 5,000 submissions/month and Annual is $49/year for 15,000/month, both with no per-form cap. At full use that is $1.00 and $0.27 per 1,000 submissions. Competitor prices vary by billing cycle, so verify current pricing and included features before comparing.
Forminit documents Webflow setup in its framework guides. splitforms works on Webflow as a regular form action URL with no plugin, a lower current entry price, no per-form caps, and 3 team seats on Pro and Annual.
If your job is an internal team survey, classroom quiz, or event RSVP where Google Sheets is the natural destination, Google Forms is free for unlimited submissions and ships in two minutes. splitforms isn't trying to compete with that — it's the wrong tool for an internal survey.
Each card links to the full splitforms-vs-X comparison — pricing tables, feature gaps, common pain points, and a step-by-step migration walkthrough.
Long-running form backend with a marketing-team-friendly UI and a tightly-capped free tier.
Developer form backend with 250 free monthly submissions, unlimited forms, and 30 days of submission history.
Getform rebranded to Forminit in 2026; the current service includes file uploads, an unlimited free submission archive, and Zapier.
Form backend with a Slack-first workflow and a UI tuned for non-technical operators.
Form handling bundled with Netlify hosting — only works on Netlify-hosted sites.
Free email-only form forwarder with no signup and no dashboard — pure mailto-style relay for static sites.
Form backend with a built-in autoresponder UI and a CAPTCHA widget for marketing-team workflows.
Minimalist form backend with non-expiring, prepaid submission bundles.
Long-running hosted form endpoint with a form designer, a small free plan and low-cost paid tiers that include a fixed number of forms.
Email-first form backend with dashboard storage and high-volume paid plans.
Form backend with native one-click connectors for Notion, Airtable, and Telegram.
Conversational, one-question-at-a-time form builder with branching logic, a polished hosted UI, and a tightly-capped free tier.
Long-running drag-and-drop form builder with 10,000+ templates and a feature-rich hosted UI for non-technical operators.
Free Google Workspace form builder with unlimited submissions to Google Sheets — designed for internal surveys and classroom use, not for developer-driven product workflows.
Notion-style form builder with an unusually generous free tier and a hosted UI tuned for non-technical operators.
A form backend is a hosted HTTP endpoint that receives POSTs from your existing HTML form, then handles the boring parts you'd otherwise build yourself: storing the submission, filtering spam, sending an email notification, firing webhooks to downstream tools, validating fields, accepting file uploads, and exposing a dashboard you can search. You write standard HTML — <form action="https://splitforms.com/api/submit" method="POST"><input type="hidden" name="access_key" value="YOUR_KEY"> — and the backend takes it from there. The form itself lives on your domain, your CSS, your analytics; only the submission traffic leaves your site.
Form backends are different from form builders. A form builder (Typeform, Jotform, Google Forms, Tally) hosts the form's entire UI on its own domain and gives you a drag-and-drop editor; you embed an iframe or send respondents to a third-party URL. Form builders are aimed at non-technical operators who want a visual editor and pre-built templates. Form backends are aimed at developers who already have HTML they like and just need somewhere reliable to send the submissions.
The category emerged in the mid-2010s as static-site generators (Jekyll, Hugo, later Astro and Eleventy) made server-rendered backends optional for many sites, but forms still needed somewhere to POST. Modern form backends like splitforms add features the original generation didn't have: signed webhooks (HMAC-SHA256), automatic spam scoring, owner email notifications, retained uploads on paid plans, an open REST API, and an MCP server for AI agents. Pricing has compressed too — entry paid tiers now cost a few dollars a month, far below the original enterprise-shaped plans.
Look for unlimited forms, team seats, webhooks and exports. Formspree includes unlimited forms on every plan, Basin and Web3Forms offer agency tiers, and splitforms includes unlimited forms on every plan and 3 team seats on Pro and Annual.
Check three things: the documented rate limits, what happens at the plan cap (a clear error like HTTP 429 is better than a silent drop), and whether submissions are stored before the email goes out. splitforms stores every accepted submission first and returns 429 when a limit is hit.
splitforms includes a hosted MCP server with 12 tools on every plan, including Free. Some other vendors now document MCP support too, so check their docs for the current state.
Compare the top published allowances: Formspree Business covers 20,000 a month, Web3Forms Agency & Team 20,000, Basin Agency 25,000, and the splitforms Annual plan 15,000 a month ($49/year), with a Business plan above that.
Point your form's action at a hosted form backend and add its access key; the service stores each response and emails you. See our guide to a contact form without a backend.
There is no single cheapest option for every workload. Netlify's current credit plans include unlimited form submissions when the site stays on Netlify, FormSubmit is free with no signup but has no dashboard, and several services offer free plans. splitforms paid plans are $5/mo Pro (5,000/month) or $49/year Annual (15,000/month) on a host-independent endpoint — $1.00 and $0.27 per 1,000 submissions at full use.
They're built for different workflows. Formspree is a long-running form backend with a mature submissions UI and 50 free submissions per month. Web3Forms gives 250/month, unlimited forms, hCaptcha, and 30 days of submission history on Free. splitforms gives 500 free submissions with no card and no time limit, smart spam filtering, and searchable history with no automatic expiry on any plan.
Yes, but verify the license, maintenance model, email provider, storage, and abuse controls before choosing one. Some newer services advertise self-hosting, and open-source projects or a small application route are alternatives to a hosted backend. A hosted endpoint remains simpler when you do not want to operate deliverability, spam filtering, storage, and incident response.
The Annual plan is $49/year (about $4.08/month) for 15,000 submissions per month with every Pro feature, billed once a year. Pro is $5/month for 5,000 a month. Neither is a lifetime plan.
If your form is on a static site (Astro, Hugo, Eleventy, plain HTML, Webflow, Carrd) or any host that doesn't run server-side code by default, yes — a form backend is the simplest way to receive submissions without standing up your own API. If you already run a Next.js, Rails, or Laravel app with email sending wired in, you can write a 20-line route handler and skip the backend service.
If your existing form already saves submissions and you only need spam filtering, look at hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile, or a server-side honeypot — those are a few lines of code and free for typical traffic. A form backend like splitforms includes spam filtering, but the rest of the product (storage, dashboard, webhooks, deliverability) only matters if you need those too.
Endpoint-based form services usually migrate with an action-URL and access-key change, followed by production testing and webhook reconfiguration. Hosted builders such as Typeform, Jotform, Google Forms, and Tally require rebuilding or exporting the form UI; they are not one-line migrations.
Choose by constraints, not one headline number. FormSubmit is free and unlimited with no dashboard; Web3Forms gives 250 submissions a month; Netlify's current credit plans include unlimited form submissions but require Netlify hosting; splitforms gives 500 free submissions with no card and no time limit (a total, not a monthly allowance), with a dashboard and MCP support, and signed delivery on paid plans.
Endpoint services such as splitforms, Formspree, Web3Forms, Forminit (formerly Getform), Basin, Formcarry, and Formspark work with forms rendered by those stacks. Hosted builders such as Typeform and Jotform use links or embeds instead. Netlify Forms requires Netlify hosting; splitforms is host-independent.
A form backend (splitforms, Formspree, Web3Forms, Forminit, Basin) accepts POSTs from your existing HTML form, then stores submissions, sends emails, and fires webhooks — the form lives on your domain. A form builder (Typeform, Jotform, Google Forms, Tally) hosts the form itself on its own domain and handles the entire UI; you embed an iframe or send respondents to a typeform.com or docs.google.com URL. Backends are for developers, builders are for non-technical operators.
Free tier covers 500 submissions total with unlimited forms, spam filtering, email notifications, and the full dashboard. Pro is $5/mo for 5,000 submissions per month and adds paid features; Annual is $49/year for 15,000 a month. No credit card required to start.
