Formspree review: a mature form backend with a small free plan

How Formspree works

Formspree handles form submissions for sites without a backend. You create a form in the dashboard, copy its endpoint (formspree.io/f/ followed by a form ID) into your form's action attribute, and each submission is emailed to you, stored in the dashboard and passed to any plugins you have switched on.

Plain HTML forms redirect to a Formspree thank-you page after submitting; a custom redirect to your own page needs Personal or higher. AJAX submissions work too, including cross-origin: send an Accept: application/json header and Formspree returns JSON instead of a page. Formspree also maintains a React library and a CLI that deploys forms from a formspree.json file.

Every plan includes unlimited forms and projects. The limits are on submissions per month, linked emails, archive length, file storage and team members. A system-wide rate limit of 20 posts per minute per form applies on every plan, and AJAX forms that hit it receive a 429 error.

Spam protection

Every plan gets Formshield, which Formspree describes as a machine learning model trained on millions of form submissions. Flagged submissions go to a Spam folder, and marking a submission as spam from the notification email helps train it.

On top of that, the help center documents a _gotcha honeypot field (all plans), Google reCAPTCHA that can be switched off per form or replaced with your own key, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile, and Restrict to Domain, which only accepts submissions from your domain and sends the rest to the spam folder.

Professional adds advanced spam control: three sensitivity settings and category classifiers such as crypto, fraud, drugs, spammy phrases and spammy URLs. Business adds custom honeypot fields and custom spam rules.

• Restrict to Domain relies on the browser's Referer header. Formspree notes that a referrer-policy of no-referrer or same-origin, or the Brave browser, can cause real submissions to be marked as spam.
• Older forms that use an email address in the action URL expose that address to bots; Formspree recommends moving to form ID URLs.

File uploads

File uploads need Personal (1 GB), Professional (5 GB) or Business (10 GB); Free includes 0 GB. Files are stored on Formspree's servers and appear as links in notification emails and as downloads in the dashboard. They are not attached to the email itself.

Each file can be up to 25 MB and the whole request up to 100 MB, and a request must finish within 30 seconds. The help center and system limits page say up to 10 files per submission, while the comparison table on the plans page says 5, so test with your real file count before relying on the higher figure.

The storage quota does not reset monthly. Formspree emails a warning as you approach it, and uploads that push you over the limit cause it to delete files, oldest first.

Dashboard, data retention and the monthly limit

Submissions live in a per-form inbox in the dashboard. Free keeps a 30-day archive; the plans page lists an unlimited archive on every paid plan. Search and CSV or JSON export start on Personal, and reading submissions through the API starts on Professional.

Formspree emails you at 50%, 75% and 90% of your monthly limit and again when you pass it. According to its over-limit help article (updated September 30, 2026), forms keep working for visitors after that point: new submissions are saved to an Over Limit folder without notification emails or plugins. The folder shows previews only, and you reprocess submissions into your inbox once you have room in your limit, at which point they count against that month.

That is better than losing the data, but it means a Free form that passes its cap goes quiet. If the form matters, watch the usage emails or upgrade before the cap.

Email delivery, autoresponses and integrations

Formspree sends notification emails from its own domain. Free can notify up to two linked addresses; paid plans allow unlimited linked emails and multiple recipients per form. Business adds custom email templates and custom sending domains, so notifications and autoresponses can come from your domain without Formspree branding.

If notifications stop arriving, the help center points to the spam folder first, then to an unblock page for addresses its email provider has blocked after a bounce, and notes that Microsoft 365 can quarantine the formspree.io domain.

Autoresponses (a confirmation email to the person who submitted) start on Professional. So do webhooks: simple webhooks, build hooks for services like Netlify, and legacy REST Hooks. Webhooks are signed with HMAC-SHA256 over the timestamp and raw body, sent in a Formspree-Signature header, which lets your endpoint reject replays.

Privacy, security and who runs Formspree

Formspree is operated by Formspree, Inc. Its terms of service are governed by Texas law, and its security page says the service is hosted on Amazon Web Services in the United States, behind a web application firewall.

The security page lists AES-256 encryption at rest for all databases, TLS 1.2 or newer in transit, salted and hashed passwords, least-privilege access with two-factor authentication for critical systems, quarterly access reviews, background checks and a bug bounty program. It also states SOC 2 Type II compliance, with the audit report available from [email protected], GDPR compliance using Standard Contractual Clauses as a data processor, and CCPA rights.

Two things to read before signing up. The privacy policy (last updated April 24, 2022) says Formspree may use account holders' information with advertising partners such as Facebook Custom Audience and Google Customer Match. And account deletion takes up to 24 hours and is irreversible, per the help center.

Support, trials and refunds

The help center has articles on setup, plugins, the API and troubleshooting, plus an AI assistant that cites the articles it uses, with a contact-support link on each page. The plans page lists priority support on Business, and phone support, an SLA and full-service onboarding on Custom. It does not name a support tier for Free, Personal or Professional.

Formspree offers a 14-day free trial of a paid plan on request. Its refund policy is strict: no changes or refunds after a renewal date has passed, with extenuating circumstances reviewed case by case. The terms describe fees as non-cancelable and non-refundable.

How Formspree compares with splitforms

splitforms is a competing form backend and publishes this review. Its Free plan is 500 submissions in total (a one-time allowance, not monthly), with owner email notifications included on every plan. Pro is $5/month for 5,000 submissions a month with signed webhooks, and Annual is $49/year for 15,000 a month.

The free plans are different shapes: Formspree's refills every month, splitforms' does not. Formspree's advantages are its plugin catalog, team features and published SOC 2 Type II report. Compare at your expected monthly volume.