Forms, bookings and shop
Put a working contact form on a static site
A website made of files can show a form. It cannot do anything when somebody presses Send, because there is nothing on the other end. That is why "add a contact form to a static site" usually means signing up for a second company, pasting their code into your page, and living inside their free-tier ceiling with their name on your thank-you page.
Here the form is an app on your own site. One switch, one block, and the messages arrive in two places you already have.
Switching it on
Your site → Apps → Forms, and pick a level. Then open the editor, add a Form section to a page, and publish. The form is live at that moment.
Forms is never included with a design. Every site buys it, on purpose: a form on a page nobody paid for would be a form that quietly does nothing, and a contact form that swallows enquiries is worse than no contact form at all.
What you can ask for
Up to twelve questions on a form. Each one is a question in your own words and an answer type: text, email, phone, long text, a list of choices, or yes/no. You mark each one required or not.
You also write the heading, the supporting line, the wording on the button, and the thank-you message.
One more setting decides what the form is for — contact, newsletter, RSVP or quote. That is not decoration: it is how your Inbox groups things, so a hundred newsletter sign-ups do not bury the one person asking for a quote.
Where the messages go
Your site's Inbox, in the portal. Everything lands there, always.
Your email. The notification goes to your account's address, and the reply-to is set to whoever wrote in — so pressing Reply on your phone writes to your customer rather than to us, with no address to copy out of the body.
If a site starts taking more email than you want, you can turn the notification off for that site on the same Apps page. The Inbox still gets every single one.
What the person who wrote in sees
Your own thank-you message, on your own address. The page carries no branding of ours — it is your website, and our name has no business on it.
The form also works with JavaScript turned off, because a form that needs a script to submit is a form that fails for somebody.
Telling them it arrived
There is an acknowledgement you can switch on — Apps → Forms. It is off until you turn it on, because it sends mail to a member of the public in your name, and that is your decision rather than ours.
When it is on, the note goes out from your business's name, and replies to it come to you. You can edit the subject and the wording; the words it ships with promise nothing about when you will answer, which is deliberate — a promise the software made is still a promise you have to keep.
It is sent only when the form actually asked for an email address, and never to anything judged to be spam.
Spam
A suspect message is kept and marked, never thrown away. A filter that silently eats a real enquiry is worse for you than one you can glance at and dismiss.
- Obvious spam is stored in the Inbox with the reason, and is not emailed to you.
- A borderline one is forwarded with a line saying why it was flagged, so you can judge.
How long messages are kept
180 days, then they are deleted. You can export the lot as a spreadsheet from the Inbox at any time, so anything you need to keep longer is yours to keep.
What it costs
| Level | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 99¢ a month | Five forms, 250 messages a month |
| Studio | $4.99 a month | Twenty-five forms, 2,000 messages a month, file uploads |
| Unlimited | $10.99 a month | As many forms as you like, file uploads |
That is on top of the site's own 99¢ a month. Add-ons ride the same schedule as the site — a yearly site's Forms is billed yearly — and appear as their own line on Billing. Turning Forms off stops the form working on the published site; the messages you already have stay in the portal and stay exportable.
Against the usual alternative
| A separate form service | Forms here | |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts to hold | Two | One |
| Where the visitor's message is sent | Another company's address | Your own |
| Where replies go | Wherever you configured | Your inbox, reply-to the sender |
| Branding on the thank-you page | Usually theirs | None |
Forms, Bookings and Shop covers the other two apps — a diary people can ask for a time in, and a shop that pays into your own Stripe account. If you are arriving from somewhere else, moving your site here is the page to read first.
Every design in the gallery can carry a form, so the one you choose is a question of looks rather than features.