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Formwire vs FormSubmit: an honest comparison

For developers deciding between FormSubmit and Formwire, or switching from one to the other. Every FormSubmit fact below comes from their site, checked 14 October 2026.

FormSubmit is a free form-to-email service with no sign-up. You point a form at https://formsubmit.co/you@example.com, confirm the address once, and submissions arrive by email. Behaviour is controlled with underscore fields such as _next, _subject, _cc and _webhook. There is no paid plan listed.

Formwire is a form backend with the same one-line setup: point a form at https://formwire.io/submit with a hidden access_key, and the submission is stored, emailed, checked for spam and sent to your webhooks.

Plan	FormSubmit	Formwire
Free plan	Free, unlimited forms and submissions stated, 30-day retention via the API	250 submissions a month, soft limit
Entry plan	No paid plan listed	Pro, $12 a month billed yearly ($149 a year): 10,000 submissions. See pricing

FormSubmit prices from formsubmit.co/, checked 14 October 2026.

What FormSubmit does well

No account at all. Point the form at your address, click the confirmation email, and you're done.
Free with no stated submission cap, including reCAPTCHA by default, a redirect, CC, an autoresponder, a webhook and uploads up to 10 MB.
Everything is a hidden field, so a whole form can be configured from the HTML with no dashboard.

Switching

Switching is one line

FormSubmit puts your email address in the action. Formwire keeps the address in the dashboard and ships a public access key in the HTML instead, so your inbox isn't in the page source.

Before, with FormSubmit


                    1
                    <form action="https://formsubmit.co/you@example.com" method="POST">
                  
                    2
                      <input type="email" name="email" required />
                  
                    3
                      <textarea name="message"></textarea>
                  
                    4
                      <button>Send</button>
                  
                    5
                    </form>

After, with Formwire


                    1
                    <form action="https://formwire.io/submit" method="POST">
                  
                    2
                      <input type="hidden" name="access_key" value="YOUR-ACCESS-KEY" />
                  
                    3
                      <input type="email" name="email" required />
                  
                    4
                      <textarea name="message"></textarea>
                  
                    5
                      <button>Send</button>
                  
                    6
                    </form>

Features

Formwire and FormSubmit, feature by feature

Plan names and limits are FormSubmit's own, from formsubmit.co/ on 14 October 2026. Tell us if something has changed.

Feature	Formwire	FormSubmit
Plans
Free submissions a month	250 a month, soft limits	Unlimited stated, with technical limits applied at times to filter bots
Entry paid plan	Pro, $12 a month billed yearly ($149 a year): 10,000 submissions	None listed
Soft limits	Yes. Forms keep accepting submissions past the limit	Partly. No numeric limit published
Submissions
Submission inbox	Yes. Search, filters, starred, spam, archive, trash with 30-day restore	No. No dashboard; the last 30 days are readable over the API
CSV export	Yes. Every plan	No. Not offered; JSON over the API
Read API	Yes. Read API with API keys, every plan	Partly. Yes, 5 requests a day, 30-day retention
File uploads	Yes. Virus-scanned, 10 MB a file, 25 MB a submission, 5 GB storage, on Pro	Partly. 10 MB combined per submission; files are emailed, not stored
Delivery
Webhooks	Yes. Signed, retried, with a delivery log, on Pro	Partly. _webhook field posts the form data; no signing or retries documented
Slack, Sheets, Zapier	Yes. Slack, Discord, Telegram, Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, n8n, Notion and Airtable, on Pro	Partly. Via the webhook only
Autoresponder	Yes. HTML confirmation email to the visitor, on Pro	Partly. _autoresponse; not with AJAX or with reCAPTCHA off
Multiple recipients	Yes. Up to 10 per form with CC and BCC, on Pro	Yes. _cc with comma-separated addresses
Redirect URL	Yes. Hidden redirect field, every plan	Yes. _next field
Spam and AI
Spam protection	Yes. Honeypot, spam scoring, blocked words and rate limits on every form; allowed domains on Pro	Yes. reCAPTCHA on by default, _honey honeypot, _blacklist phrases
Captcha options	Yes. hCaptcha on every plan; Turnstile and reCAPTCHA on Pro	Partly. reCAPTCHA only; turning it off may bring technical limits
MCP server, AI builder support	Yes. MCP server and llms.txt	No. Not listed

When FormSubmit is the better choice

You want a form working in a minute with no account and no dashboard.
You never need to look at past submissions, only the emails.
Your form has high volume and you want no published cap at all.

When Formwire is the better choice

You want to keep your email address out of the page source.
You need an inbox: search, spam folder, archive, trash with restore, CSV export and a read API without a daily request cap.
You want signed webhooks that retry and log each delivery, or Slack, Discord, Sheets and Zapier without wiring them yourself.
You want hCaptcha rather than reCAPTCHA, or to build with AI tools over MCP.

Migration

Moving a form from FormSubmit

Four steps, in order. The form keeps working at every step.

1
Create a form in Formwire with the address you used in the FormSubmit action, and copy its access key.
2
Change the action to https://formwire.io/submit and add the hidden access_key input.
3
Replace the underscore fields: _next becomes redirect, _subject becomes subject, _cc becomes recipients in the dashboard, and _webhook becomes a webhook in the dashboard. Drop _captcha, and rename _honey to fax, Formwire's honeypot field.
4
Send a test submission and check it in the inbox. There is nothing to export from FormSubmit, so the switch is complete.

FAQ

FormSubmit and Formwire, asked plainly

Also compare Formwire with Formspree and Web3Forms .

Is Formwire free like FormSubmit?

Formwire's Free plan has 250 submissions a month with a soft limit, and the inbox, CSV export and the read API. Pro, from $12 a month, adds 10,000 submissions, uploads, webhooks and integrations. FormSubmit publishes no cap but may apply technical limits to filter bots.

Do I have to create an account?

Yes, Formwire needs a sign-up to give you a dashboard, an inbox and an access key. FormSubmit works without one. The account is what lets Formwire keep your address out of your HTML.

What replaces FormSubmit's underscore fields?

_next becomes a hidden redirect field, _subject becomes subject, and _replyto is handled by the visitor's email field. _cc, _webhook and _autoresponse move into the form's settings in the dashboard. _captcha isn't needed, and _honey becomes the fax honeypot field.

Can I see old submissions after switching?

Formwire keeps every submission in the inbox for the form's retention window (30 days on Free, up to 365 on Pro) and exports to CSV. FormSubmit's last 30 days are readable over its API, five requests a day, so copy anything you need before you switch.