Skip to content
Formwire

Getting started

Five steps, no SDK. If your site can render an HTML form, it can use Formwire.

1. Create a form

Section titled “1. Create a form”

Sign in at app.formwire.com. Your first workspace is created for you and your sign-in address is verified as its first linked email, so it can receive submissions straight away.

Choose Create form, give it a name and the site it lives on, and pick who gets the email. A form doesn’t need a recipient: leave them out and submissions are only stored for the dashboard, the API and MCP.

2. Copy the access key

Section titled “2. Copy the access key”

The access key is on the form’s Settings tab, under General, with Copy and Rotate beside it. The key is a public ID: it can only deliver submissions to you, so it’s safe to ship in your HTML and commit to a repo. If a key is ever abused, rotate it; the old key keeps working for seven days so live sites can be updated.

3. Paste the form

Section titled “3. Paste the form”

Point the form’s action at https://formwire.io/submit and add the key as a hidden access_key field. The form’s Fields tab writes this code for you, with your key filled in. Adding fields there is optional: the form accepts any field it sends, and listing one only sets its label, its order and the code written for it. Field names are up to you; name, email and phone are recognised as the sender’s details, and a few option fields such as subject and redirect change how the email and the thank-you page behave. The submit endpoint reference lists all of them.

<form action="https://formwire.io/submit" method="POST">
  <input type="hidden" name="access_key" value="YOUR-ACCESS-KEY" />
  <input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="https://example.com/thanks" />


  <label>Name <input type="text" name="name" /></label>
  <label>Email <input type="email" name="email" required /></label>
  <label>Message <textarea name="message" required></textarea></label>


  <!-- Spam trap: keep it off-screen and empty. Bots fill it in; people never see it. -->
  <input type="text" name="fax" tabindex="-1" autocomplete="off" style="position:absolute;left:-9999px" aria-hidden="true" />


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

The fax input is the form’s honeypot. Keep it hidden and empty: a submission that fills it in lands in the Spam folder and nobody is emailed. You can rename it under Settings, Spam & security; the code on the Fields tab always uses the current name.

4. Send a test

Section titled “4. Send a test”

Submit the form from your page, or use Send test submission on the Fields tab, which stores a sample submission and sends the notification without counting toward your monthly usage. A JSON caller gets this back:

Response
{
  "success": true,
  "message": "Submission received.",
  "data": {
    "submission_id": "7c1e9b2a-4f3d-4e8a-9b1c-2d5f6a7b8c9d",
    "name": "Ada Lovelace",
    "email": "ada@example.com",
    "message": "Hello from fetch"
  }
}

A plain HTML post is answered with a redirect instead: to your redirect URL if you set one, otherwise to a hosted thank-you page.

5. See it in the inbox

Section titled “5. See it in the inbox”

Every confirmed recipient gets an email within seconds. The submission also appears on the form’s Submissions tab, where you can search, star, archive and export it as CSV, and each submission shows whether its email and webhooks went out.

To copy more people in, choose Add CC or BCC under Send submissions to in the form’s Settings › Email. CC and BCC addresses are linked emails too, so each one confirms before it receives anything.

Submissions are kept for 30 days and then deleted for good. Change that under Settings › Files & data › Keep submissions for, from 7 days up to a year. Spam is always cleared after 30 days.

Where your data is stored

Section titled “Where your data is stored”

Each workspace keeps its submissions in one region, the United States or the European Union. You choose it when you create the workspace (on the welcome page, or with Create workspace in the workspace menu). Every plan includes both regions. A workspace’s region can’t be changed later; to move, create a workspace in the other region. Settings, Workspace shows which region a workspace uses, and so does GET /workspace in the API.

In an EU workspace, submissions, their uploaded files and their nightly backups are stored only in Cloudflare’s EU jurisdiction. Your account, forms and settings are stored in the United States for every workspace, and notification emails are sent through Amazon SES in the United States.

Where next

Section titled “Where next”