FAQ

Common questions, answered. Jump to the section that fits your situation.

Getting started
Plans and usage
Forms and submissions
Spam and security
Email notifications
Integrations and webhooks
Data, export, and privacy

Getting started

Do I need a backend or server to use Formtorch?

No. Point your form’s action attribute to your Formtorch endpoint and you’re done. Formtorch handles storage, spam filtering, notifications, and webhook delivery for you. No server, no SDK, no custom route handlers needed.

What frameworks and platforms does Formtorch work with?

All of them. Formtorch works with plain HTML, React, Next.js, Astro, Vue, Svelte, Webflow, Framer, and any other frontend that can send an HTTP request. There’s no framework-specific SDK required.

How do I integrate Formtorch with my form?

Add your Formtorch endpoint as the action attribute on any HTML form, or call it via fetch() from any frontend. It’s a single attribute change with nothing extra to install.


<form action="https://formtorch.com/f/YOUR-FORM-ID" method="POST">
  <input type="text" name="name" />
  <input type="email" name="email" />
  <button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>

Your first submission can be live in under a minute.

What happens after a form is submitted?

Formtorch stores the submission, runs spam detection, then fires any configured actions: an email notification to your team, a webhook to your endpoint, and a custom redirect for the user. Every step is logged and visible in your dashboard .

Plans and usage

What counts as a submission?

A submission is any successful form send to your Formtorch endpoint (/f/{formId}). Submission quotas reset at the start of each calendar month.

Do spam or test submissions count toward my quota?

No. Submissions flagged as spam by TorchWarden and test submissions sent with _test=true are not counted toward your monthly quota. Both are still stored in your dashboard so you can review them.

What happens if I exceed my monthly submission limit?

It depends on your plan:

Free: New submissions pause once the monthly limit is reached. Upgrade at any time to continue immediately.
Starter and Pro: Submissions keep flowing. Additional usage is billed as overage, and you’ll get a heads-up email before you hit the limit.

Can I change plans or cancel anytime?

Yes. Upgrade, downgrade, or cancel from your account settings whenever you want. Upgrades take effect immediately. Downgrades and cancellations apply at the end of the current billing cycle.

Forms and submissions

How many fields can a form have?

There’s no hard limit. Formtorch accepts any number of named fields. That said, forms with a tight, focused field set tend to perform better for both conversion and spam filtering.

Can I redirect users to a custom page after submission?

Yes, on all plans. Add a hidden _redirect field to your form pointing to any URL you want:


<input type="hidden" name="_redirect" value="https://yoursite.com/thank-you" />

Users who submit via a standard HTML form will be sent to that URL. JSON/AJAX submitters receive a response object they can act on themselves.

Can I use the same form endpoint on multiple sites?

Yes. A single form endpoint works fine across multiple domains. If you want to track which site a submission came from, add a hidden _formName field with a unique label per site:


<input type="hidden" name="_formName" value="Marketing Site - Contact" />

That label appears in the dashboard alongside the submission data.

How do I send a test submission without it counting toward my quota?

Add _test=true to your form payload. Test submissions are stored in the dashboard (visible in the Submissions tab with a test badge) but don’t count against your monthly quota and don’t trigger email notifications or webhooks.


<input type="hidden" name="_test" value="true" />

Remove it when you go live.

Spam and security

How does TorchWarden work?

TorchWarden is Formtorch’s built-in spam detection engine. It scores every submission in real time and automatically flags anything that crosses the spam threshold. Flagged submissions are moved to the Spam tab: they never reach your inbox and don’t count toward your monthly quota.

A legitimate submission was marked as spam. What do I do?

Go to your form in the dashboard, open the Spam tab, find the submission, and click Not Spam. It moves immediately to your Submissions tab. If this happens often, your spam filter settings may be too aggressive. See the Troubleshooting guide for details.

What CAPTCHA options are available?

All plans include Cloudflare Turnstile, hCaptcha, and reCAPTCHA v3. Configure CAPTCHA in your form’s Settings tab in the dashboard.

What is the honeypot field and how do I use it?

A honeypot is a hidden form field that real users never see or fill in, but bots do. TorchWarden checks it automatically. You can also add your own:


<!-- Hidden from real users; bots fill it in -->
<input
  type="text"
  name="_honeypot"
  style="display:none"
  tabindex="-1"
  autocomplete="off"
/>

To use a custom field name instead of _honeypot, declare it with _honeypotField:


<input type="hidden" name="_honeypotField" value="website" />
<input type="text" name="website" style="display:none" tabindex="-1" />

Can I restrict my form to specific domains?

Yes, on Starter and Pro plans. Enable domain restriction in your form’s Settings tab and add the origins that are allowed to submit. Requests from any other origin are rejected before being stored.

Email notifications

How many recipients can I add per form?

It depends on your plan:

Plan	Recipients per form
Free	1
Starter	3
Pro	5

Each recipient must verify their email address before notifications start. See Email Notifications for the full setup flow.

Does a recipient need to verify their address?

Yes. After you add an address in Form Settings → Notifications, Formtorch sends a verification email to that address. Notifications won’t go out until the recipient clicks the link.

If a team member says they’re not receiving notifications, check whether their address is still showing a pending badge in the Notifications tab. Resend the verification email from there.

Do I get notified for spam or test submissions?

No. Email notifications are skipped for both spam submissions and test submissions (those sent with _test=true). Both types are still visible in your dashboard.

Is the autoresponder available on all plans?

No. Autoresponder emails are a Pro plan feature. On Free and Starter plans, submissions trigger email notifications to your team but do not automatically reply to the person who submitted the form.

On Pro, configure the autoresponder in Form Settings → Notifications → Autoresponder. Formtorch detects the submitter’s email automatically from any field named email, Email, or similar.

Integrations and webhooks

Can I add multiple webhooks to one form?

Yes. Each webhook endpoint you add fires independently on every new submission. Configure them in Form Settings → Webhooks.

What does the webhook payload look like?

Every webhook delivery sends a JSON body with the event type, form ID, submission ID, field data, timestamp, and spam score:


{
  "type": "submission.created",
  "data": {
    "formId": "a1b2c3d4e5",
    "submissionId": "x9y8z7w6v5",
    "fields": { "name": "Alex", "email": "alex@example.com" },
    "submittedAt": "2025-03-15T14:30:00.000Z",
    "isSpam": false,
    "spamScore": 0
  }
}

Deliveries are signed with x-formtorch-signature (HMAC-SHA256). See the Webhook Processing guide for verification code and a complete working example.

How many active Zaps can I have?

Starter: 1 active Zap
Pro: 5 active Zaps
Free: Zapier is not available

Which integrations are available and on which plans?

Integration	Free	Starter	Pro
Webhooks	No	Yes	Yes
REST API	No	Yes	Yes
Zapier	No	1 active Zap	5 active Zaps
Google Sheets	No	Yes	Yes
Make / n8n	No	No	Yes
Slack / Discord	No	No	Yes

See the Integrations section for setup guides.

Data, export, and privacy

How long does Formtorch keep my submissions?

Submission history depends on your plan:

Plan	Submission history
Free	30 days
Starter	1 year
Pro	Unlimited

After the retention window, submissions are automatically purged. Export before downgrading if you need to keep older records.

Can I export my submissions?

Yes, on all plans. Export as CSV or JSON from your form’s Submissions tab. You can also use the REST API to retrieve submissions programmatically.

Can I delete submissions?

Yes. Delete individual submissions from the submission detail view, or bulk-delete from the Submissions tab. Deletion is permanent.

How is my data stored?

All submissions are written to durable, encrypted storage before Formtorch returns a success response to the user. That means your data isn’t lost even if a downstream service (email, webhook, integration) is temporarily unavailable. File uploads are stored securely and linked to their submissions.

Formtorch gives you the tools to stay compliant: you can export submission data, delete individual or bulk submissions, and configure how long data is retained. If you need a Data Processing Agreement (DPA), contact us at formtorch.com/contact .

FAQ