How to Use Webhooks with Your Contact Form

Email notifications tell you a submission arrived. Webhooks let you act on it automatically — update your CRM, create a task, add a row to a spreadsheet, or trigger any backend workflow, the moment a form is submitted.

What Is a Form Webhook?

A webhook is an HTTP request your form service sends to a URL you specify when a new event occurs. In the case of contact forms: every submission triggers a POST request to your endpoint with the submission data as JSON.

You can point a webhook at:

• A Zapier or Make webhook URL to trigger any automation
• Your own backend API to run custom logic
• A CRM's API endpoint to create contacts automatically
• A testing tool like webhook.site to inspect the payload

Setting Up Webhooks in Formboost

1. Log in to dashboard.formboost.app
2. Open your form → Integrations tab → Webhook
3. Enter your endpoint URL
4. Choose the HTTP method: POST, GET, PUT, or PATCH
5. Optionally add custom headers (for authentication)
6. Save

The Payload

Formboost sends submission data as a JSON body:

1{
2  "event": "form.submission",
3  "eventId": "sub_3b241101-e2bb-4255-8caf-4136c566a962",
4  "sentAt": "2026-08-24T12:00:00.120Z",
5  "form": {
6    "name": "Contact Form",
7    "alias": "contact"
8  },
9  "submission": {
10    "name": "Jane Smith",
11    "email": "[email protected]",
12    "message": "Hello, I'd like to learn more.",
13    "submittedAt": "2026-08-24T12:00:00.000Z"
14  }
15}

Your own fields live under submission, named after the name attributes on your form inputs. Everything Formboost adds sits at the top level, so a field of your own can never collide with ours.

eventId is stable across retries — use it as an idempotency key. sentAt is when the attempt was made; submission.submittedAt is when the form was actually filled in, which differ if a failed delivery is retried later.

The Zapier and n8n destinations send this identical body.

Custom Headers

Add authentication headers as a JSON object in the Custom Headers field:

1{
2  "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN",
3  "X-API-Key": "YOUR_KEY"
4}

This is how you authenticate against APIs that require a token (HubSpot, Salesforce, custom backends, etc.).

Testing with webhook.site

Before wiring up to a real service, inspect the exact payload:

1. Open webhook.site and copy the unique URL
2. Paste it as your webhook URL in Formboost and save
3. Submit your form (or click Send Test)
4. See the full request — headers, method, body — on webhook.site

This confirms exactly what Formboost sends before you build against it.

Retry Behavior

If your endpoint returns a non-2xx response or times out (10s limit), Formboost retries up to 3 times with exponential backoff. All attempts are logged in your dashboard under Integrations → Delivery Logs.

Common Integrations

Zapier

Use Zapier's Webhooks by Zapier trigger with your Formboost webhook URL. From there, connect to 5,000+ apps — add to Google Sheets, create HubSpot contacts, send a Slack message, and more.

HubSpot Contact Creation

Point the webhook at HubSpot's contact API endpoint and add the required Authorization header:

1{
2  "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_HUBSPOT_TOKEN"
3}

Custom Backend

Your endpoint just needs to return a 2xx status within 10 seconds. Offload heavy work asynchronously:

1// Express.js example
2app.post("/formboost-webhook", (req, res) => {
3  res.sendStatus(200); // Acknowledge immediately
4  processSubmission(req.body); // Async, won't block response
5});

Troubleshooting

Set up webhooks for your form →