Documentation — Form Backend API

Create a Formboost form, copy its endpoint, and receive your first submission in minutes — HTML or fetch(), email notifications and spam screening included.

Formboost lets you collect form submissions without writing any backend code. This guide walks you through setting up your first form.

Prerequisites

A Formboost account (sign up free)
An HTML form on your website

Step 1: Create an Endpoint

After signing up, go to your dashboard and create a new endpoint. You'll receive a unique URL that looks like:

https://formboost.app/f/YOUR_ENDPOINT_ID

Step 2: Point Your Form at the Endpoint

Update your form's action attribute to your Formboost endpoint URL:

<form action="https://formboost.app/f/YOUR_ENDPOINT_ID" method="POST">
  <label for="email">Email</label>
  <input type="email" id="email" name="email" required />

  <label for="message">Message</label>
  <textarea id="message" name="message"></textarea>

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

That's it. Formboost handles the rest. Any field name you use becomes a column in your dashboard and a key in every delivery.

Submitting with fetch() instead

To stay on the page — a React component, a Vue method, plain JavaScript — send the same fields as JSON. The endpoint answers 202 with a JSON body instead of redirecting:

async function handleSubmit(event) {
  event.preventDefault();
  const data = Object.fromEntries(new FormData(event.target));

  const res = await fetch("https://formboost.app/f/YOUR_ENDPOINT_ID", {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
    body: JSON.stringify(data),
  });

  if (res.ok) {
    // show your own thank-you state
  }
}

Framework-specific versions are in the Next.js, Astro, Angular and Gatsby guides.

Step 3: Verify It Works

Submit your form once. Within seconds you'll see the submission appear in your dashboard and receive an email notification.

What Happens Next

After a successful submission, Formboost:

Screens it for spam (a honeypot and heuristics on every plan; AI screening from Starter)
Stores it, so it is searchable and exportable from your dashboard
Sends an email notification to your configured address
Delivers it to every destination the form has — Slack, Discord, Telegram, Google Sheets, Zapier, n8n or a webhook

Redirect After Submission

By default, Formboost redirects users to a hosted thank-you page. You can override this with the _redirect hidden field:

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

The redirect target must be https and on the same host as the page the form is on; anything else falls back to the hosted page.

Reserved Field Names

A few field names carry instructions rather than answers:

Field name	Effect
`_redirect`	Where an HTML form post lands afterwards (same-host `https` URL)
`_subject`	Subject line of the notification email
`_replyto`	Reply-To address on the notification email
`_honey`	Honeypot — a submission with this field filled in is discarded
`_email`	The address Auto Reply writes to when the form has no `email` field

Add _honey as a hidden, off-screen input so bots fill it and people never see it:

<input type="text" name="_honey" style="display:none" tabindex="-1" autocomplete="off" />

Next Steps

API Reference & Configuration — request shapes, every response code, reserved fields in full
Integrations — Slack, Discord, Telegram, Google Sheets, Zapier, n8n and webhooks
Troubleshooting — what to check when nothing arrives

Getting Started