Formward vs Formspree: the EU alternative

Is Formward a Formspree alternative?

Formward is a form backend run from Sweden. You keep the HTML or JavaScript form already on your site and point it at a Formward endpoint; Formward receives each submission, filters spam, stores it in Sweden and emails you a notification you can reply to. If you have no website, a simple hosted form page does the same job.

It suits small EU businesses, agencies and developers with a contact, quote or lead form who want the vendor's own handling of those submissions to stay in the EU, and who do not want to run a mail server or database for one form. For that kind of form, the endpoint, spam filtering, a notification and a searchable record in the dashboard are usually the whole job.

Limits and terms: the free plan takes 50 submissions a month and suits testing or a very quiet site. Paid plans start at EUR 15 a month for 200 submissions. File uploads start on Professional; webhooks, the API and autoresponders on Professional. EU hosting does not make a form GDPR compliant on its own: you still need a lawful basis, a privacy notice and a sensible retention period, and copies go wherever you send them, such as a US-hosted inbox or a webhook.

At a glance

Feature comparison

Pricing

Formspree

• Free: $0, 50 submissions a month.
• Personal: $15 a month or $120 a year, 200 submissions a month.
• Professional: $30 a month or $240 a year, 2,000 submissions a month.
• Business: $90 a month or $720 a year, 20,000 submissions a month.
• The plan names match Formward's, so compare the allowances in the two lists directly. Formspree bills in US dollars and includes file uploads from Personal; Formward bills in euros and includes uploads from Professional.

Current figures: Formspree pricing · all Formward plans

Moving from Formspree

Effort: Low. What changes:

• The form action URL.
• Formspree's subject field is called subject; Formward reads _subject.
• Formspree sets the thank-you redirect in the form's Settings tab on its paid plans; in Formward you set it per form or with a hidden _redirect field.
• _gotcha keeps working as the honeypot. Formspree takes Reply-To from a field named email; Formward reads a field named email as Reply-To too, so nothing to rename; _replyto overrides it when needed.
• If a form uses reCAPTCHA or hCaptcha on Formspree, switch it to Cloudflare Turnstile, which Formward offers per form.
• Changing the endpoint only moves new submissions. Past submissions, Formspree integrations, autoresponder text, notification recipients and other Formspree settings stay where they are until you export or recreate them.

Copy<form action="https://formspree.io/f/YOUR_FORM_ID" method="POST">
  <input type="email" name="email" required>
  <textarea name="message" required></textarea>
  <input type="hidden" name="subject" value="New enquiry">
  <input type="text" name="_gotcha" style="display:none">
  <button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>

Copy<form action="https://forms.formward.eu/f/<formId>" method="POST">
  <input type="email" name="email" required>
  <textarea name="message" required></textarea>
  <input type="hidden" name="_subject" value="New enquiry">
  <input type="hidden" name="_redirect" value="/thanks">
  <input type="text" name="_gotcha" style="display:none" tabindex="-1" autocomplete="off">
  <button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>

1. Create a form in the Formward dashboard and copy its endpoint.
2. Replace the Formspree URL in your form's action (or in your fetch call).
3. Rename a subject field to _subject if you use one.
4. Set the success redirect on the form, or add a hidden _redirect field pointing at a page on your own site.
5. Recreate what lived in Formspree's settings: notification recipients, autoresponder, webhooks or other integrations, and the CAPTCHA choice. Check which Formward plan each one needs.
6. Add your site's origin to the form's allowed origins.
7. Send a test submission and check the dashboard entry, the notification email, the success page and how a validation error looks before you change the live form.
8. Bring old submissions along with the CSV importer (Dashboard, Import & migrate). It keeps the original submission dates from a column named Submitted At, created_at or createdAt; any other CSV imports too, with rows dated at import time.
9. Leave the Formspree form in place for a while and check it for stray submissions from pages you missed.

The full walkthrough, with the field mapping and the behaviour differences to test, is in the Formspree migration guide.

Which one fits

Where Formward is not the best fit

• The Free plan takes 50 submissions a month and keeps them for 30 days, and file uploads start on the Professional plan.
• Formward is a form backend with hosted form pages, not a survey tool. For long surveys with many branches, a dedicated survey builder may suit you better.
• Formward is a young company. Judge its reliability yourself on the status page and in the changelog.

Questions

Is Formspree GDPR compliant?

Formspree says it is fully GDPR compliant. Its security page says it is hosted on Amazon Web Services in the United States and relies on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) as a data processor. That is a lawful route, but every submission from an EU visitor is then a transfer to a third country, which you, as the controller, document and assess. Formward stores and processes submissions in Sweden, so its own processing involves no such transfer.

Does Formspree have a Data Processing Agreement (DPA)?

We could not find a DPA published on formspree.io as of October 2026, and its plans page does not list one. Its terms describe customers and Formspree as independent controllers for some data. If you need a DPA before you sign, ask Formspree directly. Formward publishes its DPA in full at formward.eu/dpa, and you accept it in the dashboard, which records the version and the time.

Does Formspree publish a list of sub-processors?

We could not find one on formspree.io. Its privacy policy refers to third-party providers without naming them, and its security page names AWS as the host. Formward publishes its sub-processor register, with each location and purpose, at formward.eu/compliance/subprocessors.

Where does Formspree store form submissions?

On AWS in the United States, according to Formspree's security page. Its privacy policy says it may use your information in the United States and in other countries where it operates. Formward stores submissions in Sweden.

How long does Formspree keep submissions?

Its plans page lists a 30-day submission archive on Free and an unlimited archive on paid plans; the privacy policy names no fixed period. On Formward, Free forms delete submissions after 30 days, and paid plans set a retention period per form, after which older submissions are deleted automatically.

Is Formward a drop-in replacement for Formspree?

Close to it. Both accept a standard POST from your own HTML or a fetch() call, so the main change is the action URL. Two details differ: Formward reads the subject from _subject rather than subject, and a redirect is set per form or with a hidden _redirect field instead of in Formspree's dashboard. The _gotcha honeypot works unchanged. Switching the endpoint does not migrate anything else: past submissions, integrations and Formspree-specific settings have to be exported or set up again, so test the new form before you change the live one.

What is the main difference from Formspree?

Where the vendor processes your data. Formspree is hosted on AWS in the United States and relies on SCCs. Formward stores and processes submissions in Sweden, sends notification email through Mailjet in the EU, and uses only one optional non-EU sub-processor (Cloudflare Turnstile, when a form enables it).

How does Formward handle submitter IP addresses?

Formward hashes each submitter IP with a keyed HMAC-SHA-256 as the request arrives and never stores the raw address. The hash is used for rate limiting and abuse protection, not for tracking.

How much does Formward cost?

Formward has a free plan with 50 submissions a month. Paid plans are EUR 15 a month (Personal, 200 submissions), EUR 30 (Professional, 2,000) and EUR 90 (Business, 20,000). Paying yearly brings those down to EUR 10, 20 and 60 a month.

Read next

• Migrate from Formspree: The step-by-step version, with the special-field table.
• EU data residency: Where each part of Formward runs, component by component.
• Sub-processor register: Every third party, its location and when it is used.
• Schrems II and forms: Why a US-hosted form backend creates a transfer to assess.
• EU form backend checklist: What to check in any vendor before you switch.