Skip to main content
Form plugins are the classic WordPress answer — and a classic source of update fatigue, bloat, and the occasional security advisory. A plain HTML form pointed at a Crunchforms endpoint does the same job with nothing to install, update, or patch.

​
Before you start: create your endpoint

Every guide on this page needs a Crunchforms form ID. Getting one takes about two minutes:
  1. Sign up free — 1,000 submissions a month included, no credit card required.
  2. In your dashboard, click New Form, give it a name, and pick a response type: Redirect for classic form posts (the visitor lands on your thank-you page), or JSON if you’ll submit with JavaScript and handle the response yourself.
  3. Your endpoint is https://crunchforms.com/form/{formID} — copy it with the Copy Action URL button, or use the dashboard’s snippet generator.
The quickstart covers this in more detail.

​
Using a Custom HTML block

  1. Edit your page in the block editor and add a Custom HTML block.
  2. Paste the form:
custom-html-block.html
<form action="https://crunchforms.com/form/{formID}" method="post">
  <p>
    <label for="name">Name</label><br />
    <input name="name" type="text" id="name" required />
  </p>
  <p>
    <label for="email">Email</label><br />
    <input name="email" type="email" id="email" required />
  </p>
  <p>
    <label for="message">Message</label><br />
    <textarea name="message" id="message" rows="5" required></textarea>
  </p>
  <p>
    <button type="submit">Send message</button>
  </p>
</form>
  1. Publish. Your theme’s styles apply to the form automatically.
This also works in Classic-editor sites (paste into the Text tab), in widget areas that accept Custom HTML, and in page builders with an HTML element.

​
The thank-you page

Create a WordPress page like /thanks, set the Crunchforms form’s response type to Redirect, and enter that page’s URL as the success URL.
Because submissions are stored in Crunchforms rather than your WordPress database, they survive theme changes, plugin cleanups, and site migrations — and you can export them as Excel, CSV, or JSON any time.

​
Stop the spam before it starts

Every public form gets found by bots eventually. Crunchforms filters submissions server-side on every plan, including Free:

Honeypot

A hidden field humans never see — if it’s filled, the submission is rejected. Zero friction for real visitors.

Cloudflare Turnstile

Invisible bot detection. Add the widget to your form and Crunchforms validates the token server-side.

reCAPTCHA v3

Score-based validation with a threshold you control per form.
The honeypot alone stops most drive-by spam and takes one extra line of markup — enable it in your form’s settings, then include the hidden field in your form.

​
Troubleshooting

  • Check the form is set to Active in your dashboard.
  • If you’ve enabled Turnstile or reCAPTCHA on the form, submissions without a valid token are rejected — including your own tests.
  • Check you haven’t exceeded your plan’s monthly submission quota.
Set the form’s response type to Redirect and provide a success URL (and a failure URL) in the form settings. If you’re submitting with JavaScript, use the JSON response type instead and navigate in your code.
The endpoint accepts cross-origin requests, JSON bodies (Content-Type: application/json), and classic URL-encoded form bodies. Set the form’s response type to JSON so your code gets { "success": true } back instead of a redirect.
Use the Send Test Submission action next to your form in the dashboard — it posts a sample submission to your live endpoint so you can see the pipeline working end to end.

​
Next steps

Form configuration

Response types, notification emails, daily summaries, and more

Free HTML form templates

Contact, feedback, RSVP, job application, and quote-request forms ready to paste

​
Need help?

Get Support

Send us a note — we read everything.