Auto-Responder Pro+

Send automatic confirmation emails to people who submit your forms.

What Is the Auto-Responder?

The auto-responder sends an automatic email to the person who filled out your form, immediately after they submit it. This is commonly used for:

• Confirming that the submission was received ("Thanks for reaching out, we'll get back to you within 24 hours").
• Sending a copy of the submitted data back to the submitter for their records.
• Delivering a lead magnet, download link, or next-step instructions.
• Setting expectations about response time or support process.

The auto-responder is available on Pro plans and above.

Enabling the Auto-Responder

1. Open your form in the dashboard.
2. Go to the Settings tab.
3. Toggle Auto-Responder to on.
4. Configure the email field name, subject line, and message body (see sections below).
5. Click Save.

Email Field Name

FormBlade needs to know which field in the submission contains the submitter's email address. By default, it looks for a field named email. If your form uses a different field name (e.g., contact_email, your_email, e-mail), update the Email field name setting to match.

FormBlade validates that the value in this field is a properly formatted email address before sending. If the field is missing or the value is not a valid email, the auto-responder is silently skipped for that submission.

Subject Line

Set a custom subject line for the auto-responder email. You can use placeholders to include submission data in the subject. For example:

Thanks for your message, {name}!

If a placeholder references a field that doesn't exist in the submission, it is replaced with an empty string. Keep subject lines short — under 60 characters is ideal for email client previews.

Message Body

The message body supports plain text with placeholders. Write the message you want the submitter to receive, and insert placeholders using curly braces to include data from the submission.

Available placeholders

Any field name from your form can be used as a placeholder. Common examples:

• {name} — the submitter's name
• {email} — the submitter's email address
• {message} — the content of a message/textarea field
• {company} — a company name field
• {phone} — a phone number field

Placeholders are case-sensitive and must match the name attribute of the corresponding form field exactly.

Example message

Hi {name},

Thanks for contacting us! We received your message
and will get back to you within one business day.

Here's a summary of what you submitted:

Name: {name}
Email: {email}
Message: {message}

Best regards,
The Support Team

Email Transport

The auto-responder uses the same email transport configured for that form's notification emails. This means:

• If you have a custom SMTP provider set up (Gmail, SendGrid, etc.), the auto-responder is sent through that provider.
• If you are using the default FormBlade email, the auto-responder is sent from FormBlade's mail server.
• The "From" address matches whatever is configured for notifications on that form.

For the best deliverability and brand consistency, we recommend using a custom SMTP provider with your own domain. See the Email Setup guide for configuration instructions.

When the Auto-Responder Does Not Send

The auto-responder is skipped in the following situations:

• No email address: The configured email field is missing from the submission, or its value is empty.
• Invalid email: The email field value is not a valid email address format.
• Spam submission: The submission was flagged as spam by the honeypot or captcha. Auto-responders are never sent to spam submissions to avoid confirming that the form link works.
• Auto-responder disabled: The toggle is off in form settings.
• Email transport failure: If the email provider returns an error (e.g., SMTP authentication failure), the auto-responder fails silently. The submission itself is still stored. Transport errors are logged in the form's email log.

Compliance and Privacy Notices

When compliance settings are active on a form (data retention, consent checkbox, or a compliance preset), FormBlade automatically appends a privacy notice to the bottom of the auto-responder email. The notice includes:

• The data retention period, if set (e.g., "Your submission data will be automatically deleted after 365 days").
• A statement about the submitter's right to request early deletion of their data.
• The contact email for deletion requests, which defaults to the form's notification email address.

This privacy notice is appended automatically and cannot be removed when compliance settings are active. It appears below your custom message body, separated by a divider line.