Conditional Email Routing

Send notifications to different email addresses based on what the submitter filled in.

How it works

Routing rules evaluate each submission against a set of conditions. When a condition matches, FormBlade sends the notification email to the address specified in that rule — instead of (or in addition to) the default notification email.

All matching rules fire. If a submission matches three rules, three emails are sent. Rules do not stop after the first match.

Routing rules run after spam checks. Spam submissions are never routed.

Pro feature: Conditional email routing is available on Pro and Business plans.

Operators

Each rule compares a form field value against a target value. All comparisons are case-insensitive.

Operator	Matches when	Example
`equals`	Field value is exactly the target	department equals "Sales"
`not equals`	Field value is anything except the target	country not equals "US"
`contains`	Field value includes the target anywhere	message contains "urgent"
`not contains`	Field value does not include the target	email not contains "spam"
`starts with`	Field value begins with the target	phone starts with "+1"
`ends with`	Field value ends with the target	email ends with "@company.com"
`is empty`	Field is blank or not submitted	company is empty (individual, not business)
`is not empty`	Field has any value	phone is not empty (has phone number)

Custom subject lines

Each rule can optionally set a custom email subject. Use curly braces to insert submission field values:

Sales inquiry from {name} ({company})

If no custom subject is set, the default subject is used: New submission: [form name].

Template variables use the exact field names from your form. If a field is not present in the submission, the placeholder is left as-is (e.g., {company} stays literal if the form has no "company" field).

Fallback rules

A rule marked as fallback only fires when no other non-fallback rule matched. This is useful for catch-all routing:

Route "Sales" inquiries to sales@company.com
Route "Support" inquiries to support@company.com
Fallback: send everything else to info@company.com

If at least one non-fallback rule matches, fallback rules are skipped entirely. If no rules match, all fallback rules fire.

Setup

Open your form in the dashboard.
Go to the Automations tab.
Scroll to Conditional routing in the Email card.
Click + Add rule.
Set the field name, operator, value, destination email, and optionally a custom subject.
Check Fallback if the rule should only fire when nothing else matched.
Click Save changes.

Common examples

Route by department dropdown

Your form has a department dropdown with values "Sales", "Support", and "Billing":

Condition	Send to	Subject
department equals "Sales"	sales@co.com	Sales inquiry from {name}
department equals "Support"	support@co.com	Support request: {message}
department equals "Billing"	billing@co.com
Fallback	info@co.com

Route internal vs external

Send submissions from company employees to an internal inbox:

Condition	Send to
email ends with "@yourcompany.com"	internal@yourcompany.com
Fallback	contact@yourcompany.com

Urgent flagging

Send an extra notification when the message contains "urgent":

Condition	Send to	Subject
message contains "urgent"	oncall@co.com	URGENT: {name} needs help

The default notification still goes to the primary email. The routing rule sends an additional notification to the on-call inbox.

How routing interacts with other email settings

Primary notification email — always receives the notification, regardless of routing rules. Routing is in addition to the primary email, not a replacement.
CC emails — also always receive the notification. CC is independent of routing.
Auto-responder — sends to the submitter, not affected by routing rules.
Email connection — routing emails are sent through the same email provider configured on the form.
Spam — spam submissions are never routed. Rules only evaluate on clean submissions.

Limits

There is no hard limit on the number of routing rules per form. However, each matched rule generates a separate email, which counts toward your plan's notification limit.

API

Routing rules are stored in the email_routing_rules field on the form object. You can read and update them via the Forms API:

PATCH /api/forms/{form_id}
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "email_routing_rules": [
    {
      "field": "department",
      "operator": "equals",
      "value": "Sales",
      "email": "sales@company.com",
      "subject": "Sales inquiry from {name}",
      "is_fallback": false
    },
    {
      "field": "",
      "operator": "equals",
      "value": "",
      "email": "info@company.com",
      "is_fallback": true
    }
  ]
}