Web3Forms Alternative: ShipMyForm vs Web3Forms (2026)

Short answer: the free tiers are nearly the same — 250 submissions a month from both, no card either way. Two things actually separate them: spam filtering is included on ShipMyForm's free plan and is a paid feature at Web3Forms, and the price crosses over at volume, with Web3Forms cheaper between roughly 2,000 and 10,000 submissions a month.

Full disclosure: ShipMyForm is our product, so expect bias and check the numbers. Where Web3Forms is the better choice is said plainly below, because a comparison that never concedes anything is not a comparison.

How most people get here

Ask an AI builder for a contact form and Web3Forms is frequently what it emits. It is the default suggestion in a lot of generated code, it works, and the getting-started path is genuinely short. That is not an accident — it is a good service with a very low barrier.

So the question is rarely "which is better in the abstract". It is "the thing my AI builder picked is working, should I switch?" Usually the honest answer is no, unless one of the specifics below applies to you.

Free tier, side by side

Two rows there are worth more than the rest.

Spam filtering. Web3Forms lists reCAPTCHA and Turnstile among the features a paid plan adds. ShipMyForm filters spam on every plan — honeypot, rate limiting, heuristics and cross-form velocity — and does it without putting a CAPTCHA in front of your visitors. If you are on a free plan and your form is public, this is the row that will matter within about a fortnight of launching.

Webhooks. Included free here, paid there. If your plan is to route submissions into n8n, Zapier or your own service, that changes which free tier is usable.

Where Web3Forms is the better buy

If you need an auto-responder, it is cheaper there. Web3Forms includes one on its $12/mo plan. Ours is on the $19/mo Business plan. If a confirmation email to whoever filled in your form is the feature you are shopping for, they win on price and it is not close. We think that is the wrong place for us to have put it, which is a separate problem from your decision today.

Between about 2,000 and 10,000 submissions a month, it is cheaper. See the arithmetic below.

If you only ever want form-to-email, their narrower scope is a genuine advantage. There is less product to understand, and nothing you are paying for indirectly.

The price crossover

This is the part worth doing properly, because the headline prices mislead in both directions.

So: cheaper here below ~2,000, cheaper there from ~2,000 to 10,000, cheaper here again above that. A comparison that tells you one service is simply cheaper has picked a volume and not told you which.

Find your actual number before you compare — most contact forms never leave the free tier, and the paid comparison is academic.

The access key, since it looks alarming

Web3Forms puts an access key in a hidden input in your HTML:

<input type="hidden" name="access_key" value="YOUR-ACCESS-KEY" />

People see a key in page source and assume a leak. It is not one, and their docs say so explicitly: the key is public by design and only authorises submissions to your own form.

ShipMyForm works the same way — the form ID sits in the action URL, visible to anyone:

<form action="https://shipmyform.com/f/YOUR_FORM_ID" method="POST">

Neither identifier lets anyone read your submissions, change your settings or send mail as you. If you want the version of this that is dangerous, it is putting a mail provider's API key in client-side code, which is a different mistake entirely and one we wrote about in sending confirmation emails safely.

One thing to verify yourself

As of October 2026, Web3Forms' FAQ says submissions are not stored and are forwarded to your email or webhook, while their homepage describes submissions being stored with a retention period you control. Both cannot be current.

We are not going to guess which, and you should not take a competitor's word for it either. If a searchable archive of past submissions matters to you, ask them directly. For reference, ShipMyForm stores submissions on every plan with 180-day retention on free, a year on Starter and indefinitely on Business.

So which one

• Already using Web3Forms and it works? Stay. Switching a working form for a spec-sheet difference is not worth your afternoon.
• Public form on a free plan, bracing for spam? Spam filtering on free is the difference, and it is ours.
• Need an auto-responder on a budget? Theirs, at $12.
• 2,000–10,000 submissions a month? Theirs, on price.
• Routing into tools, or want submissions stored and exportable? Ours.

Next steps

• Comparing more widely: the best form backend services and free form backends.
• Arrived from an AI-generated site: make the generated form actually work.
• New to the category: what a form backend actually is.
• Start free — 250 submissions a month, spam filtering included, no card.