Need a hosted contact form

Scott-Copywriter

Free Member
May 11, 2006
9,605
2,673
Well it turns out the current contact form on my website (with self hosted code) is too unreliable, as some enquiries are reaching me and some are not (just for the record, if anyone on UKBF has been trying to contact me through my website but received no reply, drop me a PM on UKBF).

So I'm basically looking for a contact form which has these basic things without exception:

1). The contact form is hosted (so I only need to add a snippet of code and the rest is hosted on the supplier's servers).

2). It has an optional captcha, or no captcha at all.

3). I can add 4 basic fields (name, e-mail, phone and message)

I'm happy to pay a small monthly fee for this to make sure it just works right. Free would be particularly nice, but I know many of them come with advertisements which I don't want.

I've looked all over the place and I just can't find any contact form suppliers who offer these. The fee is either way too high for what it is (£15+ a month), or the captcha isn't optional, or there's far too many additional features I don't need.

I just want something simple, reliable and cheap. Any ideas anyone?
 

nahosting

Free Member
Mar 19, 2013
252
62
Totnes
Hi,

I only had a quick look, but your current contact form doesn't appear to be self hosted? It seems to be provided by SmartAddon.

It may be worth contacting the people who host your website, they should be able to help you with a simple self hosted script that uses the local services and mail rather than relying on any third party.

Cheers
 
Upvote 0

Scott-Copywriter

Free Member
May 11, 2006
9,605
2,673
Hi,

I only had a quick look, but your current contact form doesn't appear to be self hosted? It seems to be provided by SmartAddon.

It may be worth contacting the people who host your website, they should be able to help you with a simple self hosted script that uses the local services and mail rather than relying on any third party.

Cheers

Thanks for your response.

I'm trying multiple forms at the moment, and SmartAddon was one of them (although that doesn't work either funnily enough).

I'm considering contacting my host supplier, but to be honest, I'd happily pay for an externally hosted system which I know will work 100%. It may be £5 a month or so, but one missed enquiry could cost me thousands.
 
Upvote 0

123Simples

Free Member
Jul 10, 2011
791
255
Hampshire, UK
There is no reason why you cannot have a contact form working on your own website. As long as the contact form is correctly coded then every enquiry submitted should come through to you. The only reason why they would not is:
1. You didn't get an enquiry in the first place
2. Someone trying circumnavigating your contact form and you get a blank???
 
Upvote 0
Try Apptimi.com - Build your contact form with as many fields as you need (captcha optional). You have 3 choices when it comes to "hosting" the form 1) Our server 2) embed the form in your own web page and your site.

All responses are saved in our database and you can set up email alerts to notify you when the form is filled out. You also get a report generator that will allow you to filter responses.

Take a look. We can build the contact form for you (only takes a couple of minutes) if you need.
-Kevin
 
Upvote 0

Peter Bowen

Free Member
Jul 2, 2007
858
229
55
Isle of Wight
Can I respectfully point out what seems a little odd about this discussion?

You suggest that "one missed enquiry could cost me thousands." but you're uncomfortable paying £15 a month to make sure that you never miss any of those. Just one sale could cover the cost of your contact form till you retire.
 
Upvote 0

Scott-Copywriter

Free Member
May 11, 2006
9,605
2,673
£15 is quite a lot. Have you looked into why some emails are failing to arrive? You might just need a better provider.

Though have you found a solution?

I've removed the form now, but I'll look into it at a later date. I really need to move to another web host as my current one is a little too unreliable (the form used to work, now it suddenly doesn't), but I just need to find the right time to make the switch and make all my clients aware that my e-mails will be down.
 
Upvote 0

Scott-Copywriter

Free Member
May 11, 2006
9,605
2,673
Can I respectfully point out what seems a little odd about this discussion?

You suggest that "one missed enquiry could cost me thousands." but you're uncomfortable paying £15 a month to make sure that you never miss any of those. Just one sale could cover the cost of your contact form till you retire.

There needs to be the right balance between personal value and monetary value.

It's important to make sure it works without a hitch, but at the end of the day, it's a script of a few KB which will cost a fraction of a penny to host. I firmly believe in "you get what you pay for", but it gets to a point where I'd be getting totally ripped off. There a full hosting plans with hundreds of MB of space and hundreds of GB of bandwidth for £3 a month.

By your logic, I should be happy paying £100 a month for this as one sale could cover the cost of the form for a year. A line needs to be drawn somewhere.
 
Upvote 0

lynxus

Free Member
  • Business Listing
    Jul 5, 2011
    1,343
    316
    Gloucester, UK
    imsupporting.com
    Your server runs PHP I see..

    Create a file called test.php and chuck this in it. Then browse to it.
    Change [email protected] to your address

    <?php
    // the message
    $msg = "First line of text\nSecond line of text";

    // use wordwrap() if lines are longer than 70 characters
    $msg = wordwrap($msg,70);

    // send email
    mail("[email protected]","My subject",$msg);
    ?>


    If you get the test message,
    Then your good to go to just throw in a really quick html form and email the post data using a small script like above.

    No need for 3rd parties and free.
     
    Upvote 0

    Alex - A2 Hosting

    Free Member
    Nov 13, 2013
    126
    14
    I've removed the form now, but I'll look into it at a later date. I really need to move to another web host as my current one is a little too unreliable (the form used to work, now it suddenly doesn't), but I just need to find the right time to make the switch and make all my clients aware that my e-mails will be down.

    Let me know if you need any help with that :). Who do you currently use for your hosting?

    If migrated properly, your emails doesn't have to go down.
     
    Upvote 0

    Latest Articles