RG Forms vs Formspree

Side by side

The architectural difference

Formspree works the way almost every SaaS works: your form posts to their servers, they store it, they show it to you, they email you. That’s a sound model and it’s what makes the richer features possible — dashboards, workflows, integrations and file handling all need a platform behind them.

RG Forms has no servers to put anything on. When you sign in with Google, it creates a Drive folder, a Google Sheet and an Apps Script web app in your account, and hands you the URL. Submissions go from your visitor’s browser to your script to your spreadsheet. We never see them, which is simultaneously the main feature and the main limitation.

Choose Formspree when

You need it to work without JavaScript. Formspree supports a plain HTML form post with a redirect. RG Forms doesn’t — a fetch is required.

You need file uploads. Résumés, photos, documents. RG Forms handles text only.

You want a dashboard for a non-technical client. A spreadsheet is a fine interface for most people, but a purpose-built submissions inbox with search, tagging and export is better if that’s the daily workflow.

You want integrations that already exist. Slack notifications, CRM pushes and Zapier connections are configuration in Formspree; with RG Forms you’d be editing Apps Script or building on top of the Sheet.

You want a support contract. There’s a company on the other end with an incentive to answer.

Choose RG Forms when

The data has to belong to the site owner. Handing a client a Google Sheet in their own Drive is a cleaner boundary than an account on a service you control — and it survives you.

Cost has to be zero, permanently. Not a free tier with a submission ceiling — free because nobody is hosting anything on your behalf.

You want no vendor dependency at all. The endpoint is an Apps Script deployment in your account with no reference to rgforms.com. If this site vanished tonight, your form would still be taking submissions tomorrow.

Your team lives in spreadsheets. Sorting, filtering, adding a “replied?” column, sharing with a colleague, charting by month — all free, all familiar, no export step.

What the RG Forms integration looks like

<form id="contact-form">
  <label>Name <input name="name" required /></label>
  <label>Email <input type="email" name="email" required /></label>
  <label>Message <textarea name="message" required></textarea></label>

  <!-- Honeypot: humans never see it, bots fill it in -->
  <input type="text" name="_hp" tabindex="-1" autocomplete="off"
         style="position:absolute;left:-9999px" aria-hidden="true" />

  <button type="submit">Send</button>
  <p id="form-status" role="status"></p>
</form>

<script>
  const ENDPOINT = "https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycb.../exec";
  const form = document.getElementById("contact-form");
  const status = document.getElementById("form-status");

  form.addEventListener("submit", async (event) => {
    event.preventDefault();
    status.textContent = "Sending…";

    const res = await fetch(ENDPOINT, {
      method: "POST",
      // text/plain avoids the CORS preflight Apps Script can't answer
      headers: { "Content-Type": "text/plain" },
      body: JSON.stringify({
        tab: "contact",
        fields: Object.fromEntries(new FormData(form)),
      }),
    });

    const data = await res.json();
    status.textContent =
      data.result === "success" ? "Thanks — we'll be in touch." : "Something went wrong.";
    if (data.result === "success") form.reset();
  });
</script>

Common questions

More answers in the full FAQ.