Form to email: four ways to send a website form, and when to stop

How do the four options compare?

Why not use a mailto form?

<form action="mailto:you@example.com"> hands the job to the visitor's own mail program. On a shared computer or a phone with no mail app set up, nothing useful happens, and you never find out that someone tried. Skip it for anything that matters.

When is a server script the right choice?

If you already run a backend, sending through a real SMTP account takes a few lines with any mail library. Use authenticated SMTP, since plain mail() calls from a web host are easy for spam filters to reject. Validate every field, and never put user input into mail headers without cleaning it, or your form becomes a spam relay.

What do hosted form backends solve?

Services in this category give you a URL to post to, then handle spam filtering and delivery. On a static site with no server, that's usually the fastest route to a working form, and for a contact page that gets three messages a month we'd stop here.

When does email stop working for enquiries?

All three options above end in an inbox, and an inbox is a poor database. Counting last month's enquiries means counting emails. A repeat enquiry arrives as a brand new message. Nobody can tell which ones got a call unless someone keeps a separate sheet, and then you're maintaining two lists.

How do you save form submissions to a list instead?

Post the form to something that stores it. This example sends each submission to Miaalo, which matches people by mobile number, so a repeat enquiry joins the existing contact. Nothing about your form's design has to change.

<form id="enquiry">
  <input name="name" required placeholder="Your name">
  <input name="phone" required inputmode="numeric" placeholder="10-digit mobile number">
  <input name="email" type="email" placeholder="Email (optional)">
  <button>Send enquiry</button>
</form>
<p id="result" role="status"></p>

<script>
document.getElementById("enquiry").addEventListener("submit", async (e) => {
  e.preventDefault();
  const body = Object.fromEntries(new FormData(e.target));
  body.api_key = "YOUR_SOURCE_KEY";

  const res = await fetch("https://miaalo.com/api/save-number", {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
    body: JSON.stringify(body)
  }).then((r) => r.json());

  document.getElementById("result").textContent =
    res.status === 1 ? "Thanks. We will call you soon." : res.data.message;
});
</script>

You can run this next to your email script if you want both. Miaalo accepts Indian mobile numbers only, and API access is switched on by request through info@fairshare.tech. If you need delivery to international addresses or numbers, a hosted form backend is the better fit today. Full details are in the form API docs, and there's more on form design in our lead form examples.