Email Capture for Static Sites Without a Backend

Before smplkit launched, we needed a way to collect email addresses from developers who wanted to be notified about new products. The marketing site is fully static — no server, no database, no API. Just HTML deployed to a CDN.

So how do you collect form submissions from a static site?

This is a problem every developer building a pre-launch product encounters. The solutions range from rolling your own serverless backend to pasting a third-party widget. We went with Formspree, and here’s the landscape we evaluated before choosing.

The Options

Formspree — a hosted form backend. You point your HTML form’s action attribute at a Formspree URL. Submissions get stored on their dashboard and forwarded to your email. No JavaScript required for basic usage, though they provide a JS library for AJAX submissions.

Email marketing platforms (Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Buttondown) — these give you an embeddable form that feeds directly into a mailing list. You get audience management, email campaigns, and analytics along with the form.

API Gateway + Lambda + DynamoDB — the AWS-native serverless approach. Build a form submission endpoint from scratch. Total control, total responsibility.

Netlify Forms / Vercel serverless functions — if you’re already on one of these platforms, form handling is built in. Netlify detects forms in your HTML at deploy time. Vercel lets you add an API route.

Google Forms embedded — technically works. Aesthetically, a tragedy.

Why We Chose Formspree

The deciding factor was zero infrastructure. smplkit’s backend runs on AWS — ECS, RDS, ALB, the works — but none of that is connected to the marketing site. The marketing site deploys to Amplify and has no server-side component.

Formspree gives us a form endpoint without building or maintaining anything. The form submission goes to Formspree’s servers, we get an email notification, and submissions are stored on their dashboard for export. Setup took about five minutes.

We considered the email marketing platform route — Mailchimp or ConvertKit — because we’ll eventually want to send announcement emails to people who signed up. But that’s a future problem. Right now we need to capture interest, not run campaigns. Picking a full email platform before we know what our mailing workflow looks like risks choosing the wrong one and migrating later.

Formspree captures the data. When we’re ready for email campaigns, we’ll export the list and import it into whatever platform we choose. Formspree is the bridge, not the destination.

Why Not Build It

For a platform that already runs on AWS, spinning up an API Gateway + Lambda + DynamoDB stack for form submissions is tempting. We’d own the data, avoid a third-party dependency, and it would take maybe half a day to build.

But half a day is half a day we’re not spending on the actual product. The email capture form is not smplkit’s core product. It’s a marketing function. Treating it with the same engineering rigor as a production API endpoint is a misallocation of attention at this stage.

This is a recurring theme in early-stage development: the difference between “could we build this ourselves?” (almost always yes) and “should we build this ourselves?” (usually no, not yet).

Implementation

The implementation is almost comically simple. The form’s action attribute points to Formspree’s endpoint. On submission, the user’s email goes to Formspree, and we get a notification. The form includes basic client-side validation and a thank-you state.

No JavaScript framework. No state management. No API client. Just an HTML form with an action URL.

We use the same form component on the homepage and on Coming Soon product pages. A developer who finds Smpl Flags before it’s ready can leave their email and we’ll notify them when it ships.

What Changes at Scale

Formspree is the right tool for collecting a few hundred emails from a pre-launch product. If smplkit grows to the point where we need segmented mailing lists, automated email sequences, or A/B tested signup flows, we’ll move to a proper email marketing platform.

The migration path is clean: export from Formspree, import into the new platform, update the form endpoint. No data loss, no architectural changes to the site.

The Takeaway

If you’re building a static marketing site and you need form submissions, resist the urge to architect a serverless backend on day one. Find the simplest hosted form service that meets your immediate needs, and save the engineering effort for your actual product.

Your form backend doesn’t need to be impressive. It needs to capture the email and get out of the way.

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