How to get HubSpot form notifications instantly

Does HubSpot send form submission notifications?

Yes, on every HubSpot plan, including the free tools, but only to people who are users in your HubSpot account. Each form has its own notification settings: it can notify the contact's owner, chosen users or teams, or both. HubSpot then delivers the alert through each person's own notification settings, which can mean email, the bell in HubSpot, a browser pop-up or a push to the HubSpot mobile app.

That second step trips people up. A form can be set to notify you while your personal settings switch form submissions off, and then nothing arrives. If you're expecting alerts and not getting them, check both places, as the next two sections show.

How to turn on notifications in the HubSpot form editor

In HubSpot's current form editor, notifications live in the form's settings, under Submission settings. Here are the steps at the time of writing.

1. 1

   Open the form

   Go to Marketing → Forms, then create a form or hover over an existing one and click Edit.

2. 2

   Open Submission settings

   In the left panel, click the settings icon, then the Submission settings tab.

3. 3

   Choose who is notified

   Under Real-time submission notifications, tick "Notify contact owner", or use "Add users to notify" to pick users or teams who should hear about every submission, whoever owns the contact.

4. 4

   Publish the change

   Click Review and update in the top right.

Forms made in the legacy editor keep the setting on the Options tab instead. Tick "Send submission email notifications to the contact's owner", choose people from "Send submission notifications to", and click Update.

Recipients must be active users in your HubSpot account, so you can't type in any email address; to reach someone outside HubSpot, add them as a user or forward the emails. There's a second catch if the form sits on a HubSpot page: the form module on that page can override the recipients. Anyone you set in the form editor then misses those submissions unless you add them in the module as well.

When a contact who has filled in a form before submits again, the notification says it's a reconversion. That's handy for spotting a returning customer, but it also means one person filling in two forms produces two alerts.

How do you get HubSpot form notifications on your phone?

Install the HubSpot mobile app and switch on its form submission notification. HubSpot's steps are: open the app, tap the menu icon in the top left, tap the settings icon in the sidebar, tap Notifications, tap Form submissions, and turn on the Form submission switch. Your phone also has to allow notifications from the HubSpot app in its own settings.

On a computer, the matching settings are under the settings icon in the top bar, then Notifications in the left sidebar. On the Email & Desktop tab, find Form submissions and tick the channels you want: email, bell, browser or pop-up. Mobile push is its own channel alongside these. The form submissions section only appears for users who have access to the forms tool.

The app suits anyone who works in HubSpot every day. It's less suited to a business owner who rarely opens HubSpot, or to a colleague who answers enquiries but has no HubSpot login, because they can't be notified at all.

Can HubSpot send form notifications to Slack, SMS or WhatsApp?

Slack, yes; a text or WhatsApp message to your own team, not directly. HubSpot's Slack integration can deliver your personal HubSpot notifications, form submissions included, to Slack on any plan. Connect Slack, then in your notification settings turn on the Slack switch under Other apps. Notifications come from the HubSpot app in Slack, and your email address must be the same in both.

For a channel the whole team can see, you need workflows. Workflows need a Professional or Enterprise subscription, and they include a Send Slack notification action alongside Send internal email notification and Send in-app notification. A workflow enrolled by a form submission can post to a Slack channel the moment it arrives. Sending website form submissions to Slack or Microsoft Teams covers the other ways to do that.

Forms also have an Automation tab, which runs simple follow-up actions without opening the full workflows tool. What it can do depends on your plan: on the free tools it's one "Send an email after form submission" action per form, other Starter, Professional and Enterprise subscriptions get one simple workflow with up to three actions, and Marketing Hub Starter allows up to 10. HubSpot lists internal email notifications among the actions it can send, which is useful for a second inbox, but it's still email.

HubSpot's SMS features are for messaging contacts who have opted in, through the Marketing SMS add-on. HubSpot's list of workflow actions doesn't include sending a text to your own staff about a new submission. If you want enquiries by text, how to get website form submissions as text messages sets out the options.

Which HubSpot notification method should you use?

Pick by who needs the alert and how quickly. All of these can run at once.

If everyone who answers enquiries already uses HubSpot, the built-in notifications and the app are enough. If the person who picks up the phone doesn't have a HubSpot seat, or you'd rather not pay for Professional to get one Slack post, look at the last row. Either way, reply quickly: how fast you should reply to a website enquiry explains why it matters.

How does a form alert service work with HubSpot forms?

A form alert service listens on the website where the HubSpot form is embedded and sends each submission to the phones and channels you connect, while the submission still goes to HubSpot as normal. Your workflows, lists and notifications carry on as they are.

Formcrier is one option. Its script recognises HubSpot forms and waits until HubSpot says the submission worked, so a form that fails HubSpot's own checks doesn't alert you. If HubSpot gives no answer within 10 seconds, or the page moves on first, the submission is sent anyway and marked "success not confirmed". You paste the script just before the closing body tag on the pages with the form, or add it through Google Tag Manager, then switch the form on and connect a destination such as WhatsApp or a UK mobile.

Alerts can go to people without a HubSpot login, and the Free plan includes 10 alerts a month. The HubSpot forms integration page has more detail.