Contact Form Not Working? How to Find and Fix It

"The contact form isn't working" can mean three quite different problems, with different fixes. A two-minute test tells you which one you have.

The test

1. Open your contact page in a private (incognito) window, so you see what a visitor sees, not a cached or logged-in version.
2. Fill in the form with a real email address you can check, and press send.
3. Watch what happens on the page, then check the inbox the form is meant to send to — including spam.

What the result tells you

• Nothing happens, the button spins forever, or you get an error. The form itself is broken on the page. Usually a plugin conflict, a caching problem, or spam protection that failed to load. See common causes.
• You see "Thank you, your message was sent" — but no email arrives. The form works; the email doesn't get delivered. This is the most common problem by far, especially on WordPress. Jump to your platform.
• The email arrives, but in spam. A delivery problem too. The fix is the same: send the form's emails from a properly set up address on your own domain.

Also check the form's own list of entries, if it has one (most form plugins, Squarespace and many builders store submissions). If the entries are there, you haven't lost the messages — they just never reached your inbox.

WordPress (Contact Form 7, WPForms and others)

If the form says "sent" but nothing arrives, the fix is almost always the same: stop relying on your host to send email. Install an SMTP plugin (WP Mail SMTP, FluentSMTP or Post SMTP) and connect it to a real email account or sending service — Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or a service like Brevo or Postmark. Then send a test email from the plugin's settings page.

In Contact Form 7, open the form's Mail tab. Make sure the "From" address is on your own domain (for example website@yourdomain.com) and put the visitor's address in "Reply-To" instead. Contact Form 7 shows a warning in the form editor when the settings are likely to cause delivery problems — fix anything it flags.

If the send button just spins, or you see a red error: clear your caching plugin, then temporarily switch off other plugins one at a time to find a conflict. Security plugins that block background requests are a common culprit with Contact Form 7.

Elementor forms

Edit the form widget and open Actions After Submit. Check that "Email" is one of the actions, then open the Email section and confirm the "To" address is correct. Elementor sends through WordPress, so if the email never arrives, the WordPress SMTP fix above applies. If the form shows an error on submit, check the reCAPTCHA keys in Elementor's settings and clear any cache.

Divi contact form

Open the Contact Form module and check the Email field in its settings. If it's empty, Divi sends to the site's admin email address — which may be an address nobody checks. Divi also sends through WordPress, so if messages don't arrive, set up an SMTP plugin as described above. If you use Divi's spam protection or captcha, test that it isn't rejecting real submissions.

Squarespace

Edit the form block and open its Storage settings. Check which email address submissions go to, and that it's one you can still receive. Look in spam, and add Squarespace's sending address to your contacts. Squarespace can also send submissions to Google Drive or a mailing list tool — if a connected account was disconnected, that storage stops too.

Shopify

The contact form sends to your store's contact email. Check it under Settings → Store details (or General on older admin layouts), and make sure it's an inbox you read. If you use a theme or app for a custom contact form, check that app's own settings too — theme updates are a common reason a customised contact page stops sending.

GoDaddy

If your site uses GoDaddy's website builder, open the contact section and check the email address submissions go to. If you run WordPress on GoDaddy hosting, the WordPress SMTP fix above is usually the answer — hosting providers commonly restrict how websites send email.