Nuxt 3 contact form �Formspree alternative with AI spam filtering

Contact form for Nuxt 3, posting JSON to SmartForm AI via a server route.

What you're POSTing

The endpoint accepts a standard HTML form POST or JSON via AJAX. Two kinds of fields:

Your form fields â€?name, email, message, whatever you want. Every non-reserved field lands in your dashboard as a column in the submissions table.

Reserved fields â€?names starting with _ are interpreted by the API, not stored:

Field	Purpose
_gotcha	Honeypot. Keep it empty. Hidden from humans via CSS; bots fill it automatically. Any non-empty value silently drops the submission. Add this to every form.
_hp_email / _website / _url / _phone	Honeypot aliases for _gotcha (WordPress / WPForms / Contact Form 7 migrations). Same drop semantics.
_next	Same-origin URL to redirect to after a successful submission. Browser POST results in a 302 here. AJAX calls (with Accept: application/json) get the same value back as next_url in the JSON response. Only http(s) and in-site paths allowed.
_subject	Override the AI-generated email subject line. Max 200 chars; control characters stripped.
X-Gotcha header	Same as _gotcha for JSON requests where you can't add a hidden form field.

Field names are Formspree-compatible â€?migrating from formspree.io/f/{form_id} requires no renaming.

Setup

1. Get a form ID at https://usesmartform.com/dashboard.
2. Clone, install, configure, run:

   git clone https://github.com/smartformai/smartform-example-nuxt.git
   cd smartform-example-nuxt
   npm install
   # edit nuxt.config.ts �runtimeConfig.smartformFormId
   npm run dev

3. Open http://localhost:3000/contact, submit, check your dashboard.

The server route

server/api/contact.post.ts handles the POST and forwards to SmartForm:

export default defineEventHandler(async (event) => {
  const body = await readBody(event);
  const config = useRuntimeConfig();
  const r = await $fetch.raw(`${config.smartformEndpoint}/api/v1/f/${config.smartformFormId}`, {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Accept': 'application/json' },
    body,
  });
  return r._data;
});

pages/contact.vue is a normal HTML form that POSTs to /api/contact.

How the API works

• POST {endpoint}/api/v1/f/{form_id} â€?JSON or form-data, no API key.
• Response: { success, message, submission_id, is_spam, intent, next_url }.

For the full contract, see https://usesmartform.com/docs.

Deploy

npm run build         # ./.output
# Push to Node host, Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare Workers (with the right preset)

Set NUXT_SMARTFORM_FORM_ID and NUXT_SMARTFORM_ENDPOINT in your hosting env.

FAQ

Is there a free tier?

Yes. AI spam filtering is enabled by default on every plan. AI intent classification and high-value lead detection require a paid plan (Pro or Business) �the dashboard enforces this and returns HTTP 402 if you try to enable them on a free workspace.

Do I need an API key?

No. The form posts directly to a public endpoint using only an 8-char form ID, which is non-enumerable. The example also includes a hidden _gotcha honeypot field so naive bots cannot submit.

Do I need a Nuxt server?

Not necessarily. Two variants are included: a Nuxt 3 server route (Nitro) that hides the form ID, and a static, zero-JS plain form for fully static builds.

Related examples

Next.js contact form | SvelteKit contact form | Astro contact form

License

MIT.