Why did my contact form stop sending emails?

Common causes are a plugin or theme update, changed email settings, an expired captcha key or emails landing in spam. Send a test and check each step.

How do I know if fewer people are reaching my form?

Compare visits to the form page and form starts with the week before. If visits are down, the cause is traffic; if visits are steady but starts or sends are down, it's the page or the form.

Can a cookie banner reduce form submissions?

It can hide or cover the form on small screens, and it can stop tracking scripts that count submissions. Check both.

Form submissions suddenly dropped? A 15-minute checklist

The Formleak team

Published 22 October 2026

Quick answer

When form submissions suddenly drop, it's usually one of three things: the form is broken, the tracking is broken, or fewer people are reaching the form. Send a test submission, check that it arrives and is counted, then compare form views and starts with last week to see which one changed.

1. Send the form yourself (2 minutes)

Fill in the form on your phone and on a computer, the way a visitor would. Then check:

Did a success message or thank-you page appear?
Did the email or CRM entry arrive? Check spam too.
Did an error appear that a visitor might not understand?

If it doesn't arrive, the form is broken. Common causes: a plugin or theme update, an expired captcha key, a changed email setting, or a spam filter at your mail provider. Running Google Ads? See how to tell a broken form from broken tracking.

2. Check the tracking (3 minutes)

If your test arrived but your reports show fewer submissions, look at the tracking. Was a tag, cookie banner or tag manager setup changed recently? Did the thank-you page move? Did the form start sending without reloading the page? GA4's built-in form tracking can miss those forms; see can GA4 track form abandonment.

3. Compare traffic to the form (5 minutes)

Fewer submissions can simply mean fewer visitors. Compare this week with last week:

Visits to the form page: down? Look at ads (budget, paused campaigns), search rankings or a changed menu link.
Form starts: visits steady but starts down? Something on the page changed: the form moved lower, a pop-up covers it, or it doesn't load on some devices.
Starts steady, sends down? Something inside the form changed: a new required field, a validation error, a captcha.

4. Look at what changed (5 minutes)

Most sudden drops line up with a date. Check your website's update log, your form plugin's version history, recent deploys and any campaign changes from the day the drop started. If nothing changed on your side, check whether one browser or device is affected: a script error on Safari or older Android phones can stop a form for only part of your visitors.

Catch it next time, the same day

Broken forms often go unnoticed for days, because nobody complains about a form they couldn't send. Formleak watches every form and sends you an alert when one suddenly stops being completed, so you hear about it before your sales team does. See alerts and the weekly email.

Frequently asked questions

Why did my contact form stop sending emails?: Common causes are a plugin or theme update, changed email settings, an expired captcha key or emails landing in spam. Send a test and check each step.
How do I know if fewer people are reaching my form?: Compare visits to the form page and form starts with the week before. If visits are down, the cause is traffic; if visits are steady but starts or sends are down, it's the page or the form.
Can a cookie banner reduce form submissions?: It can hide or cover the form on small screens, and it can stop tracking scripts that count submissions. Check both.