Overview
FormFence blocks AI-generated spam on Shopify contact forms without making real customers fill in a CAPTCHA.
FormFence is a spam filter for the Shopify contact form. It runs server-side, looks at the shape of each submission, and drops the ones that smell like bots. There is no CAPTCHA, no checkbox, no friction on the storefront.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Price | Free, or Pro $9.99 USD/month |
| Free plan | Honeypot + per-IP rate limiting |
| Pro plan | Adds full detection pipeline, dashboard, both logs, CSV export, reply composer |
| Pages affected | The Shopify contact form |
| Permissions requested | None |
| Compatible with | Online Store 2.0 themes (Dawn, Sense, Refresh, Horizon, and any other 2.0 theme) |
Why this exists
Spam filters were tuned for "Viagra" and "Nigerian prince." That's not what arrives anymore. What arrives is a one-paragraph enquiry about your actual product, in fluent English, signed with a fake name and a real-looking email. Twenty of them a day. You read each one because the next might be a real customer. It never is.
FormFence catches that traffic with five layered checks: honeypot, rate limit, disposable-email detection, a rich content-pattern catalogue (high-confidence keywords, density rules, weighted vocabulary scoring), and an AI classifier (Anthropic Claude Haiku via Vercel AI Gateway, zero data retention, per-shop opt-out) that catches templated spam the rules can't anticipate. Real enquiries land in your inbox, the rest never get there.
Where to next
- Getting started. Install FormFence and protect your contact form.
- How it works. The five detection layers and what each one catches.
- Settings reference. Every setting in the admin, what it does, default values.
- Billing. Free vs Pro, how Shopify-managed pricing works, cancellation.
- Privacy and data. What we store, sub-processors, GDPR rights.