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Cognito Forms Zapier integrationAutomate Cognito Forms with Zapier.

The Cognito Forms Zapier integration gives you 3 triggers, 5 actions and 3 searches. All three triggers are instant, so a submitted, edited or deleted entry reaches Zapier straight away, even on the free plan. Here is what each one does and what it costs.

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Overview

What the Cognito Forms Zapier integration actually does

It links your Cognito Forms account to Zapier so that what happens to an entry (someone submits it, edits it or deletes it) can set off work in other apps, and so that other apps can write entries back into your forms. No code, no developer: you pick the form, the event and what should follow.

Three typical results. A live inbox for submissions: New Entry fires on each completed form and pushes the answers to the tool your team already watches. A status that follows the entry: Update Entry as an action writes a value back into the entry once another step is done, so the person reviewing the form sees where it stands. A form that closes itself: Set Form Availability switches a form on or off when something elsewhere says the session is full.

What Zapier does not do for Cognito Forms: no trigger watches the form itself being created or edited, only its entries. No search offers a find-or-create variant, so a missing entry is never created on the fly. And a Zap only sees entries that arrive after you publish it; the ones already in your form stay where they are.

If you are still choosing a tool, the same app on Make is covered in our Cognito Forms Make integration page, and the broader trade-offs are in Make vs Zapier.

Vocabulary

Zapier vocabulary in one minute

Seven words you will meet in the editor. Each one is used below without being explained again.

Zap
The automation you build: one trigger, then one or more actions that run each time the trigger event happens.
Trigger
The event that starts the Zap, like a new Cognito Forms entry. Once the Zap is on, Zapier waits for it.
Action
What the Zap does after it starts: the step that writes, sends or changes something for you in an app.
Task
What Zapier bills: one action that completes successfully. Your plan counts tasks, nothing else.
Instant vs polling
An instant trigger is reported by the app the moment it happens. A polling trigger is checked by Zapier on a timer.
Filter
A step that lets the Zap continue only when the incoming data meets your condition, and stops it otherwise.
Search step
A step that looks up something already stored in an app, so the following steps can reuse what it found.
Cost

What it really costs in tasks

Cognito Forms is not a premium app on Zapier, so it works on the free plan.

  • Free plan100 tasks a month, unlimited Zaps
  • Free plan stepsTwo steps: one trigger, one action
  • Premium appNo
  • Cognito Forms triggersAll instant, no interval applies

The trigger never costs a task, and neither does Zapier listening for new entries. Each action that succeeds counts once, so a Zap with three actions uses three tasks per entry. An action that fails is not billed. The catch: the free plan only builds two-step Zaps, one trigger and one action. Add a filter, a search or a second action and you need a paid plan.

Good news for this app: its triggers are instant, so the interval grid below never slows them down, even on Free.

Connect

Connect your Cognito Forms account

  1. 01

    Open your connections

    In Zapier, go to the Apps page of your account and click + Add connection. A dialog opens with a search box. A connection is your account linked once, then reused by every step that needs Cognito Forms.

  2. 02

    Pick Cognito Forms

    Type Cognito Forms in the search box, select it, then click Add connection. A new browser tab opens on the Cognito Forms side, where you sign in with the account that owns the forms you want to automate.

  3. 03

    Grant access

    Approve the access Zapier asks for. From then on, every Cognito Forms step in any Zap reuses this connection, no new sign-in needed. Forms you do not own yourself still need read or write access on the Cognito Forms side.

First Zap

Your first Zap: tag each new entry

GoalEach new entry that meets a condition gets a value written back into it.

  1. 01

    Create the Zap and pick the trigger

    Start a new Zap, choose Cognito Forms as the app and New Entry as the event. Pick your connection, then the form to watch.

  2. 02

    Test the trigger

    Run the test. Zapier brings back the three most recent entries of that form; pick a real one so the next steps are mapped on actual answers.

  3. 03

    Add the filter

    Click the plus icon, choose Filter, then set the field, the rule and the value. Use a text rule on a text answer, or the filter never lets anything through.

  4. 04

    Add Update Entry

    Add a Cognito Forms action, pick Update Entry, select the same form, then map the entry Id from the trigger into the Id field and fill the value to write.

  5. 05

    Test, then publish

    Test the action and open the entry in Cognito Forms to check the change landed. Then Publish. With a filter, this Zap has three steps and needs a paid plan.

Triggers

Cognito Forms triggers

3 events start a Zap when something happens in Cognito Forms, and 3 of them are instant: the app calls Zapier straight away, whatever your plan.

1

Entry Deleted

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when an entry is deleted.”

Starts your Zap when an entry is removed from the form you chose, so the other tools that hold a copy of it can be cleaned up too. Without it, a deleted submission keeps living in your spreadsheet or CRM.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan.
When to use it
you mirror entries into a sheet or a contact list and want a deletion in Cognito Forms to remove the matching row or contact there.
Watch out
it watches one form at a time, so a deletion on another form never reaches this Zap.
2

New Entry

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when someone fills out your form.”

Fires each time someone completes and submits the form you picked, and hands every answer to the next steps. It is the trigger behind most Cognito Forms Zaps: notify, copy, create a record elsewhere.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan.
When to use it
a quote request or a registration form whose answers should land in your CRM or team chat without waiting for the next check.
Watch out
entries submitted before the Zap was published are never sent.
3

Update Entry

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when someone updates an entry.”

Reacts when someone updates an existing entry on the form you chose, and passes that entry on to the next steps.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan.
When to use it
an approval workflow where a reviewer changes a status field in the entry and the next team must be told.
Watch out
a Zap that also runs the Update Entry action on the same form edits the entry, which sets this trigger off again in a loop.
Actions

Cognito Forms actions

Cognito Forms gives you 5 actions. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.

1

Create Entry

Action

In Zapier“Creates a new entry.”

Adds a fresh entry to one of your forms, filled from data that arrived in another app. Handy when the information starts somewhere other than the form itself.

When to use it
a lead captured by phone in your CRM should exist as a proper submission in the form your team processes.
2

Delete Entry

Action

In Zapier“Deletes a specified entry.”

Removes one entry from a form. You give it the form and the Id of the entry, usually mapped from an earlier step.

When to use it
a request is cancelled in your helpdesk and the matching registration must disappear.
Watch out
without a valid entry Id from a previous step, it has nothing to delete and the step fails.
3

Update Entry

Action

In Zapier“Updates an entry.”

Changes the values of an entry that already exists, identified by its form and its Id.

When to use it
once a payment is confirmed in another tool, write “paid” into the status field of the original order form.
Watch out
the Id has to come from the trigger or a search step, typing it by hand only fits one entry.
4

Set Form Availability

Action

In Zapier“Sets the availability of a form.”

Sets the availability of a whole form, so your Zap decides whether it takes new submissions. A switch for the form, not for its entries.

When to use it
your event tool reports the session is full and the registration form should stop taking people.
5

API Request (Beta)

Action

In Zapier“This is an advanced action which makes a raw HTTP request that includes this integration's authentication.”

An advanced step that sends a raw request to Cognito Forms using the connection you already set up. It covers what the ready-made actions leave out.

When to use it
you know the call you need from the Cognito Forms documentation and no listed action does it.
Watch out
requests only go to domains tied to Cognito Forms, and you choose whether an error stops the step.
Searches

Cognito Forms searches

3 search steps look for data that already exists in Cognito Forms, so a later step can use it.

A search step appears at the bottom of the action list, under SEARCH. Three settings decide what happens when the result is not what you expected.

1

Get Document

Search

In Zapier“Gets an entry document.”

Produces the document Cognito Forms builds for an entry, from one of the form's document templates. You name the form, the entry Id and the template number.

When to use it
a registration should go out as a document attached to a confirmation email.
Watch out
the form, the entry Id and the template number are all required, so map the Id from the trigger or from Get Entry.
2

Get Entry

Search

In Zapier“Gets a specified entry.”

Fetches one specific entry from a form by its Id, so later steps can read all of its answers, not just those the trigger carried.

When to use it
another app only stores the entry Id and you need the full submission before writing a report.
3

Get Form Entries

Search

In Zapier“Retrieves entries from a form using a specific entry view via OData.”

Pulls several entries from a form through one of its entry views, the saved view deciding which fields come back. You can ask for the Ids only.

When to use it
a digest that needs the entries a reviewer has filtered into a view.
Watch out
without an entry view set up on the form, there is nothing to pick.

The three settings every search exposes

  1. Successful if no search results are found?
    Left on its default, an empty search stops the Zap and skips the steps that needed it. Switched on, the Zap carries on with nothing.
  2. Create X if it doesn't exist yet?
    This box turns a search into a find-or-create. No Cognito Forms search offers it, so you will not see it here.
  3. If multiple search results are found?
    Three choices when several items match: keep the first one (the default), stop the Zap, or pass all of them on.
When it breaks

When a Cognito Forms Zap breaks

Zapier's help center links Cognito Forms to a single getting-started article and lists no app-specific limit. What breaks comes from how Zaps work in general.

Four cases follow from that, each tied to an operation of this app. When a run fails, our Zapier troubleshooting page is the next stop.

  • Old entries never arrive

    A Zap only reacts to what happens after it is published. The entries already sitting in your form are not sent, so moving them is a separate job.

  • The Update Entry loop

    A Zap triggered by Update Entry that also runs the Update Entry action on the same form edits the entry, which fires it again and eats tasks fast.

  • A bulk import gets held back

    If hundreds of entries are created or edited at once, Zapier's flood protection can pause the batch instead of running every one of them.

  • A search finds nothing

    With the default setting, a Get Entry that finds no entry stops the Zap there, and the steps after it are skipped without any task billed.
Need help

Need help automating Cognito Forms with Zapier?

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FAQ

Cognito Forms Zapier integration: frequent questions

01Is the Cognito Forms Zapier integration free?
Yes, Cognito Forms is not a premium app on Zapier, so it runs on the free plan. That plan gives you 100 tasks a month and unlimited Zaps, but each Zap is limited to two steps: one trigger and one action. A Zap that adds a filter, a search such as Get Entry, or a second action becomes a multi-step Zap and needs a paid plan. Prices change often, so check the Zapier pricing page before you size anything.
02How many tasks does a Cognito Forms Zap use?
One task per successful action, per entry. The trigger itself never costs a task, and Zapier waiting for new entries is free too. A Zap that runs New Entry then Create Entry in another form uses one task per submission. Add an Update Entry action after it and the same submission costs two. An action that fails is not counted. So the real number to estimate is your monthly entry volume multiplied by the number of actions in the Zap.
03Does Cognito Forms send entries to Zapier in real time?
Yes. Entry Deleted, New Entry and Update Entry are all instant triggers: Cognito Forms calls Zapier as soon as the entry changes, and the Zap starts at once. The plan interval, 15 minutes on the free plan, does not apply to them. You can spot this in the editor by the lightning bolt shown on a Zap built on an instant trigger. Zapier decides that type from the app itself, so it cannot be changed.
04What does it take to connect Cognito Forms to Zapier?
A Cognito Forms account and access to the forms you want the Zap to work on. In Zapier, open Apps, click + Add connection, search Cognito Forms, then sign in and approve access in the tab that opens. The connection is saved once and reused by every step. If a form belongs to a colleague, make sure the account you connect can see it, or it will not show up when a step asks for a Form.
05Why does a Cognito Forms Zap keep running on its own?
Most likely it writes into what it watches. A Zap that starts on Update Entry and then runs the Update Entry action on the same form changes the entry, and that change fires the trigger again. Each round costs tasks until the Zap is turned off. Add a filter that only lets entries through when the field you write is still empty, or have the Zap write to another form instead.
06What if the Cognito Forms action you need is not listed?
Try API Request (Beta). It sends a raw request to Cognito Forms with the connection you already have, so you do not deal with authentication again. You choose the method and the URL, and requests are limited to domains tied to Cognito Forms. It suits someone comfortable reading the Cognito Forms developer documentation. Before going that far, look again at the lists above: Get Entry and Get Form Entries already read entries, and Update Entry already writes into them, with no raw request at all.
07Zapier, Make or n8n for Cognito Forms?
It depends on criteria, not on a winner. Operations: on Zapier, Cognito Forms exposes 3 instant triggers, 5 actions and 3 searches, so check that the event and the action you need are on that list, and compare with what Make and n8n offer for the same app. Billing: Zapier counts one task per successful action, so estimate your monthly entries times the actions in the Zap. Habit: the tool your team already uses usually matters more than any single feature.
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