Public Link
Choosing a channel
One form, two ways out: a public link anyone can open, or a request addressed to one person. You can use both, and the form itself never changes.
The two channels
A channel is one of the two ways a published form reaches people. You choose it in the Share sheet:
Public link — anyone with the URL can answer, through a share link, an embed, or a QR code. You do not know in advance who will respond, and one link collects many submissions.
Requests — one named person, one request each, created by a caller. You know who you are asking before you ask, and you can track whether they answered.
Nothing about the form changes between the two. The same questions, logic, theme and settings serve both. A form can use both at once, and a form’s channel is never a setting you declare — it is simply observed from the share links and requests that exist.
Which one to use
| If you… | Use |
|---|---|
| Are collecting from an audience you cannot name — a signup, a survey, a contact form | Public link |
| Need one specific customer to supply, correct, confirm, sign, or pay | Requests |
| Want to know whether a named person has answered yet, and chase them if not | Requests |
| Want the answers handed back to a workflow or an AI agent that is waiting on them | Requests |
| Need the form on a web page, in an email footer, or behind a QR code | Public link |
| Already know some answers and want them filled in before the person opens the form | Requests |
What requests add
A request is addressed, so it can carry things a public link cannot:
Answers you already know — the caller pre-fills visible questions server side, and can lock any of them so the recipient reads but cannot change them. See Requests don’t need a hidden field to pre-fill.
A status you can track — pending, completed, expired or canceled, per person, on the Requests page.
Delivery and chasing — an optional invitation email and reminders, or your own delivery if you’d rather send the link yourself.
A hand-back — a callback fires when the request reaches a terminal state, so the workflow that asked can resume.
What public links add
Reach without a list — one URL serves everyone, so you do not need an address for each respondent.
Several links per form — each with its own default language, expiry, response limit and tracking, so you can tell campaigns apart. See share link analytics.
URL parameters —
?utm_source=…style values seed the form’s hidden fields and nothing else. This is the only way to pass data into a public link, and it is why hidden fields exist.Embeds and QR codes — see embedding & popups.
A request link ignores URL parameters
Request links do not read ?param= values at all. The recipient holds that link, so honouring parameters would let them
rewrite what the caller set. On a request, the caller’s context is the only source.
Both channels spend the same allowance
Your workspace has one monthly allowance shared across both channels. A submission collected through a share link spends one unit, and creating a request spends one unit — whether or not the recipient ever answers. The submission a request collects is already paid for by the request and is not counted again. See limits & quotas.
Telling them apart afterwards
The submissions table has a Source column showing Public link or Request for each row, and you can filter by it. Analytics covers both channels together with a channel filter rather than separate pages, and adds a request funnel when requests exist. See analytics & insights.
Step by step in Zapier and n8n
Send public link submissions to another app sends each submission to email, Sheets, Slack or a CRM through Zapier. Send a request from a Zap does the same for requests. The n8n guides do both in a self-hosted n8n.