Kartra automatically blocks spam bots from filling in your forms, without interrupting your visitors or adding friction to your funnel.
Spam bots can inflate your lead counts, trigger unwanted automations, and waste your time. That’s why Kartra Forms include a built-in honeypot field: a quiet, behind-the-scenes way to block bots from ever submitting your forms in the first place.
In this article, we’ll explain what honeypot fields are, how they work in Kartra, and what additional protection options are available.
What is a honeypot field and how does it work?
A honeypot field is a hidden field in your forms. What this means:
- It’s completely hidden from human users (including those using screen readers or accessibility tools)
- Only bots will interact with it.
- When Kartra detects that the field has been filled in, it flags the submission as spam and blocks it before it reaches your account.
How to enable honeypot fields
You don’t need to do anything. Honeypot fields are automatically added to Kartra-hosted forms, including the ones that you previously published.
Important!
If you’ve embedded a form using its HTML only code, you will need to update your code.
Copy the current HTML snippet from Kartra and paste it into your external site. That ensures the honeypot field is included.
Extra protection measures
While the honeypot field is a very effective way to deter bot submissions, there are two additional protection measures available to help keep your contacts list clean:
- CAPTCHA: Adds a field that requires your visitors to input a code shown as an image.
- Double opt-in: Sends a confirmation email to the lead, requiring them to click a link to complete their opt-in.
Can I remove CAPTCHA from my forms now?
Yes, for most cases.
The honeypot field will silently filter out spam bots without affecting conversions or requiring users to complete visual challenges.
CAPTCHA might still be a good idea if:
- Your form is embedded on a page that receives lots of visitors
- You’ve seen persistent or advanced bot activity on your forms
FAQs
Which types of Kartra forms include the Honeypot field?
The honeypot field is included in Kartra Forms used anywhere in Kartra. This includes embedded forms in Pages and Memberships, ID forms in surveys, and CTAs in Kartra Videos.
How is this different from Captcha?
Captcha fields are visible to humans and they’re an extra step that adds friction for your users, which can reduce sign-ups and sales. Honeypot fields are invisible to humans, so they reduce bot submissions without harming your conversion rates.
What about Double Opt-In?
Double opt-in is useful for more than just filtering out spam submissions. Real humans can make typing errors or use fake emails, and double opt-in keeps those undeliverable addresses from being added to your list.