Why Your Replies to Squarespace Form Inquiries Are Going to Spam (And How to Fix It)
As a business owner, there is nothing more exciting than seeing a new inquiry come through your Squarespace website’s contact form. You eagerly type out a thoughtful response, hit send, and wait for a reply.
And then... crickets.
You might assume the potential client simply lost interest, but the frustrating truth is that your reply likely went straight to their spam folder. When communication breaks down like this, it actively costs you income.
Fortunately, there are a few simple ways to diagnose your email setup and a foolproof workaround to ensure your messages always land in the primary inbox.
Step 1: The ‘Pass’ Test (How to Check Your Email Health)
Before we look at the Squarespace form itself, we need to make sure your professional email is fundamentally trusted by other email providers. You can do this by running a quick test.
Open your professional work email and send a test email to your personal email account (like a personal Gmail or Yahoo account).
Open that email in your personal inbox on a desktop computer.
Look for the option to view the email's raw code. In Gmail, you do this by clicking the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the email and selecting "Show original."
This will open a page filled with technical header data. You are looking for a section that lists three specific acronyms: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Next to each of those three acronyms, you want to see the word PASS. If you see "FAIL" or "SOFTFAIL," your email lacks the proper authentication, which is a one-way ticket to the spam folder.
Step 2: Set Up the Right DNS Records
If your test showed a "fail," or if you've recently purchased a professional domain name (like hello@yourbusiness.com), you need to add specific DNS records to your domain registrar (e.g., GoDaddy, Namecheap, or Squarespace itself) to prove you are a legitimate sender.
Here is what those three acronyms mean and what you need to add:
SPF (Sender Policy Framework): This record acts like a guest list for your domain. It explicitly tells receiving servers which email providers (like Google Workspace or Outlook) are allowed to send emails on your behalf.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): This adds a hidden digital signature to your emails, proving that the email hasn't been tampered with while in transit.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): This is the ultimate rulebook. It tells receiving servers exactly what to do if an email fails the SPF or DKIM checks (e.g., reject it or mark it as spam).
A Crucial Tip for DMARC: Because "Reporting" is in the name, standard DMARC setups will automatically send you daily XML reports detailing all your email traffic. These reports are incredibly confusing and will needlessly clog up your inbox. To authenticate your domain without getting these annoying reports, simply add a TXT record to your DNS settings with the hostname _dmarc and paste this exact value:
v=DMARC1; p=none;
This setup protects your deliverability and tells the system you don't want the confusing daily reports.
The Hidden Problem: When Perfect Emails Still Go to Spam
Let's say you've done everything right. You checked your headers, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC all say "PASS," yet your replies to Squarespace inquiries are still ending up in the junk folder. Why is this happening?
The culprit is the Squarespace contact form block itself.
When a user fills out a form on your website, Squarespace generates an automated notification and emails it to you. When you hit "Reply" directly on that notification, your email client drags all of that automated, server-generated routing code into the new email thread.
When the customer's email provider sees you—a regular human—replying to an automated, server-generated email address with strange routing data attached, their spam algorithms get highly suspicious and often block the message to be safe.
The Workaround to Guarantee Delivery
Because automated form routing is largely out of your control, many users with perfectly set up email domains still face this issue when using Squarespace forms.
To be on the completely safe side, you need to change how you reply to leads. When you receive a form submission notification from your Squarespace site, do not hit reply.
Instead, use this workaround:
Copy the customer's email address from the form notification.
Start a brand new email chain addressed directly to them.
Copy and paste their original enquiry at the bottom of your new email so they have the context of what you are responding to.
By starting a fresh, clean email thread directly from your server to theirs, you strip away all the automated website code that triggers spam filters.
Yes, copying and pasting takes a little bit longer than simply hitting "reply." However, an extra 30 seconds of admin work is vastly better than losing out on your hard-earned income because a client never saw your message!
Summary
This article explains why business owners often have their emails sent to spam when replying to Squarespace website form submissions. It provides a step-by-step guide to testing email deliverability by checking headers for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC "pass" statuses. It explains how to set up these DNS records for professional domains, including a DMARC configuration that avoids flooding the user's inbox with confusing technical reports. Finally, it outlines a reliable workaround for when correctly authenticated emails still go to spam: starting a completely new email thread and pasting the original inquiry at the bottom, rather than hitting "reply" to the automated form notification.
