Every form on your real estate site has two layers. The fields and steps you can see, and the lead capture form settings that decide what happens around them — how the form behaves on the page, the thank you page or message after submit, whether the lead gets an ebook or a drip sequence, and what protects you from spam.

Form Settings is where those decisions live. This guide walks through every option in the panel, what it does, the form display options for each one, and the sensible default to start with.

In the form builder, look for the Settings button in the header bar at the top. Click it. The Inspector panel on the right side of the screen loads the Form Settings view, with two tabs across the top: General and Delivery.

A few notes on the layout:

• Settings here apply to the whole form, not to a single field or step. For per-step options (titles, button text, conditional logic), click the step itself in the canvas — those settings load in the same Inspector panel.
• Every change saves automatically. There's no Save button on this panel. Toggle a switch, pick a dropdown option, and the form updates in the background.
• The settings live in the form's database record, so they apply everywhere the form is embedded — hero section, mid-page, footer, popup. You don't set them per placement.

The first option on the General tab is "Show step indicator." It only matters on multi-step forms — but on those, it's one of the most impactful form display options you have. When the box is checked, your form displays numbered pills at the top — 1, 2, 3 — that highlight the current step and dim the ones still ahead. Visitors can see at a glance how much form they're committing to.

When to turn it on:

• Forms with three or more steps. The indicator reassures visitors that the form is finite.
• Long forms where someone might worry "how much more is there?"

When to turn it off:

• Two-step forms. The indicator adds visual clutter without much value.
• Forms where you want to keep the first step feeling lightweight — sometimes seeing "Step 1 of 5" up front kills conversion before the lead even starts.

On single-step forms the toggle does nothing. Leave it however it lands.

Captcha protects your form from bots and automated submissions. Without it, a public form on a busy real estate site will pick up junk traffic within days. The form builder uses Google reCAPTCHA behind the scenes, and Form Settings gives you three modes to pick from. Each mode trades off some friction for some protection.

Auto (recommended). This is the default and the right pick for almost every form. Invisible reCAPTCHA runs in the background on every submission. Real visitors never see a thing. Only suspicious traffic gets challenged — the "pick all the squares with traffic lights" puzzle most people know.

Always show challenge. Every visitor sees the puzzle, every time. Use this only if you're under active bot attack and Auto isn't catching enough. The cost is real — conversion drops noticeably when every lead has to solve a puzzle to submit.

Disabled. No captcha at all. Use only on internal forms that sit behind a login, or short term while you're debugging something. Public forms with captcha disabled will fill up with spam.

The captcha keys come from your platform settings. You don't enter a site key on each form. If your platform reCAPTCHA isn't set up yet, captcha falls back to the platform default — so there's nothing extra to do per form.

After someone hits Submit, two things can happen. Form Settings lets you pick which one — an inline thank-you message that replaces the form, or a redirect to a different page. Either way, the lead's submission is saved first; the choice here only controls what they see next.

Inline thank-you message. The form area on the page replaces itself with your message. The visitor stays on the same page, sees the confirmation, and can keep browsing. This is the simplest option and works for most forms. Type your thank you message into the field — it accepts plain text. Common formats:

• "Thanks! We'll be in touch within an hour."
• "Got it. Check your email — your ebook is on the way."
• "We received your request. Someone will call you shortly."

Redirect to a URL. Instead of an inline message, the visitor is sent to a different page after submit. This is form redirect after submit territory — useful when you want a dedicated thank you page form visitors land on with extra content, a calendar booking widget, or a tracking conversion pixel. Paste the full URL into the field — for example, /thank-you-seller or https://calendly.com/yourname/intro-call.

Pick one. Inline message is simpler and works for most forms. Use a redirect when the thank you page has its own job to do - e.g. deliver a document.

The Delivery tab is where you wire your form to actually do something for the lead the moment they submit. The first option is ebook delivery — the standard way to turn a generic squeeze form into a real lead magnet. Most successful real estate forms use this to trade a useful PDF for the lead's email.

Check the "Deliver an ebook" box and a dropdown appears with your library of seeded ebooks — the seller's guide, the buyer's guide, the cash offer breakdown, and so on. Pick one. After someone submits the form, an email goes out with a link to the personalized PDF, branded with your business name and phone.

A few details worth knowing:

• The ebook is generated per submission. Your business details, service area, and contact info are merged into the PDF when it's created, so each lead gets a version that looks like it came from your company.
• Delivery happens through the day-0 email that ships with every form. You don't have to wire up a separate notification.
• A small preview of the ebook cover shows in the Inspector panel after you pick one, so you can confirm you grabbed the right title.

If the form's job is to give something away in exchange for an email, this is the setting that does it.

Click on Automation.

This is how you stay in front of a lead who isn't ready to act yet — most real estate leads aren't, and a drip sequence does the patient follow-up work for you while you focus on the ones who are hot today.

Check the "Start a drip sequence" box and a dropdown lists your available sequences. Pick one. After someone submits, they're enrolled — the first email goes out on day zero, and the rest follow on the schedule built into the sequence.

When to enroll a form into a drip:

• Seller leads who aren't ready to commit yet. A seven-touch nurture keeps you in their inbox while they're still deciding.
• Buyers list signups. A welcome series builds the relationship before you start sending property emails.
• Ebook downloads. The download itself is the trigger; the drip is the follow-up that turns a passive reader into a phone conversation.

You can combine ebook delivery and drip enrollment on the same form. The ebook arrives first, then the drip continues the conversation. They run independently — turning one off doesn't affect the other.

To stop a sequence later, edit the sequence itself or unenroll a specific lead from their record. Form Settings is just the on-ramp.

Two things often feel like they should live in Form Settings but actually live elsewhere in the form builder. Worth calling them out so you don't waste time looking in the wrong panel — these are the most common questions tenants raise after their first form ships.

• Submission notifications that email you when a lead comes in. Those are configured under Automations — a separate panel with its own Add Action button. Form Settings doesn't have a notification recipient field. If you want submission notifications going to multiple team members, that's where you set them up.
• Custom autoresponder emails to the lead. Same place — Automations. The "Send email to lead" action is where you write a custom message that goes back to the person who submitted. The thank you message you set on this panel only controls what shows on the page after submit, not what hits the lead's inbox.

If you need either of those, switch to the Automations panel. That's the next article in this series.

A safe default for almost every new form: leave the step indicator on for any form with three or more steps, set captcha to Auto, write a short inline thank-you message, and turn on ebook delivery if the form is offering one. Skip the drip sequence until you have one written, then come back and enable it.

That covers every lead capture form settings option in the panel with a sensible choice. Once you've shipped a few forms and seen what works, you can adjust the form display options per form based on what your traffic responds to. Until then, the defaults above will keep you out of trouble and your forms converting.

For the full feature set behind the form builder — visual editor, presets, automations, and the rest — see SiteStakes Forms.