SheetLink Forms vs sheet2api
These two tools meet at the spreadsheet and diverge everywhere else. sheet2api gives your code a REST API over a sheet; SheetLink Forms gives your website forms a screened, attributed pipeline into one. The right pick is almost entirely about which direction your data flows.
SheetLink Forms
SheetLink Forms is a form backend: every form gets a permanent endpoint at sheetlinkforms.com/f/your-token that accepts plain HTML posts, JSON, and Webflow/Framer webhooks, and delivers accepted submissions as rows into a Google Sheet or an Excel Online table via the official APIs. Around that pipe sit the things forms specifically need: honeypot and layered screening with quarantine review (nothing silently dropped), per-form and per-IP rate limits, an origin allowlist, retries at 5, 30, and 120 minutes with a delivery log, a formula-injection guard, and automatic capture of UTMs plus gclid, fbclid, msclkid, wbraid, and gbraid onto each row. Free during beta (invite required), with no per-submission fees, ever. See how it works.
sheet2api
sheet2api does what its name says: per its site, it turns a spreadsheet into a REST API, so your code can read, search, create, update, and delete rows over HTTP without touching the underlying provider APIs. That is a genuinely useful shape - a lightweight database with a spreadsheet UI on top, reachable from any language - and it lists support for both Google Sheets and Excel. It is also, by design, a CRUD API rather than a form backend: there are no form semantics in the pipeline - no spam screening, no quarantine, no attribution capture - and paid tiers meter API requests, with plans starting around $10/month per its pricing. If the consumer of the endpoint is your own code, none of those absences matter. If the producer is the anonymous public web, all of them do.
Side by side
| SheetLink Forms | sheet2api | |
|---|---|---|
| What the product is | A form backend: an endpoint built to stand between the public web and your spreadsheet, with screening, mapping, retries, and attribution in the path. Deliberately write-only and forms-only. | A spreadsheet API layer: per its site, REST endpoints for reading and writing sheet rows from code. The consumer is assumed to be your own software, not an anonymous visitor. |
| Reading data back | Not offered. Rows go in; reading, filtering, and analysis happen in the spreadsheet itself or tools pointed at it. If your app needs to query the sheet over HTTP, this is the row that sends you to sheet2api. | sheet2api wins here - it is the whole point. GET, search, update, and delete against sheet rows from any language, which makes a spreadsheet usable as a lightweight backend for an app. |
| Spam screening | Built in and layered: honeypot, per-form and per-IP rate limits, origin allowlist, content heuristics with a strictness dial, timing signal, optional Turnstile - with quarantine and one-click review so nothing is silently dropped. | Not part of the product's shape - it is a CRUD API, and whatever hits an exposed endpoint gets written. Pointing a public form at a raw API means every bot submission lands in your sheet, and any filtering is code you write. |
| Ad attribution and click IDs | The sl.js embed captures utm_* plus gclid, wbraid, gbraid, fbclid, and msclkid, persists them across pages, and attaches them to the row - each lead carries its ad click into the spreadsheet. | Not applicable to an API layer: the API writes what your code sends. Collecting and persisting attribution parameters across a visitor's session would be your frontend code. |
| Pricing model | Free during beta (invite required). No per-submission or per-request fees, ever; planned post-beta pricing (planned, not final) is a free tier around 50 submissions/month and an unmetered paid plan around $15-19/month. | Paid tiers meter API requests, with plans starting around $10/month per its site. Fair for an API product - every read and write is a request - but it means traffic growth and bot noise both show up in the meter. |
| Excel and Google Sheets support | Both are first-class destinations: Google Sheets via one-click OAuth with the limited drive.file scope, and Excel Online tables in OneDrive via Microsoft Graph, where the table's columns define the row shape. | Both listed as supported spreadsheet backends per its site. On storage the products overlap; the difference is everything wrapped around the write. |
| Delivery semantics | Asynchronous delivery with retries at 5 min / 30 min / 2 h, a per-submission delivery log, and a formula-injection guard escaping leading = + - @ before values reach cells. | Synchronous API semantics: your code makes a request and handles the response, including retries and failures. Standard and correct for an API - it just means the reliability logic lives in your code. |
Choose sheet2api when...
Pick sheet2api when your own code needs to treat a spreadsheet like a database: reading rows into an app, updating inventory cells from a script, powering a prototype backend without standing up a real one. That is the job it is shaped for, the metered-request pricing maps sensibly onto it, and SheetLink Forms simply does not do it - we are write-only and forms-only, deliberately. An API layer and a form backend are different tools that happen to share a storage medium.
Choose SheetLink Forms when...
Pick SheetLink Forms when the writer is the public web: a lead form, a signup form, a landing page you run ads to. Everything a raw API lacks in that position is the product - spam screened with quarantine review instead of written straight into your data, rate limits and an origin allowlist at the door, click IDs and UTMs attached to each row, retries with a delivery log behind it, and no request meter for a bot flood to run up. Forms in, rows out, into Excel Online or Google Sheets - see the live demo or join the waitlist.
FAQ
Is sheet2api a form backend?
No - per its own site it is a spreadsheet API: REST endpoints over Google Sheets or Excel for programmatic reads and writes. It has no form semantics: no spam screening, no quarantine, no attribution capture, no honeypot handling. Those absences are correct for its job (your code is the client) and disqualifying for a public form (anonymous strangers are the client).
Can I point an HTML form straight at a spreadsheet API?
Mechanically, often yes - and everything a form backend exists for is then missing. Every bot submission writes a row into your data, there is no quarantine to catch borderline cases, no origin allowlist, no attribution capture, and on metered tiers the junk traffic counts against your request quota. A form endpoint puts screening between the web and the sheet; an API layer, by design, does not.
Can I use SheetLink Forms and sheet2api together?
Yes, and the shapes compose naturally: SheetLink Forms handles ingestion - screening, mapping, and writing form submissions as rows - while an API layer like sheet2api gives your application read access to the same spreadsheet. Ingest through the form backend, consume through the API. Just keep writes flowing through one path so your row shape stays consistent.
Does SheetLink Forms have an API for reading rows back?
No, deliberately. SheetLink Forms is forms-only: submissions become rows, and reading happens in the spreadsheet or whatever you point at it (Excel, Power BI, Google Sheets functions, or an API layer). Keeping the product write-only is what keeps the pipeline simple and the pricing unmetered.
How does pricing compare in practice?
sheet2api meters API requests on paid tiers starting around $10/month, per its site - sensible for an API, where reads dominate. SheetLink Forms never meters submissions: free during beta (invite via the waitlist), with planned post-beta pricing (planned, not final) of a free tier around 50 submissions/month and an unmetered paid plan around $15-19/month. For a public form, unmetered matters: spam waves and launch spikes never become a bill.
My form data needs to end up in Excel, not Google Sheets. Does that change the comparison?
Not much - both products list Excel support - but the write path differs. SheetLink Forms inserts rows into a real Excel table in your OneDrive workbook via Microsoft Graph, with the table's columns defining the row shape and automatic name-based mapping from your form's fields, plus the screening pipeline in front. The setup walkthrough is at HTML form to Excel.
Comparison facts reference sheet2api's public documentation and pricing pages and were checked at publish time; tell us if something is out of date.