Own Your Website Leads: Forms Into Your Own Database
Short answer: on most business websites, an enquiry is stored by a form tool and copied to an inbox. The business holds neither the record nor the right to keep it past the subscription. Owning your leads means every submission is written to a database in your own cloud account, with the source page and consent text attached. The running cost is US$0 to US$25 a month. The PDPA duties are the same either way, but they are easier to meet when the data is in one place you control.
Prices and platform statements below are from each company's own pages, checked 17 October 2026.
Where do website enquiries go today?
Trace one submission on your own site and you will usually find three copies in three places:
- The form tool. Typeform, Jotform, Google Forms, Wix Forms or a WordPress plugin stores the submission on its servers or in your WordPress database.
- An inbox. The tool emails a notification to one address. If that address belongs to a staff member who leaves, the history leaves too.
- A spreadsheet, sometimes. Someone copies enquiries across by hand, or an automation pushes them to Google Sheets.
None of these is a system of record. The form tool's copy is governed by its plan limits. The inbox copy is unstructured. The spreadsheet copy is whatever the last person remembered to paste.
WhatsApp adds a fourth place: a chat thread on one phone. See WhatsApp vs contact form for what each channel captures.
What happens to leads when you cancel a form tool?
The published terms differ by tool. Read your own before you downgrade.
| Tool | Entry paid plan, billed yearly | Monthly limit | What the vendor publishes about stored data |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typeform Basic | US$28 a month | 100 responses | Results collected on a paid plan stay available after cancellation; forms using paid features stop collecting. Deleting the account deletes all responses, with no recovery. |
| Typeform Plus | US$56 a month | 1,000 responses | As above |
| Jotform Starter | US$0 | 100 submissions, 500 stored in total, 5 forms | Storage is capped per plan |
| Jotform Bronze | US$34 a month | 1,000 submissions, 10,000 stored in total | As above |
| Jotform Silver | US$39 a month | 2,500 submissions, 25,000 stored in total | As above |
Three patterns matter for a business:
- Monthly caps. When a plan's response limit is reached the vendor's answer is to upgrade. A campaign that works can take the form offline in the same week.
- Total storage caps. Jotform counts stored submissions across the account. Old enquiries count against new ones.
- Account deletion. Closing the account removes the data. Export first.
The export itself is a CSV. It has the fields, not the context: no source page unless you added a hidden field, no consent text, no link to the WhatsApp thread that followed.
What does owning your lead data mean in practice?
Ownership is a set of concrete properties, not a feeling:
- Location. The table lives in a database project under your company's own account, in a region you chose.
- Schema. Each row has name, contact, message, source page, campaign parameters, consent text shown, timestamp and status.
- Access. You and anyone you authorise can log in, query, filter and export without asking a vendor.
- Portability. The data is standard SQL. It moves to another provider in one export and one import.
- Retention. You delete rows on the schedule you set, not when a plan lapses.
- No per-response pricing. 10 enquiries or 10,000 cost the same to store.
A form built into the website writes directly to that table. There is no third-party script on the page, which also removes one cookie and one privacy disclosure. The email notification still goes out, as a copy, not as the record.
How do WhatsApp and form enquiries reach one record?
Most Singapore service businesses take enquiries from both. The practical design:
- The website form writes a row to the database with source page and consent.
- The WhatsApp button pre-fills a message naming the page, so the first line of every chat says where it came from.
- Each WhatsApp enquiry is logged as a row in the same table, by hand at first, by a WhatsApp Business API connection later.
- Every row carries a status: new, replied, quoted, won, lost.
- Follow-ups are scheduled from the table, not from memory.
The result is one list, sorted by date, that answers the questions an owner asks on Monday: how many enquiries last week, from which pages, how many unanswered. An AI sales agent can draft the first reply from that same table.
What does the PDPA require for stored enquiries?
An enquiry with a name and phone number is personal data. The PDPC's list of obligations applies in full. The duties most relevant to a lead database:
- Notification and consent. State the purpose beside the form. Store the exact consent text shown with each row, because the wording changes over time.
- Protection. Reasonable security arrangements. In practice: encrypted connections, access limited to named staff, no shared logins, no export sitting in a public folder.
- Retention limitation. Stop keeping the data when the purpose is served. Set a period, for example 24 months after the last contact, and run the deletion.
- Access and correction. The PDPC's guide to handling access requests.pdf) describes a 30-day window to respond. One table makes the search a single query; four systems make it an afternoon.
- Transfer limitation. A form tool hosted overseas is a transfer out of Singapore. Check the vendor's terms and your own privacy notice cover it.
Maximum financial penalties rose on 1 October 2022 to S$1 million, or 10% of annual Singapore turnover for organisations with turnover above S$10 million, per Allen & Gledhill's summary. The full site checklist is in PDPA checklist for a business website.
What does a lead database cost to run?
Less than a form tool at any volume above a handful a month. Published prices, checked 17 October 2026:
| Option | Monthly cost | Included | Limits to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supabase Free | US$0 | 500 MB database, 50,000 monthly active users | Projects pause after 1 week of inactivity; no backups |
| Supabase Pro | US$25 | 8 GB database, daily backups kept 7 days, projects never pause | US$0.125 per GB above 8 GB |
| Typeform Basic | US$28, billed yearly | 100 responses a month | Form stops collecting over the cap |
| Jotform Bronze | US$34, billed yearly | 1,000 submissions a month | 10,000 stored in total |
A row of enquiry data is a few kilobytes. 500 MB holds well over 100,000 enquiries, so the Free tier is enough in size for most business sites. The Pro plan is worth the US$25 for two reasons: the project never pauses, and there are backups. Estimate under S$40 a month all in, with no per-response charge and no cap on how many enquiries a good month can bring.
The one-time cost is building the form and table into the site. On a coded site that is part of the build, not an add-on.
What cense does
cense builds forms in-house instead of using third-party form tools, so every lead lands in the client's own database with the source page and consent recorded. The client owns the domain, code, hosting and data, with S$0 monthly maintenance. See website infrastructure.
Where do website form submissions go?+
On most sites they go to a third-party form tool's servers and to an email inbox. The tool holds the record; the inbox holds a copy. Neither is a database you control.
What happens to my leads if I cancel Typeform or Jotform?+
Typeform states results collected on a paid plan stay available in your account, but forms using paid features stop collecting. Jotform caps total stored submissions per plan. Export to CSV before any downgrade.
What does owning lead data mean?+
The record sits in a database in your own cloud account, with name, contact, message, source page, consent text and timestamp. You can query it, export it, connect it to other tools and delete it on your own schedule.
Does the PDPA apply to enquiries stored in a database?+
Yes. A name, phone number or email in an enquiry is personal data. The protection, retention limitation and access obligations apply, including responding to an access request within 30 days.
What does a lead database cost to run?+
A Supabase Free project costs US$0 but pauses after 1 week of inactivity. The Pro plan is US$25 a month with 8 GB of database and 7 days of daily backups. Estimate under S$40 a month for a business site.
