About reCAPTCHA for Signup Forms

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We do our best to include tools in Mailchimp that will help protect you from scammers and spambots. Google reCAPTCHA is a challenge-response test intended to prevent spambots from adding fraudulent emails to your audience.

In this article, you'll learn about different types of reCAPTCHA and how they're used in Mailchimp.

About reCAPTCHA

Google reCAPTCHA is a system designed to tell humans and computers apart, so bots can't fill out forms maliciously on behalf of a human. The CAPTCHA acronym stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart.

In Mailchimp, reCAPTCHA helps prevent bots from adding fake or malicious email addresses to your audience. There are two types of reCAPTCHAS: checkbox and invisible.

  • Checkbox This type of reCAPTCHA requires new subscribers to check an “I'm not a robot” box. If you've enabled double opt-in and use an embedded form, this will appear after your subscriber clicks the link in the opt-in confirmation email.
  • Invisible This type of reCAPTCHA does some additional analysis behind the scenes. It doesn't require new subscribers to check a box, and will only present a visible reCAPTCHA if it detects it may be dealing with a bot.

The type of form you're working with determines which reCAPTCHA you'll use.

Form Type reCAPTCHA Format Required?
Mailchimp Basic Signup Form Not using reCAPTCHA, but throttling to block bots - included on all forms by default No
Embedded Forms Checkbox No
Landing Page Signup Form Blocks Invisible No

Enable reCAPTCHA

To enable reCAPTCHA for your audience's embedded and landing page signup forms, follow these steps.

  1. Click Forms, then Settings.
  2. If you have more than 1 audience, click the Audience drop-down and choose the one you want to work with.
  3. In the Audience-wide defaults section, toggle the slider to turn on reCAPTCHA.

All set! Now your audience's embedded forms will display a checkbox reCAPTCHA, and your landing page signup forms will include an invisible reCAPTCHA.

Add an Embedded Signup Form to Your Website

We automatically create signup forms for your audience. Learn how to embed a signup form on your site. And find out which third-party sites accept Mailchimp forms.

About Fake Signups

Mailchimp uses tools, like reCAPTCHA, to help keep spambots out of your audience. Learn how to spot fake email addresses, and how to remove them.

About Double Opt-in

To help you build a better audience, Mailchimp confirms that subscribers signed up to receive your emails. Learn the benefits of the opt-in process and how it works.