Wix Automations: what to automate first

Start with the automations that stop leads from being missed. In order: make sure every form notifies the right people, send the person who filled in the form an instant confirmation, create a follow-up task or pipeline card for each new lead, and only then move on to marketing emails. All four use tools already in your Wix dashboard.

A Wix automation is a rule with one trigger, which is the event that starts it, and one or more actions, which are what Wix does in response. "When a form is submitted, send an email" is an automation. You find them at Automations in your site's dashboard, and Wix says the builder is available "with no pre-requirements".

The main cost to watch is email. Emails sent by automations you create count against your site's monthly email balance, which is 200 emails a month on the free email marketing plan as of October 2026.

How an automation is built

You build an automation by choosing a trigger and adding steps under it. The triggers you see depend on the apps installed on your site, and the actions you see depend on the trigger you chose. A site without Wix Stores won't show order triggers.

There are also two steps for advanced setups, Local variable and Global storage item, which hold values for later steps. A Trigger once per person toggle stops the same contact from setting off the automation repeatedly, optionally within a time window. Wix walks through the builder in its guide to creating an automation.

App automations and custom automations

The Automations page has two lists, and knowing which one you're in saves a lot of confusion.

App automations are installed automatically with Wix apps. The email you get when someone submits a form is one. So are order confirmations from a store. They can't be deleted, though many can be deactivated or edited.

Custom automations are the ones you create.

The distinction matters for two reasons. First, cost: app automations aren't deducted from your monthly email balance, and custom ones are. Second, troubleshooting: if you add a custom form notification without turning off the pre-installed one, you get two emails for every submission. Wix's fix is to deactivate one of them.

To see every customer-facing message your site sends, go to Settings → Outgoing notifications. It lists each notification by app and links to the automation behind it.

What to automate first

1. Form notifications that reach the right people

This one already exists. Your job is to check it. By default, the site owner gets an email for each submission. To change who is notified, hover over the automation and choose More Actions → Edit, open the Send an email action, click Show additional settings, and edit Recipients. People who aren't collaborators on the site have to be added as contacts first. While you're there, turn on Dynamic reply-to email so that hitting Reply goes to the person who filled in the form. If notifications aren't arriving, see Wix form not sending emails.

2. An instant confirmation to the lead

Create a custom automation with the form submission as the trigger and Send an email as the action, addressed to the contact. Tell them you received the message and when to expect a reply. This is a custom automation, so each send uses one email from your monthly balance. If the form was created before Wix's new form builder, note that old and new forms use different "Form submitted" triggers. If your form doesn't appear in the trigger's list, you picked the wrong one.

3. A follow-up task or pipeline card for every lead

Add a Create a task action so each inquiry puts a to-do in front of someone, with a due date. If you track sales in Wix Pipelines, use its suggested automation that creates a card in the "New lead" stage when a specific form is submitted. Either way, the lead lives somewhere other than an inbox. Our guide to Wix Forms and the built-in CRM explains tasks and pipelines.

4. A delayed follow-up

Add a Delay and a second email to the confirmation automation. A short check-in a few days later costs one more email per lead and catches the people whose first reply got buried.

5. Segment-based emails

A segment is a group of contacts that updates itself based on filters. Wix offers "Contact enters segment" and "Contact leaves segment" as triggers. That lets you send a message when someone becomes a repeat customer, for example. Store owners should also look at the built-in recovery email for unfinished checkouts, covered in abandoned cart recovery on Wix.

Limits and quotas

Wix documents these limits as of October 2026:

• Each automation has exactly 1 trigger.
• Wix states that "it is not possible to add more than 30 actions in a single automation".
• "Some automation actions are subject to quotas." The clearest example is Send an email, which uses your site's email marketing plan allowance. You can view usage at Automations → Manage Quotas.
• Archived automations are permanently deleted after 6 months.

Wix doesn't publish a table showing how many automations or runs each site plan allows. Check Manage Quotas on your own site for the figures that apply to you.

What happens when the email balance runs out

When the monthly quota is used up, custom automations stop sending emails. So do promotional app automations. Wix says app automations that are "business transactional or business critical", such as order confirmations, continue. The free balance resets on the 1st of each month at 00:01 UTC. Wix explains what counts in its monthly balance article.

A site that sends a monthly newsletter to 150 people and then gets 60 form submissions with auto-confirmations will run out before the month ends. Plan the two together. Allowances and upgrades are covered in Wix Email Marketing: plans, limits and setup.

Rules that catch people out

• Publishing the site doesn't publish automation changes. Changes are saved in the automation itself. Clicking Publish in the editor does nothing to it.
• Edits apply only to new runs. Runs that were already triggered, such as one waiting on a three-day delay, finish with the old settings.
• Deactivating cancels work in progress. It stops ongoing runs and cancels pending actions. Trigger data isn't collected while the automation is off, so nothing is sent retroactively when you turn it back on.
• Changing your account email doesn't change recipients. Each automation's recipient list has to be edited directly.
• A duplicated form is a new form. It sends nothing until it's connected to an automation.
• Spam submissions don't trigger notifications. If the form's spam filter catches a submission, no automation email goes out.

Wix describes the managing rules in its managing automations article.

How to test and monitor

1. Use the builder's test mode. A test run skips delays, so you don't wait three days to see the third step.
2. Then run a real test: submit the form on your live site with an email address you control.
3. Open the automation's run log. "No runs yet" means it never fired, which points to the trigger, not to email delivery.
4. For email actions, check the stats: sent, delivery rate, open rate, click rate, bounces, spam complaints and unsubscribes.

If the log shows an email was sent but the person never got it, the problem is delivery. A contact marked as bounced or unsubscribed won't receive automated emails, and Wix shows a red "Bounced" warning on such contacts. Filtering is the other common cause, which we cover in Wix emails going to spam.

Connecting tools outside Wix

Built-in automations act on Wix data. To reach another system, such as a separate CRM, a spreadsheet or a team chat tool, you have three documented routes.

Zapier is a third-party service that links apps with simple "when this, do that" rules. Its Wix integrations page lists Wix triggers including form submitted, order placed, checkout abandoned, contact created and contact entering or leaving a segment. Zapier is a separate service with its own plans and pricing, and Wix directs support questions about the integration to Zapier.

A webhook is a message one system sends to another the moment something happens. Wix's inbound trigger gives each automation a unique address. The sending service has to post valid JSON, a standard data format, and you define the structure of that data by hand. It isn't updated automatically if the sender changes it. Wix recommends both webhook options for advanced users. Its steps are in the webhook trigger article.

Other connector services publish their own Wix apps. Wix's help pages document only Zapier and its native webhook tools, so if you use a different connector, its vendor is your source for what it supports.

When built-in automations aren't the right tool

Wix Automations suit a business that runs its leads, bookings or orders inside Wix. They are less suited to long branching sales sequences, to logic that depends on data held in other systems, or to sending high volumes of email on a small balance. In those cases, the usual answer is to keep Wix as the place where the lead is captured and pass it to the tool your team already works in.

That isn't a reason to leave Wix. For most small sites the built-in tools are enough, as we discuss in when Wix is the right choice.

Conclusion

Set up the basics before anything clever: correct notification recipients, an instant confirmation, a task or pipeline card for each lead, and one follow-up. Keep an eye on your email balance, test with a real submission, and read the run log when something doesn't arrive. If you want your forms, automations and outside tools connected and tested as one system, our Wix website services team can build it. More guides are in our Wix hub.

Frequently asked questions