Answers/The same person keeps submitting multiple times — how do I stop it?

The same person keeps submitting multiple times — how do I stop it?

Updated March 2026

Use uniqueBy. When you create or update a form, set uniqueBy to the field name that should be unique.

Most common: uniqueBy: "email". Now if someone submits with the same email twice, the second submission gets a 409 Conflict response. Your frontend catches the 409 and shows something like "You already submitted."

You can also use uniqueBy on any field — a user ID, a phone number, whatever makes sense. One field per form.

What about the same person using different emails? That is harder. You could use a hidden field with a browser fingerprint or a logged-in user ID. But honestly, for most use cases, email dedup is enough.

The 409 response includes a message explaining the duplicate. Parse it in your frontend for a good user experience.

Note: uniqueBy is enforced at the API level, not the frontend level. Even if someone bypasses your form and POSTs directly, the dedup still works.

# Create a form with email dedup
curl -X POST https://sutrena.com/api/forms \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer st_live_your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Waitlist",
    "fields": [
      { "name": "email", "label": "Email", "type": "email", "required": true }
    ],
    "uniqueBy": "email"
  }'

# Second submission with same email → 409 Conflict
# { "error": "Duplicate submission", "field": "email" }

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Prevent duplicate form submissions — Sutrena | Sutrena