Static Studio – Forms, scheduled posts and more

Last month, we introduced our new on-demand WordPress infrastructure for Static Studio.

The idea is simple: your public website is static and always available, while WordPress acts as a private editing environment that only needs to run when you’re actually using it.

But that raises an obvious question: What happens to everything that normally depends on WP being online?

Forms are probably the best example.

A contact form needs to accept submissions, send notifications, store entries, handle attachments, and potentially pass data to other services.

Normally, WordPress would handle all of that. With Static Studio, it doesn’t have to be.

During August, we significantly expanded our managed forms workflow, so your static website can handle increasingly complex forms while WordPress remains safely offline.

We also improved more than just forms:

• Scheduled posts can now wake WordPress up automatically when it’s time to publish
• Clients can securely access their assigned WordPress sites
• Imports support more formats

Let’s take a look.

Better Form Workflows

Static Studio already supported accepting and queuing form submissions while WordPress was offline.

During August, we built out the rest of that workflow.

When someone submits a form on your static website, Studio can accept and safely store the submission without exposing or continuously running WordPress.

From there, the individual parts of the submission workflow are handled independently.

• Notifications can be sent
• Webhooks can run
• Files can be stored
• The submission can be synchronized back into WordPress.

If one of those steps temporarily fails, you can retry it without losing the original submission.

And if your site relies on its existing WordPress mail configuration, including an SMTP plugin, Studio can temporarily start WordPress and let your existing wp_mail setup handle the notification.

That means you don’t need to reconfigure your SMTP credentials inside Static Studio.

Secure File Uploads

One of this month’s biggest additions is file upload support.

Forms on your static website can now accept file inputs through our managed submission workflow.
Uploaded files are stored privately and aren’t exposed through your public static site.

When a file needs to be included in a notification, confirmation, or webhook, Static Studio generates a temporary signed download link.

It also verifies the size and checksum of downloaded files before handing them over to the normal form integration.

Current limits are:

• Up to 10 files per submission
• Up to 25 MiB per file
• Up to 50 MiB per submission

So forms such as job applications, project inquiries, or support requests no longer need to give up attachments just because the website is static.

Better Owner Notifications

We also expanded the notification options available for managed forms.

You can customize the notification subject and introductory content while automatically including submitted form fields and any available attachments.

For supported integrations, we respect existing recipient and notification settings where applicable.

You can also add up to 10 CC recipients to an owner notification.

The goal is to keep the form workflow familiar rather than forcing you to rebuild everything specifically for Static Studio.

Send Confirmations to Visitors

Notifications aren’t limited to the website owner anymore.

You can select an email field from the form and send an automatic confirmation to the person who submitted it.
Visitor confirmations can have their own content and a configurable Reply-To address.

So if someone submits an inquiry, they can immediately receive confirmation and simply reply to that email if they need to contact your team.

Conditional Webhooks

This is where the managed forms workflow becomes especially useful.
A form can now trigger up to five additional HTTPS webhooks after a submission.

Each webhook can have its own:

• Name
• Authentication or custom headers
• Optional field/value condition
• Custom JSON payload

Templates can include submitted fields, submission metadata, and information about uploaded attachments.

This lets you connect static forms directly to CRMs, newsletter tools, automation platforms, or your own internal APIs without extra add-ons or third-party tools.

You could, for example, send a newsletter signup to your email marketing platform while sending qualified sales inquiries to your CRM.

Authentication headers remain privately stored inside Static Studio and are never exposed through your static website’s public configuration.

Webhook delivery is also independent from email notifications and WordPress synchronization.

A temporary problem with one integration doesn’t prevent the other parts of the submission from completing.

For additional protection, visitor confirmations and custom webhooks require CAPTCHA because they can trigger external actions from a publicly accessible form.

Better Submission Management

We also improved what happens after submissions arrive.

Stored form entries in Static Studio can now be searched, filtered by read/unread status, and sorted.

You can mark individual submissions as read or unread, delete entries, and expand them into a cleaner view of the submitted fields.

And if you need the data elsewhere, you can export all stored submissions as a spreadsheet-friendly CSV containing the form metadata and submitted fields.

The Form Connection interface was also reorganized, with notifications, visitor confirmations, and additional webhooks now grouped in a dedicated Notifications area.

Scheduled Posts

Forms aren’t the only workflow that traditionally expects WordPress to run 24/7.

Scheduled posts do too.

That’s why scheduled publishing now works with our on-demand infrastructure.
You can schedule a post using the normal WordPress publishing interface.

Static Studio mirrors that schedule.

When it’s time to publish, Studio can automatically start WordPress, publish the scheduled post, run a Single Export, and deploy the updated static site.

If Studio started WordPress specifically for the scheduled job, it shuts it down afterward.
If you’re already working on the site, it stays online.

Rescheduling or canceling a post also invalidates the previous scheduled task, so outdated content isn’t accidentally published.

From the author’s perspective, it’s simply normal WordPress scheduling.
Behind the scenes, WordPress only wakes up when there’s actually something to do.

White-Labeling

We also continued improving Static Studio for freelancers and agencies managing client websites.

We reorganized and significantly expanded our white-label settings.

You can customize branding across the client portal, WordPress login, reports, emails, and other parts of the client experience.

That includes logos, colors, favicons, page titles, login imagery and copy, support information, report branding, and dashboard visibility.

White-label presets also let you apply different branding configurations to different sites or clients without rebuilding everything manually.

For email, accounts can optionally use their own delivery configuration through Resend, including custom From and Reply-To settings.

Simplified Client Access

Assigned users can now access an offline WordPress site without ever logging into the Static Studio app.

They can simply bookmark the WordPress URL and will land on the page shown in the video above if the container is offline.

They paste their email address, copy and paste the code, and WordPress boots up behind the scenes.

This drastically simplifies the workflow for your clients while keeping everything secure.

Once people reach this page, WordPress is still offline until authenticated – which means DDoS or other malicious attacks have zero effect and are all handled by us – zero impact on your WordPress site no matter what.

WordPress doesn’t need to remain online just because someone might need it later.

Studio can start it when an authorized person actually does.

Easier Migrations & PHP support

Getting existing WordPress sites into Static Studio also became easier this month.
Manual migrations now support additional backup formats, including:

• All-in-One WP Migration .wpress archives
• Duplicator .daf archives

We’ve also improved recovery for stalled initial exports and made long-running imports more resilient.

Older PHP versions

For sites with older requirements, you can now also select PHP 7.4 and PHP 8.1 alongside PHP 8.2–8.4.

We clearly mark the older versions as legacy because they no longer receive upstream security updates.

Making Static WP Simple

When we introduced our new Private WordPress infrastructure last month, shutting WordPress down was only part of the idea.

The more interesting challenge is making sure you don’t have to think about it being offline.

• A visitor should still be able to submit a form
• An author should still be able to schedule a post for tomorrow morning
• A client should still be able to log in when they need to make a change
• A backup should still happen automatically.

The static site remains fast, secure, and available around the clock.

Static Studio handles everything else behind the scenes and wakes WordPress up when it’s actually needed. That’s the direction we’ll continue pushing over the coming months.

As always, if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to reach out!

Have a great week,
Patrick