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Your first Make automation: Google Form to Google Sheet plus an email, on the free plan

By Rob Falconer Published Updated

Read this first: these instructions are put together from Make’s own help centre and app documentation, checked 24 October 2026. They are not a write-up of our own build, and Make changes its screens from time to time, so button names may differ slightly. Everything here works within Make’s Free plan limits as published (1,000 credits a month, 2 active scenarios, runs at most every 15 minutes).

What you’ll build

A simple enquiry system for a small business or side hustle. When someone fills in your Google Form, Make will:

  1. spot the new response,
  2. add it as a row in a Google Sheet, and
  3. send that person a short thank-you email from your Gmail account.

Make calls an automation a scenario, and each step in it a module. This scenario has three modules: a Google Forms trigger, a Google Sheets action and a Gmail action.

What you need

  • A free Make account (Ad).
  • A Google account (for Forms, Sheets and Gmail).
  • Time to read each screen properly; there
  • About an hour the first time, allowing for reading each screen properly.
    • rsquo;s no rush, and nothing runs automatically until you switch it on.

Before you start: you’ll be collecting names and email addresses, which is personal data. Tell people on the form what you’ll do with their details, and only email them about their enquiry unless they’ve agreed to marketing. Our UK GDPR guide explains the basics.

Step 1: Create the form and the sheet

  1. In Google Forms, create a form with three questions: Name (short answer), Email (short answer, or turn on email collection) and Message (paragraph).
  2. In Google Sheets, create a new spreadsheet called something like Enquiries. In row 1, type the column headings Date, Name, Email and Message. Make uses the header row to show you which column is which.
  3. Submit one test response to your form yourself, so Make has something to find later.

Step 2: Add the Google Forms trigger

  1. In Make, go to Scenarios and create a new scenario.
  2. Click the large + in the middle of the canvas, search for Google Forms and choose Watch Responses.
  3. Click Create a connection, then Sign in with Google, and confirm access for the Google account that owns the form. Make’s docs say the advanced setting for your own Google Cloud credentials is optional; you can leave it off.
  4. Pick your form from the list.
  5. When asked where to start, choose to start from now or from a specific response, depending on whether you want Make to pick up the test response you already sent.

Watch Responses is a scheduled trigger, not an instant one: Make checks the form on a timetable rather than the moment someone submits it. That’s fine for enquiries, and it matters for credits (see below).

Step 3: Add the row to Google Sheets

  1. Hover to the right of the Google Forms module and click the small + to add the next module.
  2. Search for Google Sheets and choose Add a Row.
  3. Create a Google Sheets connection the same way (Create a connection, then Sign in with Google, granting the permissions requested).
  4. Choose your Enquiries spreadsheet and the sheet tab, and tell Make the sheet has headers.
  5. Map each column: click into the Name field and pick the Name answer from the Google Forms module’s output, and so on for Email and Message. For Date, you can map the response’s timestamp. This is what Make calls mapping: carrying data from one module to the next.

Step 4: Send the thank-you email

  1. Add a third module: search for Gmail and choose Send an Email.
  2. Create a Gmail connection with Sign in with Google.
  3. In To, map the Email answer from the form.
  4. Write a subject such as “Thanks for getting in touch”, and a short body. You can map the Name answer into the greeting, for example “Hi [Name], thanks for your message. I’ll reply within two working days.”
  5. Keep it plain. This is a service message about their enquiry, not marketing.

One thing Make’s Gmail docs point out: since June 2024, Google limits this kind of access to six months for personal @gmail.com accounts, so you’ll be asked to reauthorise the Gmail connection every six months. Make shows a reminder; use Connections in the left sidebar, then Reauthorize.

Step 5: Test with Run once

  1. Submit a fresh test response to your form using an email address you can check.
  2. In Make, click Run once. Make runs the scenario a single time, whether or not it’s switched on.
  3. After the run, a small bubble appears above each module. Click it to see the data (Make calls each item a bundle) that went in and came out. If a module shows an error, the message there usually says which field is wrong.
  4. Check the Google Sheet for the new row and your inbox for the email.

Step 6: Schedule it and switch it on

Make’s help centre says Run once doesn’t set up automatic runs. To do that, open the schedule setting (the clock icon or the “Every 15 minutes” control), choose At regular intervals, pick how often, save, then activate the scenario. “On demand” only runs when you click Run once.

On the Free plan, every 15 minutes is the fastest option anyway. For a form that gets a few enquiries a day, hourly is usually plenty.

How many credits will this use?

Make says most module actions use 1 credit. Based on that, each enquiry should use roughly 3 credits: one to read the response, one to add the row and one to send the email. But because Watch Responses is a scheduled trigger, Make also checks the form on every scheduled run, and a check can use credits even when nothing new has arrived.

That means the schedule matters as much as the number of enquiries. Checking every 15 minutes is 96 checks a day, which would use up a 1,000-credit month in well under two weeks on its own. Checking hourly or a few times a day leaves far more room. After a few days, open the scenario’s history and see what each run actually used, then adjust.

If credits run out, Make pauses your scenarios until the next month or until you add credits. Our Make guide for UK beginners explains credits, paid plans and VAT in more detail.

Ideas for the next step

  • Add a filter between modules so only certain enquiries (for example, ones mentioning “quote”) get a particular email.
  • Add a router to send different emails for different form answers. Make says routers don’t use credits.
  • Send yourself a notification as well, so you see new enquiries quickly.
  • Thinking of building these for clients? Read our side hustle ideas guide on the risks of offering automation services, and compare Make with Zapier in Make vs Zapier for UK beginners.
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Sources

All checked 24 October 2026 unless stated.

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