This is just a heads up about some important changes happening with Google reCAPTCHA that might affect your website.
What is google reCAPTCHA?
You will have seen Google reCAPTCHA before, on a daily basis, you know those annoying boxes that make you click pictures of fire hydrants, traffic lights, bridges, crosswalks buses and bikes. These are not just there to annoy us though. Google reCAPTCHA is a security service that protects your website and others from spam and abuse. In many cases it is invisible now or you will see the “I’m not a robot” (V2) tick box. The newest V3 is the version that works invisibly in the background, analysing user behaviour to determine if you are indeed a human without requiring any interaction.
Many websites use reCAPTCHA on their contact forms, login pages, and other interactive elements to prevent automated bots from submitting spam or attempting to hack accounts.
Google has decided to move all reCAPTCHA users over to their Enterprise version, which comes with a pricing structure that wasn’t there before.
The New Pricing Model
As of writing the pricing structure is currently
- First 1,000,000 assessments per month: Free
- 1,000,001 to 10,000,000 assessments: $0.50 per 1,000 assessments
- 10,000,001 and more assessments: $0.25 per 1,000 assessments
- This tiered pricing means smaller websites will likely stay within the free tier, but larger sites could see new costs.
https://cloud.google.com/security/products/recaptcha?hl=en
What This Means For Your Forms
If you’re using Contact Form 7 version 5.1 or later, you’re currently using reCAPTCHA v3 (the invisible one that works in the background). Currently no change is required but it would be good practice to either setup your reCAPTCHA account in Google Cloud or migrate your site or sites either off reCAPTCHA and onto something like CloudFlare Turnstile which is still currently free (as of writing April 2025). By the end of 2025, all reCAPTCHA keys must be migrated to a Google Cloud project.
Good News For Our Support Customers
If you’re one of our support customers, you don’t need to worry about any of this! We will switch you over to Cloudflare Turnstile automatically. It does the same job of protecting your forms from spam, but without the new costs. We’ll handle all the technical details behind the scenes.
What Should You Do?
If you are not on a support package with us but are an existing customer contact us for details. We will most likely reach out to you as well to suggest what needs to be done.
If you just stumbled upon this article, “hi 👋🏻” then you will want to:
- Check how many form submissions you typically get per month
- Consider if Turnstile or another alternative might be better for you
- Make sure your reCAPTCHA integration is up to date
If you have any questions about this change or need help figuring out your next steps contact us anytime.