That is easily fixed Kitty. Purchase the software and you can then upload to your own server.

Like what was said previously Scott, hard to justify the cost for only one page. Thank you though, awesome as always

One can find resources on the net to build their own forms, and to even validate them - all for free. If your form is only simple, I don't think one would even need a responsive design for it, just make one size for just a few lines. Even if you could not do that, link to a page specifically made for the size of the breakpoint. One would ave to use a html code editor, and copy/paste the code, and make some custom adjustments (all after validating your server can run php.). Buying the form editor just gives extra options, and with enhanced capability like creating a database of responses. I believe one would buy the form editor when going beyond simple contact forms. Your server provider may even have their own form mailer to use.

I'm in agreement with the others.
I just cannot justify the cost of the Web Form Designer.

I own the Form Builder product and many/most of the other CoffeeCup products. For me, the cost has been at times a bit of a pinch but overall - since this is a growing part of what I do to keep food on the table and a roof overhead, I see it as not being able to afford NOT to keep up with the products that I've elected to employ in this part of my trade. I build sites for my own endeavors and one or two sites a month for other folks. I bought the Web Form Builder when it was introduced - and I still haven't actually used it but when I have some time available to study - learning the ins and outs of this software is on my to-do list.

However - if you are using RSD then you don't *need* to buy web builder (I don't use it at this time) - it's a convenience that allows you to reasonably quickly build an attractive form but RSD provides very nearly all the tools necessary to do the user side of the form building, Javascript (and/or JQuery) 101, PHP 101 and optionally MySQL 101 level skills can handle the server processing side.

Here's the $1,000 question though - how much is your time worth? If you can manage the server side with your existing skill set then you are good to go. Otherwise - figure at least 50 hours for each of those disciplines you are lacking. The good news is, once you have them under your belt, you have a start on the way to being able to do a lot of useful things such as exploring AJAX, using database queries to update content on your site and even building forms to make it possible for someone using the website to manage, edit, and update that content.

Invest 1,000 hours and you will view building a basic contact form as child's play. Bear in mind though, that if this is just a $1,000 question, that works out to be $1 an hour. So... I ask, what is your time worth to you? If you have time but very little money then perhaps the investment of time is worthwhile because the investment in skills pays a lot of dividends compared to investment in software which depreciates rather quickly and requires at least annual upgrades etc.

On the RSD side - what I do is create a pencil sketch of the general form on paper or in my head if it's a very simple form, and I decide what I want to do with the data I am collecting. Just email it to me? Or add it to a database and email it to me? Or append it as a row of csv data to a text file I am storing in a folder on the host and also email it to me? Usually I want a copy of the submitted data emailed to me so that's a near certain element of the project for me.

I place a form container in an empty row/col then drop a sub-grid into that. I often put a h2 or h3 title in the first sub-grid row, add a couple more sub-grid rows, drop a paragraph into the next row to add whatever comments I feel are necessary, then I start dropping a label and the appropriate for the purpose form elements into the next sub-grid rows/columns until I have the elements required to gather the information I need. Then I place a submit button that calls the server side php script, perhaps a cancel/reset button and maybe a link back to the landing page. I add custom attributes and validation patterns to the form elements as necessary.

Web form builder does a LOT of this work for you - the question becomes - do you want to 'roll your own' with the sweat of your brow... or buy the shortcuts, productivity, and experience that the Coffee Cup's developers are offering you?

All you truly need is available for free except for the intangible - your time (assuming you have Internet access)

W3Schools.com can provide the Javascript, PHP, and MySQL instruction, Sublime offers a 'freeware' programming editor (although it does nag you to register and pay the $80 they would like for it, about every 20 file saves or so.)

An extremely useful add-in is PHPMailer - which is downloadable - search for it on Google - several places to get it and it is also free. This is a powerful library that lets the user send HTML or plain text email, build an email body out of strings built using the form data received or import a text file template and replace specific bits with data from the form and make that the message body, or attach a PDF file or other document stored on the server, as an attachment.

One very useful aspect is to use PHPMailer to provide some of the functionality of an autoresponder. For example, you can set up a mailing list building process - the user fills out a form and opt into your list, gets sent an email containing a download link to a white paper... or whatever. You add a URL parameter that identifies the source of the click, perhaps the autonumber primary key from the database table that you store the form submission contents in, catching that key in the URL basically ensures that the email address is functional and valid (at least at that moment in time).

Hope this helps...

Sincerely,
Gordon

Of Course one can always use an external form hosting service
there are plenty about with various costs involved
For my forms built within RSD I use one form hosting service which allows unlimited form submissions, I can set all sorts of things in it. The form appears on my pages as I designed it & responses can be styled to match your pages styles
all for 39$ us per year.

For clients it is of course an additional expense, but I do find that many are more than willing to go for it as it also can give them complete control.

I should have said FORM PROCESSING SERVICE

A contact form is simple. And should include an anti-spam measure like recaptcha.

You design the form in RSD and set the form action to a php script (eg: action="contactform.php").
Now write this php script to process the submitted fields (including the recaptcha check) and use whatever mail/smtp server you have configured to send your mail messages. Nothing complex or mysterious here.
Example using this: http://robtechrecords.com/contactform.html

Not so simple for mere mortals that don't know php and other stuff like that

and some people want the form to be a bit more complex that a simple contact form

The OP said they wanted: "to add a contact form that allows visitors to fill in name and email and message and then send it with a button-click to my email address".
That is precisely what this example does.
Any form can be made as simple or complex as you like, they are just fields on a page. You can dress it up any way you like but the outcome is the same.
The OP also stated that they cannot use the PHP mailer, but could use SMTP, which would indicate that they may have some knowledge of simple PHP programming. It's not too late to learn if you want to make useful backends for web applications.