What are Web-to-Lead and Web-to-Case, and how do you set them up?

Both are out-of-the-box features that let an external website submit a form which creates a Lead or Case in Salesforce — no code required.

Setup is similar:

1. Setup -> Web-to-Lead (or Web-to-Case) -> Generate the form HTML.
2. Pick the fields you want on the form. Salesforce generates HTML you paste into your website. The form posts to a Salesforce endpoint with your org ID, and on receipt Salesforce creates the record.
3. Optionally configure default values, response email, and assignment rules.

Constraints to know:

• 500 leads/cases per day for Web-to-Lead. Beyond that, submissions are queued or dropped (Web-to-Case is similar but its limit is generally higher and edition-dependent).
• No CAPTCHA — form is openly accessible. Spammers find these forms quickly. Mitigations: hidden honeypot fields, third-party CAPTCHA in front of the form, throttling on your web server.
• Validation Rules and triggers still fire on the created record. A failed validation rule sends an admin error email but doesn't show on the public form — the user sees a successful submission while you see a failed creation. Test this carefully.
• Email-to-Case is the email-channel equivalent — emails sent to a designated address create Cases, with attachments and From/To preserved. Works with On-Demand (cloud-routed, no on-premise server) or via a relay agent for security-sensitive setups.

Modern alternative: Experience Cloud site forms with their own controls, or a custom integration via the Salesforce REST API for more flexibility.