Inbound Lead Responder (n8n template)

An n8n template for agencies and small service businesses that want to answer every new enquiry quickly and personally, without writing each reply from scratch.

When a lead arrives from your website form or any form tool:

1. Screens it before any AI call: bot check, missing or fake email, blocked domains, too many links, spam words, duplicates and floods are logged and stopped.

2. Has Google Gemini score it from 0 to 100 against your ideal client, with the reasons, budget fit, urgency and what is missing. It is marked hot, warm or cold.

3. Has Gemini write a personal reply in your voice using only your own facts and "from" prices, plus two short follow-ups.

4. Checks the draft in code. Links, email addresses, prices you do not offer, invented numbers and words you never want to promise (guarantee, discount and so on) are not allowed. A failed draft is written again, and if it still fails a plain template is used and you are told.

5. Emails it to you within minutes with Send, Edit, Don't send and Spam buttons. Nothing goes to the lead until you confirm.

6. Sends the reply through Resend (or Gmail) with your booking button for hot and warm leads, then up to two follow-ups that stop as soon as you mark the lead replied, booked, won or not a fit.

7. Logs every lead in an n8n Data Table that works as a small CRM: status, score, reasons, who approved, response time, follow-ups, model, AI cost and notes.

It also includes:

- A weekly lead report every Monday: new leads by tier and source, how many got a reply and how fast, waiting approvals, follow-ups, booked and won, spam caught and AI cost, with a CSV of every lead. Every number is counted by code, not by AI.

- A status page and API. One click from the approval email marks a lead Replied, Booked, Won or Not a fit. Your booking tool or CRM can do the same with a small authenticated webhook.

- An error workflow that emails you what failed and a suggested fix, and marks the lead as error in the CRM.

Details that save you trouble

- Lead sources: a hosted n8n form, or a webhook that reads Typeform, Tally, Webflow and Google Forms payloads and plain JSON. Field names are matched loosely, extra fields are kept.

- Three approval modes: approve every reply (default), auto-send hot leads whose draft passed every check (you get a copy), or send everything at once.

- Quiet hours and weekends: if you approve at night, the reply waits and goes out in business hours.

- Approval and status links carry a one-time key and open a confirm page first, so a mail scanner that opens links cannot send anything.

- If a lead's message tries to give the AI instructions, you get a warning and that lead is never sent automatically.

- Sample data mode with 6 made-up leads, so you can try the whole flow before connecting your form. Sample emails only go to you.

- A test switch that sends every lead email to you instead.

- Every setting is checked before a run. A typo stops the run with a list of what to fix.

- If the default Gemini model is busy, a second model is tried, then a template, so a lead is never left without an answer because of an AI outage.

- No API keys inside the workflow files. They stay in n8n credentials.

- In our live test one lead (score plus reply plus two follow-ups) cost under two US cents in Gemini usage. Your providers bill you directly.

What I tested and what I didn't

Tested on self-hosted n8n 2.44.6:

- 14 unit checks on the shared code, all passing.

- An automated suite of 13 scenarios with 71 checks, all passing. It runs the real workflows inside n8n with Gemini and Resend replaced by mocks, and fills the built-in form in a real browser. It covers approve, edit, don't send, spam, a changed link key, expiry, follow-ups and stopping them, status links and the status API, auto-send and send-all modes, five payload formats, sample and real email routing, the draft check catching an invented price, the template fallback, the backup model, the AI flagging spam, flood and duplicate limits, quiet hours, the weekly report, bad settings and an unverified sender domain.

- Live runs with real Gemini and real Resend on a sample lead, sent only to our own inbox: the approval email, the reply, a follow-up, the weekly report and the error alert all arrived. The default model was overloaded that day, so the backup model wrote the drafts. The live runs also caught a bug (a lead sent twice in one day could not get a second reply) that was fixed and checked again.

Not tested yet:

- Real Typeform, Tally, Webflow or Google Forms accounts. The webhook was tested with payloads built in each tool's documented format, not with live submissions from those services.

- Gmail sending and the Google Sheets copy of the CRM (these nodes ship switched off).

- The default Gemini model end to end (it was overloaded on test day), and models from other providers.

- Approving from a phone or another computer. This needs your n8n on a public HTTPS address. Our tests ran on a local instance.

- A real booking tool (Cal.com, Calendly) calling the status API. The API itself was tested.

- The real 24 hour approval expiry and the 48 and 120 hour follow-up waits (shortened in tests).

- Replies in languages other than English.

- Company email security tools in real use. A link that is only opened changes nothing, but this was simulated, not tested with a real scanner.

- n8n Cloud, other n8n versions and queue mode with several workers.

The full test report is in TEST-REPORT inside the download.

Requirements

- n8n with Data Tables. Built and tested on self-hosted 2.44.6. n8n Cloud has not been tested.

- A Gemini API key from Google AI Studio.

- Resend with a verified domain, or a Gmail account (untested).

- For approval links that work from your phone and a public form: n8n reachable at a public HTTPS address.

- Optional: a booking page link (Cal.com, Calendly or any URL).

- Your own accounts with these providers. Their usage fees are billed to you by them.

Included files

- leads-1-settings.json

- leads-2-intake.json

- leads-3-per-lead.json

- leads-4-lead-status.json

- leads-5-weekly-digest.json

- leads-6-error-handler.json

- README setup guide with every setting explained

- TESTING guide: a 5 minute check

- TEST-REPORT: what was tested and how

- LICENSE

- Screenshots

Good to know

- Setup takes about 20 minutes.

- You approve every reply by default. You can let hot leads go out automatically or turn approval off.

- The lead's first name, company, website, service, budget, timeline, message and extra form fields are sent to Gemini to score and draft. Their email address, phone and last name are not.

- English by default. You can set another language and tone in Config (not tested in other languages).

- The template answers and tracks enquiries. It does not promise any number of leads or sales.

License, refunds and support

This is a downloadable, self-serve software template, not a service. You import it into your own n8n and run it on your own accounts. VNCNT Labs does not host it and has no access to your data.

License: single account. Use it in your own n8n instances and in instances you run for your clients. Do not resell or redistribute the template files. Full terms are in LICENSE.

Refunds within 14 days, see vncntlabs.com/refund.

Questions: hello@vncntlabs.com

Sold by FAMVII LLC dba VNCNT Labs. Typeform, Tally, Webflow, Google Forms, Google Sheets, Gemini, Resend, Gmail, Cal.com, Calendly and n8n are trademarks of their owners. VNCNT Labs is not affiliated with them.