AI image generators have been kicking up a storm for the past two years—with no signs of slowing down. From OpenAI's DALLE-3 to Google's much awaited Imagen 3, these tools have become reliably advanced in a short period of time. Hyper-realistic photographs, self-portraits, and imaginative artwork are now easily accessible to people everywhere. 

And the best part? With Zapier, you can automate them to become part of any of your regular workflows. That means you can gather prompts from other tools (like Slack conversations), create an image, and send it to another app—all automatically. Take a look.

Table of contents

• Create images from a chat tool

• Generate images from a form

• Use Zapier's Chrome extension to create images

• Gather prompts and add images in a spreadsheet or project management tool

• Get a daily dose of inspiration

• Create your own AI art gallery

• How to automate AI image generation with Zapier

Create images from a chat tool

If you're the only person with an account for an AI image-generating tool and want to give your team access, why not bring the tool right into your team chat tool? That way, your team can create images without context switching. 

With Zapier, you can build a Zap that lets your entire team create AI-generated images simply by typing the prompt into Slack or Discord.

Now, you and your team can create images right when you think of an idea without any need to context switch.

Generate images from a form

Forms are a user-friendly way to give people access to AI image tools. With the Zaps below, you can send people a link to a form where they enter their email address and a prompt, and Zapier will send their prompt to OpenAI to generate the image, then email the image to that user right after their form is submitted.

Use Zapier's Chrome extension to create images

If you have an idea for an AI image and need to start writing out the prompt instantly, Zapier's Google Chrome extension is the perfect solution. After you set up either of the Zaps below, all you have to do is click the extension icon in your toolbar, type your prompt, and your image will pop up right in your Chrome sidebar, allowing you to create as soon as inspiration strikes.

Gather prompts and add images in a spreadsheet or project management tool

Whether you're tracking your projects in a project management tool like Trello, or a database app like Google Sheets or Airtable, you can easily integrate AI into the mix to start creating images for your projects.

With Zapier, you can add a prompt to a spreadsheet row, send it to an AI image generation tool to create a custom image, then send it right back to your spreadsheet. This allows you to create images for blog articles, social media posts, webinars, or anything else, without spending hours looking for a stock photo online.

Get a daily dose of inspiration

As someone who writes for a living, I try to read before I start my work day because other people's words often inspire me.

If you're an artist, a designer, or, well, anyone (who am I to say who can and can't be inspired by art), you can set up a Zap that will send you a scheduled email with a new AI-generated image as frequently as you'd like. It could be once a day or once an hour—whatever works best to get your creative juices flowing.

Create your own AI art gallery

Whether you want to keep an AI art gallery for your own reference or share your prompt engineering skills with others, Zapier can help. With the Zaps below, you can automatically post your AI-generated images anywhere. Share them with the web, or save them in an archive for later.

How to automate AI image generation with Zapier

Now that we've covered multiple different ways to automate AI image creation let's walk through an example. 

AI-powered workflows typically involve three steps:

1. Your trigger step, where the idea for an image is captured in an app

2. Your AI action step, where that idea is passed on to your AI tool to create the image

3. Another action step to send your newly-created image somewhere

For this tutorial, we'll use one of the workflow examples from above—creating an AI image from a Google Form and sending it to an email address.

Before you begin

Before you start building your Zap, you'll need to make sure your AI image generator account is set up. In our example, we'll set up a free OpenAI account. 

To use some AI tools with Zapier, you may need an API key. Typically, you can either find one or create one in your tool's settings. In OpenAI, for example, you go to the settings tab in the top-right corner and select View API keys.

From there, click the + Create new secret key button to produce your API key. While you're there, copy the key and paste it somewhere safe, as you'll need it later when linking your OpenAI account to Zapier.

Set up a trigger step to gather your prompt

Time to start building your Zap. Each Zap begins with a trigger—the event that starts your automation. For your image generation Zap, you'll need to start with an idea for your image. That may come from a chat thread, from ideas dropped in a spreadsheet or to-do list, etc.

In our example, I'm going to collect image requests from a form. Choose Google Forms as your trigger app and New Form Response for your trigger event. Click Continue.

Next, connect your Google account. You'll need to permit Zapier to access your account if this is the first time you've connected it.

Now, set up your trigger step by filling in the trigger step fields. Depending on your trigger app and event, you'll have different fields to customize. In this example, the only field you need to specify is which form to link with the Zap.

When you finish customizing your trigger step, click Continue.

Next, click Test trigger. Zapier will then find an existing form response from your Google Forms account to ensure the trigger works properly.

After you run a successful test, click Continue with selected record.

Set up an AI action step to create your image

It's time to set up your first two action steps. This is where you'll connect your AI tool to create your image based on the prompt from the trigger step. In this case, we'll connect to OpenAI.

Choose OpenAI as your action app and Generate Image with DALLE.3 as your action step. Click Continue.

Now, connect your OpenAI account to Zapier. A pop-up window asking for the OpenAI API key you copied earlier will appear. Paste it into the API Key field, and click Yes, Continue to OpenAI.

Next, you'll customize your prompt to DALL-E. To grab your prompt from your trigger step, click the +icon inside your Prompt field,  and select the prompt gathered from your form in the Insert Data… dropdown.

When you finish with the prompt, you can tell OpenAI the number of image variations you'd like it to generate, the sizes of the images, the quality, and the style.

Then, test your action. Click Test Action, Zapier will send test data to your action app.

Once you run a successful test, add one more action step by clicking the small + button at the bottom of your screen.

Set up an action step to send your image somewhere

Now for the last step—sending your image somewhere so that you can actually do something with it. In this example, we're sending the image to an email, but you could send it to a spreadsheet, database, or Slack channel as well.

Select Email by Zapier as your action app, and Send Outbound Email as your action event.

Click Continue.

Next, customize your action step. First, use the data from your Google Form step to determine who to send the email to.

Next, give your email a subject line and a body. Then, attach your images from the OpenAI step by grabbing them from the dropdown.

You can customize your email further by giving it a From Name, Reply To address, or Cc-ing/Bcc-ing anyone else on the outgoing email.

Next, click Test Action to text your action step. Zapier will then send an email to the email address provided.

If everything looks good with your email, you're ready to publish your Zap. Just remember, we can't make any promises on how your AI-generated images will turn out 😅

Create AI images easily with automation

AI image generation is a powerful tool, and the technology behind it is only getting better. Now's the time to start honing these skills and finding ways to build AI image generation into your workflows automatically with Zapier.

This article was originally published in July 2023, written by Will Harris. It was most recently updated in September 2024 by Elena Alston.

When it comes to sales and marketing, you'd give anything to connect with your ideal customer. And with Instantly's robust platform for outreach, deliverability, and more, it's possible. But making that information accessible to your team is another problem entirely. It needs to show up in so many places, like your CRM, your spreadsheets—even your team's to-do list. 

That's where automation comes in. With Zapier, you can connect Instantly to thousands of other apps and create fully automated workflows (we call them Zaps) that do work for you. Not sure where to start? Here are some of the most popular ways to automate Instantly with Zapier.

Table of contents

• Connect Instantly with a spreadsheet

• Get notifications for new Instantly activity

• Keep your CRM and Instantly in sync

• Add Instantly activity to your to-do list

Connect Instantly with a spreadsheet

If you work in marketing or sales, you likely use several specialized apps to do your job. But no matter how sophisticated your apps are, there's often no replacement for the trusty spreadsheet—which lets you store, organize, and analyze large amounts of information. 

Instead of trying to keep your spreadsheets up to date with the latest data from Instantly (which would take a lot of time and effort), you can fully automate the process. With these workflows, you can create new Instantly events in a spreadsheet—well, instantly. 

You can also create a Zap that does the opposite, which is handy if you use spreadsheets to collect customer information or other data that needs to live in Instantly. 

Get notifications for new Instantly activity

When there's new sales or marketing activity, you need to act quickly to make the most of the moment. But when you're working with a high volume of leads or customers, it can be easy to miss crucial moments—like a lead visiting your website. 

With Zapier, you don't have to worry about missing key Instantly activity. You can create a Zap that sends you a notification every time there's a new Instantly event. You can even get those notifications wherever you and your team spend the most time—whether that's Slack, email, or somewhere else. 

Keep your CRM and Instantly in sync

When they're not running demos or meeting with prospects, sales teams spend most of their time in their customer relationship management (CRM) app. It's where they track prospects and deals, see lead activity, and manage their pipeline. 

To equip your sales team with the most up-to-date information, you want all your Instantly activity to show up in your CRM. You can use one of these Zaps to automatically update contacts, leads, and more in your CRM based on new Instantly activity. 

Add Instantly activity to your to-do list

In sales, following up quickly is key. But managing those follow-ups can quickly become a second job—and take your sales experts away from closing deals.

That's where automation can be invaluable. With Zapier, you can create a Zap that adds items to your to-do list or project management app based on Instantly activity—so your team can focus on what they do best.

Supercharge your sales with Instantly and Zapier

Instantly is home to valuable information about your prospects and customers—information that can equip you to close more deals and win more revenue. By connecting Instantly to your other business-critical apps with Zapier, you can arm your sales and marketing teams with that info—and take some work off their plates, too.

And this is just the start of what you can do with Instantly and Zapier. What will you automate first?

If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then daily planning is the most essential step in the workday. It's hard to have a focused, productive day without first taking stock of any upcoming meetings, setting aside focus time, and prioritizing projects to work on first. 

Notion is basically my second brain—so I do all my most essential planning there. And since seeing an up-to-date calendar in Notion makes it so much easier to wrap my mind around the day, it makes sense that I'd integrate Google Calendar with Notion. Here's how to do it—along with a few popular ways to connect the two apps for an even more streamlined and focused workday.

Table of contents

• Popular ways to integrate Google Calendar with Notion

• How to connect Google Calendar to Notion

Popular ways to integrate Google Calendar with Notion

If there's a tedious, manual task you do every day (like copying your calendar events from Google Calendar to Notion), you can easily automate it to clear up your to-do list. Here are some of the most popular ways to automate Google Calendar and Notion. 

Add Google Calendar events to Notion

If you're using Notion to keep track of your tasks and plan your day, having all of your daily events there makes a lot of sense. And with Zapier, you can automatically add them to a Notion database, making it easy to map out your day without copying and pasting event information from your Google Calendar.

You can create a Zap—what we call our automated workflows—that creates a database item for new or updated Google Calendar events, making sure your Notion database is always up to date.

If you have repeating events like a weekly standup or 1:1s with your manager, it might be better to use an Event Start trigger instead. That way, a new Notion item will be created at the time (or a specified amount of time before) every event begins. 

Create Google Calendar events from Notion

We covered how to add Google Calendar events to Notion, but what about the other way around? With Zapier, adding new Notion database items to your Google Calendar is a breeze.

With these Zaps, you can block time on your calendar for any appointment or task you add to your Notion database.

Use AI with Google Calendar and Notion

I'm a big fan of preparing for meetings beforehand. I detest turning up to an event, virtual or otherwise, and having no idea what's going to be discussed or feeling like I can't give someone the answers they need in real-time. 

That's why I love adding detailed agendas in Google Calendar, with an overview of topics and questions that need to be addressed.   

Don't waste time copying and pasting that information from one app to another. Instead, get AI to do the heavy lifting for you. For example, if you jot down general topics within Notion, you can add an AI step that will draft a detailed meeting agenda based on those specifics. After that, Zapier will update your Google Calendar event. 

You can even get your AI tool (like OpenAI or ChatGPT) to draft different agendas and descriptions based on certain keywords. If, for example, you're having a 1:1 with your manager, you can instruct your AI tool to create an agenda specific to that. Or, if it's a team meeting about a project, it can create a more detailed agenda with your project's topics. 

That way, anyone can click into a Google Calendar event and have a solid idea of what each meeting is about. 

What about when a meeting concludes? Usually, we're left with a slew of action items to tackle. But instead of trying to remember to jot down these tasks in Notion post-meeting, you can get AI to do the work for you. 

Picture this: After every Google Calendar event, an AI tool like OpenAI or ChatGPT analyzes the event details and description, then drafts a series of detailed tasks based on the event's content. Zapier will then automatically add them to your Notion's workspace (or update an existing task related to your meeting), ready for you and your team to handle. 

Connect Google Calendar with Notion

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to integrate Google Calendar and Notion using Zapier. For the sake of this tutorial though, we're going to focus on one of the workflows we mentioned above—adding Google Calendar events to a Notion database. But you can use these same steps to connect Google Calendar and Notion in tons of different ways.

Before you begin

Before you create a Zap that integrates Google Calendar with Notion, you'll need to create a Zapier account if you don't have one already. Don't worry, creating an account is easy and free. You'll also need a Google account and a Notion account.

Once you're signed in, you can create new Zaps by clicking the Create button or by going to zap.new.

Step 1: Connect your trigger app

A Zap always consists of two parts:

• The trigger: an event that starts a Zap.

• The action: an event a Zap performs after it's triggered. A single Zap can perform more than one action.

Depending on the workflow you're setting up, your trigger app could be Google Calendar or Notion. 

Search for and select your trigger app. In our example, we'll select Google Calendar for our trigger app.

Then select your trigger event. If your trigger app is Google Calendar, your Zap can trigger when you create a new calendar or event, an event starts or ends, and more. 

We're going to select New Event for our example. Next, connect your trigger app account to Zapier by clicking on the dropdown menu and selecting +Connect a new account. You'll need to give Zapier permission to access your Google Calendar account. Once you've connected your account, select it from the dropdown menu and click Continue.

Next, set up your trigger step by filling in the trigger step fields. Depending on your trigger app and event, you'll have different fields to customize. In our example, the only field we need to select is which Google calendar we're going to integrate with. 

When you're done customizing your trigger step, click Continue.

Next, click Test Trigger. Zapier will create a test event to make sure the trigger is working properly. Once the test runs successfully, click Continue with selected record.

Step 2: Connect your action app

In this next step, you'll set up the action—the event your Zap will perform once it's triggered. Start by searching for and selecting your action app. We'll use Notion in our example. 

Next, choose your action event. If your action app is Notion, your Zap can create or update a database item, create a new page, or search for a page or database item. We'll select Create Database Item for our example.

Next, connect your action app account to Zapier by clicking +Connect new account in the Account dropdown. You'll need to give Zapier permission to access your Notion account. Once you've connected your account, select it from the dropdown menu and click Continue.

Next, set up your action by filling in the action step fields. Depending on your action app and event, you'll have different fields to customize. In our example, the fields that show up in your Zap will be based on what fields you created in your Notion database.

You can also customize your action step with data from your trigger step. For example, to add data from your Google Calendar step—like the event summary—click the plus icon in a field and select the data you'd like to use from the dropdown.

In order to customize any date fields in your Notion item, you'll need to choose an option under Include time with date fields? Choose True if you want the Notion item's date field to include a time, or False if you don't.

Once you make a selection, any date fields in your Notion database should appear in the editor. Customize them by mapping information from the Google Calendar step into the appropriate fields.

Once you've customized your action step how you'd like, click Continue.

Now it's time to test your action. When you click Test step, Zapier will send test data to your action app. In our example, Zapier will create a new database item in Notion according to how we set up the action step. We always recommend testing your Zap to check if your step looks okay. But if you'd rather skip the test, just click Skip Test in the bottom-right corner.

If your test looks right, you're ready to use your Zap. Click Publish Zap to turn it on.

Keep track of all your events with Google Calendar and Notion

If you're using Notion and Google Calendar individually, integrating the two just makes sense. Whether you want to sync your calendar to your Notion workspace and stay on top of your events or block some time on your calendar for tasks in Notion, you can do it all automatically with Zapier.

This article was originally published in November 2022 and was most recently updated in September 2024.

You're probably well aware that automation can help your business scale. 

You might even know what you want to achieve with automation, you're just not sure how to bring those ideas to life. Or perhaps you're already reaping the benefits of streamlining certain processes, but you don't have the time to tinker with new Zaps—Zapier's automated workflows. 

Whatever the case, Zapier's AI-powered Copilot can give you a jumpstart to overcome that initial stumbling block—even if you have virtually zero automation experience. 

Table of contents 

• What is Copilot?

• Why we love it

• What you can do with Copilot

• Create custom actions with Copilot

• How to get started with Copilot

What is Copilot?

Copilot is an AI-powered assistant that helps you build Zaps from start to finish—inside the Zap editor. Depending on the unique problem or process you're trying to address, Copilot can suggest the right apps for the job, plus which triggers (events that start your Zap) and actions (the event your Zap will perform) to use—supporting you every step of the way. 

You tell Copilot what you're hoping to build (using everyday language), and it will create a Zap for you in draft form. 

It will make suggestions and explain fields if you don't understand them. Then you can accept one or all of the steps, and chat with it along the way until it's publish-ready.

Instead of you manually building every step of your Zap, Copilot will do the heavy lifting for you, so all you have to do is review, approve, and hit publish. Copilot will guide you through the nitty gritty parts, like testing each step and suggesting apps. It can also automatically authenticate your accounts—no automation experience required from you. You can even attach an image or a sketch, and Copilot will turn it into a fully functional Zap.

At its core, Copilot will help you find the automation solution to your unique business problem, then build it. 

Copilot features include: 

• A central experience in the editor: Chat with Copilot directly in the Zap editor so you can switch on new Zaps in minutes. 

• AI-powered building capabilities: Copilot drafts Zaps based on simple prompts, no technical jargon required. 

• Smart recommendations: Copilot can recommend the right tools and actions for the job once you explain what you want to achieve, including Zapier tools that reformat data, parse text, and more.  

• Field suggestions: Copilot can provide suggestions when it comes to mapping fields in your trigger and action steps, as well as explaining them so you have better context and understanding when building Zaps.

• The ability to refine your Zap as much as you need: Keep the conversation going, and Copilot can add as many steps as you need or replace existing ones if they're not quite right. 

Why we love it

At Zapier, we believe in making automation accessible—and actionable—for everyone, regardless of their technical fluency. 

Copilot can help you build smart workflows easily with AI, allowing you to scale your impact through automation. 

What you can do with Copilot

Whether you're exploring automation for the first time or looking to build complex multi-step workflows, you might use Copilot to help you: 

• Build your first Zaps. If you're new to automation, you can just describe what you want to achieve (like managing email subscriptions or organizing project data) and Copilot will turn your description into a full Zap outline. Turn routine tasks into automated workflows with a simple conversation. 

• Expedite the set-up process. Instead of manually configuring each trigger and action, you can leverage Copilot to fill in the steps for you, saving you the time and resources spent on tinkering with Zaps. 

• Level up your automation skills. Learn the ins and outs of the Zapier platform through direct interaction with Copilot. It guides you through every step of creating Zaps (and provides explanations) to enhance your understanding and skills.

• Enhance existing workflows. For those already familiar with automation, Copilot can give you advanced suggestions to optimize your existing workflows, replace existing steps, and fill in any gaps you might not have noticed. 

Create custom actions with Copilot

In addition to building Zaps, you can also create custom actions with Copilot using Zapier's AI builder. 

For example, you might want to build a custom action when an existing integration doesn't support an action you need. Think of custom actions as a way to add more functionality to your Zaps regardless of Zapier limitations—no code required. 

In those cases, use Copilot to craft your custom action. You'll tell the AI builder which custom action (or outcome) you want using plain language. It will find the right API endpoints to use and generate the code for those endpoints. It will then build that action for you, allowing for a back-and-forth conversation to refine any details. Plus, you can share your custom action with your whole team, allowing everyone to automate those business-critical workflows. 

How to get started with Copilot

1. Once logged into Zapier, head over to the Zap editor. At the top of the Zap editor, describe your desired workflow in the prompt box, then click the send icon. 

2. This will expand the left sidebar (you can also click the Copilot icon in the lower-left corner of your screen). 

3. In the chat window, Copilot will suggest a workflow outline. 

4. To accept a step, click the +icon next to the step. To select all steps, click Add all steps to Zap.

5. Copilot will prompt you to finish setting up each step. Just follow Copilot's guidance and accept the steps in the dialog box if they look good. Copilot will also auto-select a connected app account if one already exists for the app used in a step.

6. To refine your workflow, continue chatting with Copilot in the prompt box at the bottom of the sidebar.

7. Copilot will then prompt you to test the Zap. Click Test when prompted. 

8. Check the steps in your Zap and when everything looks good, click Publish. 

9. You can also rate the helpfulness of Copilot's responses by clicking the thumbs up or thumbs down icon.

Use Copilot to power your business 

Copilot gives you the ability to build automated workflows faster—no automation experience required. Whether you want to build complex workflows to power your team or you want to learn the basics of automation, Copilot makes it easy. 

Ready to try it out yourself? Give it a go and start powering your business today.

This article was originally published in May 2024 and was most recently updated in September 2024.

Consuming video is easy. Producing good video is not. Putting together a script, getting all the footage, and editing everything to perfection—or as close as possible—can eat up enormous chunks of your time.

As it does for everything right now, AI has a few solutions to slash the time it takes to go from idea to MP4. I went in search of the best AI tools for creating videos, and as it turns out, there are already a ton of amazing options.

From smart video editing software to generative text-to-video apps, there are tools that will help you do whatever you want: be that running your own YouTube channel, creating more engaging content for social media, or repurposing content to keep all your business's online channels fresh. After almost a month of testing, here are my picks this year for the best AI video generators.

The best AI video editing software

• Runway for generative AI video

• Descript for editing video by editing the script

• Wondershare Filmora for polishing video with AI tools

• Capsule for simplifying video production workflows with AI

• Fliki for social media videos

• Peech for content marketing teams

• Synthesia for using digital avatars

• Vyond for animated character videos from a prompt

• Visla for turning a script into a video

What makes the best AI video generator?

The best AI tools for video creation help you increase your production quantity and value without increasing the time spent working on it. They cut the time it takes from script to final result by providing templates, tools to speed up editing, and shortcuts to polish audio and video.

There are three broad categories in this list. 

• Video editors with AI editing tools, meant for speeding up the editing process.

• Generative apps that take your prompts and generate a video output on the spot using a generative AI text, audio, image, or video.

• Video productivity apps that use AI to help you create content faster for multiple marketing channels or platforms.

Regardless of these sub-categories, here's what I looked for as I searched for the best AI video generator:

• AI. All these apps use artificial intelligence to power their features.

• High-quality video output. These apps should let you export video that can run beautifully on small or large screens. All the apps on this list export to 720p at worst and 4k at best, in a variety of aspect ratios.

• Customization. Can you add your own content? How much can you customize? Is it easy to make changes?

• Support and ease of use. Since AI video editing is a new-ish thing, I was looking for apps that beginners could use; that includes offering content to help you take advantage of all the possibilities.

• Unique features. Some apps bring their unique spin to video creation or offer something that's useful to improve productivity, production value, or both.

This year's update brought dozens of new possibilities to the table across all sub-categories. I considered all new ones while retesting the apps already present on the list, as there were major changes across the board. I started from templates where available or uploaded my own content and kept building while following platform guides and documentation. To wrap up the tests, I exported the videos to see how good everything looked.

You may be surprised not to find on this list apps like Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, or Final Cut. While these apps include native AI features or AI plug-ins and extensions, they require a deeper understanding of video editing, which doesn't make them as accessible as the tools in this list. But if you're a pro, here's a list of the best video editing software to check out.

The best AI video generators at a glance

Best AI video generator for generative AI

Runway (Web, iOS)

Runway pros:

• Advanced AI tools for unique results

• Great help content

Runway cons:

• Steep learning curve

Runway feels like a magic wand, ready to turn your imagination into pixels with just words and a starting image. If you're trying AI video generation for the first time, get ready to have an experience—a really cool one at that.

The main dish on the menu is Gen-3 Alpha, the latest high-fidelity video generation model. Start writing your prompt by describing the camera movement and aesthetics, move to the content of the scene, and top it off with additional details (here's a prompting guide to help you predict the results). It's only accessible once you hop on a paid plan, and it will burn through your credits quickly, but it's immensely fun to brainstorm ways to control the output.

Getting exactly what you want will be difficult, especially when starting out, but understanding how the model thinks through your prompts can help you get good results. Thankfully, Runway has an Academy with plenty of guides and videos to show you how the platform works.

There are two other models available: Gen-3 Alpha Turbo is the less expensive, lower-quality version of its bigger brother. Gen-2 is an older model: it's not as jaw-dropping as Gen-3, but it has many more controls to help you learn. For example, in addition to the prompt, you can choose camera movements, change visual styles, and configure subject movements within the shot.

But text-to-video isn't the only trick in the book. Runway has a large collection of AI-powered tools to remove backgrounds, create super-slow motion video, and generate subtitles—among many others that work with sound and static images. The platform has a serious video-editing vibe, but all the tools are surprisingly easy to use, even if it's hard to understand what's really going on behind the scenes.

Can Runway completely replace real-world footage? Not yet. Maybe not ever. But if you have dreamy, abstract projects that could use mind-bending visuals, this is definitely the best match for you. Be sure to click the Runway Watch tab to see AI film festival submissions to get an idea of the narrative and visual possibilities.

Runway price: Free plan available for 125 one-time credits. Standard plan at $15/month unlocks Gen-3 High Fidelity, adds 625 monthly credits (with the option to buy more), no watermark, and higher export quality.

Best AI video generator for editing video by editing the script

Descript (Web, Windows, Mac)

Descript pros:

• Intuitive controls

• Edit video by editing the transcription

Descript cons:

• Transcription is inaccurate from time to time

When I record video, I usually say much more than I'm actually going to use in the final version—far too much, actually. Like, in the region of 10 to 20 times more. That turns into late-night, never-ending trim fests that I wish I could avoid. If you're like me, Descript is a huge time saver that can potentially give you back a few hours of well-deserved rest.

To begin with, it generates a transcript of everything you say along with a set of scenes, separating the video track automatically. Instead of scrolling through the timeline to split or trim, simply highlight the parts of the transcript that you want gone, and Descript edits it out for you. No more going back and forth to see if the cut is well done: you can edit video just as you would a text document.

Once you've got the script under control, you can divide your video into scenes. To do so, type a forward slash in the script to separate each one. You'll notice this will split the video on the vertical timeline on the left. That allows you to add, for instance, some B-roll: click on the scene's image, and then on the media library on the top. You can search for high-quality stock video and add it to the project without leaving the editor window.

When you hit play, you'll see that Descript cuts to the B-roll exactly where you marked it. The user experience to implement jump cuts, visual elements, and SFX is the same, so you can mark the entirety of your script as you go, and then add all the good stuff later. This workflow is a huge time-saver. But if you prefer the classic timeline experience, it's still there: look to the bottom of the screen, and control your footage there.

Now that you have these editing powers, you can speak freely while recording, knowing you won't have to watch everything from top to bottom to extract all the gold nuggets. That's not the end of it: Descript offers more cool AI goods with its Underlord toolkit, helping you refine the audio to studio quality, run auto multicam to cut to whoever's speaking, and even generate highlights and clips for you to post on short-form socials.

And while you're working on saving time, connect Descript with Zapier so you can move data across thousands of apps and automate more parts of your video creation workflow. Here's a sample of what it can do, or discover even more ways to automate Descript.

Descript price: Free plan available for up to 1 transcription hour. Hobbyist plan at $19/user/month increases transcription to 10 hours, removes the watermark, and improves export quality to 1080p.

Best AI video editor for polishing your video with AI tools

Wondershare Filmora (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)

Wondershare Filmora pros:

• Traditional video editing tool with AI features

• Lots of learning resources

Wondershare Filmora cons:

• Runs slow on low-end computers

Wondershare Filmora has been around for a really, really long time. I remember using it over 15 years ago for the first time. Despite the age, it's not stuck in time—quite the opposite. It has a package of AI features that improve video quality without having to enroll in a pro course or dump dozens of hours into little tweaks.

So, what are these AI features? Here's the shortlist:

• AI smart cutout lets you cut objects out of scenes by painting their area on the screen.

• AI audio denoise helps you keep background noise under control.

• AI audio stretch helps you stretch music for eight seconds longer to match a cut to another scene.

• AI motion tracking lets you identify and blur faces to maintain privacy (or paste funny faces to make meme videos—your choice).

• AI remove background lets you paste an image of a runner jogging on the moon without the billions of space program investment (or risk of death).

• AI silence detection lets you remove hesitations and make snappy jump cuts without hassle.

All these features are easy to use, coming together into a fully-fledged video editing app. If you have trouble using them, Wondershare has landing pages on their website to explain each one in depth. There are plenty of other creativity and productivity features, from a template library that quickly puts together a video based on your footage, to auto beat sync, which helps you keep your cuts aligned with the music blasting on your audio track.

You can make changes to the settings of your video when exporting, choosing the format, resolution, quality, and even frame rate. If you want to save time when publishing, you can connect your YouTube, TikTok, or Vimeo account to launch your video faster. One last handy feature I found: once you toggle Auto Highlight in the video export window, Filmora will generate a quick 15-second video highlight for TikTok or a 60-second one for YouTube Shorts, in addition to the main file.

And if you want to try out Wondershare's take on AI avatar media, be sure to check out Virbo, their new platform for creating synthetic talking head videos.

Wondershare Filmora price: Free plan available with video watermark. Quarterly plan goes for $49.99/year, and you can choose to buy Filmora for $99.99 in a one-time payment.

Best AI video editor for simplifying video production workflows with AI

Capsule (Web, prefers Google Chrome)

Capsule pros:

• Easy to create and apply design systems

• Apply dynamic visual elements with a few clicks

Capsule cons:

• Expensive

Creating videos with tight editing, crisp visuals, and consistent branding is hard enough, especially if you don't have an in-house media pro for the final touches. With Capsule, you won't have to accept a publishing slowdown to maintain quality, nor splurge on expensive talent to make everything look great.

All the features in the platform—both AI and non-AI—are tuned to help businesses with their video challenges as they scale. Once you upload your clips, you'll get a transcript, and you can edit the video by hitting backspace on the words you want to remove. Adding effects is mysterious at the beginning but becomes intuitive once you understand how to do it: highlight the part of the transcript and select whether to add a Capsule design or your own media as B-roll.

Capsule designs are a big part of the platform's value. You don't have to add text and then format it depending on the info you want to display. Instead, these elements are pre-made based on how you want to use them:

• Add speaker identification to quickly add the name and title of the person in the shot.

• Choose dynamic captions to introduce stylish text subtitles for emphasis.

• Introduce a stylish call to action to suggest something the viewer can do.

All of these are animated, fading in and out, sometimes expanding or contracting to attract attention in a minimalistic way. The aesthetic looks good and doesn't interfere with the content, adding that extra shine that would've taken hours for you to nail in a traditional video editor. While there's AI in the background, you can click CoProducer at the top of the screen to autocut gaps, suggest a soundtrack, and bring your original audio up to studio level.

Beyond these useful tools, Capsule has shortcuts for adapting your video to multiple channels. On the right side of the CoProducer button, click to add other aspect ratios to the project you're working on. As you toggle between each, you'll see the preview update with the safe zones. The platform automatically resizes and changes the behavior for most of the visual elements, but you may still have to tweak the positioning of a few objects or subjects on the screen (be sure to take a good look at every framing before exporting).

Capsule pricing: Free plan available for up to 3 exports. Business plan at $99/month unlocks unlimited exports.

Best AI video generator for producing social media videos

Fliki (Web)

Fliki pros:

• Quickly create social media content

• Simple and effective text-to-speech intonation controls

Fliki cons:

• Not very flexible

Fliki is great for creating videos ready for social media. The core of it is combining text-to-speech with your video, letting you control the rhythm and enunciation. And while it has a generative text-to-video option available on the paid plan, the best part about it is how much time it saves in producing video ready to post.

It's very simple to use. When you start a new project, you'll see boxes to input your script. If you click on the voice's name, you can browse a library of voices and pick your favorite one. To adjust the tone, pitch, and pauses, highlight the text you want to change and adjust the appropriate sliders. When you play it back, the differences are noticeable. I like how much you can change the feel of the voice with such simple controls.

Customizing your video is as simple as clicking on the image to the right of the text. There, you can either upload your own content or browse a good match from a content library directly within Fliki. There may be a few hiccups when previewing the final result on the app, but once you render the video, everything will look as expected.

There are two other fields where Fliki is useful. One is for podcasting: you can create your podcast page right here and write the podcast instead of recording your own voice. When your episode is ready, you can publish via RSS to major podcasting platforms. The other one is for creating audiobooks: add your book as a project to the app, add each chapter, and then write or paste in the text. Add finishing touches as necessary.

Fliki pricing: Free plan available with up to 5 minutes/month, watermarked video in 720p. Standard plan goes for $28/month, raising the limits to 180 minutes, removing the watermark, and bumping the quality to 1080p.

Best AI video generator for content marketing teams

Peech (Web, prefers Google Chrome)

Peech pros:

• Intuitive workflow

• Customizable design for video visual elements

Peech cons:

• Steep pricing

Does repurposing content make you feel tired before you even start? I feel your pain. Looking at the same assets and pumping out content to obey every channel's target audience and technical specs is no one's idea of fun. Peech will speed up that process.

Add your brand kit to begin. Enter your logo and color scheme, and Peech will use these assets to automatically brand all your videos. When you start adding your media, it will detect faces and prompt you to enter their name and role in your company. This way, every time this person appears in a future video, you'll see the name and role card close to their face.

Every time you add a new video, Peech will add these elements along with customizable subtitles. I like how you can highlight a few words and apply your brand colors to make them stand out. The first draft that Peech offers is already pretty good, so you won't spend a lot of time making adjustments—but if you'd like to, the app offers a transcript and timeline so you can select more sections. In this editor screen, you'll also be able to remove awkward silences and snip filler words to keep your content snappy and engaging. 

Since Peech is all about scale, it packs in shortcuts to help you increase content quality without blocking more time on your schedule. Adding a background will make your video pop out, making it easier to stack text and other visual elements with real-world footage. Or click the Intro & Outro tab on the editor to quickly add these two moments to each video, tightening up the branding and introducing a call to action. You can also add a song directly from within the platform, wrapping up the editing experience.

After that, cut straight to choosing aspect ratios and video length, and get to exporting. Rinse and repeat—but finally with time to look at the data, do content strategy, and pepper the calendar with more planned posts. 

Peech pricing: Free plan available for 1 user and 2 videos/month with watermark. Creator plan starts at $99/month, raising the cap to 10 videos/month, 60-minute upload limit, and no watermark.

Best AI video generator for using digital avatars

Synthesia (Web)

Synthesia pros:

• High-quality AI avatars

• Multi-language support

Synthesia cons:

• Not entirely believable when seen on large screens

What do you do when you have to record training videos but everyone at the office is camera shy? If hiring a crew and an actor isn't an option, Synthesia is surely the second best: you can browse a library of dozens of digital real-looking avatars from all points of the world. Then, choose the voice that best matches the body, and you're ready to input your script.

The user interface is simple and focuses a lot on this core feature. Once you add the script, Synthesia will start working its magic to make the avatar move the lips and body in a convincing way. You can quickly translate the entire text into another language by clicking on a dropdown menu. The avatar will zip from English to French faster than you can say quoi.

You may be thinking: how good are these avatars? They're good, but they still can't replace humans. If you're watching full-screen, you can catch a few unnatural movements. But get this: I was testing CRM software a while back, and there was an onboarding video. At that time, I went through the whole thing blissfully unaware that the person on that video was an AI avatar. I only recognized the avatar when testing Synthesia for this list. Fooled me.

If you want to add more value to your knowledge base, these avatars will do a good job, at least until you have the budget and time to hire real people to do it. But if you're planning to use this on a presentation with a big screen, I'd say it's not ready for that—not yet, at least.

Apart from picking your favorite avatar, Synthesia lets you add extra scenes to the video, so you can add a few slides with text from a series of pre-made layouts. You can customize the text and the look to fit your brand, and you can upload your own footage and have the avatar sit on a corner of the video talking away as you demonstrate features on your app.

I tested three other AI avatar apps for this piece, but Synthesia is far-and-away the best one. The text-to-speech video generation is the best, and the avatar's movements are the most natural. It's at the bleeding edge as far as avatar-based AI video goes.

And while you get AI avatar sidekicks to do your work on camera for you, you can also get Synthesia to work with your other apps without effort. Connect Synthesia to Zapier and start automating across your entire tech stack. Learn more about how to automate Synthesia, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Synthesia price: Free plan available with 9 avatars and 36 video minutes available per year. Personal plan starts at $29/month for accessing 125+ avatars, 3 personal avatars, and up to 10 minutes of video per month.

Best AI video generator for creating animated characters from a prompt

Vyond (Web)

Vyond pros:

• Versatile: video editor, AI avatars, character videos, and more

• Plenty of help content

Vyond cons:

• Lowest paid plan includes a Vyond watermark in your videos

When you're struggling to find good stock footage for a training video—or can't find anyone in the company with good camera presence—you have to get creative. Animated character videos can help convey actions and circumstances without having to hire a creative team to act them out or rely on lengthy explanations. Instead, you can build them with a prompt with Vyond.

The tool that specializes in this is called Vyond Go. On the dashboard, click the Create button and then select the Text to video option. Enter your prompt, choose the setting, and hit Generate. It'll take care of everything, from the script, objects on the scene, movements, and voiceover, building a first draft that's actually very close to the final thing.

If you want to tweak the video, click the dropdown button on the top right of the screen, and go to Vyond Studio. Like other options on this list, Vyond offers lots of tools in a thorough timeline-based interface, where you can change soundtracks, add and remove scenes, and mix stock media into the project. If you can't get a character to move or behave the way you want, you can film yourself doing the action and the platform will translate that into the character movement using AI. 

This is already a lot as far as AI goes, but there are more useful extras here. Despite the large variety in available props, you can generate new ones and add them to your scenes. You can ditch the busy office sounds with background noise removal and also quickly translate these videos to other languages.

While the animated character video use case is a bit niche, Vyond offers general video-editing tools for other needs as well. If you bring your own real-world footage in for a trim, you can use all the tools to create good video in the browser-based editor. It recently added an AI avatar generator as well, making it a well-rounded AI video editing tool.

Vyond price: Essential plan at $49/month for a single user offers 720p video export, Vyond Go, and access to Vyond Studio.

Best AI text-to-video generator for AI tool variety

Visla (Web)

Visla pros:

• Good text script generation

• Accurate AI video stock suggestions

Visla cons:

• Not a lot of help or guides available

No script? No problem. Visla can generate a straightforward video script with short, to-the-point paragraphs. Next, you can feed that script into another AI engine that will search a stock image and video library to find the content that would make sense with the words on your script. The final result is a video that looks ready to publish with decent editing and a nice flow.

Both of these features are already pretty solid, but there's more. You can directly record video from your camera into the platform either the classic way or with a teleprompter, helping you stick to the script without having to dart your eyes off the frame.

If your speaker hesitates frequently, Visla will use AI to cut the filler words and the uhs and ums, saving you the time of having to edit them out yourself or leaving them in the final version of the video.

To make it easy to control the off-topic moments during recording, it also offers a text-based video editing tool that resembles Descript, so you don't have to look through the timeline and snip it yourself—but there is a timeline if you want to go through the traditional video-editing workflow.

Lastly, if you run a lot of video meetings and use that for content creation of some sort, Visla can also double as a meeting assistant, recording your meetings so you can save them for the long run. More than that, you can extract snippets of these meetings to share with your team.

Visla feels really simple and powerful at the same time, offering a useful toolbox to shorten the time it takes to have a good video ready for publishing and sharing with others.

Visla price: Free plan offers up to 50 minutes of video, 3 hours of transcription, and 10GB of cloud storage. Premium costs $24/month, removing limits for video duration and upping transcription to 10 hours and storage to 100GB.

More generative AI video tools

The generative AI video market is expanding, with lots of new companies and models arriving at the scene. I think Runway is the best generative AI video creator at the moment, but I came across a few other fun ones that can be worth a try.

• Stable Video is on par with Runway models on some evaluations, but the online app, while versatile, doesn't offer many controls. The video model delivers impressive images but still struggles in some simple camera movements.

  

• Pika is a cute tool that produces shiny, beautiful images with simple controls. It only generates camera movements and very simple movement for the subject, so there's a ways to go here.

  

• Luma Dream Machine shows promise. With cool camerawork and whimsical lighting—even if you don't engineer your prompt too much—it lives up to its dream machine tag. It has one of the best guides out there, offering advice on creative process, starting from Midjourney image generations to translating that into dynamic video shots.

  

• PixVerse produces cool results too. It does good subject movement, even if the interactions between objects are still a major issue—which is true for all AI video models currently on the market, to be fair. Definitely one to try out.

  

What about Sora, OpenAI's AI video model?

OpenAI's Sora made its first appearance last year, showcasing a few mind-blowing examples on the product page. But OpenAI believes the model is too good and could be a dangerous deep fake creator tool if made public. Right now, only security researchers and some creatives have closed access, and there's still no estimate for a release date.

Full list of AI video alternatives

AI video is getting very competitive as a category. If you'd like to explore all the alternatives to the main apps that I showcased in this list, here's a quick list for easy reference:

• Canva's video editor has a browser-based media editing experience, including generative AI powered by Runway.

• Kapwing is a Filmora alternative offering equivalent AI-powered tools as well as an AI stock media video tool.

• Virbo is Wondershare's solution for creating AI avatar content.

• invideo is a Fliki alternative for creating social media content starting from a single prompt, including stock media videos, not just static images.

• Typeframes is a Fliki alternative for product videos, sharing a subscription with revid.ai.

• Munch is a Peech alternative for long-to-short repurposing while exploring trending topics.

• HeyGen is a Synthesia alternative for unique AI tools.

What's the best AI video maker?

AI-generated videos are here—it's time to embrace them. The AI video generators on this list will save you time, smooth out your content creation schedule, and increase the final production value. Most have free plans or at least a free trial, so you can take a look before committing. Make sure to carve out some time on your schedule to see which one fits your and your team's needs. And then start creating.

Related reading:

• The best AI productivity tools

• The best AI photo editors

• The best AI marketing tools

• The best AI voice generators

This article was originally published in March 2023. The most recent update was in September 2024.

Albert Einstein didn't wear socks. This little nugget of trivia permanently lodged itself into my brain during my first foray into no-code development: a school project on the father of relativity.

Instead of slapping some facts on a tri-fold poster board and calling it a day, I decided to create a fully functional website while my classmates were probably busy playing outside or developing proper social skills.

Armed with zero coding skills and a tasteful mix of spinning atom GIFs and blinking text, I successfully cobbled together a tribute to Einstein using Microsoft FrontPage, the clunky predecessor to today's powerhouse no-code tools.

Fast forward to today, and no-code platforms have exploded, making it easier than ever to build and innovate without getting lost in a sea of code. In this post, I'll show you what no-code is, its benefits and limitations, and examples of what it can achieve, regardless of your technical expertise (or disdain for socks).

Table of contents:

• What is no-code development?

• Benefits of no-code development

• Getting started with no-code

• Real-life examples of no-code

• Streamline your workflow with no-code automation

What is no-code development?

No-code development allows non-developers to build apps, websites, workflows, and other software solutions without any coding knowledge or skills. 

Instead of getting bogged down in complex programming languages, no-code platforms allow anyone with a computer to intuitively build software using visual interfaces, drag-and-drop tools, pre-built templates, and simple configuration.

Traditional coding is like cooking from scratch—it's labor-intensive, and while the end result can be fantastic, there's a lot that can go wrong along the way. No-code, though, is like that scene in "Mrs. Doubtfire," where Robin Williams plates a fancy takeout dinner and passes it off as a homemade meal. You're still delivering the goods, but without all the sweating and swearing, and Sally Field is none the wiser.

No-code vs. low-code

No-code platforms are specifically designed for those who don't know Python from a garden snake, focusing on ease of use with minimal technical skills needed. In contrast, low-code development provides a more flexible environment where users can write some code to customize and extend applications beyond the limitations of no-code tools. While low-code simplifies the development process, it still requires a basic understanding of programming to fully utilize its capabilities.

Benefits of no-code development

The popularity of no-code software really comes down to the immense value and advantages it provides over traditional coding. Here are some benefits of sidestepping all the hard stuff in favor of no-code:

• Accessibility for non-developers: This is the big one. No-code democratizes software development, enabling anyone with a pulse and a half-decent Wi-Fi connection to become a no-code developer.

• Increased speed and efficiency: What used to take a small army of coders weeks to crank out, no-code lets you whip up in a single afternoon.

• Cost-effectiveness: No-code tools can lead to substantial cost savings by eliminating the need to hire developers or maintain complex infrastructure.

• Flexibility and versatility: No-code tools can adapt to an endless variety of use cases, whether you want to build an internal tool, capture new leads, or automate your entire life so you can spend more time doomscrolling. The only limit is your imagination—and maybe the platform's T&Cs.

• Scalability: Most no-code platforms are cloud-hosted and can scale elastically, which means they're ready to handle all the traffic your big idea will probably never see.

• AI integration: Many no-code tools come with AI capabilities baked right in, ready to assist you with churning out copy or analyzing data, even if you can't code your way out of a paper bag.

Getting started with no-code

If you've guzzled the no-code Kool-Aid and are itching to dive in, here's the step-by-step game plan I recommend.

1. Identify a problem or need

What's your problem? No, I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm talking about the first step in your no-code journey—figuring out the problem you're trying to solve or the desperate need you're aiming to fill. What are you hoping to accomplish? Are you looking to streamline an internal business process? Build a website for your side hustle? Send passive-aggressive reminders to your coworkers?

Once you've nailed down why this thing should exist in the first place, everything else falls into place. For instance, if you're aiming to automate a tedious data entry task, you might look for a platform with strong integration capabilities and workflow automation. Knowing your goal will help you choose the right platform, determine which features to prioritize, and keep you on track so you don't end up with a Frankensteined mess of a project.

2. Choose a no-code platform

Once you've defined your project goals, it's time to choose an app builder. With the explosion of no-code tools in recent years, there are now options for just about every use case imaginable. It can actually be a bit overwhelming trying to navigate all the choices.

Here's an overview of some types and examples of no-code software to consider:

• Website builders: This type of software makes it easy to create everything from simple landing pages to full-featured business sites through drag-and-drop interfaces, templates, and other visual tools. Examples include Squarespace and Webflow.

• App builders: These platforms allow users to build their own apps, like project management tools, customer portals, and booking systems. Examples include Zapier Interfaces, Bubble, and Adalo.

• Automation tools: These tools allow users to connect different apps and services to create powerful automated workflows. Zapier workflows are a great example.

• Database software: These tools make it easy to create custom databases for tracking inventory, managing contacts, or any other data-heavy need. Examples include Zapier Tables, Airtable, and Glide.

• Chatbot builders: This type of software lets users create automated chat interfaces for websites, social media, or customer support. Examples include Zapier Chatbots, Chatbase, and Tidio.

• Form builders: These tools enable users to create and manage online forms for data collection, surveys, and lead generation. Examples include Zapier Interfaces, Google Forms, and Typeform.

• eCommerce platforms: These platforms help users set up and manage online stores, including product management, payment processing, and order fulfillment. Examples include Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento.

I'm biased, but if you don't know what will be best for you, I'd say Zapier is a good place to start since it has products for a bunch of different no-code needs.

3. Leverage free resources

No matter which no-code platform you choose, there's a wealth of free resources available to help you get your bearings.

• Any no-code platform worth its salt will have extensive official documentation to get you started. Don't skip these in your eagerness to start building. Spend a few minutes with the help docs, and I promise you'll save yourself hours of wanting to launch your laptop into a volcano.

• If you're more of a visual learner, many no-code tools provide great video tutorials. Check the official YouTube channels of your platform of choice for in-depth guides.

• Most no-code platforms also offer templates or pre-built components you can use as starting points for your projects. These can save you a ton of time and provide inspiration for your own designs.

• While not always free, there are many affordable boot camps and courses dedicated to specific no-code tools. These can be a great way to quickly level up your skills. Platforms like Udemy and Coursera offer no-code courses, and many tool-specific academies exist as well.

I'd be remiss if I didn't give a humble shout-out to the Zapier blog here. It's a cornucopia of tutorials, app reviews, and productivity tips. Some of my favorite no-code articles from the Zapier blog include:

• How to build an automated system on Zapier

• When you should automate a task

• How to automate your no-code app builder

4. Build and iterate

The best way to learn no-code is by doing. Start building your project, and don't be afraid to make mistakes. Fail fast, fail often, and then fail again until you accidentally create something that doesn't suck.

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you build:

• Keep it simple: It's easy to get carried away adding bells and whistles. Focus on solving the one problem you set out to fix and do it well.

• Design with the user in mind: Always consider the end user's experience—whether that end user is you, your coworkers, or a (hopefully) massive audience of strangers. Make your app intuitive and easy to use. Pretend your grandma is going to use it.

• Document as you go: Keep track of your process, including any workarounds or complex logic. This will be invaluable as your project grows.

• Use version control: Many no-code platforms offer version control features. Use them to save different versions, so when you inevitably break everything, you can roll back and pretend it never happened.

• Test on different devices: If you're building a web or mobile app, be sure to test on various devices and screen sizes. Your app might look great on your high-end monitor, but what about someone's busted iPhone 6?

• Seek feedback early and often: Don't wait until you think your project is perfect before asking for opinions. It's not perfect. It never will be. And users always have a million ways to tell you how to make it better. (That's a good thing.)

• Learn from others: Look at other projects built with your chosen no-code platform for inspo. If someone else has already cracked a tough problem, study it, tweak it, and call it a day. Steal like an artist, as they say.

Real-life examples of no-code

No-code development allows folks to quickly build tools that previously would have required hiring a team of engineers. We can tell all kinds of stories about people using no-code to develop solutions that become essential to their organization.

• Nonprofit: One More Day on the Appalachian Trail used no-code development to streamline the application process for trail volunteers, reducing manual effort and allowing the team to focus on the trail experience.

• eSports startup: By integrating no-code, Metafy created a coaching program resulting in $75,000 in additional revenue for their partners, streamlining their operations and enabling them to focus on growth.

• Insurance company: Arden Insurance automates 34,000 hours of work per year using no-code, freeing up their team to focus on more strategic tasks.

• Real estate CRM: Using no-code tools, SweepBright automates up to 27 million tasks monthly, significantly increasing efficiency in real estate transactions.

• Marketing agency: Chatham Oaks utilizes Zapier Canvas to explain complex workflows to clients and document internal workflows, increasing sales and improving onboarding for new employees.

• eLearning: Learn It Live implemented a no-code AI-powered chatbot, which reduced support tickets by 40%. The chatbot handles common questions, freeing up the support team to focus on more complex issues.

• Transit advertising: Vector Media utilized no-code to automate employee onboarding, making the process more efficient and less error-prone.

• Fabric shop: Millshop Online developed a new product by leveraging no-code automation and AI, which allowed the company to efficiently manage the product development process and bring it to market faster.

• Home services: Using Zapier and ChatGPT, Results Grow created an AI bot to automatically respond to leads. This resulted in fewer missed sales leads, more appointments booked, and increased revenue by nearly $350,000.

• eCommerce: Chicago gift store La De Da created a process to mimic in-store interactions, streamlining operations and improving customer satisfaction.

• SaaS: ActiveCampaign reduced its average churn rate by automating customer interactions and personalized follow-ups using no-code, resulting in better customer retention and satisfaction.

• Restaurant: The Ruby Tap, a Milwaukee wine bar, began offering curbside pickup with the help of no-code, resulting in $20,000 in additional revenue.

Streamline your workflow with no-code

As you can see, no-code bridges the gap between tech geniuses and the rest of us mere mortals. And at Zapier, we're dedicated to making no-code app development as accessible and powerful as possible.

Whether you're looking to build a lead capture funnel, an internal app, or a full-fledged SaaS product, Zapier has the tools and resources to help you get started:

• Zaps: Create automated workflows that connect your favorite apps and services.

• Zapier Interfaces: Build custom user interfaces and forms to capture data and trigger your automations.

• Zapier Tables: Create databases to store, manage, and collaborate on data right within Zapier.

• Zapier Chatbots: Build AI-powered custom chatbots that automate conversations and tasks across multiple platforms.

• Zapier AI: Leverage the power of artificial intelligence to enhance your automations.

• Zapier Canvas: Visually design and document your workflows, processes, and automations.

• Zapier Central: Experiment with and manage AI-powered bots to automate tasks across various apps.

Zapier's suite of no-code products integrates with thousands of other apps, allowing you to build a cohesive ecosystem that spans multiple platforms.

Related reading:

• How I launched an app using no-code tools

• We don't code. But we built our MVP for $100/month

• A conversation with no-code innovators

• Zapier data report: The rise of no-code

This article was originally published in June 2020 by Justin Pot. The most recent update was in September 2024.

Despite the name, OpenAI doesn't make open AI models: the various GPT and DALL·E models are all proprietary or closed source. And Meta's Llama? Regardless of how many times Mark Zuckerberg says it, it isn't open source—though it is open, unlike OpenAI's models. Welcome to the strange new world of AI definitions.

Broadly speaking, there are three major categories of AI models: 

• Proprietary

• Open source

• Open

These categories apply to both large language models (LLMs) and text-to-image models. Things are still shaking out, and the Open Source Initiative is currently developing a strict definition for what's required for an AI model to truly be considered open source, but let's look at how it all stands now.

Table of contents:

• What is open source?

• What is a proprietary AI model?

• What is open source AI?

• What is an open AI model?

• The best open and open source AI models

What is open source?

Before looking at open source AI models, let's step back and consider what open source actually means. It isn't some random buzzword: the Open Source Initiative (OSI) maintains a definition that fully describes the underlying philosophy and requirements. I could reproduce it here because, of course, it's released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, but here's the gist.

Open source doesn't just mean that you can freely download something or access the source code. It must be available for anyone to use and modify in any way they like and for any purpose. An open source license specifically cannot restrict any "field of endeavor," which is where a lot of open AI models fall short. 

The OSI maintains a list of approved licenses, but some of the big ones are the Apache 2.0 License, the MIT License, and the GNU General Public License.

What is a proprietary AI model?

Proprietary AI models are some of the most popular and powerful models available. They're developed and operated by private companies, and the source code, training strategies, model weights, and even details like the number of parameters they have are all typically kept secret. The only way to access a proprietary model is through some kind of official service like a chatbot, an API, or a tool built using the API. 

Take OpenAI's GPT-4o. We have no idea what data it was trained on or how many parameters it has. The only way to access it is through ChatGPT, OpenAI's API, or an app that uses GPT-4o, like Perplexity or Zapier Chatbots.

And, of course, OpenAI charges for access to GPT-4o. If you want to use it—and it is one of the best AI models available—then you can pay $20/month for ChatGPT Plus, or pay to use the API, either by subscribing to another service or building something yourself. You can't just download GPT-4o and run it on your own server.

The same is true for all other proprietary AI models, including:

• GPT-4o mini and DALL·E 3 from OpenAI

• Claude 3 and Claude 3.5 from Anthropic

• Gemini and Imagen 3 from Google

• Command R and R+ from Cohere

• Midjourney

What is open source AI?

Open source AI models are AI models released under an open source license, but that isn't necessarily as simple as it sounds. Researchers have found that many models that claim to be open source simply aren't. The process is called "open-washing," and it seriously complicates things…including for people who write about AI models.

Right now, the Open Source Initiative is working to develop an open source AI definition because existing licenses don't really cover the full technicalities of the current generation of AI models. To really fulfill the requirements and philosophy of open source software, not only would a model's source code need to be freely available, but so would its training data, training code, parameters, and a whole lot more. The software parts would need to be shared under open source licenses, while things like training data and descriptions of how it works would need to be shared under Creative Commons licenses—or similarly open ones.

Also, it's hard to overstate how permissive open source licenses are. The strictest licenses essentially require you to make anything you build with it open source as well—and give attribution to the original developers. That's it. If you want to build a multi-billion dollar company off open source software or create a crime chatbot that tells people how to get away with heists, you're absolutely free to do so. The police might have some issues with the latter project, but you wouldn't be breaking any software licenses. 

You can see the latest draft of the open AI definition and the checklist of required components on the OSI website. As I write this, it's on version 0.0.9.

What is an open AI model?

Open models fill the gap between closed proprietary AI models and the platonic ideal of truly open source AI models. (Until the OSI releases their definition, the closest model I could find to that ideal is OLMo 7B.)

In simple terms, open AI models are freely available in some capacity. Typically, you can download them from Hugging Face and other model platforms and run them on your own devices after agreeing to whatever license terms are offered. You can generally re-train them with your own data to create your own model and build your own chatbots and apps on top of them. In most cases, you can dig deep into things like the model weights and system architecture to understand how they work (as best as anyone can).

Open licenses can still be permissive, but they have some additional limits that an open source model wouldn't. For example, Llama 3's license allows commercial use up to 700 million monthly users and blocks certain uses. You or I could build something with it, but Apple and Google can't. Similarly, Gemma 2's prohibited use policy, among other things, bans "facilitating or encouraging users to commit any type of crimes." Understandably, Google doesn't want to see unsavory chatbots "powered by Google Gemma" plastered all over the news.

These restrictions, while understandable, are at odds with the open source philosophy, so you can see why things can get contentious. Various researchers are working on ways to categorize different models based on how open they are to make things a lot clearer. If any of these becomes mainstream, you can be sure we'll let you know.

The best open and open source AI models

Here's a list of all the open and open source models worth knowing about right now. Where these fall on the scale of open source to open is up for debate until we have a better definition.

Should you use an open or open source AI model?

While there aren't as many top-tier open source AI models as I'd like, the best open models are incredibly competitive with proprietary alternatives. For example, Llama 3 405B and FLUX.1 give GPT-4o and DALL·E 3 a serious run for their money. If you have the technical chops to employ an open model, you can get much the same performance at a fraction of the cost and with a lot more freedom. 

Related reading:

• What are small language models?

• The best ChatGPT alternatives

• The best large language models (LLMs)

Bots have a terrible reputation on most social media platforms, but on Discord I'm actually happy to encounter them. A Discord bot automates key tasks from within a server: you can program it to do simple things like sending welcome messages to new members or more complex things like moderating interactions and hosting giveaways.

While you can create Discord bots from scratch, there are also millions of pre-made bots available. In this guide, I'll show you how to add bots to Discord on desktop and mobile without any code. 

Table of contents:

• How to add bots to a Discord server on desktop

• How to add bots to a Discord server on mobile

• How to interact with bots on Discord

• How to remove a bot from a Discord server

• Automate Discord with Zapier

How to add bots to Discord server on desktop

The simplest way to add bots to Discord is to invite them to your server from an online bot list like top.gg, discord.bots.gg, or discordbotlist.com. Yes, you have to "invite" the bot, but that really just means adding it. Here's how it's done. (I'm using top.gg as the example, but it'll work pretty much the same with any Discord bot list you use.)

1. Go to top.gg, and search for the bot you want to add. If you want to browse, you can filter by bot category (like Role Management or Gaming) under the Explore tab.

   

2. Click Invite. (You'll be asked to sign in via Discord.)

   

3. Select the server you want to add the bot to, and click Continue.

   

4. Choose which permissions you want the bot to have, then click Authorize.

   

5. Open Discord, and select the server you added the bot to. You should see a welcome message confirming that it's been added.

   

6. Click the bot's name (MEE6, in this case) to see more information and commands you can use to interact with it.

   

With that, you now have a working Discord bot in your server. If these steps didn't work, you probably don't have server management permissions. If you're a member of someone else's server, you'll need to request access in order to invite bots.

How to add bots to Discord server on mobile

Adding bots to Discord from an iOS or Android device works pretty much the same as doing it on desktop. You'll just tap instead of clicking.

1. Go to top.gg, and choose the bot you want to add.

2. Tap Invite, then sign in via Discord when prompted.

   

3. Choose a server to add the bot to, and tap Continue.

   

4. Select the permissions you want the bot to have, then tap Authorize.

   

5. Open the Discord app, and go to the server you added the bot to. You'll see a message confirming that it's been added.

   

6. Tap the bot's name to see more information and commands you can use to interact with it.

   

How to interact with bots on Discord

Like the robot that vacuums my floor every night (hi, Kevin), Discord bots are made to perform very specific actions. In some cases, they work automatically, but you can also issue them commands based on what they've been programmed to do. Here's an example of what that looks like.

1. Open the bot's profile by tapping its name. Under Commands, you'll see some of the actions it can perform.

   

2. Click one of the options or type / into the server chat. You'll see a list of additional commands.

   

3. Input your command and hit Enter. Depending on the command, you may be asked to enter more information. (For the /write command, I'm required to enter a prompt.)

   

4. The bot will output a response or perform an action based on your input.

   

This is just one of thousands of ways to interact with Discord bots using commands, and you'll have a different set of choices depending on the specific bot you add. The fun part is experimenting to see what they can (or can't) do. To give you an idea, there are bots that can play music for your server, manage support tickets, and host trivia nights.

How to remove a bot from a Discord server

Bots don't have feelings (yet), so you can boot them from a Discord server without bruising any egos. You remove bots from a server the same way you remove people—by kicking them out.

1. Type /kick in the chat on the server you want to remove the bot from.

2. Hit Enter, and you'll be asked to select which user to kick.

   

3. Under Members, click the bot you want removed.

   

4. Hit Enter again.

5. The bot will be kicked from the server.

   

If you feel guilty about giving your artificial friend the boot, you can always add them back to your server using the same steps as before.

Automate Discord with Zapier

Bots can automate certain tasks from within your server, but if you want to get the most out of Discord, use Zapier to connect it with thousands of other apps. Zapier's Discord integrations let you do things like:

• Automatically share new YouTube videos on Discord

• Send reminders for Google Calendar events

• Create Discord forum posts for new Instagram posts

Learn more about how to automate Discord with Zapier, or try out one of these pre-made workflows.

Related reading:

• How to screen share on Discord

• Can you use Discord for business?

• How to create a custom AI chatbot with Zapier Chatbots

• The best team chat apps

As a web designer in the mid-2010s, I used what everyone recommended at the time: WordPress. While it's a great tool, I found myself spending hours trying to fix spacing issues, reconcile bugs created by incompatible plugins, and troubleshoot server errors. (There's nothing quite as terrifying as WordPress's "White Screen of Death.") Because of this, I deeply understand the pain points that website building apps were created to solve. Most of those apps, though, are aimed at beginners and small businesses, not designers.

Framer and Webflow are an exception: they're aimed at professionals, not beginners. While that means they're not quite as easy to get started with as alternatives like Squarespace, there's almost no limit to what you can design—or how much you can scale—on either platform.

While you can't go wrong with either app, each has different use cases. To compare them, I got hands-on with both Framer and Webflow by creating multiple websites and testing the latest features of each platform. In this article, I'll explain the pros and cons of Framer and Webflow to help you decide which you should use.

• Framer vs. Webflow at a glance

• Framer is easier to use

• Webflow is better for complex designs, but Framer has slicker animations and components

• Webflow lets you create custom no-code eCommerce shops

• Both apps make it easy to scale your website

• Framer is slightly cheaper

• Webflow has more integrations, including Zapier

Framer vs. Webflow at a glance

Here's my take on the key differences between these two website building apps:

• Framer is best for designers and startups. It's straightforward to use, making it easy to spin up stunning landing pages, interactive prototypes, and minimum-viable products. With its powerful CMS and localization features, Framer can scale with you as you grow.

• Webflow is best for developers and enterprise use. It has a steeper learning curve, but there's no better platform for bringing custom website and eCommerce designs to life, and its CMS and localization features are enterprise-grade. While you can accomplish plenty with Webflow's no-code features, developers get access to even more customization.

Framer is easier to use

A caveat up front: the term "ease of use" here is relative. Neither Framer nor Webflow can compare with the user-friendliness of more consumer-oriented website building platforms like Squarespace. Framer and Webflow's target audience of startups, agencies, SaaS companies, and enterprise organizations is already technically competent and has designers on staff; neither app is intended for small business owners making their first website. Because of this, the focus is more on design horsepower than ease of use.

That said, Framer is easier to learn and use than Webflow, especially for those familiar with design tools like Figma. It's more intuitive and has fewer settings crowding the interface. Onboarding is simple: there's a checklist, interactive tooltips, and an option that sends you straight to an impressive selection of templates. (If you've got the time, there's also a 52-minute comprehensive onboarding video.)

A quick scroll through Framer's home page makes one thing clear: they're eager to let you know that the experience is a lot like Figma. ("Framer offers a design experience like Figma, complete with an infinite canvas and a full suite of layout, styling and text features.") While I haven't used Figma—so I can't comment on the direct comparison—the Framer experience is definitely closer to the Adobe suite of design products than it is to a Squarespace-style platform.

Framer's infinite canvas makes it easy to zoom out and get a bird's-eye view of your designs, including versions for desktop, tablet, and mobile. An intuitive section called Assets makes it simple to edit site-wide elements like buttons, calls to action, menu items, and lists. (You can also adjust site-wide color schemes and fonts here.)

By contrast, in Webflow, it takes some digging around to make straightforward changes like this, and the user interface is more crowded. But with this steeper learning curve comes more advanced capabilities, especially if you have coding knowledge. Webflow is incredibly flexible and customizable, making it well-suited to the needs of enterprise users, developers, and more complex use cases.

Despite its complexity, Webflow does an admirable job of easing you onto the platform. If it's your first time using Webflow, I highly recommend the Guided Tutorial option: via a series of interactive tooltips, you'll learn the essentials of Webflow's interface in a few minutes. (You can also jump straight into building a site if you prefer.)

Framer also has an AI website builder (Webflow has yet to launch theirs). To test it, I used the following prompt to generate a fictional landing page: "Create a website for my SaaS company, Bingo. We help connect dog owners with experienced dog walkers, helping you take care of your furry best friend whether you're home or not."

The copy, generated via the OpenAI API, was relevant enough. But—strangely enough for a design app—the AI-generated designs were absolutely bleh. (And there were no dogs in sight!) While it was easy to regenerate the design, and to swap colors and fonts, I couldn't land on anything that felt like a helpful starting point. Still, it's a good example of where AI website builders are going.

Finally, templates are a strong point for both Webflow and Framer. At 1,500+ templates, Webflow has a slightly larger library of options, but you have to pay for most of them.

Framer has a similarly robust selection of 1,200+ templates and most are slickly designed. Framer also has a better selection of complete free templates than Webflow does, with about 250 options. My only gripe is that launching these templates—which are all produced by third-party agencies and designers—is cumbersome. Instead of getting started immediately with your design, you have to submit your email address and wait to receive an email with the next steps. (Framer seems to pass your email on to the template designer, which in my case led to daily promotional emails until I unsubscribed.)

Webflow is better for complex designs, while Framer has slicker animations and components

In both Framer and Webflow, you'll find everything you'd expect from a sophisticated website building app. Both platforms offer drag-and-drop interfaces for design, along with pre-built templates and reusable design elements.

Webflow provides more extensive customization options, along with complex layouts. Clicking on any given item opens up an impressive array of settings: for example, selecting a heading gives you the option to tweak spacing (down the pixel), adjust positioning (static, fixed, or sticky), adjust backgrounds and borders, and add effects like blending, box shadows, and cursor changes.

Meanwhile, Framer is well-suited to quickly creating interactive prototypes, minimum viable products (MVPs), and animation-enhanced landing pages. Framer can import your Figma designs and mockups and convert them into dynamic websites—even preserving your layers and elements. (Webflow has a plugin that does the same thing.)

Framer and Webflow are both known for their slick animations. By tweaking a few settings in either, you can easily accomplish effects that, a decade ago, used to take serious custom programming. Even better, most templates come pre-programmed with subtle animations. While Webflow and Framer both offer polished visual effects, Framer's advantage is its impressive Components library, which allows you to copy pre-built interactive elements—like the one I embedded in my test site below—from other designers.

Webflow lets you create custom no-code eCommerce shops

If you're looking for an all-in-one website builder with eCommerce and marketing built in, let me point you in the direction of some pupose-built eCommerce website builders. With Framer and Webflow, you get a sophisticated array of collaborative design features—but neither app attempts to be a Swiss Army Knife solution to all your needs.

There is an exception, however: Webflow offers a highly-customizable eCommerce solution that might be right for you if you're looking for a unique, non-templated look. Webflow is an easier way to bring custom eCommerce designs to life than WooCommerce, which can be clunky and imprecise, or Shopify, which requires a developer familiar with JavaScript, JSON, and Liquid (Shopify's templating language). Pairing Webflow's powerful design capabilities with eCommerce features results in creative storefront concepts like the below, which—despite the lamentable idea of adding hot sauce to coffee—feels quite unlike the average Shopify theme.

But—fair warning—Webflow's approach to eCommerce requires some patience. Unlike Squarespace or Wix, it's complex enough that you won't get your shop up and running in a day, and it's a less comprehensive option than Shopify. For example, you'll run into trouble in Webflow when trying to set volume discounts, offer in-store pickup options, or accept payments in non-USD currencies.

Framer isn't designed for eCommerce at all, but there is a workaround: you can integrate your website with Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy, both of which are aimed at helping creators sell digital products and process payments. Although transactions happen off-site in another browser tab, Framer is worth looking into if you're selling courses, templates, or other online products.

Neither Framer nor Webflow offers much in the way of integrated marketing tools. Here, you get the basics: forms, SEO, and analytics. Webflow offers something it calls "Automated SEO," which saves time (especially at scale) by populating each page's metadata with information from your CMS collections. Framer's SEO options are more lightweight, but they still give you the ability to tweak your sitemap settings, add and edit schema markup, and manage 301 redirects.

Both apps make it easy to scale your website

Framer and Webflow both position their platforms as ideal for scaling your website, and each offers a robust content management system (CMS). Managing hundreds (or thousands) of pages manually quickly becomes unwieldy; with a CMS, each page starts out as a data entry that's later dynamically displayed using a template.

While both apps have similar content management systems, Webflow has an edge: it offers more CMS field types, meaning you can add a more diverse set of information to each entry. (This comes in handy if you're creating complex pages.) Webflow also lets you create a total of 40 CMS "collections," which are unique content categories like blog posts, job listings, projects, or case studies; Framer offers just 10 CMS collections.

Apart from those differences, Framer's user interface just makes the CMS experience smoother—it feels less intimidating to navigate than Webflow's.

Both Framer and Webflow make it simple to scale your web presence internationally via localization tools. What's most impressive about this feature is that translating your content (which happens quickly via AI) is only the start. Images, calls to action, and menu items can also be localized—and you can route users automatically based on their location. For example, a user in Paris might see a website in French with images of the Champs-Elysées and a prominently-displayed Parisian office address; meanwhile, a New York audience would see an American-ified version of that content.

Something else to keep in mind, especially as your website grows, is how "locked in" you are to the platform you've selected. With Webflow, you can export your website's code and self-host it elsewhere; with Framer, you can't. While this won't be a priority for most users—since it's much easier to simply host on the platform—it's good to keep in mind from a redundancy standpoint. (For example, what options do you have if either app shuts down or dramatically increases its pricing?)

Framer is slightly cheaper

Framer is more affordable than Webflow. If you just need a simple landing page, you'll pay as little as $10/month for the entry-level Mini plan; for more pages, CMS collections, and monthly visitors, you can upgrade to Framer's $20/month Basic plan or $40/month Pro plan.

Webflow's entry-level Basic plan starts at $18/month. The $29/month CMS plan unlocks CMS functionality, while the $49/month Business plan gives you up to 300 pages and up to 10,000 CMS items. Webflow offers a separate pricing scheme for eCommerce sites, ranging from $42/month to $235/month depending on the size of the site.

If you're planning to collaborate with multiple users—for example, as an agency or as part of an in-house design team—both apps require you to upgrade to a Workspace plan with per-user pricing. Framer starts at $25/month per user, while Webflow's cheapest option is $24/month per user.

Both apps have similarly-generous free plans that let you test out most features, but you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan to remove branding and to publish to a custom domain.

Webflow has more integrations, including with Zapier

Framer has fewer than a dozen integrations, including Hotjar, HubSpot, Intercom, and Calendly. Webflow, on the other hand, has an expansive ecosystem of tools and plugins, with 150+ integrations like LiveChat, Outseta, and Typeform.

Plus, using Zapier, you can connect Webflow to thousands of other apps. Learn more about how to automate Webflow, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Framer vs. Webflow: Which is best?

To compare Framer and Webflow for this article, I've taken pains to highlight their differences. But ultimately, they're quite similar—and you can't go wrong with either option. If you're not quite sure which one to go with, here are some final thoughts to keep in mind.

Choose Framer if you're looking for an easy-to-use platform with stunning design outputs. With Framer's impressive templates, animations, and pre-built components, you can create designs that are almost indistinguishable from high-end tech and SaaS websites—and you'll have the option to scale up as your business grows.

Choose Webflow if you're creating custom designs for larger sites. Webflow offers pixel-perfect design control, enterprise-grade scaling features, a robust CMS, and 150+ integrations. If you want to create a highly-custom eCommerce shop design, it's a solid Shopify alternative; Webflow is also a good choice if you'd like the option to export your website code and self-host.

Related reading:

• Webflow vs. WordPress: Which is better for your website?

• Webflow vs. Squarespace: Which website builder is best?

• The best free website builders

Sales involves so much more than just closing deals, and Apollo promises to help your team handle all those tasks—from finding new leads to analyzing what's working. 

But even the best platform doesn't exist in a vacuum. You still use other apps across your company, and your workflows are bound to cut across them. What you really need is to keep all of those apps in sync without creating extra work for your team. 

That's where automation comes in. You can use Zapier's automated workflows—called Zaps—to connect Apollo to the other apps you use every day. Zapier can handle all kinds of work for you, from updating your sales contacts to creating follow-up items on your to-do list. Here's how.

Table of contents

• Back up your Apollo contacts in a spreadsheet 

• Keep your CRM up to date with Apollo data

• Track offline conversions

• Turn sales activity into to-do list items

Back up your Apollo contacts in a spreadsheet 

Backing up your data is incredibly important—especially if you're storing business-critical info like customer names, addresses, and more. But collecting that data by hand is time your team could have spent closing deals. 

Instead of trying to keep your backup spreadsheet up to date manually, you can automate the process. These Zaps will instantly add a new row to your sheet for every new (or updated) Apollo contact.

Keep your CRM up to date with Apollo data

Today, sales teams have a multitude of tools and apps they can use to do their jobs. For example, you might use Apollo as your sales intelligence platform but use a totally different app as your customer relationship management (CRM) tool. But that creates a new problem: How do you keep your CRM up to date with the latest information from Apollo?

You can create a Zap that automatically adds new Apollo contacts to your CRM or updates existing contacts with new information.

Track offline conversions

To run your sales and marketing efficiently, it's crucial to have a holistic view of how everything is working. You need to understand where your leads and customers come from—but you also need to keep your advertising segments and lists updated. Otherwise, you'll constantly retarget people who've already made a purchase. 

Thankfully, it's easy to add conversions to your digital advertising platform with automation. Just create a Zap that sends offline conversions or funnel events to your ad tool when there are new customers in Apollo.

Turn sales activity into to-do list items

When it comes to sales and marketing, speed is the name of the game—you want to act fast when you have a new lead or customer. But what if you don't have a dedicated project manager to tell you the next steps?

With automation, you can streamline managing all your follow-up tasks. For example, you can use a Zap to create tasks in your to-do list or project management app every time you have a new contact in Apollo. That way, nothing falls through the cracks—and you can focus on closing deals.

Give your sales team superpowers with Apollo and Zapier

Apollo gives your sales team a wealth of knowledge and tools, from deal management features to inbound optimization tools. But Apollo is even more powerful when you connect it to your other business-critical apps with Zapier. By automating crucial sales workflows, you give your team more time to do what they do best: sell, sell, sell.

And this is just the start of what you can do with Apollo and Zapier. What will you automate first?

Trying to source and qualify incoming leads can feel like drinking from a fire hose—exciting but too much to manage at once. That's where tools like Perspective come into play, helping you design custom funnels to turn a deluge of leads into more manageable streams.

But you don't need to stop at just manageable. You can make Perspective work even harder for you through automation. By connecting Perspective to all the apps you use, you can turn your funnel of leads into an automatic lead management machine. Here are five nifty ways you can automate Perspective and give your lead gen process the turbo boost it deserves.

Table of contents

• Sync leads with your spreadsheets

• Send instant notifications

• Add leads to your mailing list

• Stay on top of your follow-up tasks

• Add leads to your CRM

Sync leads with your spreadsheets

Every lead is valuable, and keeping track of them is crucial. Many businesses opt to do so via spreadsheet, so they have a single source of truth and can easily share that info across teams.

But let's face it: manually updating spreadsheets is a time sink. Automating the process of sending your Perspective leads to your spreadsheet tool helps you save time on manual data entry while also creating a centralized database of leads that's always up to date. Try one of these Zaps to get started:

Send instant notifications

When it comes to reaching out to new prospects, timing is everything. Timely follow-ups can make all the difference in converting a lead to a customer. But if you're constantly jumping from tool to tool to check if a lead's come in, you're wasting valuable time that could go towards nurturing more prospects. 

Automatic notifications via email or Slack can make sure you're always in the loop, ready to pounce on hot leads as soon as they enter your Perspective funnel without wasting your time.

Add leads to your mailing list

Never let a good lead go to waste: nurture those potential customers via your mailing list. It's Marketing 101. But adding those leads to your email marketing tool can become an unrelenting task as your business scales and the leads keep pouring in.

Instead, automate it! Make sure that new leads are signed up to receive your newsletters immediately by automatically updating your contact lists from new Perspective leads.

Stay on top of your follow-up tasks

Following up with leads is crucial, but keeping track of who needs what follow-up can also be difficult. Instead of fussing with project management tools—which adds yet another task to your growing plate—why not automatically create a corresponding follow-up task each time you get a new Perspective lead? 

By doing so, you're making sure that no lead falls through the cracks and freeing up your time to do more important stuff—like actually talking to those leads.

Add leads to your CRM

A customer relationship management (CRM) tool is the heart of your sales operation. From your CRM, you can keep track of all your customer interactions and share important lead details across your sales and marketing teams. But in order to do so, your leads first have to make it into the CRM from your lead funnel tool. 

Automatically adding new Perspective leads to your CRM of choice ensures you capture every new prospect from day one, giving your sales team the latest information and empowering them to work towards closing more deals. 

Streamline your pipeline with automation

With Zapier, you're not just automating tasks—you're building a customized, intelligent system that works exactly the way you need it to. 

And this is just the start of what you can do with Perspective and Zapier. What will you automate first?

Skool users can sign up to learn about everything from eCommerce to art. And they're often happy to pay monthly fees to do so. This is great news for creators who have been giving away educational content on social media for free and want to convert this knowledge into income.

Skool is ideal for coaches, consultants, and educators who've hit a growth plateau with 1-to-1 calls and free content. You can sell the same lessons within Skool to scale your helpful knowledge into a more passive business.

Achieving scale, however, requires automation. Here's how Zapier's automated workflows—called Zaps—will help you max out Skool's features and achieve new heights.

Skip ahead

• Export Skool leads to email campaigns

• Turn one-time purchases into recurring Skool membership

• Add leads to Skool

• Use webhooks with Skool

• Keep track of member questions

Export Skool leads to email campaigns

The first rule of creating a community as an online creator? Build an email list. If you have a robust list of interested students, you'll never have to rely on social media for your reach. Any time you have a new product to sell, you can take it directly to your email list and score all sorts of new purchases. 

So, let's say your Skool community is getting some attention already. Now you need a way to turn those leads into a private email list. You can use one of these workflows to export new Skool leads to your email marketing software. 

Turn one-time purchases into recurring Skool membership

If you have a skill to share online, 1-on-1 lessons might be lucrative, but this business model also has a flat ceiling. There are, after all, only so many hours in the day. To achieve scale, you might turn your skills into a product, like an eBook. 

The problem? There's also a ceiling on digital products because one-time purchases don't necessarily turn into recurring revenue for your business. But they can!

Set a Zap so that every product purchase automatically invites your customers to join your Skool community. Think of it as upselling your Skool subscription. Since customers have already shown interest in your knowledge by downloading your product, they're the perfect candidates to join a paid community. 

If even a fraction of those customers turn into new community members, you'll have automated a customer-to-student pipeline. And once you've set the Zap, there's no additional work on your end.

Add leads to Skool automatically

Already collecting leads in a CRM or marketing automation tool? If you're tracking new Skool sales and memberships in your pipeline tools after sales calls or interactions, it can be easy to forget to actually flip the switch in Skool and get that new member added after a call ends. When you're constantly jumping from tool to tool, it's easy for details to slip through the cracks.

Never lose a customer again by automatically connecting your lead pipeline to Skool. Try one of these Zaps to get started.

Use webhooks with Skool

Even though Zapier connects with thousands of apps, you might use a more niche tool that doesn't—yet!—have a Zapier integration. Or maybe you're looking for more customization than a standard integration offers.

Fortunately, you can use webhooks to easily connect almost any app with Skool. Here are a few workflows to help you get started.

Keep track of member questions

Want to keep track of what your community is asking? Rather than manually digging through your Skool account to spot trends, add them to a spreadsheet instead. 

Sorting through records in a database makes it easier to spot trends and keep track of what interests your community over time. You can also more easily share that information with your team and generate reports from a Google Sheet or an Airtable base. Get started with one of these workflows:

Streamline your community and go back to Skool

Automating your Skool workflows is the key to unlocking your platform's full potential. By setting up a few automated workflows, you can effortlessly scale your community, nurture leads, and streamline your operations. With the right automations in place, you'll have more time to focus on creating content and engaging with your members—letting your Skool community thrive while you take care of what matters most.

And this is just the start of what you can do with Skool and Zapier. What will you automate first?

Recruiting is one of the most labor-intensive business functions. Thankfully, tools like Zoho Recruit make it easy to source talent, manage your candidate pipeline, and bring the right people on board. But even the greatest recruiting app can't streamline all of your work, especially when your talent team uses a host of other business-critical apps like forms and spreadsheets. That's where automation comes in. 

With Zapier, you can connect Zoho Recruit to your team's other apps—and automate work across them. By automating common workflows, your team can focus on creating a great hiring experience, not keeping up with busywork. 

Not sure how to get started? Here are a few of the most popular Zaps—Zapier's automated workflows—to automate Zoho Recruit.

Skip ahead

• Automatically schedule meetings with candidates

• Connect Zoho Recruit to your spreadsheets

• Seamlessly add form responses to Zoho Recruit

• Automatically turn leads into candidates

Automatically schedule meetings with candidates

Recruiting is a high-pressure environment—especially if you're managing a large volume of applications. And scheduling calls with applicants can be a job in and of itself, which means you have less time to spend sourcing candidates and making hiring decisions.

Instead of trying to coordinate interviews manually, you can use Zapier to automate the process. For example, you can create a Zap that sends calendar invites to candidates based on activity in Zoho Recruit—so you can focus on crafting a high-quality candidate experience. 

Connect Zoho Recruit to your spreadsheets

Candidates can come from all kinds of sources—online applications, job fairs, industry conferences, and more. But often, they all end up in the same place: a spreadsheet. In reality, they can't live there forever; you need to move that information into Zoho Recruit quickly and efficiently.

Thankfully, automation is great for moving large amounts of data around without copy-pasting or manually exporting CSV files. For example, you can create a Zap that instantly turns new (or updated) rows in a spreadsheet into records in Zoho Recruit.

You can also create a Zap that does the opposite, adding rows to a spreadsheet anytime there's a new or updated record in Zoho Recruit. This is a great way to back up or share important candidate information.

Seamlessly add form responses to Zoho Recruit

Of course, you might want to add candidates or other information to Zoho Recruit directly from a source like a form, such as from an embedded application on your company website. But you still don't need to do any manual data entry to make this happen—Zapier can automate it for you. 

You can create a Zap that turns form responses into new Zoho Recruit records (or updates existing records), so your recruiting team always has the most up to date information at their fingertips. 

Automatically turn leads into candidates

There are lots of ways to source candidates, and you might get a little creative with your outreach by running digital ads. But you still need to ensure that those leads make it into Zoho Recruit so your team can assess whether they're a good fit and reach out to the best ones.

You can create a Zap that connects your lead source to Zoho Recruit so every new lead automatically turns into a new or updated record.

Streamline your hiring with Zoho Recruit and Zapier

Finding the right people to hire is difficult enough—manual work shouldn't make it more difficult. With Zapier, you can automate all your crucial recruiting workflows by connecting Zoho Recruit to the other apps you use every day—so you can focus on attracting the best talent.

And this is just the start of what you can do with Zoho Recruit and Zapier. What will you automate first?

Today, not every business sells physical things. From apps to online courses, some of the most successful companies have made their mark selling digital products. And with their all-in-one platform, systeme.io is there to help make selling those products easy.

But even though it's an all-in-one solution, you're still likely using other tools alongside systeme.io—whether that's your personal email address, a spreadsheet, or an online form. Keeping all of those tools in sync can throw a wrench into your online business, especially as your sales volume grows. 

That's where automation comes in. You can use Zapier to connect systeme.io to thousands of other apps—and turn everyday work into fully automated workflows called Zaps. Not sure where to start? Here are some of the most popular ways to automate your work with systeme.io. 

Table of contents

• Connect systeme.io with your spreadsheets

• Send emails for key systeme.io activity

• Add contacts to systeme.io automatically

Seamlessly connect systeme.io with your spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are an amazing tool for any business: They're a powerful way to store, organize, and analyze information. If you're using systeme.io to run your online business, spreadsheets can help unlock valuable insights about your customers and your content or make it easier to share that info across your team—if you can keep all that information up to date.

Instead of trying to manually export Systeme data into a spreadsheet, you can automate the entire process. These Zaps add new rows to a spreadsheet based on activity in systeme.io—no copy-pasting required.

You can also create a Zap that does the opposite. These workflows add new contacts to systeme.io—or update existing ones—based on new spreadsheet rows. 

Send emails for key systeme.io activity

When a customer opts in to your page in systeme.io, they're indicating they're interested in what your business has to offer—and that they want to stay in touch. But actually keeping in contact with your customer base can be overwhelming, especially at scale.

That's where automation comes in. With these Zaps, you can automatically send an email to the customer whenever they opt in to your page—so you can confirm that they've opted in and continue sharing everything you have to offer. 

If you're using an email marketing tool alongside Systeme, you can automate the process of creating or updating subscribers in that tool, too. 

Add contacts to systeme.io from all your customer touchpoints

As your business grows, so will the number of ways you find and stay in touch with customers. But adding all of that information to systeme.io can involve a lot of moving parts—and time. 

For example, if you use an online signup form to capture new registrations or to gauge interest in a particular offering, you'll need to add that information to Systeme. That's where automation can be a lifesaver. With Zapier, you can create an automated workflow to do just that—so you always have the most up-to-date contact list in systeme.io.

Similarly, you might offer personalized consultations, one-on-one appointments, or webinars to your customers. Instead of manually updating systeme.io with that information, you can use automation instead. 

You can also create a Zap that takes new leads from your digital ads and adds them to Systeme as contacts—or updates existing contacts based on how they've interacted with your online ads. 

The same is true for sales and payment info. Whenever someone makes a purchase, Zapier can create, update, or tag the right customer in systeme.io—so you have a 360° view of their activity.

Grow your online business with systeme.io and Zapier

Online businesses are just as challenging to run and scale as any other business, but your apps shouldn't make it even harder. With systeme.io and Zapier, you can create powerful automations that do work for you—so you can focus on growing your business, not doing busywork. 

Texting can be a great way to stay connected to your work on the go. You can talk to your team, your boss—maybe even your mom if you need a little encouragement. And with tools like WhatsApp, you can text across time zones and countries for free, which is a great perk if you have a distributed team. 

But texting isn't just for keeping in touch. With WhatsApp Notifications and a little automation, you can also keep track of important developments even when you're not at your computer—which is really helpful if your job or business takes you out in the field. Here are a few of the most popular ways to automate WhatsApp Notifications with Zapier.

Table of contents

• Get notified about new files

• Get notifications for new spreadsheet data

• Stay on top of form responses

• Keep up with calendar events

• Get notified about new emails

• Stay on top of new digital leads

• Keep track of everything else

Get notified about new files 

If you work with a lot of files—like contracts or quotes—it can feel really overwhelming to stay on top of every new item, especially when you're out and about. That's where automation comes in. You can create an automated workflow (which we call a Zap) that sends you a WhatsApp notification every time a new file is added to your file management tool. 

If you don't want to get a WhatsApp notification for everything, you can make the workflow more specific, so you only get notified when new files are added to specific folders.

Get notifications for new spreadsheet data

Spreadsheets are a powerhouse tool for storing, organizing, and analyzing all kinds of data—from leads to software bugs. But because there are so many different ways to work with them, spreadsheets can also feel a little clunky, especially on the go. If you need to find one new row of data, good luck pulling it up on a tiny mobile phone screen!

Instead of trying to stay on top of new spreadsheet data manually, you can use automation to have it delivered directly to you. Just create a Zap that sends you a WhatsApp notification anytime there's a new or updated row in a particular spreadsheet—no pinching or zooming required!

Stay on top of form responses

Forms are great for giving customers a way to get in touch—especially if they need to schedule field services like repairs, home deliveries, or in-person sales meetings. But if you're trying to make it to all those scheduled appointments, chances are you're not routinely checking for new form responses.

To help you multitask, you can use a Zap to automatically send you a WhatsApp notification every time someone submits a new form response. That way, you can focus on your agenda for the day—while still staying on top of new requests. 

Keep up with calendar events

Similarly, you might not check your calendar all the time—especially if your work involves being away from your computer throughout the day. That can be really anxiety-inducing, especially if you work in a client-facing role where you need to accommodate new meetings or appointments.

Thankfully, you can squash the fear of missing an important appointment with automation. Just create a workflow that sends you a WhatsApp notification whenever there's a new event on your calendar.

Get notified about new emails

If you work on a sales or support team, you're probably familiar with email aliases or group inboxes. In an ideal world, you'd be able to check these from your phone—but that's not always possible, depending on how your company's infrastructure is set up. 

Instead, you can create a handy workaround with Zapier: an automated workflow that lets you know about new emails via WhatsApp Notifications. 

Stay on top of new digital leads

If you're a marketer—or an entrepreneur growing your own business—staying on top of new leads is crucial. When someone clicks on an ad or fills out a lead gen form, you have a short window to act and convert them into a paying customer. But keeping up with those new leads can feel impossible without staying constantly glued to your computer screen.

Instead of never leaving your desk, consider automating those lead notifications. These automated workflows notify you via WhatsApp for every new lead—so you can have a life outside of your laptop. 

Keep track of everything else

Every business and team is unique, so you may need a little more flexibility with your WhatsApp notifications. Thankfully, Zapier connects to thousands of apps—plus webhooks and RSS feeds! Whether you want to get WhatsApp notifications for custom triggers or just know every time there's new content on your favorite website, you can automate it with Zapier. 

Do more than just text with WhatsApp

WhatsApp isn't just a tool for staying in touch with your friends and family; it can be a powerful hub for your work, especially when you're on the go. By automating WhatsApp Notifications with Zapier, you can stay on top of everything that matters—from new leads to new appointments and more. 

If you work in sales (or run your own business), you know how valuable a customer relationship management (CRM) tool like Mojo can be. It lets you manage your contacts, see your pipeline, and even call prospects—all in one place. 

But no sales team uses only a CRM; you also have to-do apps, spreadsheets, and more. To make the most of Mojo, you need to connect it to all those other tools. With Zapier, you can create completely automated workflows (we call them Zaps) that do work across all of your apps. That's a huge win for productivity and your sales goals. 

Not sure where to start? Here are a few of the most popular ways to automate your sales workflows with Mojo and Zapier. 

Table of contents

• Back up Mojo activity in a spreadsheet

• Keep your real estate CRM up to date

• Automatically schedule demos and sales calls

• Turn sales activity into to-do list items

Back up Mojo activity in a spreadsheet

Spreadsheets are a great way to back up important data—as well as organize and analyze it. But in an industry as dynamic as sales, your CRM data is always changing, so manually copy-pasting it (or even exporting it using a CSV file) can quickly become a job in and of itself.

Rather than trying to keep your spreadsheets up to date by hand, you can automate the process. With Zapier, you can create an automated workflow that adds new spreadsheet rows—or updates existing ones—based on new activity or contacts in Mojo.

Keep your real estate CRM up to date

If you work in real estate, you likely use an industry-specific tool alongside a CRM like Mojo. For example, your office team might use Mojo to manage leads, while the realtors might use a real estate CMS to manage clients and properties.

Instead of trying to keep those two systems in sync manually—which would be impossible, even for the most talented admin—you can use Zapier to automatically move contacts from Mojo to whatever tool your realtors use. 

Not a realtor? You can still use Zapier to keep your other marketing apps up to date—for example, by creating a Zap that automatically creates contacts in your marketing automation tool whenever you add new contacts to Mojo.

Automatically schedule demos and sales calls

In sales, acting quickly is crucial to closing deals—especially when a prospect has demonstrated a desire to purchase. But staying on top of sales activity at a high volume can be tough, and crucial opportunities can fall through the cracks.

With automation, you can streamline the process by automatically scheduling sales calls and demos. Whenever there's new activity in Mojo, Zapier can create a calendar event—so you can focus on selling, not admin work. 

Turn sales activity into to-do list items

Similarly, it's crucial to act quickly on all sales activity—not just demo requests. Whether a new prospect has joined your mailing list, attended an event, or something else, you need to follow up in a timely manner.

To move faster—with less manual work—you can use Zapier to make following up easy. Just create a Zap that automatically adds new sales activity (or contacts) to your to-do list app.

Simplify your sales workflows with Mojo and Zapier

Sales is a high-pressure, fast-moving environment where every moment counts. With Zapier, you can connect Mojo to thousands of other business-critical apps and streamline crucial sales workflows—so you spend less time on manual work and more time closing deals.

Sometimes, it takes a few different tools to bring your ideas to life. Maybe you keep track of project ideas in Trello but pull the details together in Miro. Or maybe you track your personal to-dos in one spot but collaborate with your team in another.

Jumping from app to app can make it easy to lose important project details or stop your creative flow in its tracks, right when you're ready to start working. Instead, you can use an automated workflow—what we call a Zap—to create Miro widgets from new Trello cards automatically to keep projects moving. Here's how.

Connect Trello with Miro

Zapier lets you create automated workflows called Zaps, which send your information from one app to another. You can create your own Zap from scratch without any coding knowledge, but we also offer quick templates to get you started. 

If you'd like to start with a template, click on the Zap template to go to the Zap editor. You'll need to create a Zapier account if you don't already have one. Then, follow the directions to set up your Zap.

Set up your Trello trigger

First, set up your trigger—the event that starts your Zap. If you're using the Zap template, the trigger app and event will already be selected for you. Otherwise, search for and select Trello as the trigger app and New Card as the trigger event. Click Continue.

Next, connect your Trello account, if you haven't already, then click Continue. 

Now, it's time to customize your trigger step. First, select the right Trello board in the Board field and the list where you'd like your Trello card to go in the List field.

In the Filter field, you also select open, closed, or all tasks.

When you're done, click Continue.

Now click Test trigger to test your trigger step. Zapier will show you the three most recent tasks from your selected task list. If you don't have any tasks, we recommend you create a sample task for testing. 

Choose one task—this will be used to set up the rest of your Zap—and click Continue with selected record.

Set up your Miro action

Now it's time to set up the action—the event your Zap will perform once it's triggered. If you're using the Zap template, these will already be selected for you. Otherwise, search for and select Miro as your action app and Create Card Widget as your action event. Click Continue.

Next, connect your Miro account, if you haven't already, then click Continue. 

Now, let's customize your Miro action. First, select the Board and Frame where you want your Miro widget to go in their respective fields.

Now fill in the card title, link, and description fields. If you're using the Zap template, these will already be mapped for you from your Trello card. But you can easily change the included details by clicking within the fields and selecting the data you'd like to use from the dropdown.

Lastly, you can also customize the card border color in Miro. By default, it will be light blue, but you can choose from one of the presets or add any color you'd like using the hex format. Once everything is set up, click Continue.

Now, click Test step to test your Zap. Zapier will send the sample data to your Miro board of choice. Open the Miro board to check if everything showed up correctly. Here's what our board looked like:

And that looks like a success! If everything looks right, you're ready to use your Zap. Now, every time you add a new card to your Trello board, it will automatically show up in the Miro frame you're working on.

Ever wished you had more time in the day to get stuff done?

Between juggling meetings, tackling your inbox, completing priority items on your to-do list, and tracking your team's progress, it's easy to get overwhelmed.

While automation can help you scale, and AI tools can help you analyze and interpret data, rarely are the two effectively combined in one platform. 

That's where Zapier Central, an experimental AI workspace, is changing the game. With it, you can teach AI assistants to handle tasks—automatically—across your favorite apps. 

Table of contents

• What is Central?

• Why we love it

• What you can do with Central

• How to get started with Central

What is Zapier Central?

Central is an AI workspace where you can work hand-in-hand with assistants across Zapier's ecosystem of 7,000+ apps. You create, teach, and interact with them so they can help you scale your impact over time. 

Think of these assistants as mini teammates who help you with specific tasks, like analyzing data, searching the web, or drafting responses to customers. By chatting directly with AI, you can train them by showing them the exact behaviors to follow—without using a line of code. 

With Central, you can trigger each assistant to do something specific after something happens in other apps. 

For example, say you receive a new lead through Facebook Lead Ads. That's the trigger. In your instructions, you can tell the assistant to summarize that lead data, then send an email to your sales team via Gmail. That behavior will then repeat anytime you receive a new lead in Facebook Lead Ads, meaning you're getting things done even when you're not around. 

Central features include:

• Behavior: Tell your assistant what to do when it's triggered, how to process or summarize data, and which actions it should take. You can trigger behaviors on demand, when new data comes through an app, or when you use a specific keyword in a message to the assistant.

• Access to 6,000+ apps: You can add automation into the mix by adding app triggers (events that initiate a assistant's behavior) and app actions (tasks it can carry out). 

• Instant actions: Give your assistant access to actions it can execute on command (like adding lead information straight to a CRM). It allows you to directly instruct your assistant to perform thousands of tasks during a conversation (without a trigger).

• Data sources: You can give your assistant access to live data (like a Google Spreadsheet or a table) so that it can find, analyze, and summarize up-to-date info when you ask for it.

• Web browsing: Central can search the web for you to find key information. With it, you can conduct market research, gather popular articles about specific topics, or find online information about prospective clients.

• Collaboration and delegation: You can work alongside your assistants to carry out tasks or let them work in the background for you. You can even create templates yourself and share them with coworkers and friends.

• Conversation history: Your assistants store all your previous conversations, so you can go back and continue chatting where you left off. 

• Zapier's Central Chrome Extension: Bring your assistants anywhere with you on the internet so you can take action in the apps you use without leaving the browser tab you're viewing.

• A single, unified workspace: Central provides a simple chat screen, where you type out your queries and interact with your assistants, and an activity screen, which lists out all the tasks they have completed.

• The best of AI and automation: All in all, Central gives you a way to combine the best of AI chat, automation, and advanced data analysis in one interface. 

Why we love it

At Zapier, we're convinced that AI automation is the future of work for everyone—from automation power users to non-technical folk. 

Yet most AI tools fall short when it comes to automation, as they need constant instruction to work and struggle to integrate with other apps. 

Central is an experimental workspace that aims to bridge that gap, so that everyone can automate and scale faster. 

What you can do with Central

When it comes to Central, there are endless possibilities for AI automation. Most use cases will depend on what you need help achieving in your day-to-day, but here are a few quick examples:

Lead qualification

Teach assistants to get background on new leads and keep you up to date. Ask them to enrich new lead data, add it to a spreadsheet, and get a prioritized list of leads most likely to convert. 

• Behavior: Add triggers and actions for database apps (like Google Sheets), CRM tools (like HubSpot), or email apps (like Gmail). 

• Data source: Upload lead storage data from Google Sheets, Notion, Google Docs, or Airtable. 

• Web browsing: Add more context to lead records in your CRM by searching online for company information.

Email management

Tame your inbox with assistants that draft replies, create tasks for urgent requests, and archive any spam or marketing emails. 

• Behavior: Add triggers and actions for email apps (like Gmail) and project management apps (like Trello). 

• Instant actions: Add direct actions (like Create Draft or Reply to Email) in apps like Gmail so you can send messages the moment your assistant drafts them.

Content generation

Create up-to-date content for your blog and email newsletters with your assistant by pulling research from the web and adding it to a database. 

• Web browsing: Carry out online searches for the most recent articles on a specific topic.

• Instant actions: Add Zapier Tables as your action app so that you can create a record in a table with that online research to refer back to later.

• Zapier's Central Chrome Extension: Summarize, translate, and explain page content directly in your browser without switching apps.

Customer queries

Get answers about customer sentiment or order volume, sort customers by value, and tap into customer needs or feedback. 

• Behavior: Add triggers and actions for forms apps (like Typeform) and eCommerce tools (like Shopify). 

• Data source: Upload order tracking files from Zapier Tables, Google Sheets, Notion, Google Docs, or Airtable so your assistant can answer questions correctly. 

Project management

Nudge tasks towards a resolution, remind teams about deadlines via email, track task progress, and celebrate wins. 

• Behavior: Add triggers and actions for task management apps (like Asana), email tools (like Gmail), or email apps (like Gmail). 

• Data source: Upload project brief files from Google Sheets, Zapier Tables, Notion, Google Docs, or Airtable. 

Customer support

Queue up messages for customer support, provide your assistants with a script according to your style, and resolve issues faster. 

• Behavior: Add triggers and actions for support apps (like Zendesk), project tools (like Jira), or email apps (like Outlook). 

• Data source: Upload your help documentation as a reference from Google Sheets, Zapier Tables, Notion, Google Docs, or Airtable. 

Calendars and meetings

Create meeting agendas, update meeting notes based on criteria, and prioritize tasks based on your notes.

• Behavior: Add triggers and actions for calendar apps (like Google Calendar), video conferencing tools (like Zoom), and file storage apps (like Google Docs). 

• Data source: Upload your strategy docs as a reference for prioritizing tasks from Google Sheets, Zapier Tables, Notion, Google Docs, or Airtable. 

Expense tracking

Stay up to date via conversations with your assistant on tracking expenses, checking invoices, and logging sales.

• Behavior: Add triggers and actions for accounting apps (like QuickBooks), payment processing apps (like Stripe), or spreadsheet apps (like Google Sheets). 

• Data source: Upload your order logs as a reference from Google Sheets, Zapier Tables, Notion, Google Docs, or Airtable.  

How to get started with Central

Want to see it in action?

1. Head over to central.zapier.com and sign up.

2. If you haven't created an assistant yet, click Create my first assistant.

3. If you already have assistants, hover over the + icon on the left sidebar and click + New assistant.

4. To start with, a window will appear where you can give your assistant a name, a description, and instructions. (If you're not ready to provide these things just yet, click Create assistant in the top-right corner. That will lead you to the chat field, and you can finish setting up those aspects there.

5. Chat with your assistant using the message field at the bottom of the chat screen. It can give you an overview of its capabilities and help you set up the kind of assistant you want.

6. To add or edit the assistant's behavior, click the Behaviors tab and + Create behavior. A dialog box will open.

7. In the Instructions to follow field, describe what you want the assistant to do.

8. Click the + icon next to the Trigger field to select a trigger.

9. Click the + icon next to the Behavior actions field to select an action. You can add multiple actions.

10. Test your behavior, then enable it.

11. Next up, you can give your assistant an instant action. Click Actions in the initial chat message, then click + Add action.

12. In the dialog box, search for and select the app for the instant action from the available options. 

13. Select an existing connection for the app.

14. Select the available action(s) you require, then click Save.  

15. Next up, you can give your assistant a data source. Click Data sources and + Add data source in the initial chat message.

16. In the dialog box, select the app for the data source from the available options.

17. Select an existing connection for the app.

18. Next, select a document or other type of file to use as the data source.

19. Click Add data source. After that, it will have the label Synced.

Need more help? Read our Zapier Central quickstart guide for step-by-step instructions on creating your first Central assistant. 

Teach assistants to work on their own with Central

Zapier Central gives you a single, unified workspace that combines the best of AI and automation. Built on Zapier's ecosystem of 6,000+ apps, Central puts you in the driver's seat to automate even more work with the help of friendly, useful AI assistants.

Ready to try it out yourself? Give it a go and start powering your business today. 

This article was originally published in March 2024. It was most recently updated in August 2024.

Whether you use it as a content distribution platform, a streaming service, or an online portfolio for your company's video content, at the end of the day, YouTube is essentially a search engine.

And just like you'd measure organic search performance for your website, you want to be sure you're measuring the performance of your YouTube content. Not only is it a great way to see how your content is landing with your audience, but understanding your analytics is key to refining your YouTube marketing strategy.

Even if you're not a data scientist, here are the metrics you should keep an eye on:

1. Total number of views

2. Impressions and click-through rate (CTR)

3. Average view duration

4. Traffic sources

5. Returning viewers, unique viewers, and subscribers

6. Other content your audience watches

7. Audience demographics

8. Watch time for subscribers

9. Likes, dislikes, and comments

10. Key moments for audience growth and retention

You'll find these metrics in the Analytics section of YouTube Studio (click on your profile icon > YouTube Studio > Analytics). Broadly speaking, YouTube buckets these metrics into two categories—Content and Audience—but there's a lot to dig through, so let's dive in.

Understanding your YouTube content performance

In order to maximize the ROI of your YouTube content, you need to know how people are finding it—and how many of those people actually watch your videos. The Content section gives you a lot of great ways to figure that out. 

You'll need to choose whether you want to look at the performance of your videos or your Shorts—for this piece, we'll look at video analytics.

Total number of views

Right at the top of the Content tab, you'll find the simplest YouTube metric of them all: how many views your channel has. You can consider this a general gauge of the effectiveness of your content and the overall health of your channel. The more people who watch your videos, the more likely it is YouTube's algorithm will serve them to new potential viewers—so keep an eye on this metric whenever you try new things with your videos.

Impressions and click-through rate (CTR)

Impressions refers to the number of times your video content has reached a potential viewer. CTR, on the other hand, tells you the percentage of impressions that became views: how many of the people who saw your thumbnail actually clicked on it. 

If you have low impressions, it means you need to work on your keyword optimization to get your videos in front of more people. If you have high impressions but a low CTR, it might mean that your keywords aren't matching the search intent of your users. Or it could mean that something about your title, description, or thumbnail isn't resonating with viewers. They're being given the option to watch your video and actively choosing not to.

Average view duration

Similarly, you'll want to look at how long the average viewer spends on your videos. This metric is important for determining whether your content is actually resonating with the people it reaches. The longer people spend watching your videos, the more likely it is YouTube's algorithm will serve them to new viewers.

Traffic sources

If you scroll down, you'll see a section that lays out how folks found your videos to begin with. This can include YouTube search, playlists, suggested videos, Google Search, external websites, paid ads, and more.

Get to know your audience on YouTube

You've probably spent a lot of time finding your target audience, and your video content should be tailored to that audience. But YouTube analytics can also help you refine that audience even more and home in on your video audience specifically.

Under the Audience tab, you'll find relevant YouTube metrics that will help you understand who your audience is—and how they behave.

Returning viewers, unique viewers, and subscribers

These metrics are a great way to determine how many new people are finding your content, how many of them are coming back for more, and most importantly, how many of them are subscribing to ensure they see your content in the future—all of which you can use to determine the overall health of your channel.

Other content your audience watches

Below the basic viewer and subscriber tabs, you'll see a more in-depth breakdown of your audience. We'll talk about audience demographics in a moment, but there are some even more valuable metrics in this section:

• Channels your audience watches

• What your audience watches

• Formats your viewers watch

These metrics can give you a holistic view of what your audience finds interesting. That's a great tool for developing your own content—instead of making inferences from demographic data, YouTube shows you exactly what your audience likes to watch (and in what format).

Audience demographics

Want to know more about what your audience has in common? You'll find demographic info like language, age, and location in the Audience section, and each one will give you the big picture of who's behind the screens and what they have in common. This can help you adapt and customize your content and make it as personalized as possible to the folks who are watching. You can even see what the top subtitle or closed caption language is for your content—so you can better adapt that content for international audiences.

Watch time for subscribers

This metric gives you the total number of minutes your subscribers have spent watching your videos. It's not just so you can pat yourself on the back: YouTube recommends and promotes videos with high audience retention, and your subscribers are viewers who already showed an interest in your content. Whenever you're trying new things with your content, keep a close eye on this metric, as it can be an early indicator of how well your regulars are reacting to the changes.

Boost your audience engagement on YouTube

Getting someone to watch your video is the first hurdle, but just like on social media, the ultimate goal is engagement. Engagement from your viewers means you're forming a connection and building brand awareness. Here are the YouTube engagement metrics you'll want to focus on.

Likes, dislikes, and comments

This one isn't a part of the top-level YouTube analytics, but you can't discuss YouTube engagement without touching on the likes and comments on each video. 

YouTube bundles these metrics into a section called Interactions, and it can be a little difficult to find if you're not super familiar with YouTube Studio. To get there, click See more on the Analytics dashboard.

Then click the Select secondary metric dropdown, choose More metrics, and look under Interactions for likes, dislikes, and comments.

Likes and comments can give you first-hand, detailed feedback on how your audience responds to your content. To get started with these metrics, try looking at your best-performing videos and reviewing their individual like/dislike ratios, plus the overall sentiment on their respective comment sections. 

Use this information to inform your content creation strategy by focusing on what seems to be receiving the most accolades.

Key moments for audience retention

Under the Interactions section, you can also see subscribers gained and subscribers lost. By analyzing which videos are most likely to gain you new subscribers—and which cause your audience to disengage—you have a good starting point for testing and iterating on your content.

Automate YouTube

To make the most out of YouTube, you need to go beyond view count. YouTube metrics that analyze your video reach, engagement, and audience will help you know what's resonating and give you a better understanding of how to distribute your content.

To have more time to focus on that content, you can automate your YouTube operations with Zapier. Send notifications for new videos, share videos on social media, automatically upload new videos, and connect YouTube to thousands of other apps. Learn more about how to automate YouTube, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Related reading:

• How to get a transcript of a YouTube video

• How to add new videos to YouTube from Google Drive

• How to post new YouTube videos on Facebook

This article was originally published in January 2022 by Victor Blasco from Yum Yum Videos. The most recent update was in August 2024.

I never thought we'd reach this point, but Googling things can honestly feel like a chore. Not only do we have to hop through numerous links to pinpoint what we're searching for, but we also navigate a maze of ads, spam, and pop-ups. Even then, we often don't find the answers we need. So why not let AI try its hand at search?

A new breed of AI search engines leverages the tech behind AI chatbots like ChatGPT to fetch answers to your queries—without sending you down rabbit holes. They automatically pick the links most relevant to your questions and summarize them for you. You don't have to scroll through a list of URLs or peruse entire websites to find a little piece of information. It's as if you have a personal search engine assistant.

From large platforms like Google to new startups, lots of search engines now offer the ability to generate AI-assisted answers. Each one works differently to ensure its results are accurate and from reputable sources. I've tested all the top AI search engines to decide which ones are best—here's what I found. 

The best AI search engines

• Perplexity for the best AI search experience

• Google AI Overviews for up-to-date information

• Arc Search for AI search and browser in one

What makes the best AI search engine?

Traditional search engines rely on algorithms that combine things like keyword relevance, how often a page is referenced on other websites, the quality of the content, how much users engage with the page, and how fast the page loads (including on mobile)—among other things. When you look up a query, the search engine gives you what it thinks will be the most helpful response.

An AI search engine goes a step further. It still uses this basic system, but instead of showing you a list of pages, it tries to answer your question itself. It passes the information it collects through the AI model it uses, which then summarizes it in a couple of paragraphs—usually citing its sources. AI's ability to understand natural language means it can interpret your questions really well, even if you don't use certain keywords (though many traditional search engines have this kind of AI built in too).

For you, the process remains identical for the first half. You'll still put your query in an empty box, but now, the search engine will try to produce an answer for you right at the top. If you're not satisfied with it or would like to explore more, you can scroll down and continue to visit some web links like you would before. In some cases—and this is huge—you can ask it a follow-up question. It will remember what you were looking for and be able to build on it, something a traditional search engine can't do.

As I was testing AI search engines, I was looking for anything that improved on the traditional search experience. If it required more clicks, didn't produce helpful results, or had unnecessary pop-ups or a generally bad user experience, it didn't make the cut. In the end, that left me with three AI search engines that I feel confident recommending.

The best AI search engines at a glance

The best AI search engine experience overall 

Perplexity (Web, iOS, Android)

Perplexity pros:

• Great user experience

• Ability to organize your searches to save for later perusal

Perplexity cons:

• Not as strong with current events

Perplexity is a search engine built with AI from the ground up. It swaps out the conventional blue links for a chatbot-like interface and allows you to converse with search results. 

When you look up a query, you'll find a textbox to ask a follow-up under the generated answer. You don't have to repeat the details you punched in initially—since Perplexity remembers the context, you can simply ask it another question about the topic. Say you originally asked how long Barack Obama was president of the U.S. You can then just type "how old was he," and Perplexity will tell you his age throughout his two terms. It knows who "he" is, without you having to tell it.

Another handy feature of Perplexity's conversational layout is that you can browse the threads of your previous searches and even save collections of pages if you want to organize your research a bit more.

Perplexity leverages a combination of trust signals from Google, Bing, and its in-house bots that crawl the internet. It uses them to determine which sources are the most trustworthy. In my experience, Perplexity pulled up more accurate data compared to other AI search engines. More often than not, I could find answers to my questions from Perplexity's generated responses—rarely did I have to dig into source links myself. Plus, in my testing, its generative AI algorithms never made up information that doesn't exist and never relied on obscure or outdated websites. However, Perplexity has been criticized for both making up information and plagiarism, so as with all AI tools, be careful about taking anything they tell you at face value without verification.

Perplexity also seems to struggle to keep up with ongoing events. When I asked it about Wimbledon scores, it offered results from last year instead of the matches that took place the day before. Other search engines, on the other hand, would display mini-sports widgets that were easier to follow than paragraphs of text. 

Similarly, Perplexity's exclusive focus on knowledge-based summaries isn't ideal for keeping tabs on news. A "supreme court" search, for example, brought up a brief explanation of what the institution does, rather than facts about the controversial presidential immunity ruling I was looking for at the time.

Perplexity has a few more AI-enabled tools to help you in your research too: in addition to text, it can generate synthetic images, and on Pro accounts, it can scan local documents on your device and let you ask questions about their content. 

Perplexity pricing: Most of Perplexity's features are free, but to unlock a handful of premium perks, like document upload and more powerful AI models, you'll have to pay $20/month.

The best AI search engine for up-to-date information

Google AI Overviews (Web)

Google AI Overviews pros:

• Combines traditional and AI search

• You can supplement it with the Gemini chatbot

Google AI Overviews cons:

• Can't ask follow-up questions

Google offers the best of both worlds: traditional search engines and generative AI in one place. Its AI Overviews section is designed to aid the standard Google Search experience rather than replace it altogether. It pins a summary of a handful of sources related to your question on top of the conventional list of blue links. And unlike with Perplexity, you can scroll past the AI Overview to check out the links yourself. 

What I appreciate about Google's AI Overview tool is that it doesn't appear for all queries (yet). For now, at least, it only shows up for facts it can confirm. That means the AI Overviews section won't activate for, say, developing news stories. But because it integrates into the rest of Google's Search engine as well, you always have the option to switch to other tabs like News to verify and supplement your findings. 

In my use, Google's AI produced authoritative responses every time it popped up, but it's gotten some serious (bad) publicity for basing answers on poor sources at times, like the time it suggested people add glue to their pizza. 

For those who prefer Perplexity's conversational interface, you can also access Google's AI search capabilities from its Gemini chatbot. In addition to text chats, you can prompt Gemini to create AI-generated images, describe or research your uploaded pictures for insights, and plug into other Google services. For example, you could connect it to your Gmail to ask for recommendations for an upcoming trip based on your itinerary.

Google AI Overviews pricing: Google AI Overviews is free to use and available publicly in the U.S. (in other countries, you'll have to opt into it from this Search Labs link if it's available to you). If you're using the Gemini chatbot, you can also buy Gemini Advanced for $19.99/month, giving you access to better models and other priority features.

The best mobile AI search engine

Arc Search (iOS, iPadOS)

Arc Search pros:

• Does more of the work for you, which is great on mobile

Arc Search cons:

• Only available on iPhones and iPads

• Requires using the Arc browser (not bad, just might be a new tool for you)

Arc Search combines a browser, search engine, and AI into a unique mobile browsing experience. It automates the journey you'd go through on a conventional search engine: open a few links, collect information from multiple sources, and possibly organize them in a document. When you search the web with Arc Search's "Browse for Me" option, its bot takes that journey for you and creates a new web page from scratch out of what it discovers. 

Say you ask Arc Search about a tennis tournament: the U.S. Open's first rounds. Within seconds, it will generate a tab, with all the information laid out in various segments. It'd start with an overview of all the key match results, followed by sections like "Notable Upsets" and "Men's Single Highlights." You can tap any of these headings to explore them individually. You can even share a link to this report. 

I found Arc Search useful, particularly on my iPhone (it's also available on iPads), where I often don't have the time or screen space to manually check out each search result. Arc Search's automation takes the hassle out of that process, and its detailed reports make more sense than summaries, which work best for specific queries. 

Arc Search isn't perfect, though. On the U.S. Open digest, for example, it added a handful of bits from the 2022 edition, even though I asked for facts from 2023. Plus, the only way to repair these inaccuracies is to regenerate Arc Search reports, which take a little longer to load than Perplexity's and Google's summaries. 

The Arc browser is also available on macOS and Windows, though the search doesn't work the same. If you like Arc Search on mobile, give the browser a look so you can have a more consistent experience across all your devices.

Arc Search pricing: Arc Search is available for free on iOS and iPadOS. 

What about all the other AI search engines?

These are far from the only players in the AI search engine game, and you might have noticed a few big names missing from my list. Here are some of the ones that didn't make the cut:

• Brave Search: Brave, the privacy-focused web browser, offers an AI search engine. But its proprietary search index's performance isn't the best and often fails to fetch facts from years later than 2022. Plus, most privacy-focused users are still a bit wary of AI, so there's not as much of an appetite for this—yet.

• Microsoft Bing: Like Google, Microsoft Bing now supplements its traditional search engine with AI-generated overviews. In my testing, though, it wasn't very useful. In one case, the AI overview incorrectly reported the latest soccer results, pushing the widget with the correct results below the fold. Plus, its page ranking algorithms don't match up to Google's. I also found its interface to be cluttered, featuring a laundry list of unnecessary pop-ups like a reward point system and clickbait-y articles on the homepage. If you use Copilot, you may find it useful because you can ask follow-up questions, but I didn't think it was ready for prime time. 

• SearchGPT: OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, are testing an AI search engine. Unfortunately, both my editor and I were unable to get access. But we're both on the waitlist, and as soon as it's more widely available, we'll test it to see if it warrants a place on this list.

• You.com: You.com was one of the first search engines to add AI capabilities in 2022. Since then, though, it's transitioned into more of an AI assistant tool. It offers multiple modes depending on your queries, such as Research for longer responses and Genius for visuals. But its search index isn't as up to date with the latest information—it's more of a ChatGPT alternative than a Google one. 

What's the future of AI search?

The internet's knowledge graph continues to expand, and it will soon be impractical for us to search it ourselves. The rise of spam doesn't help either. Generative AI could be a natural solution, but we can't be sure of the role it will play in the future of search.

Though AI search shows promise, it's not as reliable or trustworthy as its traditional counterparts. At the same time, search engines are the web's engine rooms and are responsible for driving traffic and revenue to websites. AI search takes that away and doesn't reward the websites it extracts information from—although some companies, like Perplexity, claim to be trying to change that. Without the systems in place, AI search potentially threatens the internet's foundations and could have major repercussions for how it functions. 

Each AI search engine suits a different use case: Arc Search is ideal for mobile browsing, Perplexity is a powerful tool for research, and Google's AI Overviews is a handy add-on to an up-to-date traditional search engine. Every time you want to search the web, you can pick one based on what you're looking for since no single AI search engine checks all the boxes quite yet. 

Related reading:

• Perplexity vs. ChatGPT: Which AI tool is better?

• The best AI chatbots

• The best ChatGPT alternatives

This article was originally published in July 2024. The most recent update, with contributions from Harry Guinness, was in August 2024.

Job hunting is a stressful and draining process. You spend hours filling out one application, tailoring your resume to fit unique requirements, and writing—grinds teeth—yet another cover letter that shows how your shining personality is only outdone by how awesome you are at your job. 

In short, searching for a new job is a full-time job itself. But if you add AI into the mix—and specifically Zapier Central—you can speed up and streamline the search process. 

That's because you can use Central to build a dedicated assistant that writes personalized resumes and cover letters to match any job description based on your experience. It can even carry out tasks in other apps for you, like emailing resumes or collecting your accomplishments from Slack. 

Here's how to create that assistant yourself. Watch Zapier's Emily Mabie build a Central job assistant in the video below. Or keep reading for step-by-step instructions.

Jump ahead

• Set up your Central assistant

• Instruct your assistant's behavior

• Add your data sources

• Create instant actions

Set up your Central assistant

To start building your dedicated AI assistant, follow these steps:  

• First, head over to central.zapier.com and sign up.

• When the portal opens, click + New assistant. This will open up your assistant in Central, where you can finish setting it up. 

• To start with, a window will appear where you can give your assistant a name (like Job hunting assistant), a description, and instructions. (If you're not ready to provide these things just yet, click Create assistant in the top-right corner. That will lead you to the chat field, and you can finish setting up those aspects there.

Instruct your assistant's behavior

Next up, you'll want to define your assistant's behavior. This means telling your bot what to do when it's triggered, how it should process your data, and which actions it should take. You can trigger behaviors on demand or when new data comes through another app. 

In this instance, we're going to instruct the assistant to add your weekly accomplishments to a Google Doc. In your current role, you might post weekly or monthly updates of all your achievements in Slack, for example. 

You can set a behavior that dictates whenever you add an emoji to that Slack message, your assistant will take those accomplishments and convert them into bullet points. Finally, it will add those bullet points to a Google Doc in Markdown formatting. That way, your bot can use that Google Doc as a data source to write your future resumes. (We'll show you how to upload this data source later on.)

For now, follow these steps:

• To add the assistant's behavior, click the Behaviors tab and + Create behavior.

• In the dialog box, under the Instructions to follow field, describe what you want the assistant to do in simple terms. In this case, you can add something like when I react to a Slack message with a "google-doc" emoji, convert the message into resume content (feel free to expand and embellish) using Markdown formatting and add it to the Google Doc. This will prompt the assistant to suggest the trigger app (Slack) and action app (Google Doc).

• For your trigger step, select Slack: New reaction added. Select the emoji you want to use as a reaction, and follow the instructions to set up the rest of the fields. 

• For your action step, select Google Docs: Append text to document. Select the document where you want to store your weekly list of accomplishments, and follow the instructions to set up the rest of the fields.

• Once you've done that, click Test behavior, then switch it on.  

Add your data sources

Next up, it's time to add your data sources to the assistant. You can give your bot access to live data (like a table or a Google Doc) so that it can find, analyze, and summarize information when you ask for it. 

In this case, we'll want to add as much information about your current job role, your past achievements, and your professional experience. 

That means we'll be adding the Google Doc you set up to list your weekly accomplishments. You can also add past resumes, cover letters, and anything else you think your assistant should know. 

To add your data sources, follow these steps:

• Give your assistant a data source. Click Data sources and + Add data source in the initial chat message.

• In the dialog box, select Google Docs from the menu of options. 

• Select an existing connection for the app or connect a new one. 

• Next, select a document to use as the data source. After you select your list of accomplishments, click Add data source. 

• Follow this same process for any other data sources. 

Add instant actions

Next up, you can add an instant action to your assistant. This refers to simple actions (or tasks) your assistant can execute on command across different apps when you converse with it. Actions are different from behaviors because they don't require an event happening in another app first. 

You might set up an instant action for Gmail, for example, so that once your assistant has written a resume, you can ask it to email you—or the hiring manager—a copy. 

To set up this instant action, follow these steps:

• Click Actions in the initial chat message, then click + Add action.

• In the dialog box, search for and select Gmail from the available options. 

• Select an existing connection for the app or connect a new one. 

• Select Gmail: Send Email as the action, then click Save. 

Your assistant should now be ready to help with your job search—though you can refine it as much as you like until it's perfect. Next time you come across a great job role on LinkedIn, you can ask your assistant to write a resume that matches the description—and pulls from all of your accomplishments listed in your data sources.  

Build assistants with Zapier Central

With Zapier, you can create a dedicated assistant in a matter of minutes, helping you streamline the way you search for new roles in your industry. 

But Central lets you create, teach, and interact with assistants so they can help you across any multitude of tasks. 

Have another task that could use streamlining? Start experimenting with Central today and see what you can build.  

It's important to pick the right tool for the job, especially when it comes to managing your business-critical data.

While spreadsheets and databases are the tried-and-true tools for storing information, they can be hit-or-miss when you need to move that data to other tools. They're not built for automation, so when using no-code tools like Zapier, workarounds are still required for those automated workflows—we call them Zaps—to function accurately.

That's why Zapier decided to build the right tool for the job, no code (or hacks) necessary. Zapier Tables was built for automation, letting you store, move, and take action on your data—all in one place. Ultimately, Tables gives you more control over the processes that power your Zaps and business. Take a look.  

What you'll find in this guide:

• What is Zapier Tables?

• When should I use Tables?

• Triggers and actions for Tables

• How to set up Tables

• How to share tables and views

• Ideas for using Zapier Tables

What is Zapier Tables?

Zapier Tables is a no-code database tool that allows you to store, edit, share, and automate data—in one place.  

Your data has to move quickly and accurately so you can keep up with the ever-changing pace of business. An automation-focused tool, Zapier Tables makes it easier for your automated processes to move your data where you need it—no coding necessary.

But how is Zapier Tables different from other spreadsheet and database tools? 

• Tables is a central hub to collect and merge data from different sources. This ensures all your data, whether it’s a lead or a task, is immediately actionable.

• Automation is at the forefront. You can create Zaps directly from Tables and see your connected Zaps, Interfaces, and Chatbots front and center. Your data flow will no longer be a mystery.

• Zapier actions used in Tables don't count toward  Zapier's task usage limit. Any actions you create (like automatically creating records by importing data from other tools) won't affect your overall Zapier task quota, allowing you to automate more processes without worrying about exceeding your plan's limits.

• Keeps automated workflows (and tables) secure. You can control team permission levels for Tables and Zaps, so you can protect your data and workflows. Tables will also warn you if you're about to make a change that affects other Zaps.

• More automation opportunities to streamline processes. Tables unlocks additional ways to set up Zaps, from approval buttons to re-triggering Zaps on existing records, so you can automate entire processes on one platform.

• More AI capabilities to optimize your data. Tables is powered with AI, so you can create fields that write emails to leads based on existing information, create formulas that run calculations or functions, and so much more—by just describing what you want to happen.

• Create custom portals powered by your data and automation. You can pair Tables with Zapier Interfaces, our no-code app builder, to easily build and maintain complete solutions (like external or internal portals) that users can interact with.

When should I use Tables?

You should use Zapier Tables if you want to manage data flow in every direction (Tables connects to Zapier's 7,000+ integrations) right from the source. If you have a process that relies heavily on spreadsheets and automated workflows, Zapier Tables might be for you—especially considering that connected Zaps don't impact your task usage. Plus, Tables is built to be automated. That means you can make changes to your table without ever breaking or disrupting your workflows.

Signs you should use Zapier Tables:

• You have a process that requires human approval. Computers can make many decisions, but some are best left to humans. You can use Tables to build approval steps within your Zaps, so your automation has a human touch for processes like approving proposals, expenses, and more. 

• Your workflow relies heavily on automation. Tables is loaded with automation options, from starting Zaps with a button click, watching for specific changes in your table, and even deleting records when you don't need them anymore. 

• You need a dynamic lookup table for a Zap. Business isn't static, so your information shouldn't be either. You can use Tables to create dynamic lookups for the latest tasks, clients, and other information you need to reference in business-critical Zaps.  

• You need to consolidate and store information from various tools to use later in the same Zap. Use Tables to store seemingly disparate information from your apps in one place. For example, you might use several apps for leads to store related information for each lead in a table.

• You want to dynamically update data-heavy content within Zapier Interfaces. You can turn Tables into an interactive web app with Interfaces' table and Kanban components. Prefer to keep your data backstage? You have endless automation opportunities with Tables and Interfaces so that you can build complete solutions.  

Triggers and actions for Zapier Tables

Zapier Tables gives you plenty of automation opportunities within your Zaps and expands the types of workflows you can create.

Before we continue, here are a few terms you'll need to know:

1. Field: A field is a column in a given table. Tables supports different types of fields, which we'll go over later. 

2. Record: A record is an entire row in a given table. 

3. Field value: A field value is an individual value in a specific field. 

Triggers for Zapier Tables

Tables has five triggers—events that start a Zap—available to use: 

• Trigger Zap Button Clicked: Add buttons within a table to trigger Zaps or even re-trigger workflows on existing records. This is an excellent option for sending emails or force-updating an existing record.

• New or Updated Record: You can trigger Zaps based on new or updated records within a given table. In the Zap editor, Tables will show past and current data within a field value whenever you test your trigger. That means you don't have to rely on workarounds to determine if a record's contents changed. 

• New or Updated or Deleted Record: Similar to the above trigger, you can also trigger Zaps based on new, updated, or deleted records within a given table.

• New Record: This trigger will watch for new records only in a given table. You can use this to prevent your Zaps from accidentally running off updated records.

• Updated Record: Conversely, this trigger will start a Zap if there is an updated record within Tables. You can also choose which updated field will trigger your Zap. 

Since Tables displays new and old data whenever you test your trigger, you can even use Filters or Paths—available on our paid plans—to further control how your Zap will continue. For example, if you want your Zap to perform a specific action on a record that has changed from "product qualified" to "closed, lost." 

Tables also provides the timestamps for updated or created records, giving you greater flexibility when you're building Zaps. 

Actions for Zapier Tables

Zapier Tables has seven available actions—events performed once your Zap is triggered. 

• Create Record: This action will create a new record in a specific table. You can populate fields with data from previous Zap steps or enter static text that will appear the same each time your Zap runs. 

• Increment Value: You can increase the value of an existing number field by a fixed amount, which can help number invoices, create SKUs, or even create round-robin style workflows.

• Duplicate Table: This action will duplicate an existing table you've created. Zapier will copy the fields and settings from that table, so you don't have to recreate a table from scratch or duplicate data unnecessarily. This can be useful if you want to follow a template for reporting bugs, onboarding, or other recurring processes.

• Update Record: When you pair this action with a search step, you can update existing table records with the latest information from other apps. 

• Continue Zap Button Clicked: You can use buttons to continue a particular Zap whenever you click it. The Zap will run up until this action and wait until you click the continue button. For example, if you want to wait until you have a certain number of records to batch-send calendar invites. 

• Update Trigger Button: You can enable or disable buttons that trigger Zaps in your table, and even change the button label. For example, you could use this action to prevent accidentally triggering Zaps for time-limited processes, such as filing expense reports at the end of each month.

• Delete Record: This action lets you delete a record from your table. This helps clear out records you don't need anymore, especially if you use Tables as a "memory bank" for data to use in Zaps. For example, you may want to delete records associated with an employee once they've been onboarded.

Searches for Zapier Tables

Zapier Tables also has four search actions, which allow your Zaps to check for existing information in tables you create. 

• Find Record: This action will search for an existing record that contains information in a specific field.

• Find Table: This action will search for an existing table based on records matching your criteria.

• Find or Create Record: This action will search for an existing record that contains information in a specific field. If Zapier doesn't find a record matching your criteria, you can create a new one instead. 

• Find Records (output as Line Items): This action will search for all records matching your criteria. Zapier will output the results as line items, which you can use for actions that support line items or even loop through a set of actions for each record. 

How to set up Tables

Now that you understand what Zapier Tables can do and how you might use it, we'll walk you through how to set it up. 

To get the most out of Zapier Tables:

1. Create a table and add your data.

2. Create and connect your Zaps to your new table.

3. Create an interface and connect it to your table.

When you connect Zapier Tables to your critical Zaps, you'll unlock more automation possibilities and make your data work for you. 

Create a table and add your data

Once you're logged into your Zapier account, you can access Zapier Tables from the left-hand menu or visit tables.zapier.com.

Then, click + Create. There are multiple ways to create a table. For now, we'll start with the two common methods:

• Create a table from a template

• Create a blank table from scratch

Create a table from a template

Pick a template from the list of options. Zapier offers different templates for different scenarios, including tables for approval requests, contact lists, sales reports, and onboarding processes.

Click Create table once you've found the right one. This will open up your table and will include ready-made fields that you can customize as needed.

If you need to import data into your table, click the three dot icon in the top-right corner of your table, then click Import records.

You'll be prompted to upload a file with your existing data. Choose a file to upload from your computer, then click Continue.

Tables will let you preview how your data will look. You can also map your data to different fields in your table.

If everything looks good, click Continue importing. This will import all your existing records into your table.

Each field in your imported table will be a text field by default, but you can convert a field to another type in your field settings. Feel free to reorder, filter, or hide fields.

Create a table from scratch

Click on Blank table, give your table a name and description, and then click Create table.

You'll see a few empty fields to start. 

Add and edit standard fields

You can click the + Add field button to add a new field, or edit existing fields in your table. When you add a new field, the Field Settings pane will automatically appear to the right. 

To edit the settings on an existing field, click on a field, then click Edit field. 

Beneath the Settings tab, you can customize how you want your field to behave: 

• Name: Give your field a descriptive name.

• Field Type: Tables has more than a dozen field types. Many will be familiar, such as a checkbox or date & time field. Certain field types will also have additional settings you can customize, such as the data format. 

• Alignment: If you're particular about text alignment in your data, you can also change this. 

• Icon: You can select an app icon for any app with an existing Zapier integration in your field header. This visual cue is helpful to remind you and your team where data comes from.

We'll briefly cover how to set up field types unique to Zapier Tables: 

• Dropdown fields

• Button fields

• AI fields

• Linked records

How to create a dropdown field

Dropdown fields are standard for spreadsheet and database apps. Though you can create dynamic dropdowns, it often requires data manipulation tricks.

Tables makes it easier to create dynamic dropdowns, so you're always working with the latest data. 

To set up a dropdown, create a new field, give it a name, and select Dropdown as the Field Type. 

Scroll down and click on the dropdown beneath Selection Source. You'll see a couple of options to pick from: 

• Provide Static List: You can enter comma-separated values to create a static dropdown  menu.   

• Use Another Table or Field: You can use another table or field you've created as a dynamic dropdown menu. Let's say you use a table to track active team projects from Asana with the associated project ID. In another table, you could use your project table as a dynamic dropdown so you're working with the latest info. 

To use another table in a dropdown field, select Use Another Table or Field as the Selection Source. Then, click on Source Table to select an existing table to use. (Be sure you're giving your tables clear and descriptive names!) 

Then, pick the field you want to display from that table. 

After you click Save, you'll see your newly created dropdown field. In the example below, the dropdown field displays the campaign name from a table I created. 

How to create buttons

While you can certainly trigger Zaps from a dropdown or a checkbox within Tables, that's not your only option. The button field type allows you to create clickable buttons that trigger or continue Zaps. You can also add multiple buttons and assign a different Zap to each one. 

To set it up, create a new field and select Button as the Field Type. Give that field a descriptive name, then scroll down and click on the dropdown beneath Type of Button. 

Select whether you want this button to trigger or continue a Zap. 

Then, give your button a label. It should be short but clearly describe what the button does.

If you select Continue Zap, you can create a second button if you'd like. This is good for processes where you need to approve or deny records. 

Once you save your field settings, you'll see your newly created button. It will display an exclamation mark until you connect it to a Zap. 

If you have two Continue buttons, you'll see both in the same field. 

How to create an AI field

AI fields—available on Tables Premium plans—let you automatically populate records with AI. You can reference record data in a prompt and generate different responses. 

For example, you can use your lead data in a table to draft tailored outreach based on their deal stage. You could also summarize new records and send the response in an email or team chat message, route them to a to-do list, or even create formulas to run calculations or functions.

To get started, create a new field and select the AI field type. Then, choose the OpenAI account connection you'd like to use. If you haven't connected OpenAI to Zapier, click Manage authentications and connect your account.

Once you've selected an OpenAI connection, click Create Prompt.

You can create a prompt from scratch or start with a template. 

In the example below, I created my prompt from scratch and referenced existing data in my table.

Click on Prompt Settings to tweak the creativity level, use a certain model, or adjust the response length. 

You can preview your prompt's result below Prompt Settings. Click the left and right arrows at the bottom of the Preview window to review responses for each record in your table. 

If something looks off, you can tweak your prompt settings, edit your prompt, and regenerate a response.

Once you're happy with your field, click Done to close the prompt window, then save your field. Your AI field will start populating records according to your instructions.

How to create linked records

With linked records, you can create a relationship between two different tables. You can use the content of one table to fill or update the records of another table. 

For example, imagine you have a table for all your customer orders and another table for your customer details (like shipping and email addresses). By adding a linked record field to your orders table, you can display the address of the customer related to that order. If that customer address gets updated on the customer table, it will automatically update in the other. 

To get started, click the + Add field icon and select Linked Record from the dropdown menu.

Give your field a descriptive name and select the table you want to link it to.

Under Display field, select the field from your other table. 

Once you click Create, you'll see the new field within your table, with your data.

Filter data in views

You can use views to filter records, hide fields, and display specific data without affecting the underlying table. 

You can also share views to limit access to specific records.

When you create a table, it will automatically have a default view. Click on the View icon in the panel on the left-hand side of your screen, then Create View from the left-hand pane.

Give your view a name and description, then click Create. 

Next, add filters to your view. Click the Filters icon in the side panel.

Then, click Add filter. Select the field you want to filter, the filter condition, and the data you want to filter for. 

As you add more filters, you'll see your table data filtering on the right. 

You can also hide fields in a view. 

Customize your table settings

Once you've created the fields you need for your table, you can choose how you want your Zaps to handle the records you enter manually. 

In the left sidebar menu, click the Settings icon to open the Table Settings pane to the left. You can change your table's name and description. In addition, you'll see two options:

• Pending: By default, manually-created records are set to Pending. For example, you might use this if you want to wait until a record is completely filled or want to verify that records are correct before triggering a connected Zap. You'll see a pending flag next to each record.

• Automatically: Any new record added manually will trigger whichever Zaps are connected. You might use this if you have a Zap that fills out a complete record in a table, so you don't need a delay or manual review.

Click Save. 

Create and connect Zaps to your table

If you've created an automated workflow with Zapier before, creating a Zap with Tables will be the same. You can create a Zap from scratch with our point-and-click editor or create a Zap from within a table. 

There are two ways you can create and connect Zaps within Tables:

1. Create a Zap from a specific field in a table.

2. Create a Zap from within a table.

Create a Zap from a field

To create a Zap from a specific field in your table, click on a field header, and select + Create Zap from the menu. 

You can also create Zaps from the field settings pane. When you click Edit Field, click on the Zaps tab, then + Create.

Tables will automatically take you to the Zap editor. 

Create a Zap from a table

You can also create a Zap from the left sidebar menu. Click on the Linked assets icon, then click +Create.

You'll be prompted to select the type of Zap you want to create, such as a workflow that triggers from new or updated records. 

You can choose to bring data in from another app, send data out from your table, enrich or update your data, or start from scratch. Once you select the type of automation you want to create, you'll be directed to the Zap editor. Depending on the type of Zap you choose to create, the Zap editor will pre-select the table and the trigger or action. 

Once you're in the Zap editor, you can build your Zap, test it, and make sure it's ready to use!

How to find connected Zaps in a table

Zapier Tables lets you easily view, edit, and troubleshoot connected Zaps within a specific table—and even specific fields—so your data flow isn't a mystery. 

Click on the Linked assets icon in the left-hand panel. It will show all Zaps linked to the table—and whether they're active or inactive.

If you want to see if any Zaps trigger or send information to a specific field in your table, click a field. Then, select View linked Zaps from the menu.

You'll be directed to the Zaps tab, where you'll see every Zap connected to the selected field. 

If you need to edit a Zap, view any runs to a connected Zap, or just want to learn more about a connected Zap, click on the arrow icon next to any connected Zap. You'll be taken to the Zap editor where  you can review the workflow in detail.

Zapier Tables will also warn you if you make changes to a table that will affect any Zaps—such as deleting a table or a field—and show you which Zaps it will affect. 

How to create an interface from a table

You can also build an interface from a table. Zapier Interfaces lets you build forms, external and internal portals, and basic apps to power your business-critical workflows without code. To get started, click on the Linked assets icon in the left-hand menu. The Interfaces tab will show any interfaces associated with your table. 

Click Create Interface.

Zapier Interfaces will create a new interface with two pre-built pages—a custom form and a table.

How permissions work with Zapier Tables

Warning messages are nice, but Tables lets you customize permission levels to protect your data and associated Zaps for extra insurance. 

To start, Zap permissions are separate from Tables permissions. This gives you greater flexibility in how you want to collaborate. 

For example, if you want to grant a teammate permission to help you edit, maintain, or troubleshoot a connected Zap, you don't have to grant them access to the associated table, and vice versa. 

On the other hand, if you want to share a table or view with your team and outside collaborators, you can customize their access level and what fields they can view and edit. They won't have access to any connected Zaps, unless you grant permission separately.

How to share tables and views

You can create a public sharing link for your tables. If you have a Team or Enterprise account, you can share your tables directly with other members in your Zapier account.

To share a table, click the Share button within a specific table. 

You can also share a table without opening it. Within your list of tables, click on the three dots next to a table and select Share table.

To share a table view, click the three dots next to the view you want to share from the Views pane and select Share View.

Within the sharing settings, you'll see who owns the table or view and anyone who already has access. If you're on a Team or Enterprise plan, you'll also see permissions on an organizational level. 

If you're on a Team or Enterprise-level Zapier account, you can search for a user, team, or account to share with. Then, select a permission setting for each person, a team, or your entire company. 

For example, if you need multiple people to have the ability to edit table fields, settings, and records, and to create Zaps, you can assign them to an Editor role. 

If you're not in one of those accounts, click Create a shareable link. This creates a public, view-only sharing link for that table.

Need to get even more granular? You can lock specific fields in a table to prevent others from editing.

Click a field header and select Lock field. 

Give editing access to a table through Interfaces

There is another way to give non-Zapier users access to edit a table: by embedding the table in Zapier Interfaces.

Embedding a table in an interface gives anyone the ability to view and edit your tables, create predefined views to display specific data, and sift through data quickly. 

To embed a table in an interface, click the Linked Assets icon in the left sidebar of your table. 

Click the Interfaces tab, then +Create. Click Start building your Interface, and a new tab or window will open with your new interface. 

Click the Table view page to view your table, then hover your mouse over the table and click the Edit icon on the top right of the table.  

In the sidebar, you can toggle the switch on next to each user permission you want to grant your non-Zapier user. That includes the ability to create new records, edit records, and delete existing records in your table. 

If you do change your mind about user permissions, just toggle all permissions off to grant users view-only access. 

Ideas for using Zapier Tables

If you're looking for ways to incorporate Zapier Tables in your existing processes, here are a few to get you started: 

Build custom apps with Tables and Interfaces

No one knows your business better than you, so you can create your own custom solution using Tables and Zapier Interfaces.

Get started with these tutorials: 

• How to create an AI-powered lead management hub

• Create a support request portal with Tables and Interfaces

Approval processes

You can leave some simple decisions to computers, but for the ones requiring human critical thinking, you can use Tables to streamline the process. 

Here's an example of how this works:

1. The Zap triggers whenever there is a new record in a specific table. 

2. The Zap will wait to proceed to the next action step until the Continue button is clicked. 

3. This example table includes two buttons. If Button A is clicked, the Zap will perform one set of actions. If Button B is clicked, it will run through different actions. 

You'll need a table with a button field, and it should be a Continue Zap button. This field should have two buttons, one for approval and another for rejection.

Note: Once you create your approval buttons, create your Zap from the field settings, and this workflow will mostly be set up! Just need to customize each path in your Zap. 

Dynamic lookup tables

Ever wish you could automatically update a dropdown menu in your spreadsheet? As mentioned earlier, you can use Tables to create dynamic dropdowns from other tables. 

You can also create dynamic lookup tables, which allow you to compare data across apps. Plus, you can use your lookup table as a dropdown, so you're not only working with up-to-date information, you can also reference related app data too. 

Here's how to do it:

1. Create one table to serve as your lookup table. You'll want one field with names or something identifiable for a dropdown menu. 

2. Create a dropdown field in another menu and set the Selection Source to Use Another Table. Then, select your lookup table.  

3. Create Zaps to add, update, or delete options from your lookup table. You can also create Zaps using your dropdown selection to search your lookup table for related information. 

A memory bank for Zaps

Computers can remember things well, but only when you tell them to do it first. Just like computers, Zaps have short-term memory, but you can use Tables to act as a "memory bank" that allows you to:

• Use information from one Zap for a different Zap. 

• Preserve information at a particular time to use in later steps of a Zap.

• Create a round-style workflow for a Zap. 

For example, I use Tables as a memory bank for assigned blog articles. I store assignment details, Google Doc draft links and IDs, and the related record ID in Notion. I use this to power Zaps that automatically update my to-do list, add new notes to my Google Doc draft, and even send the draft link to my editor when it's ready for review. 

That's just one example of how a Zap memory bank might work. You can do this with any critical automated processes you rely on.

Zapier Tables: Your data in motion

Your business isn't static, so your data shouldn't be either. Zapier Tables is the automation-first database solution that lets you store, edit, move, and track your data flow so you can keep up with the ever-changing pace of business. Now you can save your problem-solving skills for strategic work and leave the spreadsheet hacks behind. 

This article was originally published in March 2023 and was most recently updated in August 2024.

When you don't own the channels where you reach customers, the ground can always shift beneath you. That's where email marketing shines.

The good news: there's an entire ecosystem of free email marketing tools available, and they have all the features you'll need to build out your email marketing (and then some).

I researched and tested more than 60 email marketing apps with free plans to find the best ones for a variety of use cases and business types. Here are the seven best free email marketing apps.

The best free email marketing apps

• MailerLite for advanced email marketers

• Brevo for all-in-one marketing and sales features

• Mailchimp for a growing email marketing program

• Sender for the most generous free plan

• Loops for email marketing automation

• Benchmark for teams with diverse skills

• EmailOctopus for affordable upgrades

What makes the best free email marketing service?

Full-featured email marketing apps and free ones are far from mutually exclusive. There are tons of options that offer flexible subscriber and send thresholds along with the robust features small businesses need—for free. If you're just getting started with free marketing tools or want to try out a few options before committing to a paid plan, you have plenty of choices.

Here's what I looked for when testing free email marketing services:

• The number of subscribers and sends included for free. Some free email marketing platforms are generous in this regard, offering thousands of free sends per month, while others include low caps that mean your "free" platform isn't free for very long. I kept this in mind while testing.

• Email templates and customization. You shouldn't have to start your email marketing operation from scratch. The best options come with at least a few fully-designed and professional templates to get your free email campaign started. And in cases where there aren't any free templates, the email editor needs to really shine in ease of use.

• Audience segmentation or automation. Success with email relies on being able to deliver the right emails to the right people at the right time. For growing businesses, that means you need capable audience segmentation and automation features. There aren't a lot of free email marketing tools that offer both these things, but every app below gives you either segmentation or automation for free.

• Scalability. Speaking of, just because you're starting by doing your email marketing for free, it doesn't mean you won't grow out of it. The best free email marketing software can grow with your business—from free to paid when necessary, adding more features and higher limits as you go.

• Full email marketing features. There are plenty of capable apps designed for one particular type of email (like newsletters, for example, or transactional emails), but for our purposes here, I focused on full-featured apps you can use across your email marketing operation.

After narrowing down the list based on those criteria, I ran each of the remaining contenders through an extensive testing workflow that included:

• Creating an account and completing any onboarding offered by the app.

• Looking at core features like the drag-and-drop editor, template library, and overall campaign creation flow.

• Testing out additional features like automation, customer segmentation, and alternative editors (like HTML or plain text), along with determining any applicable limits for these features on the free plan.

• Where available, I tested out niche features for eCommerce, universal branding, broader marketing automation, and AI, among others.

• Lastly, I looked into how costs for each app scale as you outgrow the free plan and move to paid.

Along with each step, I considered the ease of use for core and ancillary features—because with all the options available today, "free" shouldn't have to mean hard to use.

With those criteria in mind, here's the best free software for email marketing.

The best free email marketing platforms at a glance

Best free email marketing software for advanced email marketers

MailerLite 

MailerLite pros:

• Pre-built content blocks make building emails super quick

• Generous allotments for segmentation and automation

• Affordable upgrade for unlimited users

MailerLite cons:

• No pre-made email templates on the free plan

• Can't send emails from a Gmail email address

MailerLite doesn't offer pre-made templates for its free newsletter service, but the dynamic, pre-designed content blocks more than make up for the lack of templates. With blocks for highlighting multiple articles, videos, RSS lists, products, apps, events, and more, MailerLite helps experienced email marketers make quick work of building new campaigns and custom templates.

Your emails can include more than just text and images, too. There's a countdown timer that dynamically shows the time remaining until you launch a product or before a sale is over. You can add product details, embed a video, pull in your most recent blog posts with a dynamically updating RSS block, and more. It's a great way to send interactive emails instead of just digital letters.

Beyond email content, MailerLite also includes robust automation and audience segmentation features in the free plan. An intuitive builder makes quick work of mapping out automation workflows—or you can hit the ground running with one of the 15 pre-built flows. Create both persistent and one-time segments and view aggregate statistics by segment, too.

Plus, MailerLite integrates with Zapier—meaning you can automate things like adding new MailerLite subscribers from Google Sheets and sending Mailchimp subscribers to MailerLite. Here are more ideas for how to automate MailerLite, plus some pre-made workflows to get you started.

MailerLite pricing: Free for up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month

Best email marketing tool for all-in-one marketing and sales

Brevo

Brevo pros:

• Pre-built, goal-oriented email automation

• Generous automation limits on the free plan

• Broad marketing and sales feature set

Brevo cons:

• Strict 300 email/day send limit

If you're looking for one tool to handle all your marketing and sales needs, Brevo is a great option. Since rebranding from Sendinblue to Brevo, they've added several new features like a full-featured CRM, centralized solutions for sales meetings, calls, and chat, and streamlined deal tracking.

On top of these, the app still offers a variety of templated automation flows, based on your goals. You can choose your workflow to improve engagement, increase traffic, grow revenue, or build relationships.

You can get from account setup to actually editing emails in just a few clicks, and the streamlined campaign creation flow keeps the breadth of available campaign types (Brevo supports email, SMS, WhatsApp, web push, and Facebook ad campaigns) from feeling overwhelming. From there, you can build your emails with dozens of pre-made templates and a drag-and-drop editor. Brevo's AI Assistant won't give you much more functionality than copy and pasting from ChatGPT, but it's integrated well with straightforward, useful prompt buttons. 

Once you're finished designing, either send your email as a newsletter or use Brevo's automation workflows to send on a schedule.

You can't send as many emails at once as you can from other free email marketing tools, but you can manage more contacts—the free plan comes with 100,000 contacts—and split them into focused lists. Brevo also lets you buy prepaid credits to send more than your daily email limit.

Expand Brevo's capabilities by integrating it with Zapier to automatically create new Brevo subscribers from new Google Contacts, Mailchimp subscribers, Facebook Lead Ads leads, and more. Discover more popular ways to automate Brevo with Zapier, or take a look at these ideas to get you started.

Brevo pricing: Free for up 300 emails per day and 100,000 contacts

Best free email marketing service for growing email marketing programs

Mailchimp

Mailchimp pros:

• User-friendly interface with helpful tips and best practices

• Includes customer journey mapping, list segmenting, A/B testing, and more

• Scalable pricing

Mailchimp cons:

• Relatively limited free plan compared to the other options on this list

• No automation on the free plan

One of the most popular email marketing apps thanks to its friendly branding, Mailchimp is a great place to start your email marketing program if you're planning to scale it quickly past newsletters. The app includes a landing page builder, customer journey mapping, list segmentation, retargeting ads, and even A/B testing.

An approachable editor that includes helpful tips and best practices along the way makes Mailchimp an accessible option for both new and experienced email marketers. For example, when setting up a subject line, a dialog box reminds you about recommended character length, emoji use in subject lines, and more.

Once you're ready to move beyond what the free plan offers, Mailchimp makes scaling accessible with three different paid tiers. Plus, Mailchimp can handle email programs of any size: if you can afford to let it grow with you, you'll never have to switch to another app.

Mailchimp integrates with Zapier, allowing you to do things like automatically subscribe new form responders, leads, or spreadsheet entries to a Mailchimp list. Learn more about how to automate Mailchimp, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Mailchimp pricing: Free for up to 500 contacts and 1,000 sends per month (500 per day)

Best free email marketing software for a generous free plan

Sender

Sender pros:

• Super generous subscriber and send limits

• Full access to automation and segmentation

• Reasonable upgrade costs

Sender cons:

• Clunky drag-and-drop editor

If you're looking to get a whole lot of value for free, Sender is your best bet. The ultra-generous free plan includes 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails each month, and full access to more advanced features like automation and audience segmentation. At a time when most email marketing apps are reining in their free plans, Sender's really stands out.

You won't get a lot of fancy email templates here, but the app does offer more than 60, most of which are of passable quality. The drag-and-drop editor isn't my favorite, but it works. The automation feature now includes three pre-built workflows—for welcome series, thank-you series, and abandoned cart campaigns. It's easy to use and includes 11 standard triggers. You can build audience segments based on all the standard dimensions you expect, along with a number of eCommerce-specific ones.

Speaking of which, if you're looking to use Sender for eCommerce, you'll probably have to upgrade eventually, but the paid plans are super affordable, too—just $47.50 per month gets you 10,000 subscribers, 120,000 email sends, SMS features, whitelabeling, and up to three users.

Plus, you can use Sender together with Zapier to automate even more of your email marketing workflow, like syncing new Sender subscribers across other apps and publishing emails to other channels. Here are some ideas, but you can connect Sender to thousands of other apps in your tech stack.

Sender pricing: Free for up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails per month

Best free email marketing software for automation

Loops

Loops pros:

• All features included on the free plan

• Lots of pre-built automation templates

• Scalable upgrade

Loops cons:

• Rich text editor only

• Plain text templates

Loops is an email marketing app built, from the foundation on up, for automation. The app calls automated workflows "loops" (hence the name), and they're unlimited—even on the free plan.

Loops is designed for SaaS companies, and many of the features reflect that. With 17 pre-built loops to choose from, you can make quick work of building out automations for common subscription use cases like welcoming new paid users, inviting users to upgrade, and encouraging engagement.

The app also includes audience segmentation that's on the basic side but easy to use. As a whole, Loop's user interface is simple, clean, and supremely easy to navigate.

Now, this recommendation comes with one big caveat: Loops only includes a rich text editor and a few plain text email templates. If that works for your email marketing strategy, this is a great option—just know that you won't be building out highly-designed visual-laden campaigns.

You can also use Loops with Zapier to broaden the automation horizons by sending events to Loops, adding new subscribers from other apps, and more. Here are some examples for you.

Loops pricing: Free for up to 1,000 contacts and 2,000 email sends per month

Best free email marketing software for teams with diverse skills

Benchmark

Benchmark pros:

• Well-rounded free plan

• Flexible drag-and-drop, plain text, and code editors

• Scalable upgrade

Benchmark cons:

• Low subscriber limit on the free plan

• Unimpressive AI features

If you're looking for an email marketing tool with a well-rounded (but not bloated) feature set available on the free plan, Benchmark is worth a look.

The app's free plan is limited to 500 subscribers, but you get a generous allotment of monthly email sends, along with basic access to email automation, audience segmentation, and high-quality email templates. Plus, Benchmark offers affordable and scalable plans once you pass that subscriber count threshold.

With every new campaign, you can choose between drag and drop, plain text, and code editors, making Benchmark great for use across a diverse team.

Benchmark also offers a handful of AI features—including the new "Smart Design" (currently in beta) to design a custom branded template and "Smart Content" to generate email copy—but I wasn't super impressed with either tool.

You can do even more when you connect Benchmark with Zapier, automating things like adding new subscribers and syncing contacts across your business stack. Here are some workflows to get you started.

Benchmark pricing: Free for up to 500 subscribers and 3,500 emails per month

Best free email marketing software with an ultra-affordable upgrade

EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus pros:

• Generous free plan

• Ultra affordable upgrade to paid

• Access (albeit limited) to most features on the paid plan

EmailOctopus cons:

• Clunky editor

Even the most generous free email marketing apps have limits on the subscribers, monthly sends, and features you can access for free. That means, eventually, you may have to upgrade.

While EmailOctopus offers a generous free plan, with allowances for 2,500 subscribers, 10,000 monthly emails, and access to most of the features the app has to offer—in at least some limited way—it's the ultra-affordable upgrade pricing that sets the app apart. EmailOctopus paid plans are the most affordable and scalable I found—we're talking 10,000 subscribers and 100,000 monthly emails sends for $40 per month.

A couple caveats here: while you can access automation for free (up to three workflows), the feature is pretty basic compared to others I tested. The app's drag-and-drop editor is also a little on the clunky side, but ultimately, it works.

Beyond that, EmailOctopus offers dozens of email templates to choose from and an easy-to-use audience segmentation tool with all the standard dimensions you expect from a free tool, along with a handful of engagement-based ones, too.

You can also connect EmailOctopus with Zapier to get even more out of the tool, automatically adding new eCommerce customers as subscribers, keeping contact data up-to-date and complete, and more. Here are some examples.

EmailOctopus pricing: Free for up to 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 email sends per month

What about a free eCommerce email marketing tool?

You may have noticed I don't have a "best for eCommerce" category this year—that's intentional. While I tested a number of apps with useful eCommerce features, it turns out there isn't really such a thing as a free lunch in this space.

Apps like Mailchimp and Sender offer features like eCommerce-specific audience segmentation dimensions and online store integration, but the subscriber and email send limits on their free plans won't get you very far when it comes to eCommerce.

As for an email marketing tool that's tailor-made for eCommerce, Klaviyo and (my former pick) Omnisend are both super capable options. Both apps severely limit their free plans to just 250 contacts and 500 sends per month, though, so I can't recommend them if you're looking for a free email marketing solution—they won't be free for very long. That said, if you're willing to pay for niche-specific features, free plans will enable you to briefly test out both Omnisend and Klaviyo before you have to open your wallet.

Other free email marketing tools with generous free plans

In addition to the picks above, I tested a number of other tools that offer exceedingly generous free plans. For example:

• ConvertKit (10,000 subscribers and unlimited emails)

• Mailjet (1,500 subscribers and 6,000 emails per month)

• Systeme.io (2,000 subscribers and unlimited emails)

• Zoho Campaigns (2,000 subscribers and 6,000 emails per month)

These apps didn't make the cut based on lack of certain features, certain usability issues, or not quite fitting the category, but they definitely offer a long runway before you have to start paying for your email marketing. So if your main concern is getting the most bang for your (lack of) buck, test these out and decide for yourself.

Email marketing services FAQ

Still have questions about choosing an email marketing service? Here are some common questions people have about how to pick the right app.

What makes a good free email marketing software?

While different platforms will suit different people best, you'll want to keep an eye out for features like email templates and customization, audience segmentation, automation, scalability, and how many subscribers and sends are included in a free plan.

Why use an email marketing software?

Email is one of the most effective ways to market your business. Why? Email is universal, as almost everyone has an email address. Plus, email is widely recognized as having a high return on investment (ROI) compared to other mediums. Email marketing software streamlines the entire process, ensuring you're getting the most out of the time you put into it.

Can I start email marketing for free?

Absolutely. Each platform listed in this article is free to get started with, and as long as you don't exceed contact limits for the free plan, you can send emails to your email list for free.

Automate your email marketing tool

Once you've picked your free newsletter software, here are a few ideas for how to automate your email marketing tool. Then take a look at more ways to use marketing automation to grow your business.

Related reading:

• The best digital marketing tools

• MailerLite vs. ConvertKit: Which should you use?

• The best free project management software

This piece was originally published in February 2015 by Matthew Guay and has also had contributions from Jessica Greene. The most recent update was in August 2024.

Open houses can be one of the most effective ways to find potential buyers for your listing. But it's difficult to make the most of these events when you're trying to calm your homeowner's nerves, pitch to other agents, note any feedback, and capture leads—simultaneously. 

That's where Curb Hero saves the day. A property marketing platform, Curb Hero helps real estate agents turn open house events into lead-generating machines. It comes with tools to capture client info, follow up with visitors, and promote your event memorably. 

Accurate lead capture to save the day

Imagine wrapping up an open house only to discover that from a long list of sign-ins, you've got usable data from just two prospects. Luckily, Curb Hero has a variety of sign-in options, including a QR code function, to ensure accurate data capture. Curb Hero also saves time with built-in verification and background extraction, giving you better-quality lead data. 

Plus, Curb Hero has a builder that lets you create microsites for your property listings, a link in bio page for your social media, and branding templates designed to capture high-quality leads.  

Turn open houses into new opportunities: Popular Curb Hero workflows

Skip the manual data entry and close in on those leads faster. Connect Curb Hero and Zapier to automate your work across your favorite apps.

You can create automated workflows called Zaps to add fresh leads to your customer relationship management (CRM) platform, send personalized follow-up emails, and maximize every open house event.

Get started quickly with a few of our most popular Curb Hero workflows: 

As a freelance writer, I try to keep my app costs lean, so I'm a sucker for free writing tools. But with so many writing apps on the market, it's hard to tell which free options are actually valuable.

I've done a lot of the legwork for you by bringing together some of the best free writing apps on the internet. All of the options listed here are tools the Zapier team or I have used and enjoyed.

For this roundup, I prioritized completely free tools and freemium apps with a forever free plan that was sufficient for actual regular use. Many of the options have paid plans, but those plans are generally geared toward power users.

• Brainstorming software

• Researching and note-taking software

• Writing software

• Editing software

• Proofreading software

The best free writing software at a glance

Free writing tools for brainstorming and organizing your thoughts

Best free writing software for expanding your ideas

MindMeister (Web, iOS, Android)

If you like to perform mind mapping to get your thoughts on paper and connect them, MindMeister gives you a virtual space to do it. It includes templates for the traditional mind map as well as more specific layouts for frameworks like SMART goals, case studies, and content plans.

Want to learn more about mind mapping? Check out Zapier's list of the best mind mapping apps, or discover nine ways to use mind maps to jumpstart your projects.

MindMeister pricing: Free for up to 3 mind maps; from $6.50/month for premium plans, including features like unlimited mind maps, advanced exporting, and group sharing

Best free writing software for creating content outlines

Workflowy (Web, macOS, Windows, Chrome, iOS, Android)

Outlines are a writer's best friend, and Workflowy lets you go as deep or shallow as you want. This tool organizes your outline into bullet points that you can click to nest and expand however you want. You can also incorporate Kanban boards in the mix, whether you add one to an outline or create a Kanban board full of outlines.

Workflowy pricing: Free for up to 100 bullets a month; from $6.99/month for the Workflowy Pro plan with expanded features like unlimited bullets and uploads

Best free writing software for brainstorming together

Miro (Web)

When you need to write something in collaboration with others, the brainstorming process is one of the trickiest to facilitate with technology. Miro lets you plot out ideas with mind maps, Kanban boards, virtual sticky notes, or whatever strategy you use to get your thoughts down. The free plan allows for unlimited team members to brainstorm with at the same time.

If whiteboards aren't your preferred brainstorming method, explore Zapier's picks for the top brainstorming tools for more collaborative and solo apps.

You can even use Miro with Zapier (also free), so you can automate your brainstorming workflows. Learn more about how to automate Miro with Zapier, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Miro pricing: Free for 3 whiteboards with unlimited team members; from $8/user/month for plans with unlimited whiteboards and advanced collaboration features

Best free writing software for brainstorming topics

Google Keyword Planner (Web)

While Google Keyword Planner's main purpose is to help you find keywords for paid ads, it also works well as a topic generator. Make a new plan and go to the Keyword ideas tab to get related keywords to any topic you enter. Sort the Keywords column by relevance to get more niche topics as you get deeper into the list.

If you're looking for keyword research tools specifically for their main purpose, check out Zapier's roundup of the best free keyword research tools.  

Google Keyword Planner pricing: Free

Best free writing software for brainstorming ideas with AI

Claude (Web)

With the rise of AI, some writers use AI writing generators to brainstorm ideas and build the base for an outline. Claude excels at creative tasks like generating ideas and proofreading, making it ideal for these tasks. (Read more about how Claude compares to ChatGPT.)

Plus, you can use Zapier to send ideas from other apps for Claude to riff on. Here are a few automations you can try, or learn more about how to automate Claude.

Claude pricing: Free with demand-based limits; from $20/person/month for advanced plans with higher limits

Best free writing software for brainstorming out loud

Your computer's dictation software (macOS, Windows)

If you process your thoughts best through speaking, there's a brainstorming app already on your computer. Boot up Windows 10 Speech Recognition or Windows 11 voice access on Windows or Apple Dictation on Mac to record your thoughts as you brainstorm out loud.

For mobile and premium dictation app options, check out Zapier's list of the best text dictation software.

Windows 10 Speech Recognition and Apple Dictation pricing: Free

Free writing tools for research and note-taking

Best free writing software for keeping everything in one place

Notion (Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android)

Notion's balance of organization and spontaneity make it a great place to hold your notes, links, social media posts, transcriptions, and any other resources you need to write that draft. Plus, depending on your writing preferences, you can then write the draft itself in Notion—all for free. 

Add Zapier integrations to the mix to bring even more of your writing life together. Learn more about automating Notion, or try some pre-made workflows to get you started.

If Notion doesn't meet your needs, try one of these Notion alternatives. Zapier also has a list of the best note-taking apps for you to browse.

Notion pricing: Free plan available; from $10/user/month for advanced plans

Best free writing software for finding free copies of paywalled research

Unpaywall (Web)

Have you ever come across a search result for the perfect research article, only to discover it's behind a paywall? Unpaywall gets you across those paywalls ethically by looking for legitimate free versions of paywalled academic research. It looks at sources like journals' open-access repositories and university and government databases, so you're never infringing copyright.

Unpaywall pricing: Free

Best free writing software for transcribing interview and video content

oTranscribe (Web)

oTranscribe simplifies the manual transcription process by placing your audio controls and a word processor on the same screen. This tool has keyboard controls and speed adjustment, so you can seamlessly transition between your audio and transcript.

If you're willing to pay a bit, here's Zapier's list of the best transcription apps and services.

oTranscribe pricing: Free

Best free writing software for AI transcription

tl;dv (Add-on for Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams)

There is a workaround to the upload limits on transcription services: using an AI meeting assistant to transcribe during your interviews. And tl;dv offers unlimited meeting transcriptions in its free plan. As a bonus, it'll summarize your transcription into notes based on the template of your choice.

Once tl;dv uploads your meeting, you can send the transcript or recording wherever you want to keep them using Zapier. Give these automations a shot, or learn more about how to automate tl;dv.

Best free writing software for collecting research from other people

Google Forms (Web, iOS, Android)

When you need original quotes or data from other people, a free survey tool or form builder will help you organize it all. Google Forms is an accessible choice for most people because it's completely free and works with the rest of Google Workspace.

Turn your form responses into Trello cards, Notion database entries, or any other nugget of info that serves you well with Google Forms' Zapier integrations. Try one of these pre-made workflows, or learn more about automating Google Forms.

Google Forms pricing: Free

Free writing tools for solo and collaborative writing

Best free writing software for collaborative writing

Google Docs (Web, Chrome, iOS, Android)

Google Docs' straightforward interface and ease of use make it a great tool for writing solo, but this app really shines through its collaborative features. Its suggestion, sharing, and version history features put it on par with its paid alternatives at no cost to you.

You can connect Google Docs to all the other tools you use with its Zapier integration. Here are some ideas for free automations you might set up, or you can learn more about how to automate Google Docs.

Google Docs pricing: Free

Best free writing software for focused writing

FocusWriter (Windows, Linux)

If you find your user interface distracting while you write, FocusWriter takes you to a full-screen writing experience where it's just you and your words. It comes with a variety of calming themes, like a galaxy or the above sky, with the option to create your own. You can also set a timer for your hyper-focused writing sprints.

If FocusWriter isn't quite right for you, check out Zapier's list of the best distraction blockers—there are a few free options on there.

FocusWriter pricing: Free

Best free writing software for messages and blurbs

WordCounter (Web)

Sometimes you need to write a small amount of text, such as a message or a blurb, without the pressure of accidentally hitting the Enter button too early. WordCounter acts as a combination clipboard and editor with a word count that saves your work in your browser cache for the next time you visit.

WordCounter pricing: Free

Free writing tools for editing

Best free writing software for finding the perfect word

OneLook Reverse Dictionary and Thesaurus (Web)

OneLook Reverse Dictionary and Thesaurus offers all the synonyms you could dream of like a regular thesaurus, but it stands out in its reverse dictionary capabilities. Enter a phrase—or even a full sentence—to get words that match that meaning. This feature comes in handy when you want to write more concisely or find that word that's on the tip of your tongue.

OneLook Reverse Dictionary and Thesaurus pricing: Free

Best free writing software for finding the right word—anywhere

Power Thesaurus (Web, Chrome, iOS, Android)

As a freelance writer, I find myself needing to switch up words when I write on various platforms across the internet. Power Thesaurus gives me synonyms, antonyms, definitions, and other forms of word assistance wherever I like to write. It can do the same for you—put it to use on its website, in your browser, on your phone, in Google Docs, in Word, and in Gmail.

Power Thesaurus pricing: Free for fundamental features; starting from $2.49/month for Power Thesaurus PRO, featuring filters and a wider selection of synonyms

Best free writing software for rewording what you write

Wordtune (Web, Chrome, iOS)

When you just can't get phrasing right in your writing, you might turn to a friend or editor to help you sort it out. Wordtune acts as that person by offering suggestions to reword, expand, and shorten your content using AI. It doesn't have as robust of a free plan as some of the other options on this list, but it provides enough if you need assistance here and there.

If you want more features and are willing to pay a monthly fee, you can put AI to work in your editing process with Zapier's list of the best AI rewording and grammar-checking tools.

Wordtune pricing: Free for up to 10 rewrites or AI suggestions, and three summaries a day; from $6.99/month for advanced plans featuring more rewrites/AI suggestions and summaries

Best free writing software for clear and concise writing

Hemingway Editor (Web, macOS, Windows)

Inspired by Ernest Hemingway's concise writing style, the Hemingway Editor points out opportunities to sharpen your writing. This tool highlights passive voice, complex sentences, and adverbs that make your work harder to understand. It also supplies a readability score to estimate how accessible your writing is to a broad audience.

Hemingway Editor pricing: Free for editing in the Hemingway web app; $19.99 for the Mac or Windows desktop app

Best free writing software for creating compelling headlines

IsItWP Headline Analyzer (Web)

IsItWP Headline Analyzer helps you write compelling headlines by analyzing the sentiment and word balance in your titles. Type in a headline to get a score, and test different variations based on the suggestions you get. 

Just keep in mind that this analyzer also analyzes your title as though you'll use it in search results, so the Word Count category isn't always reliable. For example, the headline I entered above has "too many words," even though I plan on using it only for the on-page headline.

IsItWP Headline Analyzer pricing: Free

Best free writing software for finding and removing cliches

Cliche Finder (Web)

Cut cliches out of your writing using Cliche Finder. After you paste your text into the textbox and click the Find Cliches button, the tool will highlight any cliches in bold, red text. It's up to you from there, but the tool is 100% free.

Cliche Finder pricing: Free

Best free writing software for finding jargon in your text

De-Jargonizer (Web)

Another writing mechanism that gets in the way of clarity is jargon—terms that only people in a specific role will understand. The De-Jargonizer highlights potential jargon in your writing in orange or red for you to consider rephrasing.

Once you identify jargon in your text with the De-Jargonizer, you can get suggestions for rewriting it from Zapier's Corporate Jargon Translator, built using Zapier's free AI chatbot builder.

De-Jargonizer pricing: Free

Best free writing software for varying your wording and sentence length

Expresso (Web)

Two of the best ways to amp up your writing are to switch up your words and sentence length. Expresso helps you achieve both of these goals by breaking your writing down into metrics based on word usage and sentence length, such as frequently repeated words and average sentence word count.

Expresso pricing: Free

Best free writing software for comparing your writing to AI content

GPTZero (Web, Chrome)

Due to the complexity of the AI situation, it can be tricky to truly detect AI writing with an AI content detector. But these tools work well for picking out human content that sounds like AI due to repetitive phrases and generic writing. GPTZero is a free option that judges text based on perplexity (complexity) and burstiness (sentence variation).

GPTZero pricing: Free for 10,000 words per month; from $10.00/month for plans with higher word limits

Free writing tools for proofreading and optimizing

Best free writing software for catching spelling and grammar mistakes

Grammarly (Web, macOS, Windows, Android, iOS, browser extensions)

Check for spelling and grammar mistakes everywhere you write with Grammarly. It looks for even the nit-pickiest details, like missing dashes and incorrect prepositions. Stick to its web editor, add it to your favorite writing tool, or add the browser extension to check your writing wherever you go.

Grammarly pricing: Free for the basic spell- and grammar-checker; from $12/month for plans with advanced features like tone, vocabulary, and rewrite suggestions

Best free writing tool for proofreading short-form content

ProWritingAid (Web, macOS, Windows, browser extensions)

ProWritingAid's free plan can analyze less text at a time than Grammarly, but it includes a word explorer, thesaurus, and rephrasing tool on top of its grammar-checking features. These capabilities make it a better fit for writers who like to get really granular with their improvement. ProWritingAid's free plan could be a better option for you than Grammarly if your total word count usually clocks at 500 words or fewer.

ProWritingAid pricing: Free for a 500 word count limit and 10 rephrases per day; from $10/month for a Premium plan with no word count limit, unlimited rephrases, and advanced grammar improvement features like in-depth analytics of your writing

Best free writing tool for making MLA citations

EasyBib (Web)

This one's for the academics out there. Enter your paper's sources into EasyBib, and it'll organize them into an MLA bibliography for you. I had to give everything a once-over and make minor changes, but EasyBib helped me win my college library's bibliography contest back in the day.

EasyBib pricing: Free

Best free writing tool for keyword optimization

SEO PowerSuite Website Auditor Content Editor (Windows, Mac, Linux)

The content editor in SEO PowerSuite's Website Auditor checks how well your SEO writing could perform based on the keywords you want to rank for. It offers pretty powerful features in its free version, such as suggesting related terms and listing competitors.

It does have one catch—you can't save your content in the free version. But since it still works well for checking content after you finish it, it deserves a spot on the proofreading list.

You can find even more content optimization tools with free and paid versions in our list of the best SEO content optimization tools.

Free writing software FAQ

Here are some questions lots of people have about writing apps and how to choose the right one.

What's a good free writing tool?

A good free writing tool offers the features you need to write efficiently and comfortably without charging you. The exact variety of features it offers depends on the job the tool needs to do in the first place.

Tools like Google Docs and WordCounter are free forever and very functional. Other apps, like Grammarly or ProWritingAid, have free plans that offer basic features, with more advanced features available via a paid plan.

But there are a lot of free writing tools available that perform a wide variety of functions—everything from brainstorming to research and note-taking to writing to editing to proofreading.

What writing tool do most writers use?

There's a wide variety of writing tools out there, and which one a writer uses really comes down to preference. A lot of writers use Google Docs to write because they already use Google for so many other things—but some may prefer a tool like Notion, where they can combine writing with project management. Then there's a solid group of Markdown aficionados, who write in tools like iA Writer or Ulysses.

What makes a good writing tool?

In short, whatever helps you write! If a blank page and no distraction is what helps you actually get words down, then open a new Google Doc and go at it. If you need to organize your thoughts before you even think about writing, consider adding a brainstorming tool to the mix. Each writer's process is different, and it's all about finding tools that enable your writing, not add another roadblock to your process.

Sharpen your craft with your new toolkit

As is the case with many skills, it can be easy to focus too much on improving your writing through tools alone. You'll maximize the results you'll get from your apps with a solid foundation in writing techniques. Grab the tools that appeal to you on this page, then brush up on your core writing skills to become a killer prose machine.

Related reading:

• The best journal apps

• How to capitalize all letters in Word, Excel, and other apps

• How to write great copy: 11 copywriting tips

• Copywriting vs. content writing: How to do each one well

• How to write a business letter: Formatting + template

This article was originally published in June 2015 by Jane Callahan and has also had contributions from Jessica Greene. The most recent update was in August 2024.