Automation

Zapier: Your Apps, Talking to Each Other

A tool that connects your apps together so they can automatically share information and do tasks without you — like automatically saving email attachments to your cloud storage.

• Free plan available; paid plans from $19.99/mo★★★★★ 5/5

Zapier: Your Apps, Talking to Each Other

What It Is

You know how you use a bunch of different apps every day — Gmail, Google Sheets, Slack, Dropbox, maybe a CRM for your small business? And you end up doing a lot of copy-pasting between them? Like, someone fills out a form on your website, and you manually copy their info into your spreadsheet and send them a welcome email.

Zapier is the middleman that makes all those apps talk to each other automatically. You set up a rule once — "When this happens in App A, do that in App B" — and Zapier handles it from then on. No coding required. No technical skills needed.

It works with over 6,000 apps, which is honestly hard to wrap your head around. If an app exists, there's a very good chance Zapier can connect to it.

What Can It Do For Me?

  • Save email attachments automatically — every time someone emails you a file, it goes straight to your Google Drive or Dropbox folder
  • Turn emails into tasks — new Gmail messages from important clients automatically become tasks in your to-do app
  • Post on social media automatically — schedule the same post to go out on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn at once
  • Track form submissions — when someone fills out a contact form on your website, their info lands in your spreadsheet and you get a text notification
  • Back up your work — new files in one cloud service automatically copy to another, so you always have a backup
  • Send follow-up emails — a day after someone buys from you, Zapier sends them a thank-you email without you lifting a finger

Pricing

  • Free plan: 100 tasks per month, 5 active workflows. Good for testing things out.
  • Starter ($19.99/mo): 750 tasks per month, more apps connected.
  • Professional ($39.99/mo): 2,000 tasks, multi-step workflows.
  • Team ($69.99/mo): 50,000 tasks, shared workflows for a group.

A "task" is basically each time Zapier does one action. If you have it save an email attachment, that's one task. If it then also sends you a notification, that's two.

The Good and The Bad

Pros:

  • Incredibly easy to set up — the interface walks you through everything step by step
  • Works with almost every app you've heard of
  • The free plan is genuinely useful for simple stuff
  • Saves hours of repetitive copy-paste work
  • No technical knowledge needed at all

Cons:

  • Gets expensive fast if you have a lot of tasks running
  • Sometimes connections break and you have to reconnect apps
  • The more complex your setup, the harder it is to figure out what went wrong
  • You're trusting a third party with your data flowing between apps

Should You Try It?

If you ever find yourself thinking "I wish I didn't have to do this same thing over and over" — try Zapier. The free plan lets you set up basic automations without spending a dime, and you'll know within a day whether it's useful for you.

It's especially great for small business owners, freelancers, or anyone who uses multiple apps and is tired of being the human bridge between them. The learning curve is gentle, and the payoff is real — even one good automation can save you a few hours every week. Just keep an eye on your task count if you're on a paid plan, because it adds up faster than you'd expect.

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