Until recently, setting up web scrapers to automatically pull data from websites was a complex job that involved hours of work writing custom code to pull the exact information you need. Now, with tools like Browse AI, you can set up jobs to automate web scraping in minutes. 

Browse AI lets you effortlessly extract data from websites and monitor changes, making it a breeze to stay on top of competitor pricing, stock levels, or news. But monitoring the results of all of your web scraping jobs can be challenging. 

With our automatic workflows–we call them Zaps–you can automate the flow of information directly into your favorite apps, turning a flood of scraped web data into manageable, actionable insights. This means less time spent on manual tasks and more time on what matters: analyzing data and making strategic decisions. Here's how!

Table of contents

• Connect Browse AI with your spreadsheet app

• Send notifications for completed Browse AI tasks

• Update your website from Browse AI

• Connect Browse AI with your task or to-do list app

Connect Browse AI with your spreadsheet app

If you're anything like me, you likely spend a good chunk of your workday in your spreadsheet app. Spreadsheets are great tools for storing information, analyzing data, and performing calculations. But rather than keeping your scraped web data in a silo where you have to check manually for updates, why not automate a process to sync that data automatically to your favorite spreadsheet tool?

With Zapier, we can automatically pull your scraped data from Browse AI into your spreadsheet app of choice—be it Google Sheets, Airtable, or Excel. Whether you're compiling market research, tracking prices, or aggregating content, automating the flow of data directly into spreadsheets will save you time and let you get to analyzing your data more quickly.

With these Zaps, you can easily add data to your spreadsheets as soon as Browse AI completes a task. Imagine having competitor prices, stock levels, or real estate listings automatically populated in Google Sheets, Airtable records updated with the latest eCommerce product details, or Excel rows filled with fresh leads—all without lifting a finger. 

But it doesn't stop there. If you're looking to trigger workflows based on spreadsheet updates, such as scraping new data when a row or record is added, these Zaps close the loop, ensuring your datasets are always current and comprehensive. 

Send notifications for completed Browse AI tasks

Once you set up a scraping job within Browse AI, it will start working for you in the background 24/7, monitoring for new data. Often, however, you'll want an immediate update when data is available. For example, if you're using Browse AI to track a competitor's pricing changes or monitor new real estate listings in your area, an instant notification can help you act on that information more quickly.

By linking Browse AI with your existing communication tools like Slack, Gmail, and Discord, you can automate notifications to keep you and your team up to date with the latest data updates.

Update your website from Browse AI

If your website relies on periodic updates from external sources, you can use Browse AI to effectively capture that data and a Zap to efficiently update your website as new information comes in. 

Maybe you run an eCommerce store and rely on a supplier who frequently updates their pricing. You could set up a Browse AI job to monitor for your supplier's pricing and automatically update your own pricing based on those changes.

Or perhaps you run a website that lists upcoming events in your area. You could set up BrowseAI jobs to monitor for upcoming events, concerts, or conferences and automatically update your website as soon as new events are listed.

Whatever your use case, setting up a Zap to automatically update your website based on scraped data will be sure to save you a lot of time and will also make certain your website is always up to date.

Connect Browse AI with your task or to-do list app

Many people manage their daily workflow with task management and to-do-list apps like Notion, Todoist, and Coda. With Zapier, you can connect Browse AI with your workflow tool of choice to automate the flow of information. 

For example, the marketing team at an eCommerce company might use BrowseAI to monitor their website for new customer reviews, automatically syncing that information to a tool like Notion or Coda for later analysis. 

Connecting Browse AI to your existing task management and organization tools can help you streamline your workflows and ensure you're always relying on the most recent data possible. Set up one of the Zaps below to start organizing your data.

Enhance your data gathering with Browse AI

Once you've set up your Browse AI scrape jobs and Zaps, the hard work is over! Now, you can skip spending your time manually searching the web to refresh data in your business-critical tools. Instead, you can concentrate on more important tasks, like deciding what to do with that data.

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

If you run an eCommerce business, a lot of different people and teams might work behind the scenes to fulfill a single order. One team might deal with preparing invoices, while another might take care of fulfillment. Making sure everyone gets all the information they need to get the job done is essential.

That means you may rely on the humble spreadsheet to keep track of order information for different teams and purposes. But copying and pasting order data is asking for trouble—it's too easy to paste in the wrong information or forget to drop in an order altogether. Fortunately, you can use a Zap—Zapier's automated workflows—to automatically add all new Ecwid orders to a Google Sheet. Here's how.

Before you begin

Note that you'll need a paid Ecwid account to use their Zapier integration.

If you haven't set up your Ecwid store, you'll need to do so before setting up this workflow. Make sure you also have at least one order added to your store. That will be used to set up your Zap.

You'll also need to set up your spreadsheet to track your orders. For the Zap to work correctly, you'll need to make sure your Google Sheet has a header row with columns that match the info you want to collect in your spreadsheet from your Ecwid order.

In our example, we'll add columns for Order ID, Item Name, and Price. But add columns for whatever details you want to collect.

How to save new Ecwid orders to Google Sheets rows

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 below to set up your Zap.

Set up your Ecwid 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 Ecwid by Lightspeed as the trigger app and New Order as the trigger event. Click Continue.

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

Now it's time to customize your trigger step. 

If you want to only trigger this Zap for orders that meet certain requirements, you can set those filters in the Payment Status and Fulfillment Status fields. For example, you may only want to collect details on Paid orders (which you can set in the Payment Status field) or orders Awaiting Processing (which you can set in the Fulfillment Status field).

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

Now it's time to test your trigger step. Before testing, make sure you have at least one order in your Ecwid account. Once you have at least one order, click Test trigger. Zapier will show you your most recent orders. Pick an order to use in your test, then click Continue with Selected Record. 

Set up your Google Sheets 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 Google Sheets as your action app and Create Spreadsheet Row as your action event. Click Continue.

Connect your Google Sheets account, if you haven't already, then click Continue. 

Now, it's time to customize your action step. First, select the drive where your Google Sheet is stored in the Drive field. Then, select the spreadsheet you created in the Spreadsheet field. And finally, choose the appropriate Worksheet (by default, it's "Sheet1").

Once you've selected the right sheet and worksheet, Zapier will load fields that match with the column headings you added to your Google Sheet. Now you can add the corresponding data from your Ecwid order to those fields.

To add data from your Ecwid order, just click in the field you'd like to customize and select the data from the dropdown. In our example, we've added the Order Number, Items Name, and Items Price to the appropriate columns. 

Once you're happy with the setup, click Continue. 

Next, click Test step to test your Zap. Zapier will send the sample data to your Google Sheets spreadsheet. Open the spreadsheet to check if everything looks good. Here's what ours looked like:

Looks like a win to us! If everything showed up correctly in the Google Sheets spreadsheet, then you're ready to use your Zap. Now, every time you get a new order in Ecwid, all the details will show up in your Google Sheets spreadsheet, just like that!

In the sea of email marketing newsletters, transactional emails are often an overlooked opportunity—they aren't the most exciting emails a customer receives from you, but they're some of the firsts, and they have incredibly high open rates. Way higher than marketing emails.

An order confirmation, a welcome email, a dispatch update, and even a new device login—they're all opportunities to build and strengthen customer relationships. 

If a customer has ordered from you, maybe they're interested in another one of your products. If they're resetting their password, perhaps they're logging in after a long time and need a product tour refresher. All transactional emails are an occasion to deepen customer trust and share personalized offers.

I've been researching, testing, and writing about email marketing software for the last five years. And I know the decision to choose an email tool can be time-consuming. To update this list for this year, I spent several weeks researching and testing over two dozen transactional email apps. Based on that experience, here are the five best.

The best transactional email services 

• SendGrid for transactional emails and email marketing in one

• Mailchimp Transactional Email for Mailchimp users

• Postmark for quick email delivery

• MailerSend for building branded transactional emails with ease

• ZeptoMail for excellent 24/7 phone support

What makes a great transactional email service?

Picking a tool to send transactional emails is tricky—there are tons of options offering similar services and competitive pricing. I started by figuring out what the essential features were for apps in this category. Here's what I looked for during my evaluation of transactional email providers:

• Value for money. Transactional email tools are a heavy investment. It's essential to get a feel of the app before purchasing, so the best transactional email apps aren't just competitively priced but also include a free trial or a cheaper plan with fewer features to test out the features without an annual financial commitment.  

• Ease of setting up. There's nothing more frustrating than signing up for a transactional email app, making an account, and then being unable to figure out how to configure your domain. Your team—developers or not—should be able to easily log in to the app and set it up for action. 

• Customer support. Even the experts need help sometimes. Success with a transactional email app means getting quick and reliable support—whether that's in the form of live chat, email, or phone. The best tools also have an extensive and updated knowledge base so you can help yourself when possible. 

• Customizing the emails. The days of boring and bland transactional emails are long gone. Customers now expect branded transactional emails with your logo, aesthetic designs, and overall an amazing experience. The best transactional emails make it easy for you to design and brand your emails.

• Deliverability. There's nothing worse than a customer receiving their dispatch status email in spam, or worse, not receiving any update at all. The ideal transactional email app has excellent deliverability—ensuring you land in your customers' inboxes on time. 

To find the best options, I signed up for free trials of all the apps that met my criteria and tested them. I added contacts, drafted an email, and sent two or three test emails for each app—unless their domain verification process made it impossible to move ahead with testing. Along the way, I took notes on everything I encountered—what I liked and what I didn't like.

I also read user reviews to better understand how the various features held up over a period of several months or years, versus just a few weeks. For example, I checked to see if there was overwhelmingly negative feedback about deliverability or bounced emails when the volume of emails increases as a business scales. Once I'd narrowed down the list, I tested the shortlist again, even more in-depth, to be sure each service lived up to its unique selling point. And that's how I landed on these five apps.

The best transactional email services at a glance

Best transactional email service for transactional emails and email marketing in one

SendGrid

SendGrid pros:

• Setting up is a breeze

• Drag-and-drop feature to create and design emails easily

SendGrid cons:

• It might be expensive to scale after you cross the 200K email mark—price jumps from $89.95/month to $249/month

If you want to manage your transactional emails and marketing emails under one roof, SendGrid is the way to go. Transactional emails are at the core of SendGrid's business, so it's no surprise it's a killer in this domain. And it stacks up really nicely against some other big names.

For example: SendGrid outshines Mailchimp with its intuitive email editor as well as its deliverability insights. (SendGrid even offers deliverability consulting if you need additional support.) SendGrid offers an expert insights report, deliverability metrics, category comparisons, and more. And because SendGrid is a transactional email app first and foremost, it has all the features—whereas the standard Mailchimp UI and data aren't present in Mailchimp Transactional Email. Similarly, SendGrid outshines other apps like Sendinblue with its API integrations and support for multiple frameworks like Java, PHP, Go, Python, and C#.

SendGrid's email templates are great for customizing and branding emails. There are a lot of options to add your brand logo, alter the design, and even add your own code. But most of the email templates are a better fit for marketing emails than transactional emails.

I was also impressed by their email testing—you can do inbox rendering and test your emails for how they look and deliver on different devices. But this ease of use comes with a trade-off: SendGrid probably wouldn't be your ideal choice of email marketing app if you're looking for complex automation and workflows.

The free plan gets only ticket support. As you move up the plans, you also get a chat support option. But only the most expensive plans (Pro and Premium) get phone support.

The email testing capabilities, combined with SendGrid's comprehensive analytics, make it super easy to continually improve your emails based on feedback. So if you want to do your email marketing and transactional emails in one place—without sacrificing the quality of the transactional side of things—SendGrid is my pick. (You can also purchase marketing and transactional email services separately if you don't want to commit to both services off the bat.)

You can also automate SendGrid with SendGrid's Zapier integrations to do things like automatically sending transactional emails based on new form submissions or spreadsheet updates. Here are a couple of examples.

SendGrid pricing: Free for up to 100 emails/day. The Essential plan begins at $19.95/month and includes 50,000 emails, guaranteed response time on ticket and chat support, and more.

Best transactional email service for Mailchimp users

Mailchimp Transactional Email

Mailchimp pros:

• Excellent deliverability

Mailchimp cons:

• No email customization options (unless you know how to code)

The email marketing leader Mailchimp designed Mailchimp Transactional Email (formerly Mandrill) as a paid add-on, so any Mailchimp user has a viable option for sending transactional emails straight from Mailchimp. So if you're using Mailchimp as your email marketing tool, there's no reason to use a different app for transactional emails. (I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't already using Mailchimp because you have to create a Mailchimp account to use Mailchimp Transactional Email—you can't purchase just the latter like with SendGrid.)

Mailchimp has robust API documentation—which was helpful for me as I navigated the system—but you might still need help from your engineering team to set up everything. It's not easy to just log in and hit the ground running. But there's a lot of room for setting up rules and optimizing customer journeys. For example, you can set up a  "Reminder" email sequence at regular intervals for any email subject line that includes the word "event" (to nudge your subscribers to join an event they've signed up for).

There's nothing groundbreaking in the customizations department—unless you know how to code. The text email builder doesn't have any drag-and-drop options to customize your emails with images, logo, and other forms of branding.

The main problem I had was that, in order to send an email, you need to configure DKIM and SPF settings, which require you to update the TXT records with your domain host at the backend. It's a few extra steps, and it's complicated if you already have an SPF record added to your domain and need to add a second one for Mailchimp. That's the situation we were in, so I couldn't actually send a test email—but if you already trust Mailchimp to send your emails, you'll be able to rely on Mailchimp Transactional Email too.

Mailchimp also has a unique pricing structure: instead of the classic monthly plans, you can purchase "blocks" based on the number of emails you need. For example, if you need 10,000 emails for one month, you'll purchase one block at $20. This option is great to have if you have seasonality in your business and won't need the same number of emails each month.

But remember: a con of this unique pricing method is the purchased blocks don't transfer to the next month if left unused. So if you purchased a block for 10,000 emails but ended up using only 8,000, the remaining 2,000 emails would be wasted because you couldn't carry them to the upcoming month.

You can automate Mailchimp Transactional Email with Zapier, connecting it to all the other apps in your stack. That way, you can do things like automatically receive Slack notifications for every new bounced transactional email or send template Mailchimp emails when new Mailchimp Transactional subscribers are added. Get started with one of these pre-built templates.

Mailchimp Transactional Email pricing: Free for new users for up to 500 emails. You can send 1 to 500,000 emails by purchasing 1-20 blocks at $20/block (each block is a credit for 25,000 emails). Enter your estimated number of emails per month in their pricing calculator to get an accurate cost.

Best transactional email service for quick email delivery

Postmark

Postmark pros:

• Super fast and reliable email delivery

• Combined automations with ActiveCampaign

Postmark cons:

• You can't customize your emails unless you know how to code

Postmark specializes in only one service—transactional email—and does it well. It goes back to basics, focusing on core email sending. 

Where Postmark stands out is its speedy email delivery: it aims to deliver all your emails within 10 seconds after you press send (they have a separate message stream for transactional emails to ensure timely delivery in the primary inbox). I was able to verify this while testing—the email I sent was delivered within 7 or 8 seconds of sending. 

I found the setup instructions to be pretty straightforward. You simply choose the language or framework you want to use and get instructions for setting up. I chose to set up via the WordPress plugin on my website, and it was done in under 10 minutes. And their knowledge base felt much more approachable than the other apps on this list. Postmark also has several useful email templates available for specific use cases like welcome emails and password reset emails.   

Like with Mailchimp, you need to know how to code if you want to brand your transactional emails. There aren't any drag-and-drop features to easily add images, videos, and other forms of multimedia. And unlike the other apps on this list, Postmark doesn't offer many fancy bells and whistles. But if you need a reliable service provider that puts transactional email first, Postmark is a great choice. 

One last note: ActiveCampaign recently acquired Postmark, and while Postmark remains available as a standalone product, ActiveCampaign users can now see a full picture of their customers and use just one application for all their email needs. You can even connect your ActiveCampaign and Postmark accounts and set up a combined automated email sequence. For example, if you want to send a relevant marketing email to someone after they purchase a product from you, you can do that easily by connecting your ActiveCampaign and Postmark account.

You can do even more with your transactional email by using Postmark's Zapier integrations to do things like getting notified via Slack whenever an email bounces and even resend it. 

Postmark pricing: Free for up to 100 emails per month. Paid plans begin at $15/month for 10,000 emails. (Unused emails don't roll over to the next month, just like Mailchimp.) If you're a bootstrapped company, Postmark also offers a $75 account credit to help you reduce your email costs.

Best transactional email service for building branded transactional emails with ease

MailerSend

MailerSend pros:

• Lots of options to customize and brand your emails

• Email verification feature to remove fake, misspelled, or inactive emails

MailerSend cons:

• Domain verification can take longer than expected

MailerSend is a dream come true for non-tech teams and developers. Its drag-and-drop email builder is super intuitive, but there's also a rich text editor and HTML for developers who need it. There are also several transactional email templates, so you never have to start from scratch. I opted for the drag-and-drop email builder and found 30 templates—ranging from simple shipping notifications to complex ones like order-on-hold. 

I tested the invoice receipt email template, and it was really quick to customize: adding and deleting various content blocks (social links, image, etc.), changing the background, modifying sections—it all took less than 15 minutes (given I had every detail and attachment available on my desktop). It has a lot of features—so it can get overwhelming. But once you get the hang of it, MailerSend is one of the best tools for email design on this list.

The whole setup process was similarly easy: there are even domain authentication instructions that pop up as a chatbox as you finish setting up. I found that particularly helpful because there was a guide available for various domain providers, including GoDaddy, Wix, Namecheap, and more—meaning a user doesn't have to hunt for other resources outside the app. But even if something doesn't work, there's email support in the free plan and chat support in the paid plans. There's no phone support in any plan.

They also have an email verification feature that allows you to run a fine-toothed comb through your email list and remove any emails that are misspelled, fake, spam, or simply inactive. This could be immensely helpful in validating your email list—and by extension, boosting your sender reputation and deliverability rate.

You can use MailerSend's Zapier integrations to automate your transactional emails. Get Slack notifications for hard bounced emails, send an email for refunded PayPal sales, or anything else you can think of to connect all your apps.

MailerSend pricing: Free for up to 3,000 emails per month. The premium plan begins at $30/month for 50,000 emails; $0.90 for an additional thousand emails.

Best transactional email service for excellent 24/7 phone support

ZeptoMail

ZeptoMail pros:

• 24/7 email and phone assistance

• Pay-as-you-go option

ZeptoMail cons:

• Setting up isn't very smooth (you might need some assistance) 

ZeptoMail is like SendGrid with better support. It has 24/7 email and phone call assistance in all its plans (even the free one!)—which is an absolute standout in the transactional email service market. It's part of the Zoho suite of apps, which is known for its affordability.

Another thing I loved in ZeptoMail is the email templates. There are a ton of options to choose from, and they're super easy to customize. There's a drag-and-drop builder like MailerSend (although not as thorough). I'd say my experience within the app was even slightly better than SendGrid. 

Setting up is easy, but not as smooth as Postmark. You might need some tech assistance (which is great with their 24/7 phone support!) initially to set up your SMTP or API. But after this friction, the app is easy and intuitive to use. You can select multiple mail agents to send your transactional emails.

The deliverability is ok—it wasn't very quick, but the email landed in my primary inbox, so that's a win. 

I also like that ZeptoMail has a pay-as-you-go option. It's beneficial if you have seasonally high requirements (like during the holidays). The credits you purchase are valid for six months, so there's enough time to utilize them all and not pay for more emails than you're using.

To do more with ZeptoMail, connect it to Zapier, so you can do things like send Slack messages for new email activities or email bounces. Here are a couple of other examples to get you started.

ZeptoMail pricing: Free for up to 10,000 emails. You can purchase one credit for £2 (1 credit = 10,000 emails). Each credit is valid for six months.

Which transactional email app should you use?

If you're already using an email marketing tool that offers a transactional email service, it's worth starting there. If that doesn't meet your needs, you'll want to look for an app whose primary focus is transactional email—give the apps on this list a try, and see which fits your workflow best.

No matter which app you choose, you want your emails to be as effective as possible. Here are a few ideas to level up your transactional email app with automation. Then take a look at 3 ways to nurture customer relationships with email automation. 

Related reading:

• SendGrid vs. Mailchimp: Which is best?

• Email marketing automation ideas

• The best Mailchimp alternatives (free and paid options)

This article was originally published in January 2015 by Matthew Guay. The most recent update was in March 2024.

With countless email apps available, each promising a slew of innovative features to streamline our inboxes, the quest for the ideal email companion can feel overwhelming. But the right app can transform your email experience.

You may be happy with a web app like Gmail when you're at your computer, but when you're emailing from your iPhone, you'll want a dedicated iPhone email app for the job.

I spent several days testing the most popular iOS email apps, and based on my experiences, here are my picks for the 10 best iPhone email apps.

The 10 best email apps for iPhone

• Mail by Apple for a no-frills email app

• Outlook for a balance between simplicity and features

• Gmail for integration with other Google apps

• Triage for quick and easy inbox maintenance

• Chuck for extensive inbox maintenance

• Shortwave for Gmail users looking for AI assistance

• BlueMail for email management and organization

• Edison Mail for frequent travelers and shoppers

• Canary for AI-written emails

• Proton Mail for privacy and security

What makes a great iPhone email app?

For this list, I focused on standalone email apps for iPhone, rather than apps that are really just add-ons for a web or desktop app. I wanted to showcase email apps that could be the only way you access your email if you wanted. An Apple Watch companion app, however, was a bonus.

Since we're focusing on the iPhone, which you're likely using for personal use rather than intense work, I rejected any primarily team-focused or collaborative email apps, like Front. While these are useful for organizations, they're needlessly complicated for day-to-day emailing. They also tend to charge a monthly fee, and while there are paid apps on this list, I generally avoided apps that required expensive subscriptions.

Maintaining a clean inbox free of spam and clutter is top of mind for many, so I looked for apps that included some degree of spam filters, cleanup suggestions, and security options. Along those lines, I also looked for apps that had the most efficient and creative methods for email organization—along with productivity features like snooze options and built-in calendars.

Even with all these criteria, there are a huge number of options to consider. So I dug in deep, put them to the test, and determined which ones were more than just marketing hype. As I went through each of the apps, my testing process involved:

• Exploring all available features when composing and sending emails, like send delays, scheduling, and file attachments.

• Assessing how well emails were received on other platforms.

• Gauging how mobile-friendly and effective the app's UX design was.

• Toying with customization options, like color themes and swipe actions.

• Creating folders and changing filters to get a feel for organizational efficiency.

• Tracking compatibility with major email service providers.

• Checking for AI capabilities, like generating email text or scheduling assistance.

Based on all that testing, these are the best iPhone email apps.

The best iPhone email apps at a glance

Best no-frills iPhone email app

Mail by Apple

Apple's Mail app has had a bit of a bad reputation over the years—that's why there's such a healthy ecosystem of alternative apps—but that criticism is now largely unwarranted. Yes, it's one of the most basic apps on this list, but that's an advantage: it's a simple and easy-to-use email app. It handles your email—whether you use iCloud, AOL, Gmail, Outlook, Exchange, or any other POP or IMAP compatible service—without any fuss.

When you open the app, you'll see your email inbox with all your emails in reverse chronological order. To only see the unread emails, tap the handy filter icon in the bottom-left corner. It's nothing fancy, but it works great.

You can schedule emails and undo sends (both of which come in handy for me because I frequently revise my emails). Another spot where Mail steps beyond just sending and receiving emails is with a VIP Inbox and thread notifications. If you're overwhelmed by the number of emails you receive, it's tempting to turn off all notifications. Unfortunately, that means you might miss something important. Contacts added to the VIP list have their own dedicated inbox that always pushes notifications. Similarly, you can enable notifications for responses to individual email threads if, for example, you're waiting for a reply from customer support and want to know as soon as you get it.

Lastly, Mail offers a decent amount of versatility when composing emails: you can choose between different fonts, change the font size or color, add bullet points or numbered lists, or even indent paragraphs.

If you just need the email basics, Apple Mail is one of the best. Most folks with an iPhone should start by giving it a try—if it doesn't work for you, then you can move on to another app on this list.

Mail by Apple compatibility: Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, GMX, Exchange, IMAP accounts

Mail by Apple price: Free

Best iPhone email app for a balance between simplicity and features

Outlook

Microsoft's Outlook email app—surprising almost everyone—hits the best balance between usability and feature power. It supports all the major email services except POP3 accounts, so you don't have to use an Outlook or Hotmail account to make use of it.

The Outlook mobile app is a far cry from the desktop app. This isn't a bloated, enterprise product. It's a well-designed, highly functional personal email app that adds in some basic file management (with OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box) and a calendar, so you can handle all the extras around email, like attaching files and scheduling events, in one place. If you're already hooked up with Microsoft Teams, you can even make video calls through the Outlook app.

Outlook automatically splits your inbox into a Focused Inbox, for what it considers important mail, and an Other Inbox for everything else. That, combined with powerful search and the Contacts section that groups together all the emails a specific person has sent you, makes it easy for you to keep a handle on important messages.

The left and right swipe gestures are customizable: you can set them up to archive, delete, reply, move, or schedule (Outlook's take on snooze) emails. And there's even an Apple Watch app so you can check your email on the go.

Plus, by integrating Outlook with Zapier, you can connect it to all your other apps, so you can send emails based on activity in other apps, or send tasks from your inbox to your task management app, among other things. Learn more about how to automate Outlook, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Outlook Compatibility: Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, Exchange, iCloud, Hotmail, Live, MSN, Accenture, Infosys, Cognizant

Outlook price: Free

Best iPhone email app for integration with other Google apps

Gmail

The Gmail iOS app brings the familiar Gmail web app experience to your iPhone. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how you feel about Gmail.

While Gmail for iOS does support iCloud, Outlook, Yahoo, and IMAP, it's at its best when used with your Gmail account. The iOS app nicely integrates with Google's other services like Google Drive, Google Docs, and Google Sheets. For example, you can preview any file shared through Google Drive or one of Google's apps. A single tap then either saves it to your own Google Drive, which you can access through the Attach option when you're writing a new email, or opens it in the Google Docs or Sheets app, so you can edit or update it. You can also respond to Google Calendar invites straight from the email, just by tapping on the Yes, No, or Maybe. The integrations extend to video chat: instead of needing to download the Meet app separately, you can handle all your video conferencing in-app.

Outside of these integrations, Gmail is still a competent email app. In terms of customization, you can choose the default view, which shows an icon for each sender and a preview of any attachments; or you can select Comfortable (which removes the previews) or Compact (which removes the icons as well, letting you see more emails at once). All your emails are sorted into three separate inboxes: Primary, Social, and Promotions. Search is, as you'd expect from Google, lightning fast. Emails can be snoozed, and if you accidentally send an email too soon—which is easy to do on a phone—you can tap Undo to recall it.

By connecting Gmail with Zapier, you can automate your inbox, so you can spend more time on what matters and less time copying information across apps. Learn more about how to automate Gmail with Zapier, or get started with one of these workflows.

Gmail compatibility: Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook, Live, Office365, IMAP

Gmail price: Free

Best iPhone email app for quick and easy inbox maintenance

Triage

Triage may be the most simplistic email app on this list, but I'd say it's by far the most innovative.

This Apple-only app is touted by its developers as "first aid for your inbox." The format is simple: your emails are presented as "cards" that are stacked on top of each other. You can swipe left on an email to archive it, swipe right to keep it, and tap on the card to expand and reply to it. And that's basically it. It's like Tinder for emails, except (hopefully) a lot more effective.

Of course, Triage isn't necessarily meant to be used by itself. Think of it as a useful complement to your typical, more extensive email software. The main goal of this app is to make inbox maintenance a little more manageable, especially if you're like me and are prone to accumulating loads of emails. 

Triage ends up having somewhat of a game-ish feel to it. If I found myself bored in a waiting room, I could easily pass the time by hopping on the app and swiping away at my pile of emails.

Triage compatibility: Gmail, iCloud, IMAP

Triage price: Free; $9.99/year for a more advanced plan which includes multiple inboxes

Best iPhone email app for extensive inbox maintenance

Chuck

What's unique about Chuck is the variety of ways in which you can view your inboxes: by timespan, subject, sender, or the traditional latest email view, all of which I found super helpful in locating specific emails faster.

Unsubscribing from multiple email lists is also quick and smooth: when you tap on the bottom-right, you're guided to a page with all your mailing lists, where you can select specific subscriptions and unsubscribe from them all at once. The AI Select feature also recommends emails you can delete without reading based on your past behavior. In my case, AI Select suggested I get rid of most promotional emails since I typically don't open them.

The free plan of Chuck should be sufficient for most, but if you want to step up your filters and organizational features, you can upgrade to become a Pro user. I made use of the seven-day free trial to explore this more extensive plan, and I was able to add as many inboxes as I wanted, block senders, and try out Chuck's cleanup suggestions. If you know you need to tidy up your inbox, but you're not quite sure where to start, Chuck will recommend categories of emails to get rid of, including old messages, social media notifications, or even messages that weren't addressed to you.

Another small plus: when composing emails, you can easily add links to text, a feature I've been craving for ages now since the vast majority of email apps don't allow it without some smart workaround. 

Overall, it's a very efficient app with great filtering capabilities, one-tap tasks, and cleanup suggestions.

Compatibility: Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, AOL, Office 365, IMAP

Chuck Price: Free for 1 email account; Chuck Pro plan for $3.99/month or $39.99/year gives you for unlimited email accounts and advanced features

Best AI email app for Gmail users

Shortwave

As someone who relies heavily on Gmail for most of my email needs, finding an app that integrates so seamlessly with it while also offering advanced AI features has been nothing short of a revelation.

Shortwave's user-friendly interface immediately stood out, offering an intuitive navigation experience that made the transition smooth. During the initial setup, Shortwave only imports emails from the last 90 days for a quick start, but you can also manually import older emails later.

What truly sets Shortwave apart is its AI assistant, which feels like having a personal admin dedicated to email management, scheduling, and answering questions. I asked the AI to help me compose an email thanking someone for attending my event—at first, it wrote out a bit of a wordy email, but then it gave me the option to make the email shorter or less formal.

The AI assistant was also a big help for searching through my email history (and learning how to utilize the app more efficiently as I got started). What's unique about Shortwave's assistant is the ability to ask it questions about topics beyond your inbox. For example, it gave me the suggestion to ask it about three different economic models, and within seconds, it generated some informative paragraphs about capitalism, socialism, and mixed economies. I think a feature like this could help with the issue of context-switching—if you need a quick refresher on a topic or even a simple brainstorm, the app can give you some pointers, so you don't need to jump to another app to Google/ChatGPT it.

Scheduling and reminders are another area where Shortwave shines. Being able to quickly ask the AI to set reminders for sending emails or to schedule meetings directly into my calendar is a big time-saver. Plus, you can also mark all threads from a certain period as "done" with a simple click.

Shortwave compatibility: Gmail

Shortwave price: Free; $8.50/month for the personal paid plan

Best iPhone email app for organization

BlueMail

BlueMail is a great option for anyone keen on getting a better handle on inbox organization. With the help of what they call "email clusters," BlueMail smartly groups similar emails and prioritizes the ones from frequent senders, so you can cut down on clutter. I did find its search functionality somewhat basic—it lacks filters for categories like read status or attachments—but the real-time results as I type make up for it. 

One standout feature for me was being able to categorize emails according to when you want to read or respond to them. Let's say you're reading an email, and you want to take a look at it later: you just click Reply later and choose a time—for example, "this evening" or "tomorrow morning." From there, BlueMail will put the email into the Later Board. The board is split into three initial categories: Today, Later, and Done, but you can create more and customize them however you like.

Like a few other apps I tested, BlueMail can also generate emails with AI prompts, and you can tell it if you want it shorter or longer or to switch up the tone. But a small feature that I found unique to BlueMail is that you can also tell it to include emojis in the generated text.

When it comes to composing emails, you get some other neat features, like font style and size customization, the ability to share emails publicly, and—my personal favorite—being able to rename subject lines.

BlueMail compatibility: Gmail, Yahoo, Office 365, Outlook/Hotmail, AOL, iCloud, IMAP

BlueMail price: Free; $5 for BlueMail Plus

Best iPhone email app for frequent travelers and shoppers

Edison Mail

Edison Mail takes intelligent email sorting to the next level: subscriptions, purchase receipts, and even travel details and package shipping details are automatically identified and sorted into the correct groups, which you access from the sidebar.

You can then quickly glance at your favorite newsletters, unsubscribe from ones you no longer read with a single tap on the unsubscribe button, see upcoming trip details like boarding gates and departure times, and track your parcels, all without having to dig deep into your email archive. Edison will even use the information to send you smart notifications, letting you know when your flight's gate has changed or your package is out for delivery. You can also connect your Amazon and Walmart accounts to see full order details in your receipt emails, which I found convenient as a frequent user of both platforms.

Another unique shopping feature is Price Alert. As receipts get sent to your inbox, Price Alert keeps track of any other promotional emails for price drops. If it detects a drop of more than $1, it'll draft a refund request email for you, and all you have to do is hit send.

In addition to the assistant, Edison is a full-on modern email client: it supports all the major email services and offers undo send, customizable swipe gestures, snooze, merge fields (which is helpful if you want to personalize an email sent to multiple people), and smart replies for when a short response is all that's needed. And my new favorite way to mark an email as read? Just swipe the little blue unread dot, and it vanishes.

Edison compatibility: Gmail, IMAP, iCloud, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, Comcast, AOL, AT&T, and more

Edison price: Free; $14.99 for Edison Mail+

Best iPhone email app for using AI to write your emails

Canary

What I love about Canary is its intuitiveness. After you sign up or add a new inbox, you'll start with Copilot—a screen that offers you different action items, like "Unsubscribe from newsletter" or "Read Important Emails." Once you pick what you want to do, the app takes you where you need to go. You can also access Copilot at any time by clicking the icon with the four boxes at the bottom of the screen.

Copilot doesn't just recommend action items—it's also an AI assistant. Similar to Shortwave, Copilot can also write emails for you, perform tasks like archiving emails, show your availability, and answer questions about how to use the app. But unlike Shortwave, Canary is limited to answering questions based on your emails and the app. As far as composing emails with Copilot, you can give it a small prompt, such as thanking someone for coming to an event, and Copilot will do the rest. In the image above, you'll see my AI-written email.

For even more convenience, you can favorite contacts so that their emails are pinned at the top of your inbox, which is slightly better than just tagging contacts as VIP. But the section I found most useful within the app was Categories. It allows you to look at emails based on whether they fit in the  following categories: Personal, Social, Updates, Forums, or Promotions. I've found this especially useful when looking out for good deals and discounts in the Promotions category.

There are also plenty of features for sending and receiving emails. You can use SecureSend, which gives you the ability to encrypt emails and files that you send (even if the recipient doesn't use Canary), or you can set an expiration date to revoke access to an email. The app also has a drawing feature, if you want to add your signature (or your doodles) to emails. And if you find yourself wondering when people have read your emails, Canary takes the uncertainty out of the equation with read receipts. 

Last but not least is inbox maintenance. Unsubscribing from newsletters was an easy, visual process: Copilot presents a few newsletters at a time and gives you the option to thumbs down the ones you never want to see again

With all these features, I found Canary a great app for both personal and business use. With its $19.99/year price tag for Pro features, I'd say it's worth the cost.

Canary compatibility: Gmail, iCloud, Office365, Yahoo, Exchange, IMAP, & ProtonMail

Canary price: Free; $20/year for Pro features

Best iPhone email app for privacy and security

Proton Mail

If you're not familiar with using more secure email services, Proton Mail makes the process easy. You can compose an email as you normally would, but if you click the lock button, you'll be asked to set a password to encrypt your email message. Then, once your recipient gets your email, they can click to view your message; they'll be directed to a browser to input a password. You can use this process to send emails securely to non-Proton Mail users, but emails are automatically encrypted if you're sending to contacts who also have ProtonMail.

The only thing that could be a bit of a hassle is that, if you want to access your inboxes from other email service providers (Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook/Hotmail) through Proton Mail, you'll need to set up mail forwarding. But this just comes with the territory of using an email app that's specifically designed for privacy and security—even the free plan of Proton Mail doesn't allow ads, which means that your emails aren't being scanned to deliver personalized ads as would be the case with other email services.

Proton Mail compatibility: You can set up mail forwarding through Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook/Hotmail

Proton Mail price: Free for 1 GB storage, 1 email address, and 150 messages per day; ProtonMail Plus is $4.99/month and includes 10 email addresses, 15 GB of storage, unlimited messages, and support for 1 custom email domain.

Which iPhone email app should you use?

The iOS email app universe is saturated with options—some excellent, some...not. But with all the choices, one is bound to fit how you use—or aspire to use—email. If you're not sure which one's right for you, try more than one. They all have free options, and it can be fun to experiment with a few different styles for managing email on your iPhone.

Related reading:

• 15 iOS home screen ideas to customize your iPhone

• The best productivity apps for iPhone

• The best calendar apps for iPhone

This article was originally published in March 2019 by Harry Guinness. The most recent update was in March 2024.

The employee onboarding period is filled with information, forms, and meetings. It can get overwhelming—and not just for the new hires, but for managers and HR reps too. The right employee onboarding software can make this transition easier.

To help you find the best employee onboarding platform, I tested the most popular onboarding apps. Drawing from my experience working in internal communications, I zeroed in on user experience, personalization, and culture. The best software is practical and easy to use, while also delivering a rewarding experience for your new team members.

The best employee onboarding software

• Sapling for creating a smooth onboarding process

• Enboarder for a supportive, engaging onboarding experience

• Coassemble for building a more interactive onboarding experience

• Innform for delivering fun, hybrid onboarding experiences

• Waybook for teams that need a new home for documents and workflows

What makes the best employee onboarding software?

There are plenty of tools and apps out there that have an employee onboarding function. While the feature is built into most HR platforms as standard, it often lacks depth, engagement, and impact. My goal was to find the best, most engaging, and most purposeful employee onboarding tools out there.

• Ease of use. Whether you're onboarding one new hire or hundreds, the onboarding tool needs to be user-friendly. It should help streamline your process and simplify it—not introduce complicated steps, awkward navigation, or challenging processes.

• Automated processes and workflows. Automating some (or all) of the tasks on your onboarding checklist saves you time and means everyone gets the same quality experience. I've looked for onboarding platforms that help you build a system or workflow that you can repeat over and over.

• Personalization options. Processes are great, but you also want to find ways to make the experience feel special and unique. From uploading images to customizing your dashboard, these apps empower you to make an impact through personalization.

• Self-service features. Your new hires should be able to find and upload documents quickly and easily, without fuss. I've prioritized apps that offer self-service features to help them get to know your company and make their way through the onboarding process smoothly. 

• Culture and engagement features. Going through a digital onboarding process can feel lonely. In my testing, I've looked for apps with features you can use to bring some of your company culture to life—like presentations, quizzes, and updates.

• Reporting. Once you have everyone signed up and engaging with your onboarding platform, you'll want to know how they're using it. The apps I've included offer reporting features that give you crucial insights into user engagement, activity, and effectiveness.

Some of these apps cater to one of the criteria above more than others. There are apps that feel vibrant, fun, and engaging—and others that help you perfect your onboarding workflows, so they feel like a delight to run. Which you choose will ultimately depend on your specific goals, company culture, and internal processes.

Throughout my time testing these apps, I created a new account, personalized my settings, and explored all the onboarding features they have to offer. These are my top recommendations for the best onboarding software. 

The best employee onboarding software at a glance

Best employee onboarding software for a smooth onboarding process

Sapling (Web)

Sapling pros:

• Built for onboarding and people management at scale

• Smart automation helps speed up the onboarding process

Sapling cons:

• Range of people management features may be overkill for some

It's easy enough to manage onboarding one new hire without a strong workflow, but what about hundreds? Sapling (part of Kallidus) makes it easy to onboard team members at scale, even across diverse locations, departments, and roles. 

Sapling's approach to building an onboarding experience favors workflows, processes, and tasks. Create a workflow, add tasks, and assign them to someone—whether that's the new hire, their manager, or a buddy. Each task can be given due dates, descriptions, and sub-tasks to help you organize your process.

What I like about Sapling's workflow approach is that you can set dates relative to milestones or other dates, so you can schedule a welcome email five days before your new hire starts. This makes it easy to repeat and automate workflows, so every new hire gets a good experience. 

One feature that really stood out to me was Sapling's Smart Assignment feature. It helps recommend workflows, templates, and documents based on the data you enter about your new hire—like their location, home office, department, or employment status. I think this is so useful for busy HR teams that are handling lots of new hires, departures, and role changes. 

As well as creating your own onboarding workflows, there's a dedicated onboarding form. You can find this both in the main navigation menu and also through a handy button on the admin dashboard. This walks you through adding all the personal, role, and benefits information you need for every new hire. Use Sapling's template or personalize it to create your own. I like the idea of adding extra custom fields here to capture fun details about your new hires—like their favorite food or the names of their pets. 

Sapling has built-in profiles where your new hires can share some details about themselves. There's a searchable organization chart and list of team members too, and a company page where you can talk about your culture and history. You can also highlight work anniversaries and birthdays on the dashboard, which is a nice touch. 

Sapling might look like an enterprise-level tool, but it's also practical for smaller teams and growing startups. With a focus on streamlining the whole process through clever categories and automation, it's ideal if you have plans to scale up and want to invest in an app that can see you right through the growth process. 

When I first tested Sapling a couple of years ago, it was a standalone product. During this testing round in 2024, it's now part of the Kallidus platform. This has brought some welcome improvements in the user experience and navigation, as well as the option to easily integrate with Kallidus' other HR tools for HRIS, learning management, recruitment, and more.

Like a lot of HR tools, you can integrate Sapling with Zapier. Explore the triggers that you can use to make things happen when a stage gets completed, a key date is reached, or a profile change happens. 

If you need to onboard and offboard employees at scale, Sapling is a great contender for your employee onboarding software app. Once you've set up your processes and workflows, adding new team members feels effortless—thanks to the clever Smart Assignment feature. 

Sapling pricing: Custom

Best employee onboarding software for a supportive, engaging onboarding experience

Enboarder (Web)

Enboarder pros:

• Fun, engaging way to handle the onboarding process

• Excels in an environment where you have a buddy or mentor system

Enboarder cons:

• The amount of customization options and settings may be overwhelming for some users

What I noticed almost immediately about Enboarder was the strong focus on supporting both your new hires and managers through the onboarding process. Often onboarding apps are built to serve content to a new hire, but Enboarder shifts the attention to building workflows that support everyone through this transitional moment. 

Enboarder does this through an innovative, highly visual workflow builder. Instead of adding a task within a window, you create a journey that's home to different tasks, activities, and assignments. You can assign tasks and responsibilities to new hires and managers, as well as a built-in buddy role that you can assign. I love this very visual approach to onboarding and milestones, and think it's ideal if you're used to mapping out projects this way. 

Loading Enboarder for the first time, I was greeted with a walkthrough that explained the different buttons, features, and options. This was a welcome introduction—especially if you're used to a more traditional approach to planning onboarding processes. Getting used to this new way of building takes some time, but I found it really intuitive once I was familiar with it. 

Start with one of Enboarder's templates to get inspiration for your ideal onboarding process, then tweak and optimize it—or start from scratch. Create and add tasks to your timeline, like notifications, forms, and emails. Set phase lengths, add sequence reminders, and add reminders for when tasks are overdue. There are a lot of options and settings, so you can personalize each and every step of the onboarding process—but you can also leave these settings on default. It's very detail-oriented.

There's lots of flexibility to use tasks, emails, and other mediums to build an onboarding process that matches your culture and needs. Use custom fields to personally address emails and pre-populate details, so your communication never feels generic. You can use forms to encourage new hires to upload documents or digitally sign documents, but there's no central directory or resource library. This tool is very much focused on the process and workflow, leaving room for you to find the perfect employee engagement or culture app to work alongside it. 

If you want to plan, optimize, and roll out a highly detailed employee onboarding experience, Enboarder should make your shortlist. Its unique approach to workflows and creating a person-focused journey makes it stand out as a great companion for any HR team with similar goals. 

Enboarder pricing: Custom pricing

Best employee onboarding software for a more interactive onboarding experience

Coassemble (Web)

Coassemble pros:

• Build engaging onboarding courses with interactive elements and quizzes

• Get employee feedback from post-course surveys and ratings

Coassemble cons:

• Coassemble is course-based, so may lack some of the traditional onboarding process features some organizations are looking for

Online learning can feel dry and hard to work through. That's not the case with Coassemble. This employee-focused course-building software brings a fresh energy to building and sharing onboarding programs with your team members.

I had a lot of fun testing out Coassemble. It seems to be designed around making the onboarding process more engaging, which is something I'm definitely on board with. Instead of static slides and generic emails, this app helps you create fun, interactive slides that introduce your company and your new hire's place within it. 

When I first launched Coassemble, I could choose to upload an existing course or start from scratch. The walkthrough process felt smooth and easy, and I like that the system uses AI to suggest titles and content based on the details you enter.

At the heart of Coassemble is the ability to build online courses that act as your onboarding program. It's like an online playbook tool, only with way more interactive elements. You can add pop quizzes, wheels, flowcharts, flashcards, timelines, and more. I love the focus on engagement and creating better experiences through interacting and exploring the content. 

Creating my own onboarding course felt intuitive and easy to achieve. You can edit everything visually, so there's no wondering what changing the text or button might look like. You can preview your course too, to get a feel for how it'll look for your new hires. It's easy to add videos, embed Google Maps, source royalty-free images directly through Unsplash, and add your favorite memes from GIPHY. Combined with the different screen types, this gives you a lot of creativity to personalize your onboarding experience.

Coassemble comes with some useful templates built in, so you can quickly create your own employee handbook, onboarding program, or employee perks program. You'll also find templates and checklists to support your managers through the onboarding process. 

The theme of support and engagement continues throughout the app. You can create personalized certificates for your new hires after they complete onboarding, which is a sweet touch. I really enjoyed the "feedback popups" that you can add to quizzes and screens. These animated images and emojis are a fun way to interact with your new hires as they move through the process. You can add congratulations messages and digital confetti, too. 

Coassemble stands strong alone, but you can make it even better thanks to its integrations with Zapier. Use triggers and actions to build a custom automation, or try one of Zapier's ready-made templates to add new users straight from your HR software, send surveys to participants, or create new courses based on products.

For HR teams that want to create a dynamic, interactive onboarding process, Coassemble is a wonderful pick. It's filled with features that help you share your culture with your new hire, while also covering the onboarding basics well—and giving you a way to get feedback on your onboarding experience. 

Coassemble pricing: Free Starter plan available, which allows you to create unlimited courses. Upgrade to the Business plan for advanced course distribution, access control, insights, and a built-in image library. Enterprise plans are also available.

Best employee onboarding software for delivering fun, hybrid onboarding experiences

Innform (Web, iOS, Android)

Innform pros:

• Gamify the onboarding process with points, levels, and leaderboards

• Empower new hires to take ownership over their onboarding journey

Innform cons:

• There's no option to customize user profiles or bios

While many companies now embrace remote work, sometimes you'll want to add in-person meetings or training sessions to your onboarding process. This is something that Innform accounts for brilliantly, while also bringing a sense of fun and gamification to the experience. 

When you load up Innform, you're first brought to the learner dashboard. This is a great introduction to the app, and shows you exactly what your new hires will see when they join you. Innform's dashboard is clear, bright, and easy to navigate. 

One of the first features you'll notice is the leaderboard. Innform takes onboarding and online learning and brings a healthy sense of competition to the mix. Your learners (or new hires!) can earn points for completing modules and training courses, causing them to rise up the leaderboard. This leaderboard is visible to everyone, so it's a great incentive to work through your company training content. If you want to introduce gamification to your culture, this is a fun way to do it. Innform does gamification well and brings a spark of fun to the onboarding journey.

Creating content for your onboarding experience feels smooth and easy with Innform. I appreciated how fast the app runs, and loved the autosaving and quick preview features. It didn't take long to create my first modules, and there's a good mix of content types and editing features. Editing happens on the page too, so you can see what your content will look like. 

A unique feature is the ability to create learning paths or "journeys." These user journeys can be assigned to new hires—either individually or based on a property or category. Use this to create pathways of online modules, or try the "blended learning" feature for hybrid onboarding. Used this way, you can schedule online learning modules and virtual calls with all the details included, as well as details about in-person meetings and sessions. This helps streamline and organize the onboarding experience, and creates a better experience for your new hires.

It feels like the focus is very much on individuals "owning" their onboarding experience and learning journeys. Once you've assigned content, your new hires can find this in their dashboard and work their way through it. You can also create brightly colored "highlights" that draw their attention to specific content. After they've completed modules, they can be viewed at any time if you choose to turn them into manuals. This means you can build an easy-to-use self-service center filled with useful information about your company, culture, and benefits. 

It's easy to connect Innform to your other HR apps with the help of its Zapier integration. Explore different triggers and actions to create and assign users and assignments.

If you're looking for a tool that helps you organize your online-only or hybrid onboarding process, Innform is a fantastic choice. It's a great mix of practical, useful features (like creating learning journeys) and fun elements (like your company leaderboard). 

Innform pricing: Free plan available for up to 15 users, for 1 course. Paid plans start at $1.40/month/person for the Starter plan, with learning paths and blended learning unlocked in the Pro plan at $5.60/month/person. Enterprise plans are also available.

Best employee onboarding software for teams that need a new home for documents and workflows

Waybook (Web)

Waybook pros:

• AI-powered assistance that streamlines the document creation process

• Ideal for teams with information-heavy policies, procedures, or workflows

Waybook cons:

• Lacks engagement and gamification features that other employee onboarding apps have

One of the challenges HR teams and managers encounter in the onboarding process is just how much information you need to share with your new hires—like policies, processes, values, and culture. Waybook gives you a home for all your onboarding documents, plus an intuitive way to share it with your new hires.

When you first sign up for Waybook, you're asked what your goals are. This helps to personalize the experience and allows you to start learning how to use the software for the context you need. 

Your onboarding journey lives within documents on the platform. These are simple to create, with a responsive document builder that autosaves your progress—perfect for when you're working on a long policy or procedure. I appreciate the thoughtful touches that make creating and editing content easy, like the "split step" feature that allows me to turn one process step into two instantly.

While the platform is document-based, it doesn't lack creativity or flexibility. Personalize documents with tables, files, blockquotes, code snippets, and emojis. You can add images from a range of sources, including Unsplash.

One of the best features of Waybook is the way it embraces artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline the process. Employees can use "Waybook Ask" to surface answers to their questions quickly, without asking someone else for help. The built-in AI writing tool also works well to suggest content ideas for your policies, documents, and courses.

Enhance the experience by linking Waybook with Zapier. Use triggers to send data to other platforms for a more streamlined onboarding and people management experience.

The platform is great for teams of any size, and its built-in admin commenting features, audit log, and approval workflows make it a useful contender for enterprise teams that need greater visibility over content updates.

Waybook pricing: Pricing starts at $83/month for Waybook Core. Upgrade to Waybook Pro for more robust management permissions and enhanced support. You can also work with a Waybook consultant to help you set up and optimize your platform for $95/hour.

Other app options for when you don't need a dedicated employee onboarding software platform

My goal with this piece was to introduce you to what I feel are the best apps that either focus solely on employee onboarding or do it exceptionally well. But outside this, there are plenty of other apps that tackle only one aspect of onboarding—and I wanted to include those too.

If you already have an employee management system that handles the onboarding process and simply want a new way to add fun to the journey, or a place to store information, try these apps:

• Goosechase. This unique app is inspired by the concept of scavenger hunts. Set up themed hunts or use built-in prompts. Ask your new hires to venture out into the world, snap photos, and submit them to complete missions.

• Scribe. Looking for a fast way to document processes? This app can help you record a process and turn it into a step-by-step guide in moments—ideal for sharing workflows with new hires.

• Whale. Create an internal knowledge base, document procedures, and train your team all in one place.

• Trainual. Share your SOPs, train new hires and existing employees, and document your company knowledge.

• Worksuite. If you work with freelancers, a dedicated platform like this gives you a hub for onboarding, management, and payment.

How do you find the best HR onboarding software for your company? 

Every great employee onboarding app should be easy to use, simple to automate, and give you back more of that precious resource—time. Beyond that, we all have different needs. Some HR teams want to bring more culture and engagement to the experience, while others need a robust onboarding platform that can help them onboard new hires worldwide at scale.

Think about the features you need the most, then use this guide to help you find the best options for you. Test out a handful of apps, and evaluate what you (and your team) like most about them, so you can find the one that works best for your team.

Related reading:

• The best employee management software

• Free org chart templates to streamline your operations

• The best employee scheduling software

Gmail is practically synonymous with email. It's not just because it's owned by Google (though that helps)—it's also a highly competent email app. But it's far from the only highly competent email app out there. So if you've been using Gmail just because it's Gmail, it might be worth seeing if something else suits you better.

The Zapier team has done extensive testing on apps for basically every device, and we've also conducted head-to-head comparisons of Gmail with a handful of other email apps. The result is the following list of Gmail alternatives, so you can decide which one is best for your inbox.

And hey, if the answer is to stick with Gmail, at least you know.

8 alternatives to Gmail 

• Microsoft Outlook for Microsoft users

• Yahoo Mail for storage

• Proton Mail for security

• Apple Mail for iPhone and Mac users

• Mailbird for Windows (premium)

• Windows Mail for Windows (free)

• Edison Mail for Android

• Shortwave for AI-powered features

• Other Gmail alternatives

The best Gmail alternatives at a glance

A Gmail alternative for Microsoft users

Microsoft Outlook

Outlook pros:

• Works great on a lot of devices (including Apple devices)

• Deep integration with Microsoft

Outlook cons:

• Free version has a cluttered interface with distracting ads 

• Search feature isn't as good as Gmail's

Both Outlook and Gmail are reliable, multi-functional email services used by millions, so it's not surprising that they'd have more than a few things in common. For example, both offer free plans with plenty of functionality, contact import from other providers, and customizable interfaces. And in both Gmail and Outlook, you'll find predictive text options, reminders, email scheduling, and message templates.

None of those similarities are going to help you make a decision on which one best fits your needs, though. 

If storage is a concern for you, Outlook may be the way to go. While both offer 15 GB of storage space for free, your Gmail storage is also shared with Google Drive and Google Photos, so it may disappear more quickly. 

When it comes to user interfaces on the free version, Gmail's advertising is far subtler than Outlook's, which plasters ads onto your screen rather than tucking them into your tabs. Gmail also offers a more reliable spam blocker and a more robust search function (it is Google, after all).

If you live in Microsoft apps, though, Outlook is the way to go. That's because Gmail and Outlook integrate with different software suites (Microsoft Office 365 for Outlook and Google Workspace for Gmail). Considering which software you use most can help point you toward one service or the other.

And if you're worried about compatibility with Apple devices, don't—Outlook is one of our picks for the best email apps for both iOS and macOS.

Outlook even integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like automatically send emails for new form entries. 

Outlook pricing: Free for personal use; Microsoft Basic starts at $19.99/year, which includes more tools, storage, and features.

For a full breakdown of how these two apps stack up, check out Zapier's app showdown: Gmail vs. Outlook. 

A Gmail alternative for more storage

Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Mail pros:

• 1 TB of storage, blowing Gmail out of the water

Yahoo Mail cons:

• Obtrusive ads

• Lacks some important features and integrations

Another Gmail alternative worth considering is Yahoo Mail. If that's surprising to you, there are roughly 200 million monthly Yahoo Mail users who would like a word. That many people must mean that Yahoo's doing something right. 

Let's start with how they're similar. Gmail and Yahoo are modern email clients that provide you with an intuitive web and mobile app, both of which work well on either iOS or Android. Both inboxes are easy to organize, and both allow you to easily opt out of those annoying marketing emails.

Yahoo departs from Gmail, though, in a number of key ways. In addition to suffering from the same obnoxious ad placements as Outlook, Yahoo's integration with other apps tends to fall short. The Yahoo version of Google Workspace is a lackluster calendar, a basic notes app, and a contacts app that, while functional, can't really compete with all the Google offerings. Gmail also offers scheduled sending and smart replies, while Yahoo doesn't. Finally, Yahoo Mail has been the victim of several high-profile hacking attacks. Gmail offers more peace of mind when it comes to security. 

So why go with Yahoo? In addition to Yahoo's adequate, if not jaw-dropping, features, I'd answer this question with one word: storage. Instead of Gmail's measly 15 GB, which is likely to be eaten up by Google Drive and Google Photos, Yahoo Mail offers a whopping 1 TB of email storage. If you like to keep every email you've ever gotten without being prompted to fork out a monthly fee to boost your available space, then Yahoo is your go-to.

Yahoo Mail pricing: Free; Yahoo Mail Plus for $5/month, which includes 5 TB of storage and an ad-free email client on the web, but it's a less compelling option. 

For more details, check out Zapier's app showdown: Yahoo Mail vs.Gmail.

A Gmail alternative for secure email

Proton Mail

ProtonMail pros:

• Much more private and secure than Gmail at its baseline

• Also offers James Bond-level security features, including password-protected emails

ProtonMail cons:

• Free plan is less generous than Gmail's

• User interface isn't as friendly

If the thought of a perfect stranger rummaging through your mailbox puts you on edge, you might want to check out Proton Mail. It's an email service that's built for security and privacy. Based in Switzerland, Proton Mail is subject to much stricter privacy laws than Gmail, which falls under U.S. regulations. Unlike Gmail, Proton Mail won't ask for any personal information during signup or track your metadata. 

On top of this, Proton Mail's encryption is much more robust than Gmail's. While Google keeps the encryption keys to your data, nobody at Proton Mail has that sort of access. That's not to suggest that your Gmail inbox is an open book, but your data can be accessed by Google's algorithms (and, of course, whomever Google decides to grant access to). Proton Mail also provides you with some optional, James Bond-level security features like password-protected emails and emails that self-destruct (really, they just self-delete, but self-destruct sounds cooler). 

All that security does come with a few drawbacks to consider. Proton Mail's free plan limits you to 150 emails per day (there go your plans to spam Klondike to bring back the Choco Taco). You also get a mere 1 GB of storage, with only three folders and labels to manage your otherwise locked-down data. You can upgrade for more storage and messaging for $5/month, but that won't fix the problem of Proton Mail's less user-friendly interface, which includes blocks on all the images in your incoming emails (to stop folks from tracking your open rates). Still, if privacy is your priority, Proton Mail is definitely your best bet.

Proton Mail pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $5/month. 

Learn more about the differences between Gmail vs. Proton Mail.

A Gmail alternative for iPhone and Mac users

Apple Mail

Apple Mail pros:

• Great native Apple feel

• Easy to manage multiple email accounts from different email services

Apple Mail cons:

• Just an email client, not an email service (iCloud is Apple's email service)

The main difference between Gmail and Apple Mail is that while Gmail gives you a full email service (it actually hosts your email), Apple Mail provides you with only an email client (where you read your email). Gmail as an email service is client-agnostic: you can access it via Gmail's web app, iOS app, or Android app—or you can use a different client altogether, like Microsoft Outlook. Apple Mail, on the other hand, is just an app. And it's available only on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. That last one is important, though: Gmail doesn't have a dedicated desktop app (you have to use the web app).

Apple Mail allows you to use practically any email service with it, including Gmail. Its features, which include VIP Inbox, undo send, customized notifications, and email reminders, are available whether you use iCloud Mail, Outlook, Gmail, or another client. That's worth keeping in mind if you use multiple accounts with different services. With Apple Mail, you'll be able to use one interface to access them all.  

Apple Mail works best on an Apple device. Not only will the navigation feel more seamless on iOS or macOS, but Apple Mail will also integrate with your system notifications. If you're doing most of your work on an Apple device, then Apple Mail can be a great option. But keep in mind that if you're using Gmail for your email service, some of its most attractive features—like inbox sorting and smart replies—are available only through the Gmail app. You'll also need to use those clients to integrate with Google's other apps, including Calendar, Meet, and Docs. 

Apple Mail pricing: Free

Get a full breakdown of how these two apps stack up: Gmail vs. Apple Mail.

A Gmail alternative for Windows

Mailbird

Mailbird pros:

• Lots of great third-party integrations

• Super customizable

Mailbird cons:

• Expensive compared to Gmail's low price of free

If you're looking for a Gmail alternative in a native Windows app, Mailbird is a great choice. Its sleek design can be customized to your liking, and it excels in the essentials of email management with lots of quality-of-life features.

You can snooze emails, undo sent messages, and enjoy a unified inbox—perfect for heavy email users and those with multiple accounts. Mailbird also shines with its third-party integrations, allowing you to incorporate personal and productivity apps like WhatsApp, Slack, Dropbox, and Google Calendar.

Just keep in mind: you should be ready to invest a bit more—the cheapest plan is $40/year.

Mailbird pricing: Standard plan is $40/year; Premium plan is $59/year, which includes third-party integrations and email templates.

A free Gmail alternative for Windows

Windows Mail

Windows Mail pros:

• Works well as part of a productivity suite, like Gmail

• Basic but functional

Windows Mail cons:

• Being discontinued at the end of 2024 in favor of Outlook

If Mailbird's price point doesn't work for you, another Gmail alternative for Windows users is Windows Mail. And it comes at the low, low price of free. 

Mail is one of the best basic email apps out there. It follows familiar email conventions and adds a few clever features. The Focused Inbox automatically filters important messages, saving your friends and family from getting lost in the sea of newsletters. It includes a calendar and integrates with Microsoft To Do for a more comprehensive productivity experience. Plus, you'll find customization options hidden in the settings, allowing you to personalize themes, colors, notifications, and even set up auto-responders in just a few clicks.

If you're a Windows user looking for a free Gmail alternative, give Mail a shot. It may not offer advanced filters or extensive integrations with other services, but for most people, it does the trick. Just keep in mind that Microsoft has announced that Windows Mail will be replaced with Outlook for Windows at the end of 2024.

Windows Mail pricing: Free

A Gmail alternative for Android

Edison Mail

Edison Mail pros:

• AI-powered Assistant to handle email management tasks

• Smart folders automatically group like messages together

Edison Mail cons:

• Might be more than you're looking for if you just want simple email

Edison Mail is fast, modern, and user-friendly: it organizes your inbox into a Focused Inbox for important emails and an Other folder to manage the rest. But that's just part of what makes it a great Gmail alternative—the real sorting power lies within the AI-powered Assistant feature.

By default, Edison identifies and tracks your subscriptions, showing you how often you open them. This makes it easier to decide if you want to unsubscribe or receive daily or weekly summary emails with a single tap. It also extracts travel confirmations, package tracking emails, and bills, and then automatically surfaces relevant information, such as displaying hotel details before check-in or reminding you of upcoming bills.

Edison Mail pricing: Free; Edison Mail+ is $100/year, which includes AI-powered security features. 

A Gmail alternative for AI-powered features

Shortwave

Shortwave pros:

• Deep integration with Google Calendar

• AI assistant is very flexible

Shortwave cons:

• Interface feels cluttered at times

Shortwave touts itself as the "smartest email app" on the market because of the way it leverages AI. The most unique possibility it offers is AI-powered email search. You can ask questions to your inbox to surface old, forgotten conversations without actually having to get lost in the mess. 

More than this, it can extract data from email threads ("make a list of all the tasks in the website redesign project"), generate content ("write a tweet based on my emails about productivity"), or answer your questions ChatGPT-style.

Shortwave also integrates with Google Calendar. This means you can schedule meetings or new events with as simple a prompt as "schedule a meeting for me and Felix tomorrow at 11 a.m." The meeting will then automatically appear in your calendar without you having to do anything else. And if you don't know your availability, just ask the AI assistant, and you'll get a breakdown of your open slots for the near future.

The only downside: Shortwave is compatible with only Gmail accounts, so if you're doing email with other providers, you'll have to sit out (for now).

Shortwave pricing: Free plan available; Personal plan for $7/month (billed annually) for gmail.com and .edu accounts only. 

For even more options, check out Zapier's roundup of the best AI email assistants.

Are there other Gmail alternatives?

You bet. Those are just some of the commonly-compared-to-Gmail apps available. For other Gmail alternatives, take a look at our roundups for the best email apps across all the platforms:

• Best email apps overall

• Best email apps for Android

• Best email apps for iPhone 

• Best email clients for Mac

• Best email clients for Windows

And remember, you can still use Gmail as an email service (meaning you'd have an @gmail.com account) for almost any email app you choose—the app will just change where you get those emails.

What's the best Gmail alternative?

Choosing the right email app really comes down to clarifying your priorities. What do you most want out of an email client? Security? Storage? Design? App integration? Each of these apps will deliver each of these features, just to varying degrees and with varying results.

If you're still on the fence, you might think about downloading a bunch of them to see which option works best. Seeing the same email in a bunch of different clients over the course of a week can give you a really solid idea of which Gmail alternative you like the best.

Related reading:

• The best email hosting services

• How to build an email assistant GPT to write and send emails

• How to send an email from a webhook

This article was originally published in July 2023. The most recent update was in March 2024, with contributions from Jessica Lau.

Once upon a time, assembling an email newsletter was like building a jigsaw puzzle. Fortunately, Beehiiv is different. Despite the complicated spelling, it's a simpler alternative for anyone who wants to launch an email newsletter with robust audience growth features. 

With a free account that grants you access to features up to 2,500 subscribers—not to mention a pretty handy suite of design features to brand your newsletter—its no-code email distribution and marketing features help you grow your own "hive" of loyal newsletter subscribers. 

The only hiccup? Maybe you're already using some marketing platforms outside of beehiiv and aren't sure how to integrate them into your newsletter. If you want to use beehiiv's features while sustaining the growth you're getting from marketing tools like online web forms, you'll need to connect these apps. That's where Zapier can help.

Table of contents

• Add new beehiiv subscribers from forms

• Bring in leads from marketing and lead apps

• Create subscribers from every new sale

• Import subscribers from your CRM or mailing list

• Connect spreadsheets for easy subscriber updates

• Fill in any gaps with webhooks

Add new beehiiv subscribers from forms

To be sure, beehiiv does have some handy marketing features native to its platform. You can run surveys of your newsletter audience to find out how to give the people what they want. Or you can run subscriber reports to see what kinds of content your audience is most connecting with. But if you need to reach out and grab some subscribers from another part of the Internet, you might want to think about third-party web forms.

Tools like Webflow and Squarespace are great for building your online presence. You can create a beautiful website and direct potential leads to your newsletter via a web form. But if you're using beehiiv's free plan, you can't use their API keys to connect your forms to your beehiiv account. 

Fortunately, you can use Zapier's automated workflows to do just that. Use one of these Zaps to get started.

Bring in leads from marketing and lead apps

Most successful marketers use some sort of ad platform to generate leads for their business. And for good reason. These robust platforms meet users where they are and create a frictionless entryway into your product.

But while those platforms are great for generating leads, you likely use another tool like beehiiv to keep those leads warm. Seamlessly connect the two with a Zap.

Create subscribers from every new sale

You might want to save customer sales as new subscribers for a few reasons. Maybe the thing they're buying is the subscription, and you're using beehiiv to distribute eBooks and other info products. 

Or maybe you simply want a list of customers handy. If someone has already bought from you, it means they trust you. Whether you're a creator or representing a larger brand, there's simply no putting a price tag on that kind of customer sentiment. And by connecting your sales in your eCommerce tool to your beehiiv newsletter community, you're building a list of people who already know you, like you, and trust you. It's how modern marketing is done. You just need a Zap to connect points A and B.

Import subscribers from your CRM or mailing list

Already have a lot of subscribers who follow your brand's every move? It's a high-quality problem. But it can throw a wrench into the backend when those subscribers are in another tool, and you want to move them to your new beehiiv community. 

Or maybe your sales team already collects interested leads in your CRM tool, but your marketing team wants to reach out with beehiiv.

Fortunately, there's an easy fix here. Just use automation to automatically add new subscribers to beehiiv each time they enter your CRM or other marketing. That way, each of your lists stays up to date with no extra effort.

Connect spreadsheets for easy subscriber updates

Migrating your existing customer base to beehiiv? It shouldn't feel like data entry. Imagine having a list of subscribers in a text file and uploading them one by one until thousands of your community members are connected. It's a gargantuan, Sisphyean task no one would wish on their worst enemies.

So bypass it altogether. If you can get your existing subscribers to an Airtable record or a Google Sheet (and we have Zaps for that, too), you can let Zapier handle the importing. For example, any New Record in Airtable can connect to beehiiv to create a new subscriber. All you have to do is find the right connections—and let automation do the rest.

Fill in any gaps with webhooks

Zapier connects with thousands of apps—and those integrations all have a variety of different ways they can work with your favorite apps. But sometimes you just can't find the integration you need or the trigger or action that works for your marketing workflows.

That's where webhooks come in. With Zapier's built-in webhooks tool, you can send information to and from your apps, even if they don't have a Zapier integration.

Use this Zap to get started:

Grow your hiiv with your favorite tools

Connecting your business-critical tools to beehiiv is the easiest way to quickly scale your marketing efforts. From automatically adding subscribers from forms to connecting your ad platform to your newsletter, automation allows you to keep all of your tools up to date, even with a small team.

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

Google Calendar appointments need to have an event name, time, and date—but you can add a lot more detail than that. There's location, descriptions, a link for Google Meet conferencing, custom reminders, and more.

If you're adding appointments to Google Calendar using Zapier, you need to know about the Create Detailed Event action in your Zap. This allows you to turn information from other apps into highly customized events on your Google Calendar. Let's go over how this works, together.

To get started build a new Zap. You'll need a Zapier account—if you don't already have one, you can sign up for free here. Once you're signed in, you'll first need to set up the application that will send the information over to create your Google Calendar event—this is your trigger step.

I'm going to use a Google Form as my example, but you can use almost any of the thousands of apps that connect with Zapier.

I set up a Google form that collects vacation times from my co-workers, and I want to see them in a dedicated Google Calendar. My form collects the employee's name, a description of the vacation, a location, and the start and end dates of the vacation.

Once you've selected your trigger app and event (in our case, Google Forms and New Form Response), connect your trigger app account to Zapier, and fill in any details you need for your trigger step. In my case, I just selected the form I created to collect vacation times.

Once your trigger step is set up you can build your action step. Select Google Calendar as your app and Create Detailed Event as your action event.

You will be asked to log into your Google account, if you haven't already, after which you can set up your detailed event.

I can map the responses from my Google Form to my Google Calendar by clicking any text box and selecting the data in the dropdown menu. When do this I can see all of the information pulled in from my trigger step—in this case the information submitted by my co-workers on Google Forms.

I want my Google Calendar appointment to tell me who is out of office, so I manually typed in "OOO:" in the Summary field and followed that with the employee name pulled from my Google Form (the arrow in the below screenshot). You can customize things however you like. I highly recommend using the Summary field, since it will become the title you see on your calendar event.

You can also include a more detailed description, as well as a location.

This information will show up in your Google Calendar appointment later. Here's what that looks like, just to give you an idea.

Let's get back to setting up our Zap. Is your appointment a virtual one? You can also add a video conference link to your calendar appointment.

You will also need to choose a start and end time for your event. For my example I'm using entire days, but you can also specify precise times. If your trigger step includes times as well as the date, you'll be able to have your detailed event start and end at specific times.

But all of this is only scratching the surface of what you can customize. Here's a quick breakdown of other things you can specify:

• Repeat Frequency, if you want to create a recurring event.

• Repeat Until, if you want a repeat event to stop repeating at a specific time.

• Repeat How Many Times, if you only want an event to repeat a set number of times.

• All day, if you want to create an all-day event.

• Color, if you want the appointment to use a different color other than the default one for your calendar. Note that you will only see this on your calendar—anyone you invite to the event will not see it.

• Attendees, if you want to invite someone else to the event. You will need to map an email address using fields.

• Visibility, if you want to decide whether your co-workers can see the event details.

• Use Default Reminders, if you want to use your calendar's defaults.

• Reminders, if you want an email or push notification reminder before the event.

• Minutes Before Reminders, if you want to choose when your reminder is sent.

• Show me as Free or Busy, if your organization uses the Free or Busy feature and you want to toggle it.

• Guests Can Modify Event, if you want the people you invite to be able to make changes to the event.

It's a lot of power, so set up everything just the way you like it. When you're done, click Continue. You will be asked to test your Zap. If it worked you should see an event pop up on your calendar right away.

Don't worry if things didn't work quite the way you want: you can go back, re-configure, and try the test again.

When things look just right, you're ready to begin using your Zap. From now on any new data from the trigger app will show up automatically on your calendar. Here's what that looks like for me.

March looks like it's going to be a pretty relaxed month.

Want to make setting up this Zap even easier? Start with a Zap template, which is a pre-made Zapier workflow. Just click on it below to get started:

I hope this tutorial was useful for you! Be sure to check out Google Calendar in our App Directory for more ideas on how to put your new knowledge to work.

This article was originally published in December 2019. It was most recently updated in March 2024.

I've been using Todoist for several months now, and I recently went all in on using it as my main productivity app. It feels like every time I open the app, I still find new ways to use it.

To add more Todoist features to my toolkit, I reached out to fellow Todoist enthusiasts to learn how they get the most mileage out of it. Based on what they told me, plus my own research and experience using the app, here are the best Todoist features you should start using.

1. Add structure with subprojects and sections

Todoist is more than a checklist—it's a checklist with nuance. You can add this nuance to your projects by adding subprojects and sections to each project. To create a subproject, simply drag an existing project underneath another one. 

In my Todoist setup, I break down my "Personal" project with subprojects for "Health," "Car," "Self-care," and "Reading list." 

Each subproject has sections that make sense for their Kanban board layout. For example, my "Reading List" is broken into "To Read," "Reading," and "Finished." 

This is just how I like to subdivide my projects. Everyone has their own preferences for how to structure projects, maybe by client or type of task. I learned that lots of people use separate projects to differentiate between personal to-dos and work tasks. 

Lev Tretyakov, CEO and head of sales at Fortador, told me: "I create projects to suit different aspects of my personal and work life. I have a project named 'Life Admin,' which is further segmented into more sections for personal tasks and support tasks for my family to help me manage my personal responsibilities." He also subdivides his "Work" project into subprojects for each client. 

Alexandra Dubkova, CMO of Freetour, instead chooses to combine personal and work tasks in a way that gives her a holistic view of each day, saving her time and energy. Here's what she told me:

"I structure my project in this manner:

• Shopping for groceries, shared with my spouse, ensuring personal needs are met with equal priority.

• Actions: Every task, meeting, or selecting new tour locations goes here. They are dated and prioritized as P1 (morning), P2 (afternoon), or P3 (evening) tasks. I get to optimize my workflow throughout the day, ensuring high-priority tasks are tackled when my energy is highest.

• Waiting: This list tracks tasks pending input or action from others to keep me updated without cluttering my immediate to-do list.

• Later: Ideas or tasks I'm not ready to schedule yet but don't want to forget. It keeps the lower-priority tasks still in view for future consideration."

Bottom line: structure your Todoist setup in a way that makes sense to you and your brain.

2. Create project templates to quickly duplicate to-dos

Imagine having a blueprint for your most common tasks and projects, ready to deploy at a moment's notice. That's the magic of project templates, and it's a technique I've come to rely on heavily, especially for recurring tasks.

For instance, I have a detailed new client onboarding checklist template. In it, I've compiled all the tasks and steps I need to take whenever I welcome a new client, from inquiry/first discovery call to first paid invoice.

First, I exported this checklist as a CSV. Now, whenever I onboard a new client, I can quickly import the template to automatically populate all the necessary to-dos in Todoist. Every new client or lead I work with receives the same high level of attention and service.

The CSV method is great for backups or sharing templates with others. I can create a template, export it as a CSV file, and then import the file to create a new project whenever I need it. 

Alternatively, you can keep an active project template within Todoist and duplicate it for new projects. 

Lev uses templates a lot in Todoist: "I have a draft for each phase of client engagement: administration, design, research, and production. Anytime I start a new project with a client or a new product launch, these draft projects save me time and ensure consistency in workflow."

By creating project templates for routine processes in Todoist, you can streamline and standardize your workflows, freeing up your time to focus less on administrative setup and more on delivering value.

3. Maximize the use of labels

All you have to do is type @ to add a label in Todoist. How you label will come down to how you like to keep things organized. For example, since I don't separate projects by client, I label each task or deliverable on my Todoist with the appropriate client's name.

David Kemmerer, co-founder and CEO of CoinLedger, categorizes every task with labels that denote context, whether they're work or personal, and potential duration. This way, he's built a personal Get Things Done/Eisenhower Matrix blend that makes it easy to see what needs his immediate attention, versus what tasks can wait. For example:

"This morning, my tasks were labeled as follows: @work @urgent @30mins for a high-priority project update, @personal @lowEnergy @15mins for a quick workout session, and @work @importantNotUrgent @1hr for strategic planning. I effortlessly navigate these labels and priorities."

"I spend less time deciding what to do next," he told me, "which is quite helpful considering how many tasks I need to do a day."

4. Create custom filters

Your sophisticated system of labels feeds into this next tip: creating custom filters. You can either build your own queries, or use Filter Assist with Todoist's AI assistant.

Trent Carter, founder and nurse practitioner at Curednation, creates custom filters based on energy levels, tagging tasks based on the energy required to complete them. "For instance, I filter tasks tagged with 'Morning Energy' for high-focus morning sessions or 'Afternoon Chill' for low-energy tasks, optimizing productivity throughout the day," Trent told me.

I personally asked Filter Assist to build me filters for all tasks due within a week, all tasks due within 30 days, and all tasks with a due date. I saved these filters in my favorites, which keeps them visible on my sidebar.

Laura Grant, marketing manager at BlueSky Solutions, loves how specific you can get with filter views, and how useful they are for keeping track of to-dos.

"I find it useful for managing my own workload but also incredibly helpful for tracking team tasks," Laura says. "I have a filter set up that shows all tasks that have been assigned by me to other people and are due in the current week. It means I can see at a glance if things are on track or if anyone might need extra support to meet a deadline."

5. Emphasize through rich text formatting

Todoist supports rich text formatting, including bold and italic text, hyperlinks, and emojis. I add a fun emoji to each project title for emphasis, and I bold parts the main focus of tasks.

You can also copy and paste a link into Todoist, and it will automatically re-format the text as a hyperlink with the page's title.

These might seem like small things, but they're not always the case for to-do list apps (looking at you, Google Tasks)—so take advantage of them.

6. Familiarize yourself with keyboard shortcuts

The less time you spend mousing around, the more time you can spend doing things. That's where Todoist's keyboard shortcuts come in handy. 

"Keyboard shortcuts are such a phenomenal Todoist addition—they help me use the app much more efficiently since I use it a lot," says Roman Zrazhevskiy, founder and CEO of MIRA Safety. His favorites? Q to quick-add a task and F to search.

When adding a task, use # to assign a task to a specific project or one of its sections, @ to add a label, and ! to add a reminder. Type p1 for highest priority tasks and p4 for lowest priority.

My favorite shortcut is Ctrl + Space (option + space on Mac) to bring up the quick-add window on top of whatever app I'm in at the time.

7. Copy and paste lines of text to add multiple tasks at once

Imagine you've just wrapped up a brainstorming session, and your digital notepad is teeming with action items. Instead of manually entering each task into Todoist one by one, you can simply highlight your list, copy it, and then paste it directly into Todoist. 

Magically, each line of text transforms into a separate task, neatly listed in your project or inbox, ready for further assignment with dates, priorities, and labels.

8. Add emails, articles, and websites as tasks

To keep to-dos from falling through the cracks while you're browsing your inbox or otherwise procrastinating, you can use the Gmail integration. Your to-do list will be right there, and it'll auto-populate info for you.

You can also forward emails to your Todoist project's unique email address to convert emails into tasks without leaving your inbox.

And if you come across an interesting article or a website that you want to explore later, Todoist's browser extension makes it easy to capture these digital nuggets as tasks. Perfect for research projects, reading lists, or simply saving interesting articles for later.

"Utilizing the browser extension to add tasks, articles, and documents to my lists helps me save so much time and effort, especially because I use three different devices to do my work and personal planning," says Hardy Desai, founder and CEO of Supple.

By leveraging these Todoist features, you can organize all your important emails, must-read articles, and useful websites neatly in one to-do list app, ready for when you have the time to address them. This approach not only declutters your inbox and browser tabs but also centralizes your tasks and resources in one accessible place.

9. Activate vacation mode for stress-free breaks

Trying to disconnect from work? Or headed out for a much-needed vacation? The thought of keeping up with productivity streaks in Todoist can add an unnecessary layer of stress to your break. This is where Todoist's vacation mode comes into play, a feature designed to preserve your hard-earned progress without compromising your time off.

"I often use it on weekends just to ensure some rest and relaxation before a busy Monday," says Hardy.

Before you start your break, head into Todoist's settings, click Productivity, and scroll down to the bottom to activate vacation mode.

Then enjoy your weekends, holidays, or any break wholeheartedly, immersing yourself in relaxation or adventure without Todoist on your mind.

10. Capture tasks with voice commands

You can add tasks to Todoist by talking instead of typing, using voice commands with Google Assistant, Siri, or Alexa. 

Freelance writer Anna Burgess Yang talks about using Alexa to add new tasks on the go, without sitting at a computer or opening her phone: "I have a lot of Amazon Alexa devices in my house. Kind of an embarrassing number of devices. This means one is always at the ready for a voice command… I can add to-do items from (practically) anywhere."

You can also use voice to view your task list from Todoist—just say "show me tasks for today in Todoist."

Just keep in mind your mileage may vary depending on which voice assistant you use (it seems like Siri has more functionality than Alexa or Google Assistant).

11. Stay on task with location-based reminders

Imagine setting a reminder to pick up groceries that pings you only when you're near the supermarket, or a nudge to mail a package when you pass by the post office. Location-based reminders keep you on task at the right place, at the right time, tethering your to-dos to specific locations.

Simply add a location to a task to activate location-based reminders. (You'll need to have Todoist on a mobile device with access to location services to make use of this feature.)

12. Automate Todoist

For me, keeping all my tasks in Todoist is mission-critical to keeping my head on straight and my ducks in a row. 

Zapier is my secret sauce. It automates my entire life by connecting Todoist with thousands of other web apps. I set up Zaps, automated workflows that link my Todoist to my Airtable setup, my Google Calendar, Trello, and more. 

For instance, I have a Zap that automatically adds tasks to my Todoist Inbox with the appropriate date and time when a new event is added to my Google Calendar. 

I have another Zap that adds my content projects to my "Deliverables" project when I create a new Airtable record, tagged with the right client label and due date. That same Zap automatically adds subtasks like Outline, First Draft, and Revisions to each new Deliverable task.

I combine this with the Todoist add-on, Task Helper, to automate assigning task properties to subtasks. For example, Zapier creates the task "X advanced Todoist features" for this article, with the P1 priority tag and Zapier client label, and I use "Apply attributes to sub-tasks" to assign the same labels and priority to all my subtasks. 

Now, when I look at my Zapier label, I can see the subtasks as well.

Learn more about how to automate Todoist, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows. 

Take advantage of all of Todoist's features

Once you start using more of these Todoist features, you'll overhaul your task management workflow and spend less time planning, and more time doing. 

Related reading:

• Accomplish monthly goals in 6 steps with Todoist

• Trello vs. Todoist: Which should you use?

• How to create Todoist tasks from voice memos with OpenAI

Adding columns and rows in Google Sheets can be a two-click process. Open your spreadsheet, and follow along below to see how it's done.

How to add columns in Google Sheets

Here's how to add a column in Google Sheets:

1. Click anywhere in the column that's next to where you want your new column.

2. Click Insert in the toolbar.

3. Click Columns, and then select either Insert 1 column left or Insert 1 column right, depending on where you want your new column.

That's it! Your new column will appear.

How to add columns in Google Sheets using right-click

You can achieve the same effect without the toolbar by using the right-click function on your mouse or trackpad.

1. Instead of just clicking into the column, you'll need to select the entire column next to where you want your new column. Do this by clicking the letter at the top of the column.

   

2. Right-click anywhere in that column, and then select either Insert 1 column left or Insert 1 column right.

   

How to add multiple columns in Google Sheets

If you want to add multiple columns, you can follow the same process, but—whether using the toolbar or the right-click method—start by highlighting the number of columns you want to add.

For example, if you want to add two columns, highlight the two columns next to the columns you want to add. (You can do this by clicking on the letter at the top of the first column and immediately dragging across to highlight more.) If you want to add ten columns, highlight the ten columns next to the columns you want to add. And so on.

How to add rows in Google Sheets

Here's how to add a row in Google Sheets:

1. Click anywhere in the row that's either above or below where you want your new row.

2. Click Insert in the toolbar.

3. Click Rows, and then select either Insert 1 row above or Insert 1 row below, depending on where you want your new row.

How to add rows in Google Sheets using right-click

Same as with columns, you can achieve the same effect with a right-click.

1. Select the entire row above or below where you want your new row. Do this by clicking the number to the left of the row.

2. Right-click anywhere in that row, and then select either Insert 1 row above or Insert 1 row below.

How to add multiple rows in Google Sheets

Broken record time. If you want to add multiple rows, you can follow the same process, but—whether using the toolbar or the right-click method—start by highlighting the number of rows you want to add.

For example, if you want to add two rows, highlight the two rows above or below the rows you want to add. (You can do this by clicking on the letter next to the first row and immediately dragging down to highlight more.) If you want to add ten rows, highlight the ten rows above or below the rows you want to add. And so on.

How to add rows and columns to Google Sheets on the mobile app

There are a few ways to add a column or row on the Google Sheets app, but here's the easiest way.

1. Tap the number of the row or column next to where you want your new row or column.

2. Tap the icon at the bottom-right of the screen indicating where you want the new row or column to go.

For rows, the plus signs on the top and bottom indicate where the new row will be added. For columns, the plus signs on the left and right indicate where the new row will be added.

Automatically add rows to Google Sheets 

You can automatically add rows to Google Sheets based on activity in other apps, like Gmail, Typeform, or Shopify. Just connect Google Sheets to Zapier, and then set up your no-code workflow. Learn more about how to automate Google Sheets, or get started with one of these pre-built templates.

Related reading:

• How to use Google Sheets: A complete guide

• 21 free Google Sheets templates to boost productivity

• Why Google Sheets should be your to-do list (with template)

This article was originally published in May 2019. The most recent update was in March 2024.

Google Sheets functions can help you do basic calculations, like SUM, AVERAGE, and COUNT. You can also use formulas to do non-math things, like translate text into other languages and retrieve data from other websites. The only catch is that you have to first correctly enter the formula that tells Google Sheets what to do, which, fair. 

If there's an error in your formula—maybe a typo or invalid cell reference—Google Sheets will alert you with a formula parse error message. 

Here, I'll cover the most common formula parse errors in Google Sheets and how to fix them. 

Table of contents

• What does formula parse error mean in Google Sheets? 

• How to fix formula parse errors in Google Sheets 

What does formula parse error mean in Google Sheets? 

A formula parse error means Google Sheets can't interpret the instructions you've given it. It's a blanket term used to describe a handful of syntax errors. 

Take this formula, for example: =Sample!A3.

This formula tells Google Sheets you want it to retrieve the value of cell A3 in a worksheet titled "Sample." But if you accidentally enter, say, =SampleA3 (note the missing exclamation mark), Google Sheets will return an error message. 

When Google Sheets returns an error message, it tries to be helpful by telling you the category your error falls into—#REF!, #VALUE, #NAME?, that sort of thing. To get slightly more details about what's wrong, hover over the cell containing the problematic formula. This way, you can narrow your troubleshooting efforts instead of playing a guessing game. (The only exception to this is the dreaded #ERROR! message.) 

How to fix a formula parse error in Google Sheets  

Here are the most common syntax errors and how to fix them. Need to fix a specific type of error? Feel free to jump ahead. Or keep scrolling to learn all the ways you could possibly mess up a Google Sheets formula. 

• #ERROR

• #N/A

• #REF

• #VALUE

• #NAME

• #NUM

#ERROR

#ERROR! is the most frustrating message to receive because it tells you next to nothing about what the error might be. When you hover over #ERROR!, the description simply tells you "Formula parse error." Not helpful. 

In this case, you'll have to manually review every element of your formula to identify the issue. (The irony of me giving you an equally unhelpful solution to this error message is not lost on me.) 

Note: You may need to apply more than one troubleshooting tip to fix your particular error.

#N/A error

The #N/A error message means the value you want Google Sheets to find is missing or not available. This happens most often when you're using a lookup function, like VLOOKUP or INDEX/MATCH.  

For example, in the INDEX/MATCH formula below, I asked Google Sheets to reference the value in cell C17, but there was nothing there. So it returned an #N/A error message. 

Fix: Update your formula so that it references values that exist. 

#REF error 

The #REF! error message occurs when a formula references a cell that no longer exists. Here's how to troubleshoot the most common sources of #REF! errors.

The reference cell has been deleted 

Let's say your formula contains explicit cell references (where each cell referenced is separated by a comma), but one or more of the cells referenced has been deleted. 

There are two ways to fix this.

Fix 1: If reference cells were accidentally deleted, immediately undo the action. 

Fix 2: Update the formula so that it references a range of cells—for example, B1:D1—instead of using explicit cell references. For some reason, Google Sheets is still able to process a formula with cell ranges—even if one or more reference cells are missing.

A formula uses relative references

Before we troubleshoot this error, let's talk about relative references. 

A relative reference means that the data used (or referenced) is relative to the location of the cell where the formula was inputted. 

In the example below, when I copy the formula =SUM(B2:D2) from cell F2 and paste it in cell F3, Google Sheets assumes it should add the sum of all cells ranging from columns B to D within row 3 (or the same row that the formula has been pasted into). Whenever a formula containing a relative cell reference is copied and pasted somewhere else in a worksheet, that reference will automatically change. 

If a formula with relative references has been copied to another area of the worksheet, or another worksheet altogether, but the reference is impossible, Google Sheets will return a #REF! error. 

For example, if the formula =SUM(F2:F7) is copied to cell H5, Google Sheets assumes you want to add the values of the six cells immediately above cell H5. In this example, that's impossible since there are only three reference cells available. 

Fix: Update your formula to include absolute references. This way, if the formula is copied to another cell within the same worksheet, the formula still maintains the original cell references. To make the cell reference absolute, include a dollar sign ($) immediately before each column letter and row number that you want to stay the exact same, directly in the formula.

For example, to make =SUM(F2:F7) absolute, enter =SUM($F$2:$F$7).

#VALUE error

The #VALUE error message means your formula contains the wrong type of value. 

For example, if you ask Google Sheets to multiply two cells, but one of the cells contains text instead of a number, it'll return a #VALUE error message. 

Fix: Update any referenced cells so that they contain the expected value. 

#NAME error

The #NAME? error message can mean a few things. Here's how to troubleshoot each one. 

The function name or a named range is misspelled 

Let's say you accidentally entered =SUMM(A1:A3) instead of =SUM(A1:A3) to add the values of cells A1 to A3. The misspelled function name will force Google Sheets to return a #NAME? error.

Fix: Correct the named range or function name.

The best way to avoid typos when entering a named range or function name is to use Google Sheets' formula and named function suggestions. As you start typing the named range or function name, Google Sheets will automatically suggest a list of named ranges or function names containing the same letters. 

The formula is missing quotation marks 

Certain formulas require you to wrap values or text strings in quotation marks. For example, if you want to use a formula to join two text strings, like "Bur" and "rito," together, the formula would be =CONCATENATE("Bur","rito"). But if you accidentally forget to include quotation marks around any of your text strings—for example =CONCATENATE("Bur",rito)—Google Sheets will return a #NAME? error. 

Fix: Add quotation marks around the appropriate values or text strings.  

#NUM error

The #NUM error occurs when a formula contains an invalid number. There are a handful of scenarios where this could happen. For example, your formula tells Google Sheets to find the square root of a negative number (the number needs to be positive or zero). Or your formula asks Google Sheets to output too large a number. Google Sheets can technically do these calculations, but it can't display the answers properly. 

Fix: It depends. Your best bet is to hover over the error message for a description of what's wrong, and then adjust accordingly. 

Automate Google Sheets

If the errors we've gone through tell us anything, it's that manual data entry is ripe for human error. With Zapier, you can connect Google Sheets with your go-to apps. This way, you can automate your most time-consuming spreadsheet-related tasks. For example, you can automatically add new lead data and form submissions to an existing spreadsheet. Learn more about how to automate Google Sheets, or get started with one of these workflow templates.   

Related reading: 

• How to fix common errors in Excel

• Google Sheets vs. Excel: Which is right for you?

• How to create and use pivot tables in Google Sheets

If you want people to find you online, you need a website. But most smaller businesses don't have the budget to hire an expert developer. That's where free website builders come in: these tools make it easy to build a website for free.

You don't need to know what CSS is or how to tinker with HTML—these apps do the heavy lifting. And with the advent of AI, building a website has become even quicker. I spent a few weeks testing all the free website builders I could find, and these are the eight best.

The best free website builders

• Google Sites for basic sites (without SEO)

• Yola for simple, no-fuss websites

• GetResponse for email-focused businesses

• Wix for an all-around site builder

• Dorik for more experienced creators

• HubSpot CMS for growing businesses

• Webflow for advanced designers

• Webnode for the best AI features

What makes a great free website builder?

There are plenty of lists of the best free website builders, so what makes this one different? I didn't just read customer reviews or the marketing materials for these website builders. I spent dozens of hours researching the best free site builders that users love—and then tested them myself. 

I've always used WordPress and Squarespace to build sites for myself, so I was keen to see how these tools stacked up. For each one, I signed up and created a site from one of its templates or AI builder—adding pages, adjusting copy, exploring SEO features, uploading my own images, and trying the various design elements.   

I excluded any free website builders that require you to purchase their hosting (e.g., Bluehost, Hostinger, GoDaddy) since they aren't technically free. I also eliminated any website builders that were too hard to use or didn't offer valuable free plans. Then I re-tested the remaining ones until I settled on the best of the best. Some are perfect for building basic sites with no design experience at all, while others are ideal for creating commercial sites but have a steeper learning curve. And some include AI functionality, while others don't—that was a nice-to-have this year.

As I was testing, I was focusing on the following criteria:

• Ease of use. Is the website builder easy to use, or do you need to be a junior dev to add a form? All the site builders on this list will be relatively easy for most users. I've mentioned which ones are newbie-friendly and which are better for those with more design experience. None require coding knowledge, but some do let you access the code. 

• Customization options. Not all of us want a one-page website. I assessed how easy each builder is to customize, including the number of templates, if they offer drag-and-drop features, and whether you can adjust styles, colors, and elements. If there's a trade-off between ease of use and customization, I've tried to make that clear. 

• SEO tools. Building a site is just half the battle—you also need to rank on search engines. I looked at the SEO tools each website builder offers, such as the ability to adjust page titles and meta descriptions, add alt tags, and upload a site map. 

• Value of free plans. Is the free plan really free, or does the builder ask you to upgrade every time you make a change? I made sure I was only looking at truly free options. Of course, there will almost always be features you'll need to upgrade for, but all of these tools let you launch a website for free.

• Primarily a website builder. Some website builders are actually another tool with website-building capabilities. Although some of these tools are part of a suite of other marketing tools, they can all operate independently.

A quick note on domains: Most free website builders come with an ugly-looking free domain—like azaharmedia.hubspotpagebuilder.com—but allow you to purchase or add a custom domain. In my experience, I've always found it preferable to buy a domain independently on a site like Namecheap. This gives you more flexibility if you decide to move from one platform to another; e.g., if you purchased a domain on Wix and wanted to move to Webflow, it could be more problematic.

The best free website builders at a glance

Best free website builder for basic sites (without SEO)

Google Sites

Google Sites pros:

• Easy to use (like Google Docs)

• Great for collaboration

Google Sites cons:

• No SEO tools

Google Sites is a basic site builder with limited customization options and zero SEO tools. That's fine if you're a beginner or just want to test the waters, but don't expect to conquer the search engine results. It's also a solid replacement if you need to switch from the now deprecated Google Business Profile websites.

You can choose from a dozen templates or a blank canvas to get started. And then refine the look-and-feel (style, color, and fonts) with a choice of six themes, or again, create your own. If you choose a standard theme, you're limited to what you can edit. For example, if you want an orange button, you have to change the theme color, which may impact other color settings. And you can't change the button size––everything is predefined. If you want to bypass the restrictions, you'll have to create a custom theme.

That said, Google Sites is easy to use. In many respects, it's like using Google Docs: everything gets saved to your Google Drive before you publish your site, and you can share it with collaborators. I did find it strange that there were no SEO settings, but you can set a custom path for each page. (Maybe you have to trust Google will handle the SEO, but all the same…)

• Google Sites pricing: 100% free; no paid plans. 

• Ease of use: Easy to use. Similar to using Google Docs.  

• Customization options: Limited. Choose from 12 templates and 6 themes for the look-and-feel of your site. Ideal for someone who doesn't have a ton of website experience. 

• SEO tools: Non-existent, surprisingly.

• Value of free plan: Limited. Suitable for beginners, hobbyists, or dabblers, but not as good as Yola or Wix. 

Best free website builder for simple, no-fuss websites

Yola

Yola pros:

• Easy to use

• Extensive and relevant block library

Yola cons:

• Limited SEO settings

Yola rightly earns its label as the best no-fuss website builder. The setup process guides you through choosing the type of website you want—personal, business, store, or community—and then offers a selection of templates. The good thing here is that you can always swap the template later without losing any content you create. (That might sound insignificant, but when faced with an array of templates, it's not always obvious which one will work best for your site.) 

The business templates I tested all made sense—that is, they contained the elements you'd expect to see on a business website. For example, the marketing agency template has a strong header section, client logos, services offered, client testimonials, an about us snippet, and a call to action before the footer section.

Working with Yola's block editor is simple. You can easily add, remove, or rearrange blocks on your page. And unlike other website builders, Yola has a rich block library, including services, a logo wall, an FAQ, and a call to action. If you want to change individual elements, like a button color, you're restricted to working within parameters. For example, you'd have to change the entire color palette for your site if you desperately wanted red buttons instead of blue. But this keeps your website design looking professional instead of kindergarten slapdash. 

The color palettes, font combinations, and button styles are chosen carefully to work together harmoniously. So, if you decide to change the color palette, you can instantly see the changes on your website and click through a few options until you find what you want. (There are actually 70 palette options, so you're bound to find one that works for you.)

If you choose the free plan, your site will have Yola ads and domain, which is standard for free site builders. But the premium plans aren't too expensive: you can connect a custom domain for $6/month and remove Yola branding for $14/month. But if you need more than this tool offers, I'd opt for one of the other apps on the list. 

• Yola pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $6/month (billed annually).

• Ease of use: Very intuitive, nice editor to work with.

• Customization options: Pick a template, and edit the elements with simple on-screen explanations to instantly see what you're changing. 

• SEO tools: Limited but sufficient. You can add a standard meta description and title, but you'll need to upgrade to add custom code. 

• Value of free plan: Good. You can upgrade to remove the Yola branding and make it completely your own.

Best free website builder for email-focused businesses

GetResponse

GetResponse pros:

• Dovetails nicely with email marketing

• There are plenty of templates and customization options

GetResponse cons:

• AI builder isn't as strong as other tools

Most of the free site builders on this list are standalone platforms. That's because every tool out there seems to offer a free site builder—but most are terrible. You can throw together a half-decent site, but it won't scale with you and probably won't have the features you need. 

But GetResponse—which is a more generalized marketing tool with a focus on email—offers a free site builder that's pretty impressive. Start by telling it how you want to build your site, choosing a template, or using the AI-powered builder.

First, I chose a pre-designed business template, and it was easy to change all the essential elements like font, size, and images and introduce new sections, such as testimonials. For example, you can change the button shape, size, and alignment and then get into advanced settings, like shadow effects, border styles, and colors. You can even hide page elements on a mobile device with the click of a button.

I was impressed by the features, and it didn't feel overwhelming at all. I didn't have to search for things—just clicked to edit, and everything I needed was right there.  

Next, I tested the AI functionality. Sadly, it was nowhere near as good as other AI-powered site builders, like Webnode. Although GetResponse offers plenty of choice and steps—like what features (video, signup forms) and color/font combinations you want, plus the option to import styles from an existing website—the results could have been more impressive, and the AI content could have been better.

Oddly, on the marketing side, the tool is pretty barebones. You can easily optimize for mobile (there's a whole tab for it), but SEO features are somewhat limited: you can adjust the meta title and description, but that's about it. You can also add custom code, like HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, in the page header element. Still, GetResponse is a strong contender for a free site builder, especially if you already use it for your email marketing or plan to focus on email marketing. 

Want to do more with GetResponse? Connect it to Zapier to automatically add leads or customers to your GetResponse email list—and more. Here are some examples of how to get started.

• GetResponse pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $15.58/month (billed annually).

• Ease of use: Very intuitive, especially for how much you can adjust.

• Customization options: GetResponse offers hundreds of templates and easy drag-and-drop features in the templates. 

• SEO tools: Limited but sufficient. You can edit meta and alt tags and optimize for mobile.  

• Value of free plan: Great. You can build and launch a site, add your own domain, and manage up to 1,000 newsletter contacts—all for free.

Best free all-around website builder

Wix

Wix pros:

• Established site builder with tons of integrations

• Easy-to-use AI builder

Wix cons:

• It can be slow to work with at times

Wix is one of the most popular drag-and-drop website builders on the market—but is it worth the hype? If you're looking to build a straightforward website with a few features, and don't want to get bogged down in decisions, Wix is a solid choice. 

If you choose to set up without AI, start by telling Wix what type of site you want, and any additional features you need, such as a blog, chat, forms, or an online store. Next, you can pick a template from over 900 designs, all broken down by type. They all look professional and can be easily adjusted to fit your needs.

The template loads slowly the first time as it populates information: it took a little over 10 seconds to load the template I chose. But once you get into the template to edit, you'll see why—it's a seriously robust editor for a free website builder. To build your desired site, you can change fonts, add headings, include lists, and even drag and drop sections. No coding, no flipping through tabs. I found it quite intuitive to use (though I have used WordPress site builders for years).

Alternatively, you can let Wix create your site with the help of AI. Using a ChatGPT-like interface, ​​you answer questions about yourself and get personalized tools, images, and text for your site. It takes longer than some of the other AI-powered website builders—mainly because there are more questions to answer—but the final design was more edgy and modern-looking. That said, if you don't like the results, you can choose to regenerate it.

Wix also offers tons of integrations, including email, so you can easily launch a digital marketing campaign right from your Wix dashboard. I was honestly amazed by the amount you can do for free. (Note: You can choose free images from Wix and Unsplash or upload your own. But some of the available images are from Shutterstock, which you have to pay for.) 

Not a copywriter? I am, but I know it's easy to get stuck writing copy for your website. Wix suggests text, which is pretty awesome. Just tell the AI Text Creator what you want to say, and it'll suggest how to make it sound good. 

Wix also offers detailed SEO features to help you rank on Google; it won't replace hiring an SEO expert, but it's a good leg up. You can even create a marketing calendar and manage ads right inside Wix. That's perfect for business owners who don't have the time or energy to learn a whole host of different platforms. 

Once you've added pages, updated your copy, and made whatever other adjustments you like, it's time to make your site live. For a free site, you'll get a domain ending with ".wixsite.com"—e.g., azaharmedia.wixsite.com—and a Wix logo (pretty standard for free site builders). Of course, if you have your own domain, you can connect it.

As an added bonus, Wix integrates with Zapier, which means you can automatically send form submissions wherever you need them. Learn more about how to automate Wix, or use one of these pre-made templates to get you started.

• Wix pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $17/month. 

• Ease of use: Easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor. I found it intuitive, but beginners might get overwhelmed; if so, they also offer a free AI website builder option.

• Customization options: Very customizable—you can add forms, a blog, eCommerce features, and even create custom videos.  

• SEO features: Quite a few! Wix also does a good job of explaining what each feature does and walks you through each process, even for off-site tools like Google Analytics. 

• Value of free plan: Excellent. While some builders try to make you upgrade on every other feature, Wix includes most features to some degree with the free plan. 

Best free website builder for more experienced creators

Dorik

Dorik pros:

• Intuitive drag-and-drop editor with extensive customization options

• AI builder is quick and impressive

Dorik cons:

• Beginners may feel overwhelmed, but there's helpful documentation

Dorik lets you build a fully-fledged website or a single landing page for free and includes premium options if you want to add a blog or a paid membership.

Based on my experience of using WordPress page builders, I found it both intuitive and refreshing to use. Beginners may find it more challenging, but it's easy to access the excellent online documentation.

You can start from scratch, import JSON, try the AI builder, or preview and select one of the 80+ website templates. The AI builder just requires a site name and a description of what you want. If you don't like the finished design, you can regenerate individual blocks or whole site settings, such as color. Dorik also lets you generate images. For example, I asked for "a photo of a man with a smiling face with desk and laptop facing another person," and it generated this.

The AI functionality is impressive—it's quick and gives you a great starting point. It understood the "site brief" better than Wix and produced a decent layout with expected sections.

When you first edit, Dorik walks you through the various settings. Essentially, you use the visual drag-and-drop editor to build sections, using 250+ UI blocks (rows and columns) and 20+ elements (text, buttons, icons, etc.) You can position the editor control panel on the left or right side of the screen.

There are a couple of neat editing features worth highlighting. First, there are color differentiators, so you know what you're editing (for example, rows in a purple dashed line and columns in a pink dashed line). Second, there's a Navigation Tree to pinpoint the precise rows to edit. With some site builders, it's easy to mistake the wrong block or element. 

The SEO settings are easily accessible and configurable for each page, from basics like title and description to advanced meta settings like FAQ schema and analytics. Dorik also lets you design for desktop, tablet, and mobile screen sizes if you want to adjust layouts accordingly. 

• Dorik pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $15/month (billed annually).

• Ease of use: Easy to use drag-and-drop editor. Beginners may get overwhelmed, but there's good online documentation to hand. 

• Customization options: Countless choices. Select from 39 templates, 250+ UI blocks, and 20+ elements to create your site. 

• SEO tools: Full range including page title and description, no-index/no-follow meta settings, canonical URL, schema, and custom header/footer code.   

• Value of free plan: Excellent. Includes unlimited page views, storage, premium templates and blocks, free SSL (HTTPS) certificate, global CDN (to load images faster), image optimization, SEO settings, and integrations.  

Best free website builder for growing businesses

HubSpot CMS Hub

HubSpot pros:

• Step-by-step plan to get started

• Quick, easy-to-use AI builder

HubSpot cons:

• Need to replace the ugly default URL with your own domain

HubSpot is a popular business software platform for marketing, sales, and service teams, and its free website builder continues in the same vein. I loved the step-by-step plan that guides you through building your website, with percentages on how far along you are.

Start by selecting a theme for your site—you want page templates, modules, and style settings that fit your brand. The marketplace has hundreds (both free and premium) to choose from; I went with the Growth Theme.

Alternatively, use the AI builder to create a site based on your description and choice of design (e.g., modern, vibrant, or minimalistic). It created a super relevant site in next to no time with a great layout and choice of images and text. 

Next, customize your theme's settings (colors, fonts, and layouts) to fit your brand. For example, you can modify an existing color scheme or create your own. Then start building your site by setting up the popular pages—home, about, contact, and so on—and choosing a standard header and footer layout. HubSpot even provides a full tutorial on using the drag-and-drop editor. You can choose from 47 modules (elements), including header, text, image, accordion, and CTA. 

You can tell HubSpot CMS is geared towards business sites with its emphasis on creating a blog and robust SEO tools. There's a dedicated setup step to create your blog title, URL, and description, so it looks right in the search engines before you even publish individual posts. Then there's a whole raft of general on-page SEO settings to enter, including title, description, URL (and canonical URL), language, featured image, and additional header and footer code snippets. HubSpot also provides SEO recommendations as you add content to your page and highlights what you need to address. HubSpot is all about inbound marketing, so you'll definitely feel like you're in safe hands. Just be sure to address the ugly default URL (yoursite.hubspotpagebuilder.com) with a custom domain. 

And if you use HubSpot for more than just website-building, you can connect it to Zapier to automate all your workflows and put more resources back into your business. Learn more about how to automate HubSpot, or take a look at these examples of how you can send form submissions where you need them.

• HubSpot CMS pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $15/month (billed annually).

• Ease of use: Easy to use. Smooth operation. Guided prompts.

• Customization options: Select from hundreds of free and premium templates and 47 modules (elements) to build a site that fits your brand style. 

• SEO tools: Get SEO recommendations as you create content on pages. Customize further by adding code snippets to header/footer and defining a canonical URL. 

• Value of free plan: Great free plan to get started. You probably want to upgrade to a premium plan to remove the HubSpot logo and use a custom domain with a more manageable and memorable URL. 

Best free WordPress alternative for advanced designers

Webflow

Webflow pros:

• Tons of customization options

• Extend functionality with integrations and widgets

Webflow cons: 

• No AI builder

Some of the free site builders on this list are super easy to use, with hundreds of templates and drag-and-drop editors. That's not Webflow. Once you create an account, Webflow asks who you are (marketer, website builder, etc.) and if you have experience with CSS/HTML. This is a great way for them to create a platform that's easier for everyone to use—but it seemed to fall short. I tried creating a second account and said I was building a site for myself with no coding experience…and the onboarding was the same. 

They have a few free templates, or you can purchase one that makes your site easier to build (similar to WordPress). Plus, they offer an optional walk-through (and email tutorials) to familiarize you with the platform, which is quite helpful. If you're comfortable with WordPress and the concept of styles and classes, you should be ok. But if you're new to website builders, it might be hard to get your footing.

But there's a reason for that: there are a lot of features and a ton of customization options. You can add containers, adjust the height, change fonts, add buttons, and on and on—center, stack containers horizontally, and much more. 

If you know what to do with SEO, you'll have access to everything you need, including title tags and meta descriptions. But they aren't easy to find: for example, to add the meta description, you have to navigate to the main page panel, click on the page, click settings, and then finally, you'll see SEO settings.  

Another thing I love about Webflow—which also makes it a good WordPress alternative—is the ability to expand site functionality with integrations and widgets for targeting, limiting spam, engaging customers, managing your CRM, and much more. It's not the easiest platform to use, but it's incredibly powerful for a free site builder.

Using Zapier, you can connect your Webflow site to other apps you use. Send new Webflow form submissions to a spreadsheet or email marketing tool, or even send emails when someone fills out a Webflow form. Learn more about how to automate Webflow, or try one of these pre-made templates.

• Webflow pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $14/month (billed annually). 

• Ease of use: Not easy for newbies. They do offer a walk-through, or you can use a template, but if you're looking for an easy drag-and-drop builder, Webflow isn't it. On the other hand, if you're comfortable with a WordPress page builder like Elementor, you'll be fine.

• Customization options: Tons of customization options, but you're building the site almost from scratch. 

• SEO tools: You can access everything you need, but they aren't super obvious. Those who aren't familiar with SEO may struggle.

• Value of free plan: The free plan gives you access to all features, up to 50 CMS items, 1 GB of bandwidth, and a Webflow.io domain.

Best free AI website builder

Webnode

Webnode pros:

• AI generates a custom website tailored to your needs

• Clean interface that's nice and easy to use

Webnode cons: 

• Lacks granular headings on text formatting

Webnode is a user-friendly website builder that now comes with built-in AI. 

The design process is straightforward. You choose from three options—website, online store, or blog—and then decide how you want to create your website: with AI help or a template. Both options are equally good.

For AI, you answer a few questions about your site, the pages you want, and your business. The AI builder then generates three versions tailored to your requirements, and you choose one. Alternatively, you can choose from over 150 templates that have some great designs.

Whichever option you choose, you can edit your site freely. Use the site settings to change the color scheme or button designs (rounded corners, shadow, size, border, etc.), the section settings to change the background (image, photo, color, etc.), or the drag-and-drop editor to move elements (lines, videos, forms, etc.) around the page. The only downside is the lack of granular headings (H1/H2/H3, etc.) when editing text elements.

The clean interface is friendly to use, and unlike other site builders, there's no sidebar to overwhelm you. If you want to edit something, just click on it and make changes. Plus, you get all the standard SEO settings for each page.

• Webnode pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $4.50/month. 

• Ease of use: Nice and easy to use with a clean interface.

• Customization options: Change settings at site level or for individual sections. Move elements around with the drag-and-drop editor.

• SEO tools: Excellent. Settings for each page include URL, meta title and description, plus custom header and footer code.

• Value of free plan: Great free plan with 150+ templates and AI functionality to get started. You'll probably want to upgrade to remove Webnode branding and use your own domain.

Should you use a free website builder?

If you're launching a 1,000+ page eCommerce store or building a fully interactive app, you probably want to hire a developer—or at least pay for a fully-loaded website builder. But if you're just starting out or need to get your business online, these options will get the job done. And with many including AI functionality, it makes the job potentially quicker and easier. Dorik and HubSpot CMS have both given me food for thought about whether I should migrate from WordPress. Which website builder will you choose?

Related reading:

• The best landing page builders

• The best eCommerce website builders

• The best blog sites

• The best AI app builders

This article was originally published in August 2018 by Jeff Smith and has also had contributions from Danielle Antosz. The most recent update was in March 2024.

Slack has replaced email for internal collaboration at many companies (thankfully). But what about when someone outside your company needs to get in touch? You probably still use an email provider like Gmail for that.

If you live in Slack, however, you might not think to check your work Gmail very often—which means you might miss important messages. As a workaround, you can send emails to any Slack channel quickly enough, allowing you and your team to stay on top of important emails.

Push Gmail messages to a public Slack channel

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 it 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 below to set up your Zap.

Set up your Gmail trigger

First, set up your trigger—the event that starts your Zap. If you’re using the Zap template we included above, this will already be set up for you. If you're starting from scratch, search for and select Gmail as the trigger app and New Email as the trigger event. Click Continue.

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

Next, select which label or mailbox you'd like your Zap to trigger on. If you don't select anything, any email will trigger your Zap, including drafts. 

Click Continue. 

Note: If you'd like to fine-tune which emails are sent to Slack, you can use the New Email Matching Search Gmail trigger instead or add a filter step once you've set up your Gmail trigger. Check out our guide to filters.

Now you need to test your trigger. Zapier will find a recent email in your Gmail account that matches the label or inbox you selected earlier. This will be used to set up the rest of your Zap.

Click Test trigger. If your trigger is working properly, Zapier will show you data from some recent emails in your selected mailbox. Once you see that your trigger is working properly, click Continue with selected record.

Set up your Slack action

Now let's set up the action—the event your Zap will perform once it's triggered. Once again, if you're starting with the Zap template we've provided, all these fields will be pre-filled for you. If you’re starting from scratch, select Slack as your action app and Send Channel Message as your action event. Click Continue.

Then, connect your Slack account to Zapier, if you haven't already, and click Continue. 

Now it's time to customize where you want your message to go and how it will look. 

Click on the dropdown under Channel to select the Slack channel you want your message to go to. 

Under Message Text, you can use a mix of Slack formatting and Gmail data to customize how you want your message to look. Whatever text you type in this field will appear the same each time your Zap runs. You may want to type in text labels for email sender, subject line, or any other notes you want.

If you're using the Zap template included in this tutorial, the Zap will have some of this data pre-filled. To map other information from your Gmail message, just click inside the Message Text field. You'll see a dropdown menu of data from your Gmail trigger.

You can click on things like the email body in plain text, the sender, and the subject line to add to your message. If there's other information you want to include that isn't listed in the first few options, you can look for it using the Search bar.

Once you've set up how you want your message to look, you can configure other options. You can choose to have this message sent from a bot, give it a name, and add an emoji so you can tell it apart from messages from your team. 

After you've adjusted your settings, click Continue. 

Now it's time to test your action. When you click Test step, Zapier will send a message to Slack according to how you set up your message earlier. 

It's a good idea to test your Zap so you can check if your Slack message looks okay. (Just warn your team first, so they're not surprised.)

If you'd rather skip the test, just click Skip test. 

If your test succeeds, you'll see a new Slack message in your channel of choice.

If everything looks right, you're now ready to use your Zap.  If something looks off, go back and tweak things until you get it just right. If you're worried about annoying your co-workers while troubleshooting, consider using a dedicated testing channel when you're first setting things up, then switching when you've got things the way you want them.

How to get private notifications about new emails

Don't want email notifications on a public channel? That makes sense. Here's a template for getting a private direct message in Slack when new Gmail messages come in, instead of a post in a public channel.

The process for setting everything up is the same as above. You'll be asked to sign in to Gmail and Slack, then allowed to customize each step if you want.

This piece was published in November 2019, written by Justin Pot, with previous updates by Krystina Martinez. It was most recently updated in March 2024 by Hannah Herman.

Feathery is a nifty tool that uses AI to help you build high-quality forms in minutes. With it, you can collaborate on forms, build approval flows for product teams, and easily connect signatures from clients.  

While it's an accessible, user-friendly way to get info from leads (and customers!), you don't want their responses to get caught in a bottleneck. 

Automation can help bridge that gap. With Zapier, you can connect Feathery to your business-critical apps and get that information where it needs to go—automatically. Here are the best ways to automate Feathery, from subscribing leads to your newsletter to sending them straight to your CRM. 

Table of contents

• Send lead information to your ads tools

• Subscribe contacts to your newsletter

• Add incoming leads to your CRM

• Create tickets from support forms

• Track and log form submissions

Send lead information to your ads tools

Do you use forms to capture leads? Whether you embed them on your website or in your email, forms are a great way to capture prospects from any stage of the sales funnel. 

But when they do fill out a form, you want to add them to your ad campaigns (think Facebook or Google Ads) straight away—while they're still warm. Plus, if a lead fails to convert, adding them to a retargeting campaign can get them back on board.

But doing so manually isn't exactly conducive to efficiency. Instead, you can use these Zaps to send lead data straight to specific audiences in your favorite ad tools. 

Subscribe contacts to your newsletter

Ad campaigns aren't your only means of nurturing leads. Sending your target audience regular newsletters helps you increase your customer base by reaching a wide group of people, including the folks who haven't converted yet. 

Adding automation into the mix can be a real game changer here. These Zaps pull the lead information from your forms—and auto-populates it into your email newsletter tools in real time. That way, you can start nurturing (or recapturing interest!) right away. 

Add incoming leads to your CRM

Oftentimes, a CRM is your business's single source of truth when it comes to prospects. And not just for logging your lead's contact information but also for each engagement your sales team has with leads—including the reason your prospects have for reaching out to you via a form. 

With these workflows, Zapier will send that form context straight to your CRM directly from Feathery (including any Notes fields they've filled out). This ensures your sales team has all the most up-to-date context around a specific deal or lead and can take the appropriate action from there. 

Create tickets from support forms

Customer support teams have a lot on their plate. That's why most businesses ask customers to first fill out forms if they're experiencing an issue with their product or service. 

That way, they can review the issue, carry out any initial troubleshooting, or route the problem to the right product team before they reach back out. 

This is where automation can once again save the day (or at least keep your customer happy). These Zaps will automatically create tickets in your customer support tools (think Jira or Zendesk) based on the information your customers submit. 

You could even add an AI step to add extra context to each ticket in the form of acceptance criteria. You could add extra requirements, clear instructions, and anything else you think your support teams should know. 

Track and log form submissions 

Need a way to track each and every form submission you receive from clients? Whether you want to keep a running log for other teams to access or a private record of all your form submissions, these workflows have got you covered. 

You can automatically send new forms straight to a spreadsheet or your Google Drive, without having to resort to manually copying and pasting. 

Take your forms to the next level with Feathery and Zapier

No matter how you use Feathery to build forms—from capturing leads to solving product issues—these processes have many moving parts. 

But with a few automatic workflows, you can easily streamline your workflows from start to finish. Whether you need to automatically log forms in a single database or subscribe new leads to your newsletter, Zapier can make it a breeze. 

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

Writing blog posts isn't enough: Someone needs to actually read them. Your Facebook page is a good place for people to find your articles, but only if you remember to actually post them.

WordPress powers a little more than one-third of all sites on the web, including more than a few blogs. If your site runs on WordPress, you can use Zapier to quickly share your posts with fans of your Facebook page. Through our automated workflows—we call them Zaps—you can send information from one app to another. 

Don't use WordPress for your blog? Keep reading and we'll show you how to connect a Facebook page to an RSS feed, allowing you to automatically share posts from basically any website.

Before you begin: Install the Zapier plugin

Before you can create your Zap, you'll need to install our free WordPress plugin and activate it on your site. This plugin allows Zapier to find and make changes to content on your site through any Zaps you set up. Once you've activated the plugin, we can move on to the fun part: creating your automated workflow.

How to share WordPress posts to a Facebook Page

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 below to set up your Zap.

This template is best for sharing text-based Wordpress posts to Facebook. If your blog focuses more on images than text, you can share your posts as images. Here's a template for that:

Create your WordPress trigger

Once you're in the Zap editor, you'll need to set up your trigger first. A trigger is the event that will start your Zap. Search for and select WordPress as the trigger app, New Post as the trigger event, and click Continue.

You'll be asked to sign in to your WordPress account. Once you've connected your account, click Continue. 

Now you can customize your trigger step.

Choose Published as your Post Status. Only touch the Post Type box if you want to share new pages or media instead of new posts. (If you don't understand what that means, don't worry. Leave that box alone.) Click Continue. 

Zapier will need to find a recent WordPress post to set up the rest of the Zap. Click Test trigger. Once Zapier has your test data, click Continue with selected record. 

Set up your Facebook action

Now you can set up your action—the event your Zap will perform whenever you publish a WordPress post. 

Select Facebook Pages as your action app and Create Page Post as your action event.

If your blog mainly publishes videos or photos, you can select Create Video Post or Create Photo Post instead. Then, click Continue. 

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

After you've signed in to your Facebook account, you can set up how your post will look. 

Note that you can click within any field to pull in information like headlines and featured images from your WordPress post. 

Click Continue once everything is set up just the way you like it. You'll need to send a test post over to Facebook to make sure your Zap is set up how you like it. You can always skip the test, but we highly recommend testing your setup first.

If your Zap is set up correctly, you’ll see a new post on your Facebook page featuring content from your WordPress blog!

Once you're happy with everything, you're ready to begin using your Zap. You've now created an automated workflow, without having to write any code.

Connect other websites to Facebook Pages using RSS

Is your blog not running on WordPress? You can still use Zapier to automatically publish your blog posts thanks to RSS.

First you'll need the RSS URL for your blog. We've outlined how to find the RSS feed URL for almost any site, but here's a quick summary for a few common blog hosts.

• If a site is hosted on Tumblr, add /rss to the end of the URL. Like this: https://cuteanimals.tumblr.com/rss

• If a site is hosted on Blogger, add feeds/posts/default to the end of the URL. Like this: example.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

• If a publication is hosted on Medium, add /feed/ before the publication's name. So medium.com/geekculture becomes medium.com/feed/geekculture

Once you have the RSS feed, you can set up your automation. Get started using these workflows:

You'll need to paste your RSS feed and then log in to your Facebook account. Check the instructions above to get an idea of how this works.

This article was originally published in July 2019, written by Justin Pot. It was previously updated by Krystina Martinez, and was most recently updated in March 2024 by Hannah Herman.

Who hasn't jokingly blamed "the algorithm" when we succumb to that impulse Instagram purchase? Still, those social media changes can affect your sales if you sell digital products or services.

Enter Podia, an all-in-one platform for hosting, selling, and marketing your digital products. Whether you offer online coaching and courses or sell PDF workbooks, Podia gives you a website builder, email marketing capabilities, payment processing, and other tools to run your business on your terms.

Control how you sell and market your products with Podia

When you use Podia to sell your services, you're not only running your own platform. You also get flexible selling options to maximize your sales. 

You can accept pre-orders for upcoming products, upsell other items at checkout, bundle products together, and even run an affiliate program. Just choose the options that make sense for your business—no need to deal with limited selling options on social media platforms. 

Automate your business: Popular Podia workflows

More control doesn't have to mean extra work. Connect Podia with Zapier and automate your work across your favorite apps, so you can simplify your business operations and focus on your customers.

You can create automated workflows called Zaps to nurture leads, track new sales, and deliver a seamless customer experience.

Get started quickly with a few of our most popular Podia workflows: 

Are you managing projects across various platforms? When tasks are spread out over different teams and applications, it's easy for details to slip through the cracks. 

Fortunately, Notion brings together features from apps like Airtable, Asana, Google Docs (and more!) into one streamlined app or project management database. 

Alone, Notion can simplify the way you work. But when you connect it to Zapier, you can take your project management to a whole new level.  With our Zaps (what we call automated workflows), you can connect your favorite apps to Notion and send important information between them. From tracking incomplete tasks to notifying your team about new projects, here are a few Zaps to help you make Notion a true one-stop shop for your most important work. 

Table of contents

• How the integration works

• Connect Zapier to your Notion workspace

• Popular ways to automate Notion

How the Zapier Notion integration works

Triggers

The Notion integration has two available triggers—the events that can start a Zap.

• New Database Item: You can have Zapier start an automated workflow whenever there's a new database item in your Notion workspace. You can specify which database or property Zapier should watch to start your Zap.

• Updated Database Item: Zapier will trigger a workflow whenever an item in a selected database in your Notion workspace is updated.

Searches

There are three searches available for the Notion integration:

• Find Database Item: Zapier will look for an existing database item in your workspace.  You can add additional steps in your Zap to make a change the database item or send information from your database item elsewhere. 

• Find or Create Database Item: This will locate an existing database item in your Notion workspace. If it doesn't exist, Zapier will create a new database item if you tell it to. 

• Find Page: Zapier will search for a page in your Notion workspace.

Actions

The Notion integration also has five actions—the event your automated workflow performs in Notion. You can search for an item in a Notion database by property. You could use a trigger within Notion, say if you want a new item in one place to update an item somewhere else. Or you can set your trigger to be something outside Notion, like closing a new deal in your CRM or completing a task in a to-do list.

• Create Database Item: This action will create a new database item in your Notion workspace. For example, if you want an item created in Notion whenever you land a new client.

• Update Database Item: This changes an existing database item in your Notion workspace. This action works best when you use the Find Database Item search before it. Check out our feature guide on search steps to learn how. 

• Create Page: This action will create a page within a specified page. You can include markdown in the body of the page too.

• Custom Actions (Beta): This action allows you to create a custom action using AI. 

• API Request (Beta): This is an advanced action that allows you to make a raw HTTP request that includes this integration's authentication.

How to connect Zapier to your Notion workspace

Check your Notion account permissions

Before you try to connect Zapier to your Notion account, make sure you're a workspace owner in your workspace. You can check this by clicking on Settings & Members in the left-hand navigation window.

Click on the Members tab, where you can see whether you have admin-level access in your workspace.

If you don't, reach out to your workspace owner, who can change your access level.

Connect Notion to Zapier

Whenever you're ready to connect Notion in the Zapier editor, search for and select Notion as your app, then select the trigger, action, or search. Click Continue.

You'll then be prompted to connect your Notion account. Click + Connect a new account. Zapier will prompt you to grant access to your workspace. Click Select pages.

Select the Notion pages you want Zapier to access, then click Allow access.

You've now connected your Notion account to Zapier! 

Zapier will also appear in your list of connections within your Notion settings. Click on the My Connections tab to see the list of apps you've connected to your workspace.

Popular ways to use Notion with Zapier 

Notion combines the best of your favorite productivity tools into one app, but sometimes you still need information from outside apps. Zapier can help you turn your Notion workspace into a central hub for your most important information. Here are a few ideas to start automating:

Keep up with your calendar

It can be tough to keep up with the daily demands of project deadlines, meetings, client calls, or anything else that relies on a calendar. Luckily, Notion allows you to visualize database items in a calendar or a timeline. 

If you're already using another calendar app to manage important dates, you can use a Zap to automatically send those calendar events to Notion. Get started with these workflows:

Want to set aside time on your calendar to tackle your Notion items? Blocking out your work calendar allows you to fully focus on specific projects and tasks. (Plus, your team will know not to book meetings during that time.)

With these Zaps, any time a new item is added to your Notion workspace, Zapier will automatically create detailed (or simple) events in your calendar, so you can stay on top of your most important work.

Stay on top of changes in Notion

When you're working collaboratively in a shared workspace, it's important for your team to know when something major has changed in your project plan. 

Instead of relying on a human to notify the team—or trying to spot the change on your own—these Zaps will automatically notify you in a team chat app whenever there's a new database item in Notion.

If you're working with external stakeholders, they'll also need to be notified of major changes. Instead of giving them access to your workspace, you can use an automated workflow to draft an email for you. 

Track tasks and projects

There is no shortage of project management and task apps to choose from. However, the one-size-fits-most approach of these tools might not jive with what you need to track work.  

Notion allows you to customize and track your to-dos according to your style, whether it's a list of checkboxes or you need multiple deadlines for a single task. But if your team manages projects in another app, you can create an automated workflow to add new tasks to your Notion workspace. 

Get started with the Zaps below:

Turn casual asks into Notion tasks

Do people ask you to do things in your team chat app or via email? If so, you'll want an easy way to send those requests straight to Notion—without the hassle of copying and pasting. 

These Zaps can help. Any time you add a reaction to a message in Slack or receive an email you've labeled as "to-do", Zapier will send the contents of the message straight to Notion. If you want to organize that information more effectively, you can even add an AI step to extract the request and log it according to a template. 

Organize customer information

Whether you're trying to organize form submissions, spreadsheets, or invite attendees, it can be helpful to have that information in the same space where you do most of your planning. These Zaps will automatically create Notion database items for you, so you can keep tabs on your customers, without wasting time manually importing information.

Log online research and articles

Whether you're tracking brand mentions online, your published articles, or you just want to save interesting articles in one place, Notion is a great tool for logging your favorite links. Skip the copy-and-paste routine with these Zaps, which will automatically create Notion database items for you.  

Take your productivity to the next level with Notion and Zapier

This is just the start of all that you can do with Notion and Zapier. Zapier supports thousands of apps, so you automate almost any task at work. Create your Zap now and see what you can do.

This article was originally published in May 2021 and was most recently updated in March 2024 by Elena Alston.

Email is a digital hydra. For each one you bat out of your inbox, two others take its place. You finally pass the info on to your co-worker, only to drown in a jet of newsletters. Wouldn't it be great if AI could be your personal email Hercules?

This category has evolved a lot since I first explored it last year. Now you'll find powerful options that'll help you write emails, improve communication, sort through conversations, or burn a stack of junk mail in a flash. This is a lot more compared with the first-wave AI email apps that just integrated with OpenAI for writing drafts and called it a day.

I spent two weeks researching and testing the best AI email assistants, and I've put together a shortlist for you to try out—along with apps you should keep an eye on. And in case you'd like to build your own AI-powered email workflows, I've included a quick breakdown of how this technology can help you do just that.

The best AI email assistants

• Shortwave for AI-powered email search

• Microsoft Copilot Pro for Outlook for improving communication

• Superhuman for mixing AI generation with message templates

• SaneBox for keeping your inbox organized

• Mailbutler for gathering contact details and tasks

What can AI bring to email?

AI has shown us that it can understand and generate human language pretty well. While it's not ready to work unsupervised, it's a great tool to improve your existing automation with the ability to understand language. It can make a few decisions on its own, and it's up to you to accept or edit the results.

But what does this mean when it comes to AI email apps? Let's walk through the main AI features that you can use for automating your inbox.

Generative AI

Right now, the most common use of AI in email apps is for writing messages with generative AI. When composing a new email, you can start from a prompt—pretty much like in ChatGPT—or start generating a reply based on the sender's message text.

Other features here include spell-checking your messages, rewriting with AI, offering quick reply suggestions, or even creating a pre-generated reply that you can send with one click.

Processing email content

Since AI can understand human language, it can analyze the content of each email. It can, for example:

• Run sentiment analysis on the message, providing an overview of how the sender is feeling. This is useful to understand if you need to be more tactful in your reply or if the person on the other side is open to learning more.

• Understand the topic of the email, which you can use to sort incoming messages with tags, labels, or folders. After your emails are organized, you can set up rules to forward each one to the appropriate person or just to sort the list with the highest priority at the top.

• Summarize the email or the entire thread, making it easy to file the conversation to analyze later or to bring new collaborators into the topic.

Data extraction and enrichment

Closely related to content processing, AI can also detect data types in your emails, extract that data, and store it in a database app. There are a lot of possibilities here. You can:

• Extract all the contact data from an email and add it to your CRM.

• Extract an invoice number and update information in your accounting app.

• Extract all the attachments from an email, read the contents of each file, and store them with the appropriate project pages in your project management app.

Data extraction pulls out information from an email. Data enrichment is almost the opposite: it surfaces information from your email history, your connected database apps, and public information to give you context on the current conversation. Imagine you're talking to a friend you've known for 10 years. With data enrichment, you could summarize your entire email history and get some clues on where you should go on vacation next. 

Train your own AI language model to reply for you

You can train a model to contain all the relevant information about you and your business, so you can leverage that training to answer emails—and even produce other kinds of written content, too.

There are two ways to do this right now. If you have money to spare, you can hire a developer to fine-tune an OpenAI model. This is a method of tuning a GPT model with your data, helping it speak like you and know more information about you or your company.

If you're looking for something easier, you can use a tool like Personal AI to train a personal language model rooted in your knowledge and writing style. You can then use Zapier to have it process all your emails and generate new drafts as necessary. Learn more about how you might automate Personal AI to do that.

Combine them all

All of these features can be used with one another. Here's an example:

1. Set up your AI to read everything in your inbox, extract relevant data, run sentiment analysis, and check your tech stack for relevant information.

2. Generate a reply with AI for each message based on the sender's message and your data, organize emails with the most urgent first, and set your inbox to wait for your confirmation before sending. 

3. Pop by your inbox at the end of the day, start with email #1, and check the contextual information and pre-generated reply. If it looks good, hit send, and move to the next one.

And this is barely scratching the surface. The exciting thing about AI and email is that, depending on which features you use and the order in which you use them, you can get a completely different experience and results. It's highly adaptable to each circumstance, meaning it can solve more complex problems—but, at the same time, it may take longer to reach a viable workflow.

To be clear: none of the apps on this list are flexible enough to run a complex workflow like the example above. But if you're willing to tinker, you can use a collection of Zaps to automate your inbox with AI and build a custom solution.

What makes the best AI email assistant software?

Based on all the possibilities that this technology brings to the table, generative AI isn't enough. The best AI email assistant software needs to go a bit beyond that. Here's what I looked for as I was testing all the apps that claimed to be AI email clients. 

• Easy email integration. The integration process should be easy and fast with the most popular email services.

• Inbox management. I prioritized individual inbox management apps. For now, I'm leaving out apps that are focused on sales and outreach or customer service—I'm showing you how AI can transform your personal inbox, whether at home or at work.

• AI features. I was looking for AI features beyond generative text—for example, things like sentiment analysis, intent detection, automatic labeling, or data extraction.

• Productivity and automation. AI is one tool out of many, so these apps should offer other features and settings to help you save time and get to inbox zero faster.

• Data privacy. Your emails are private, so adding an app like this to your collection shouldn't represent a security risk. I read the privacy policy of each app to understand how secure your data will be.

For two weeks, I dug the internet for all the AI email assistants that I could find. I filtered out those that just integrated generative AI into the compose window and was left with a smaller selection. I signed up for each of them, configured the platform until it was ready to use, and sent a few emails back and forth between my email accounts. I played with the settings, observed how well the AI did what I wanted it to, and from there, picked these apps.

The best AI email assistants at a glance

Best AI email assistant for searching email history

Shortwave (Web, Android, iOS)

Shortwave pros:

• Deep integration with Google Calendar

• AI assistant is very flexible

Shortwave cons:

• Interface feels cluttered at times

Sitting confidently on the throne here, Shortwave has the widest range of AI features of all the apps on this list. They all live in the top-right of your screen: click on the magic stars icon there, and a chat window appears docked on the right side. This is the Shortwave AI Assistant.

The most unique possibility it offers is AI-powered email search. You can ask questions to your inbox to surface old, forgotten conversations without actually having to get lost in the mess. More than this, it can extract data from email threads ("make a list of all the tasks in the website redesign project"), generate content ("write a tweet based on my emails about productivity"), or answer your questions ChatGPT-style.

Email and calendars usually go hand in hand. In Shortwave, you can schedule meetings or new events in natural language, with something as simple as "schedule a meeting for me and John in 2 days at 6pm." I used this exact prompt, and the meeting appeared on my calendar. I didn't have to do anything else. And if you don't know your availability, just ask, and you'll get a breakdown of your open slots for the near future.

The bulk of these AI features live in the sidebar, but you can see them in the email interface as well—look for the magic stars. While opening an email, look under the subject: you'll see a short generated summary of the thread. If you click on it, it'll work on a longer, more thorough version. A real time-saver if there's a lot of back and forth or multiple people involved in the conversation.

And then, on the right side of where you write your replies, there are the magic stars again: you can generate a message from scratch or based on a prompt. This takes the action back to the sidebar, but you can easily add the AI output to a new reply and keep the conversation flowing.

A bit of disappointing news: Shortwave only works with Gmail accounts for the time being, so if you're doing email with other providers, you'll have to sit out. Here's hoping it'll integrate with more inboxes in the future.

Shortwave price: Personal starts at $8.50/user/month

Best AI email assistant for improving communication

Microsoft Copilot Pro for Outlook (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS)

Copilot Pro for Outlook pros:

• OpenAI's GPT-4 available

• Also unlocks AI features in your other Office apps

Copilot Pro for Outlook cons:

• No integration with non-Microsoft email inboxes

Microsoft's AI expansion continues with the release of Copilot Pro. Outlook is one of the apps that gets a boost, with three shiny AI features that, while not groundbreaking, are really well-implemented and easy to use. And, since we're talking about a tech giant, this list could expand quickly.

The first one is straightforward: you can write emails from scratch using AI. When writing a new email, look to the right half of the toolbar, click on the Copilot icon, and select Draft with Copilot. That will open the settings, where you can type your prompt, set the tone and length, and then start generating.

The second one is thread summarization: like others on this list, you can get a big-picture view of a conversation in a list of topics. Unlike others on this list, Copilot adds little numbers in superscript that you can use to jump to the message where that topic is discussed. Super helpful for searching your conversations for specific statements.

But the last one really surprised me. Called Coaching by Copilot, you can have your email message analyzed to see how the tone, content, and structure of the email will impact the receiver. I wrote a general project kickoff email to test this, and it told me I could be more enthusiastic, show appreciation for the reader's contribution, and break down the topics for higher clarity. This comes with a few example sentences, so you know how to take the first steps. A well-written email can save you a lot of headaches along the way, so I find this very helpful to manage projects, provide updates, and make communication more effective.

Outlook wraps it up with a nice touch: if you generate an email with AI and click to send right away, it'll show a pop-up reminding you that AI may be inaccurate, inviting you to revisit the content before pushing it out.

And, of course, this isn't the only place where you'll be getting AI. You'll also get Copilot features to help write documents in Word, generate presentations in PowerPoint, and analyze data in Excel. Plus, you can integrate Microsoft Outlook with Zapier to connect it to all the other apps you use at work. Learn more about how to automate Outlook, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Important: Copilot only works with email addresses ending in Microsoft-related domains, such as @outlook.com, @live.com or @hotmail.com. This may be related to privacy policy reasons. For example, I wasn't able to get it to work with a Gmail account. And while we're talking about privacy, it isn't very clear if, as a personal user, your data will be used for training or fine-tuning models. For companies, the data governance settings you have in place will apply when dealing with Microsoft's LLMs, except if you're using plug-ins or internet-connected generation.

Microsoft Copilot Pro price: Microsoft 365 subscription required, starting at $9.99/month; AI features go for $20/month.

Best AI email assistant for mixing AI generation and message templates

Superhuman (add-on)

Superhuman pros:

• Split your inbox by topics to organize messages

• Powerful keyboard shortcuts

Superhuman cons:

• Not as many AI features as the other options

AI saves time when writing emails, but it might fail to produce the exact results you're looking for. This is especially true if you've crafted the perfect outreach email or the ideal company presentation paragraph. Superhuman will help you balance both: the speed of AI generation and the precision of your existing messaging.

As a keyboard-driven app, you'll have to learn the shortcuts to move around quickly. This adds a bit of a learning curve at the start, but it'll feel great once you grasp the basics. Let's walk through the process of writing a new email with AI and your templates:

1. When reading an incoming email, press Enter to reply. 

2. Start by generating with AI: hit Ctrl + J, write a short prompt, and send it. 

3. Then, you can use the snippets feature to add pre-written blocks of text: click anywhere on the message, tap the ; key, and select the one you want. It'll land exactly on that part of the email.

While Superhuman comes with a few stock snippets, you'll need to add your own. Head to the Snippets screen (click the hamburger menu, and select Snippets, or hit G followed by ;), and add as many private or team snippets as you need. They can be full messages with attachments or short blocks of text detailing a product or service you offer. You can customize them with variables, so the fields update based on the message sender.

On top of this generative AI tool, you'll be able to summarize any of your email threads: hit M while reading to do so. A small collection of AI features, yes, but so well put together that it deserves a shout on this list—especially since Superhuman is already such a strong product. The user interface is minimalist, offering tools to split your inbox based on email types and a way to mark your emails as done, useful for tracking what's still to do.

Caveat time: look at that price tag. All this could be yours for $30 per user per month. Steep, I know. But if you love a polished user experience that turns email into a mini-game, you'll be happy with how much Superhuman can make the road to inbox zero fun again.

Superhuman price: $30/user/month

Best AI email assistant for keeping your inbox organized

SaneBox (add-on)

SaneBox pros:

• Very hands-off after setup

• A SaneLater folder for low-priority emails

SaneBox cons:

• The interface is pretty dated; doesn't instill a lot of confidence

SaneBox is really lo-fi. It sits in the background doing its thing. Once you go through onboarding and finish tweaking the settings, you won't have to constantly log in to it. You can just use your inbox normally (on any client or device), and it will keep working.

When you start the configuration process, you can list the labels you'd like to use or have SaneBox do that for you. It'll go through your inbox to weed out newsletters, conversations with friends and family, system messages from the apps you use, and a lot more. Once you finish running it, a few things will happen:

• You'll see all your emails split by category, and you can easily trash useless messages (for example, email notifications from your apps).

Then, after that deep clean is complete:

• The important emails will stay in your inbox, so you can focus your attention on them first.

• All lower-priority emails will be added to the SaneLater folder. You can visit it once per day to read everything. It's best to visit it frequently during the first weeks of using SaneBox: it's still training, and its accuracy will improve over time. You can help train the model by dragging unimportant emails from your inbox to the SaneLater folder.

• You can create folders for any kind of topic or group of people, drag emails into those folders, and SaneBox will pick up on your intentions. It'll start funneling similar emails in the future.

If you're getting a lot of annoying messages from a single sender, you can throw them into the SaneBlackHole: it'll get all follow-up emails into its gravitational pull, so you'll never hear from that person or organization again.

All these AI-powered sorting features will make sure that your attention will always be on your critical emails, keeping your inbox clean and organized throughout the day.

SaneBox price: From $0.07/day (or $24/year) for 1 feature on the Appetizer plan. If you want more than one email account and more than 2 features, you'll need at least the Lunch plan, which is $12/month (or $169/24 months).

Best AI email assistant for gathering contact details and tasks

Mailbutler (add-on)

Mailbutler pros:

• Data extraction from email signatures

• Task extraction, plus integration with task management apps

Mailbutler cons:

• Only works in Gmail, Apple Mail, and Outlook

Mailbutler went deep in integrating generative AI into its compose window. But it goes a little further too: it keeps your contact information complete and picks up on tasks mentioned in your emails, two features that set it apart from the competition.

It works as either a Chrome extension, Apple Mail extension, or Outlook add-in. It adds a sidebar to your inbox, letting you access the extra features there. You can access your contacts, notes, and tasks, as well as the contextual actions you can take when viewing an email.

Let's start with data extraction. Mailbutler looks at the signatures of all emails you receive to grab phone numbers, addresses, and positions within a company. You can add extra fields if you'd like to, helping you keep a complete record of everyone you're talking to.

In addition to signatures, it also processes the text of the emails looking for tasks, adding them on the sidebar so you won't forget them. And since the app integrates with task management apps, you can send them straight over without having to retype anything.

The generative AI features are quite complete, too:

• Smart Compose writes an email for you from a prompt.

• Smart Respond lets you generate a positive or negative reply.

• Smart Summarize turns a long-winded email into a snappy snack.

• Smart Improve keeps your grammar and spelling in check.

And all of this on top of a collection of useful features such as email open tracking, rich signatures, scheduled sends, team collaboration, and email snooze. 

Mailbutler price: From $4.95/month, but AI features are only available starting at the Smart plan for $14.95/month.

Other AI email assistants to watch

There are a few AI email apps that didn't quite make it due to my strict criteria, but I'd still like to share them with you. As they grow, they may incorporate more AI features or become better for personal inbox management, so definitely keep an eye out for them.

• Google Gemini joins the competition, bringing AI features to Google Workspace users. It only offers generative AI for writing emails in Gmail for now. I'm sure it'll get a lot of love in the future, so be sure to keep up to date with this one. Learn more about Google Gemini.

• Mailytica leans customer service, using AI to handle repetitive emails at scale. You'll have your own model trained with your company's messages, access email classification, email reply suggestions based on blocks (not on generation), sentiment analysis, and plenty of advanced features to save time and improve consistency.

• EmailTree used to be part of this list, but the pricing now is a better fit for customer support teams juggling email and Zendesk tickets. It offers AI and advanced automation features to help you tackle emails quickly and accurately.

Put your email on autopilot

I love the inbox zero feeling. I confess I've been having it less and less, so it's time to side with the bots. Having AI in your inbox means you'll be able to be more agile with important messages, handle the lower-priority ones gracefully, and throw the rest out the window.

While we're still waiting for more competition when it comes to AI email assistants, the apps above are a good start. You can also create your own AI email workflows using Zapier. Learn more about how to use GPT to automatically write business emails, sales emails, or email summaries with Zapier and OpenAI. Or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Related reading:

• 6 ChatGPT prompts that will generate great sales emails

• How a contractor with dyslexia uses AI and Zapier to write business emails

• The best AI scheduling assistants

• Shortwave vs. Superhuman: Which should you use?

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

You likely use Eventbrite to manage your events and tickets, but you probably also have a calendar app where you keep track of things like meetings and appointments. Keeping two calendars can be a recipe for disaster—it only takes one missed event to ruin your day.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to keep all of your calendars in sync without remembering to copy and paste events between apps. With a Zap—Zapier's word for our automated workflows—you can automatically add all new Eventbrite events to your Google Calendar of choice. Keep your calendar wrangled without adding any extra time to your day. Here's how.

Connect Eventbrite with Google Calendar

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 below to set up your Zap.

Set up your Eventbrite 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 Eventbrite as the trigger app and New Event as the trigger event. Click Continue.

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

Now, choose the Organization that you want to use in Eventbrite, and click Continue. 

Now you'll need to test your trigger step. Before doing this, make sure you have at least one event added to your organization in Eventbrite. Zapier will use this information to set up the rest of your Zap. Once you have at least one event, click Test trigger. 

Zapier will pull in the latest data from Eventbrite. Choose one of the events that you want to use, then click the Continue with selected record button.

And that's it for the trigger. We can now move on to setting up the Google Calendar action.

Set up your Google Calendar 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 Google Calendar as your action app and Create Detailed Event as your action event. Click Continue.

Next, sign in with your Google Calendar account, if you haven't already, then click Continue.

Now, it's time to customize the action. First, select the appropriate calendar in the Calendar field. 

Then customize the Summary and Description fields. If you're using the Zap template, the name of the Eventbrite event will already be added to the Summary field and the event description will be added to Description. You can add different data from your Eventbrite step by clicking in the field and selecting the data you'd like to use from the Insert Data dropdown. You can also add static text.

If this is a physical event and you've added the address to the Eventbrite event, you can choose to add the Venue Address data to the Location field. Next, make sure to add Start Local to the Start Date & Time field and End Local to the End Date & Time field. After everything is set, click Continue.

Finally, it's time to test your Zap. Click Test step, then open Google Calendar to see if you have a new event in your calendar. This is what our test looked like:

And that's all there is to it. If everything looks right, you're now ready to use your Zap. Now, every time you add a new event to your Eventbrite organization, it will automatically show up in your Google Calendar. 

I don't love work meetings, but the reality is I wouldn't get a lot done without them. From sharing team updates to outlining project briefs, they're a big part of how we share information at work. 

It's the stuff that comes after a meeting that can be a hassle. From drafting meeting summaries to assigning action items to the right people, those follow up tasks can take up a lot of space. 

That's exactly where Read AI comes in. The tool works in the background of your calls, using AI to generate meeting summaries, transcripts, and action items—so you don't have to. And, when you pair it with Zapier, you can connect Read AI to thousands of other apps and automate workflows (what we call Zaps) to streamline your productivity. From sharing meeting notes in Slack to creating tasks in Todoist, here are four ways you can automate Read AI. 

Table of contents

• Create official tasks from your action items

• Share meeting notes with your team

• Add meeting attendees and engagements to your CRM

• Keep a running log of your meetings

Create official tasks from your action items

Meetings are usually just the first step towards completing a wider work project or converting a prospect. Afterwards, you'll probably need to assign specific tasks to your team members or send leads a follow-up note. 

While the Read AI app automatically extracts action items from your live calls, you still have to remember to create official records in your project management apps. But remembering to do this manually is when mistakes can happen.

With these Zaps, you can automatically create tasks in Notion, Todoist, or another tool you use to track projects, so you and your team never miss a trick.  

Share meeting notes with your team

From writing summaries or transcripts to creating action items, Read AI does a great job of organizing your meetings into useful content. But don't let that content live in isolation—send it to your team, automatically. 

However you communicate with your team members, be that via Slack or email, you can use Zapier to send them those notes right after a meeting ends. That way, everybody can take action and stay up to speed in real-time.

Add meeting attendees and engagements to your CRM

Whether you work in sales and regularly chat with leads or you routinely source feedback from your existing customers, you'll want to make sure you add those meeting notes to your CRM. 

That way, the rest of your sales and marketing teams can see where your leads are in the sales funnel or whether customers require a follow up call. 

With Zapier, you can automatically add those engagements to the right person directly in your CRM. And, if that person doesn't exist yet in your CRM, Zapier will create them for you. 

But what if you're hosting a webinar or a meeting that has more than one attendee? You can use these multi-step Zaps to automatically capture each participant and add them straight to your CRM.

Keep a running log of your meetings

Do you typically store meeting notes and other related content in a Google Doc or in a spreadsheet? Doing so allows you and your team to easily refer back to specific action items and summaries or share them with other teams and departments. 

Plus, it helps you keep a running log of all your meetings. With these Zaps, you can fully automate the process, so any time Read AI generates new meeting notes, they'll be sent to your spreadsheet, doc, or drive. 

Take control of your meetings with Read AI and Zapier

By itself, Read AI can make your meetings a lot more efficient without resorting to tedious admin tasks. But when you connect it to Zapier, you can streamline your productivity and take it to the next level. 

Plus, think about it: You'll never have to comb through a meeting transcript or remember to send notes to your team again. The dream. 

Microsoft Excel is certainly a powerhouse when it comes to data storage. And its capabilities go far beyond that of a simple spreadsheet. From analyzing finances to managing complex data sets of customer information, Excel can help businesses scale their operations. 

But if you're handling Excel on a regular basis, you might be looking to streamline certain processes, like that of transferring data from your other business-critical apps. 

That's where automation comes in. By connecting Excel to Zapier, you can connect to thousands of apps and automate the most important parts of your data management. That includes automatically logging form submissions, sending team updates, syncing data in real time across apps, and more. Here are six ways you can start digging into Excel automation.

Table of contents

• Log forms and survey submissions

• Send notifications for important updates

• Update data across multiple spreadsheets

• Use webhooks to connect Microsoft Excel to almost any app

• Sync new leads in real time

• Create tasks and projects

Log forms and survey submissions

Whether you've just asked your customers to rate your business or you're collecting responses from team members to host an event, forms apps—like Jotform and Typeform—are undeniably handy. 

But if you're using Excel to store and analyze those responses, you've probably experienced the dread that comes with transferring data between your two apps. You don't want to export hundreds of responses or waste time manually copying and pasting them into Excel. You have better things to do. (Who could blame you?)

Save time by using Zapier to automate this entire process. Your responses will get added straight to your Excel sheet from your forms app any time a new one is submitted. 

Send notifications for important updates

The hard part is done: You've added vital customer information to an Excel sheet, and it's ready for sales. Maybe a customer has changed their email address, and you need to update your email list. Or perhaps you've logged important company information that you need to hand over to your stakeholders. 

The question is: How do you keep everybody in the loop whenever there's a new update or a new row? You can't be expected to check Excel 10 times a day, then send your team an email or Slack notification every time something changes. It would take over your life. 

Fortunately, you can use Zapier to set up automated alerts whenever new rows are added or updated in Excel. You can choose how to present each message so everybody receives the details they need to know at a glance—without logging in and out of Excel constantly. 

Update data across multiple spreadsheets

Do you store data across multiple spreadsheets? You're not the only one. Having multiple databases across different teams is pretty common, but it can make it difficult to keep information up to date, particularly when someone updates or edits a row. 

This is exactly how mistakes and missed updates can happen, as manual updates take time, precision, and an eagle eye for detail. To keep your spreadsheet data consistent across all sources, you can automatically update your data across spreadsheets whenever a change happens, no matter how small. 

Use webhooks to connect Excel to almost any app

Have data in one app that you need to send to Excel, but Zapier doesn't support the app? Don't panic because you can use webhooks to achieve the impossible.

In simple terms, webhooks let your apps speak with each other—sending detailed information back and forth whenever new items occur in the first app. 

This Zap, for example, will catch payloads inside your app, which Zapier's webhooks will catch. Zapier then automatically enters that data into a new Excel spreadsheet row for you.

Sync new leads in real time

Do you keep a backlog of all your existing leads in case your other systems fail? Or perhaps your sales teams like to store new prospects in a spreadsheet for future reference without digging into a CRM. 

If you use social media ads (like Facebook or LinkedIn) to source new leads, it's a good idea to automatically add them straight to Excel in real time. That way, you can keep all your lead data in sync for your different teams. 

Forget copying and pasting—these Zaps will do the heavy lifting for you: 

Create tasks and projects

Do you use Excel to plan out projects and workflows? It's also very likely that your team uses a project management app to track and manage tasks once you kick off work. But you don't have to refer back to Excel every time you set up a project manually—you can get Zapier to do the heavy lifting for you. 

This means that whenever you add a new row

to your Excel spreadsheet, Zapier will automatically create a task or project for you in your project management app with that specific information. This lets you and your team tackle every new item that comes in straight away.  

You can forget the tedious admin that goes with setting up projects, ensuring no task slips through the cracks. Instead, you and your team can get straight to the bulk of your work. 

Do more in less time

No matter how you use Excel, pairing it with Zapier ultimately helps you save time and focus on your most important work. 

But using automation to log form submissions, send team notifications, update multiple spreadsheets, and create projects can streamline your IT processes, serving you with better ways to move your work forward at growth speed. 

And this is only the beginning: You can easily develop tailored solutions for you and your team when you automate Excel.

This article was originally published in August 2022. It was most recently updated in March 2024.

Some things never change, and connecting with people over email is one of them. Let's face it—emails are practically a cornerstone of business communication.

But whether you're emailing clients, collaborating with colleagues, or managing day-to-day correspondence at scale, it can get pretty time-consuming, particularly when you're trying to tame an inbox that never quits. This is where AI can help. 

By pairing OpenAI's GPTs with Zapier's AI actions, you can build your own email assistant GPT that writes and sends emails. 

The combination of the two allows you to build a custom GPT directly in ChatGPT that pulls in the power of Zapier's 6,000+ apps. That means you can take action in apps like Gmail or Microsoft Outlook—all from within ChatGPT's interface. Here's how you can build your own from scratch. 

Before you get started

You'll need a Zapier account to get started. It's free to sign up. You'll also need a ChatGPT Plus or Enterprise account. Already have the required account type? Click Log in to start chatting. 

Set up your Zapier AI actions

First, you'll need to create and enable the AI actions you want your GPT to perform directly within Zapier. This refers to setting up the apps and the relevant actions you want your GPT to have access to. For the purpose of this tutorial, you'll add one action: Gmail: Send email. 

Head over to https://actions.zapier.com/gpt/actions/ to get started. 

Once you've opened this page, click Add a new action. You'll see this window:

Type Gmail into the search bar, and select Gmail: Send Email. 

Now it's time to customize your Gmail action. The first three fields (Action, Zapier Account, and Gmail Account) will be auto-populated. You shouldn't need to edit them, but you can connect a different Gmail account if you need to.

Under the To, Subject, and Body fields, you can decide to either have AI guess a value or set a specific value for this field. I recommend having the AI guess these fields, as these fields will change depending on who you're emailing—and what you're emailing them about. 

Once you've done that, click Enable action. You'll be brought back to the page listing all of your AI actions. 

Create your custom GPT

Once you've created your AI actions in Zapier, log into ChatGPT, head over to the sidebar, and click Explore. Next, click Create in the top-right corner of your screen.

The GPT builder will display a split screen. The Create panel is where you enter your prompts to build your chatbot, and the Preview panel allows you to interact with your chatbot as you build, making it easier to determine how to refine it.

To get started, enter your instructions in the message box of the Create page. 

In this example, because you're creating an email assistant that can connect to your Gmail account, you can type out these basic instructions in the message box (though you'll fine-tune them later):

Once you've typed out your instructions, press Enter. 

The GPT builder will then suggest a few things based on your instructions: a chatbot name, profile picture, and default conversation starters.

You can accept the initial suggestions or ask the GPT builder to modify them.

The GPT builder will prompt you to enter more specific instructions to fine-tune your chatbot's behavior. The more context you give it, the more prompts and conversation starters the GPT will generate in the Preview panel, like so:

You can test your chatbot—interact with it how you normally would—and use its responses to inform your modifications.  

Note: These preliminary instructions serve to give your GPT context, but it won't connect your apps for you. This will be covered below. 

Configure your GPT

Now it's time to configure your GPT with more advanced instructions. Click Configure on your GPT builder screen. 

If you don't like the name and description the GPT builder generated, you can change your chatbot's name and description in the relevant fields.

You can also change the profile picture by clicking on the image and uploading either the relevant file from your computer or by using DALL·E.

Configure your instructions

Once you've finished customizing these fields, scroll down to the Instructions field. You can update the instructions generated by the GPT builder or enter additional instructions and guidelines on how your chatbot should or shouldn't behave. 

In this case, I'm going to add specific instructions for how the GPT should refer to the blog documentation (which I'll show you how to upload below). Here's an example:

Next, you'll need to tell your GPT builder how to interact with your Zapier actions—the ones you set up earlier. These instructions should detail each step your GPT will take in order to send an email via Gmail. 

Don't worry if you're not sure what to write. I recommend copying and pasting the Zapier example below directly into your Instructions field, but you can also check out Zapier's AI actions help documentation for more information and examples of instructions. Remember, these rules are just a starting point, so feel free to experiment!

###Rules:

- Before running any Actions tell the user that they need to reply after the Action completes to continue.

- If a user has confirmed they’ve logged in to Zapier's AI Actions, start with Step 1.

###Instructions for Zapier Custom Action:

Step 1. Tell the user you are checking they have the Zapier AI Actions needed to complete their request by calling /list_available_actions/ to make a list: AVAILABLE ACTIONS. Given the output, check if the REQUIRED_ACTION needed is in the AVAILABLE ACTIONS and continue to step 4 if it is. If not, continue to step 2.

Step 2. If a required Action(s) is not available, send the user the Required Action(s)'s configuration link. Tell them to let you know when they've enabled the Zapier AI Action.

Step 3. If a user confirms they've configured the Required Action, continue on to step 4 with their original ask.

Step 4. Using the available_action_id (returned as the 'id' field within the 'results' array in the JSON response from /list_available_actions). Fill in the strings needed for the run_action operation. Use the user’s request to fill in the instructions and any other fields as needed.

Remember to copy and paste this text directly below your other instructions, like so:

Next, you need to add in information from your required actions—this refers to the app (Gmail) you enabled in a previous step. 

The information you need is the name of your Gmail action. This is how you should format it:

REQUIRED_ACTIONS:

- Action: Gmail: Send Email

Note: If you want to share your GPT with other people so they can also use it, you'll need to include the actions' configuration links. You can learn how to set up configuration URLs from scratch here.

Once you're done, exit the instructions field and head back into your GPT builder. (Your instructions will save automatically.)

Add conversation starters, upload files, and add capabilities

Head back to your Configure panel. Under Conversation starters, you can click X beside any prompt to remove it or enter a new prompt in an empty field. Remember, these are the example prompts you or your users will see when you open the finished GPT. 

You can also add any company files you have to your GPT in the Knowledge field. For example, you could upload your company's voice and tone style guide to give it additional context when it writes email copy.  

You can also give your GPT the ability to browse the web, create images using DALL·E, and interpret code. You should enable web browsing and image generation in case you need these features to write emails. 

Add the necessary actions to your GPT

Now it's time to officially connect your GPT to your Zapier AI actions, which will bring all your apps together. Click Create new action. 

This will bring you to the actions page, which looks like this:

First up, copy this special URL to your clipboard: 

You can copy this URL from this blog post or from the Zapier instructions, located here. (You'll only need to use this URL once in your GPT set-up.)

Inside your GPT builder, click Import from URL. 

Paste in your special URL in the empty HTTPS field and click Import. 

This will generate text inside the Schema box, which defines the components and paths available in the API. 

Important: You should now click Save or Update in the top-right corner of your GPT builder.

You'll be able to select who you want to share your custom chatbot with: Only me, Only people with a link, or Public. If you're on an Enterprise plan, you'll also have Anyone at [your company] as an option. 

Once you've enabled your choice, click Confirm to publish your GPT. 

Test your GPT

Now that you've finished configuring your GPT, it's time to test it out and make sure everything's working correctly. After you've saved your GPT, you'll be able to click View GPT.

This will open the public front-end page of your GPT. 

To test your GPT, ask it to write and send an email to someone. This will kick your AI actions into gear. Just remember that you'll have to click Allow to grant your GPT access to your Zapier account. 

Your GPT will now draft an email for you based on your prompt. Here's what mine generated:

As you can see, the GPT first shows me a draft and gives me the option to change anything before it sends the email. When you're happy with the copy, you can give your GPT the correct email address to send this to. Your GPT will now send the email.

Once the email has been sent successfully, you'll have the option to review the sent email by clicking the link provided by your GPT. This will take you into your Zapier AI actions window.

If you head into Gmail, you can also confirm the email was successfully sent by looking in your Gmail Sent folder. 

If you're happy with the way everything is working, you're now ready to use your assistant. If something looks off or you want to modify the GPT's instructions, go back and edit your GPT. 

To do this, just click into the dropdown menu of your Email Assistant GPT and click Edit GPT. 

This will bring you to the backend of your GPT where you can continue refining. 

If you've set up your configuration links and you want to share your GPT with other people, just click Copy link and you can share that URL with the rest of your team.

Build GPTs that pull in the power of thousands of apps

With Zapier AI Actions and OpenAI's GPT-builder, you can build custom assistants that can help streamline the way you work across thousands of apps—boosting your productivity. This is just the start of what you can do. Start experimenting now and see what you can build!

Consumers want instant gratification, whether paying extra for faster shipping or ordering food delivery to avoid restaurant crowds. You don't have to worry about shipping if you sell digital products. However, you still need to combine multiple tools to get your services to customers.

With Podia, you get an all-in-one platform for hosting, selling, and marketing your products. Build a website, an online course, or even create a community for your coaching program. Podia even tackles file hosting, payment processing, and email marketing. With everything in one place, you can focus on creating and selling your content. 

It's still your responsibility to onboard new customers, though. Fortunately, you can create a simple Zap (our word for automated workflows) that automatically enrolls customers in Podia whenever they make a ThriveCart purchase. Give your customers instant gratification and appreciation for their business.

The problem: Onboarding new customers is a manual process, which can sour your customers' experience before they can get value from your services.

The solution: Kick off the onboarding process immediately with Podia and Zapier. Automatically enroll customers in Podia after they purchase a product in ThriveCart.

Ready to try it yourself? Get started with our pre-made workflows called Zap templates. Just click on the template below, and we'll guide you through the setup process. It only takes a few minutes.

Zap rating: Beginner

Pro tip: Don't use ThriveCart for your online shop? No problem! Podia connects with eCommerce platforms through Zapier so that you can deliver value to customers right away.

This is the start of all you can do with Podia and Zapier. Zapier supports thousands of apps so that you can automate almost any task at work. Start building your Zap now with Podia and create delightful customer experiences.

So many contracts, agreements, and other business documents going paperless hasn't meant the end of paperwork—it just means you need to sign things in a different way. You no longer need to find a pen, scrawl your name a few times on a scrap of paper, and send it off. In most cases, all you need to do is type your name, click a box, or use your laptop's trackpad. And, most importantly, it's just as legally binding. 

Whether you're the one sending documents out to be signed or the one signing them, you've probably heard of DocuSign. It's one of the biggest eSignature apps out there, and it topped our list of the best electronic signature apps. But there are lots of apps that offer pretty similar features, so if DocuSign isn't the right fit for you, here's a big list of DocuSign alternatives you can use instead. 

The best DocuSign alternatives at a glance

These are all apps that I've tested and can vouch for—they'll let you get your signature on (digital) paper easily, usually with some other bells and whistles involved.

Do DocuSign alternatives work for legal signatures?

The short answer is yes, these DocuSign alternatives can be used for legally-binding signatures.

But to complicate matters a little, digital signatures and electronic signatures are slightly different things—despite the terms being thrown around interchangeably.

An electronic signature is just your typed, drawn, or otherwise computer-added signature on a document—typically a PDF. You can add one using any tool you like, from Paint to Photoshop. It still counts as a real legal signature, though enforcing it in a court case might prove tricky, as anyone can forge it. You could just type my name on a contract and claim I electronically signed it (please don't).

To combat this kind of silliness, most eSignature apps actually create digital signatures. In addition to adding your signature, they use cryptography to protect the document and embed identifying details like email addresses, when and where people signed the document, and the serial number and specs of the device they used to do it. This gives the document a "fingerprint" that makes it unique and creates a paper trail that can be independently audited.

If you're looking for a dedicated digital signature app to make digital signatures, you'll want to grab an app from the first section of this article. But if all you need is to put your signature down, any of these DocuSign alternatives lets you make electronic signatures.

DocuSign alternatives that are dedicated digital signature apps

DocuSign is probably the best known digital signature app, but there are lots of options out there that do more or less the same thing. Here are some of the best DocuSign alternatives if you need to go the super official route.

SignWell

SignWell, formerly known as Docsketch, is a fully featured, easy-to-use eSign app with a great free plan. You can send up to three documents out to be signed every month without paying a penny. So, if you only need to get contracts or other legal documents signed every so often, it's a great DocuSign alternative.

SignWell also integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like automatically get a notification or upload to cloud storage when a document is completed in SignWell. Zapier lets you connect to thousands of other apps, but these examples will give you some ideas.

SignWell price: Free for up to 3 eSignatures per month; from $10/month for the Personal plan with unlimited eSignatures.

SignNow

SignNow is a business-focused DocuSign alternative. It's set up so even the cheapest plan allows multiple users on a team, which isn't something that can be said about every eSign app. If you're prepared to pay annually, it can also offer great value. The $20/user/month plan is only $8/user/month if you pay in advance.

You can also use Zapier to connect SignNow to your other tools, so you can automatically do things like request signatures based on activity in the other business apps you use.

SignNow price: From $20/user/month ($8/user/month, billed annually) for the Business plan with a fair use system.

Adobe Acrobat Sign

Adobe Acrobat Sign (formerly Adobe Sign) is one of the biggest DocuSign competitors. As you'd expect from a powerhouse like Adobe, the app has all the features you need, whether you're a small business or a gigantic enterprise. It also allows you to edit and convert PDFs. It's not as easy to pull into your existing workflows, but really, the most annoying thing about it is that Adobe keeps changing its name.

Adobe Acrobat Sign price: From $22.99/month for Acrobat Standard with unlimited eSignatures.

eSignatures.io

eSignatures.io offers a super streamlined eSigning experience. It allows you to create contracts and send them out to be signed, either individually, in bulk, automatically through the API, or when someone follows a link in an SMS or email. Because it's pay-as-you-go, eSignatures.io is a perfect DocuSign alternative if you, for example, hire seasonal staff and need to get 20 contracts signed in June but don't need any signed the rest of the year.

It also has built-in Zapier support, which means you can easily do things like have new signed contracts automatically uploaded to your cloud storage app or tracked in your CRM.

eSignatures.io price pricing: $0.99/document

PandaDoc

PandaDoc isn't just a digital signature app. It's designed to handle all kinds of important documents that your clients need to fill in or approve, like proposals, quotes, and contracts. If you need something that gives you more flexibility over your document workflow, it's worth a look. 

PandaDoc integrates with Zapier, too, so you can automate all your document workflows across apps. Here are some examples to get you started.

PandaDoc pricing: From $35/month/user for Essentials, with unlimited eSignatures.

DocHub

DocHub is a full document collaboration app for teams, but it includes eSigning even on the free plan. If your team needs to create and edit a lot of documents together as well as occasionally get things signed, it's a great DocuSign alternative.

DocHub pricing: Free for up to 3 eSignatures/month; from $10/month for Pro, with unlimited eSignatures. 

Signaturely

Signaturely is another easy-to-use electronic signature app. It integrates with Google Drive, Dropbox, One Drive, and Box, so whatever cloud storage provider you use, Signaturely makes it simple to send documents out to be signed. 

Signaturely integrates with Zapier, so you can automatically create eSignature requests based on the actions you take in other apps, like Google Sheets.

Signaturely pricing: From $20/month for Personal, with 5 eSignatures per month. 

Signeasy

Signeasy is a solid DocuSign alternative, with great mobile apps and support. It doesn't do anything radically different, but it offers a good service at a good price. 

Signeasy pricing: Free for up to 3 eSignatures per month; from $10/month for Essential, with 5 eSignatures per month.

Xodo Sign

Xodo Sign (formerly Eversign) is a good eSignature app with a generous free plan. While the app might not be as polished as some of the others on this list, you can send up to five documents to be signed each month for free, which is pretty generous for the category.

Xodo Sign also integrates with Zapier, so you can automatically create contracts based on actions taken in thousands of other apps. Here are a few pre-made workflows to get you started.

Xodo Sign pricing: Free for up to 5 eSignatures per month; from $10/month for Basic, with unlimited eSignatures per month.

Free DocuSign alternatives already on your computer

If all you want to do is sign a document someone sent you via email, these are the DocuSign alternatives you're looking for. Whether you're on a PC or a Mac, you have a solid option.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader is Adobe's free PDF reader available for pretty much every platform. You can use it to digitally sign documents yourself, or send up to two documents off to be signed each month.

Adobe Acrobat Reader price: Free

Apple Preview

Apple's Preview app allows you to electronically sign documents—but not digitally sign them. It's not as secure as a dedicated eSign app, but it'll do for simple forms and paperwork. 

Preview pricing: Free (and already included on macOS)

DocuSign alternatives in cloud storage apps

When Dropbox bought HelloSign, eSignatures came into the world of cloud storage. Now all the big names in cloud storage allow you to sign and send documents. So if you already use one of these apps, it's worth seeing if they do the trick before you add another tool to your tech stack.

Dropbox Sign

A few years ago, cloud storage company Dropbox bought HelloSign—at the time, one of the best electronic signature apps. It's now fully integrated signing documents into Dropbox. Even the 2TB $11.99/month Plus plan designed for individuals allows you to send three documents per month off to be signed. If you need more storage or signatures, one of Dropbox's plans for professionals or businesses will have you covered.

Dropbox Sign also integrates with Zapier, so you can automatically request signatures or get notified when people sign your documents. Here are some examples to get you started.

Dropbox Sign price: From $11.99/month for Dropbox Plus, with 3 eSignatures per month.

Box Sign

Like Dropbox, cloud storage company Box has moved into the electronic signature space. Box Sign is integrated with every Box account. With a free account, you can send five documents per month off to be signed—and you get 10 GB of storage. With the cheapest paid plan, the $14/month Personal Pro plan, you get 100 GB of storage and 15 signed documents a month. The business plans all have essentially unlimited storage and signing. Especially if you're already using Box, it's a great deal.

Box also connects with Zapier, so you can automate your cloud storage workflows. Here are some ideas for how to get started.

Box Sign price: Free for 5 eSignatures per month; from $14/month for 15 eSignatures per month. 

Google Drive eSignature

Google is rolling native eSigning out to its premium Workspace plans. Right now, anyone with the $9.99/month Individual Workspace plan can send documents out to be signed, but the feature is also gradually rolling out to the business Workspace plans. If you're an avid Google user, this is a nice value add.

And because Google Drive integrates with Zapier, you can connect it to all the other apps you use at work. Here are some ideas.

Google Drive eSignature price: From $9.99/month for Individual Workspace plan with unlimited eSignatures.

DocuSign alternatives in PDF apps

If you don't have a Mac or don't like Preview for whatever reason, any good PDF editor can be used to electronically sign most documents. Just make sure to check they seem legit and secure enough to store your sensitive files—you don't want to upload an important contract to DodgyPDFs.com.

PDF Expert

PDF Expert (owned by Readdle) is great for Apple users since it has an iPhone and iPad app. It has all the core PDF editing features you'd ever need, but you'll need to pay to get access to the digital signatures feature.

PDF Expert pricing: Free plan includes access to basic editing tools; from $79.99 (billed annually) for digital signatures. 

Canva PDF Editor

Canva's PDF editor is probably more than you need to just sign a document—you can add graphics, audio, bespoke stickers, you name it. But it just takes a few clicks to upload a document, sign it, and download it again—and you don't even need to create an account to do so.

Canva PDF Editor pricing: Free

Smallpdf

Just like with Canva, Smallpdf lets you upload, sign, and download a document without even creating an account. It's no-frills, and you can draw, type, or upload your signature. There are also lots of other helpful fields you can add—in addition to the other PDF editing features.

Smallpdf pricing: Free; from $12/user/month for unlimited document downloads

How to choose the right DocuSign alternative for you

The reality is that you can electronically sign a document with almost any app. And you don't even need an app: you could do something truly wild like print it out, sign it with a pen, then take a photo and email it off. 

This means that there are lots of DocuSign alternatives out there that could work for you. With that said, the three most important things to consider are:

• Do you actually need digital signatures? (If that's the case, make sure you use a dedicated eSign app.)

• How often do you plan to be signing things or sending things off for signatures? (If it's a one-time deal, use a free app.)

• Does the app offer the features you need at the price you want to pay? (Sometimes the time you'll save is worth the cost.)

One of the DocuSign alternatives above is bound to do what you need.

Related reading:

• DocuSign vs. HelloSign (now Dropbox Sign)

• How to automate DocuSign

• Add document automation to your business workflows

Todoist and Asana are two giants of the productivity world, and they're both really good at what they do. But what they do is different: Todoist is all about streamlined to-do lists, while Asana is built for project management.

I use both apps personally, and I spent more time comparing their features to bring you this comparison. As you dive in, think about what you really want in a task management app. It's all up to you and the complexities (or simplicities) you're looking for.

Asana vs. Todoist at a glance

Before I dive into the details, here's an overview of the differences between Todoist and Asana. Short on time? Skip to the end for a quick summary of which app to choose for what situation.

Todoist is better at personal task management, while Asana excels at team project management

These two tools target different audiences. Todoist is a beacon of productivity for individuals, while Asana is a powerhouse for teams—especially bigger teams.

My Todoist personally serves as the hub of all my to-dos, giving me a play-by-play of what I need to accomplish that day.

Part of Todoist's appeal to individual users lies in its gamification elements. As a Todoist power user, I find it incredibly satisfying to tick off my tasks and watch my productivity score soar. I'm motivated to keep my streak going and to clear my to-dos for the day, every day.

When it comes to working with teams, though, Asana is worlds ahead. While Todoist lets you assign tasks and comment on them—and offers Team Workspaces, to keep your work and personal to-dos separate—Asana takes teamwork further.

Features like built-in messaging, task dependencies, and comprehensive dashboards and reporting provide a bird's-eye view of team productivity and project progress. It's crucial for managing complex projects involving multiple stakeholders.

Asana's catering to teams is further exemplified by its Workload view, time tracking, and capacity planning tools. These features make it easier to track the time your team members spend on individual projects, so you can allocate resources effectively. But it's worth noting that these premium features are reserved for its highest pricing tier (at $24.99/user/month). 

Additionally, Asana offers Gantt and timeline views, which are essential for visual project planning and tracking—a feature that Todoist notably lacks.

Customization is another area where Asana outshines Todoist and makes it more suitable for teams. With custom fields, forms, and adjustable calendar views, Asana gives teams the flexibility to tailor the platform to their specific needs and workflows. 

Meanwhile, Todoist only offers one Calendar view (monthly), and doesn't allow for custom fields. 

Todoist is cheaper, but Asana has a stronger free version

Nothing beats free, and both Todoist and Asana have free versions. But Asana's free version pulls ahead, allowing for unlimited projects and tasks versus Todoist's three projects. Todoist's free version also lacks reminders, a key feature that makes Todoist so great.

But let's cut to the chase: cost matters. And Todoist is extremely affordable, at $4/user/month. Compare this to $10.99/user/month for Asana's cheapest plan—that's nearly three times the cost. This makes Todoist an attractive choice for individuals and teams looking for an efficient, cost-effective way to manage tasks without breaking the bank.

If you're looking for a $0 solution, Asana might be stronger, but you run the risk of coming up against paywalls once you exhaust its freebie functionality. If you're looking for a cheaper, value-packed task management solution, Todoist is an extremely viable option.

Asana has more robust AI features

Todoist and Asana have both added AI features, but their in-app AI differs in scope and sophistication.

Todoist's AI comes in the form of its natural language processing (NLP) and AI assistant. NLP simplifies task creation and scheduling by processing user input in everyday language. This means you can type "Email the quarterly report to the team next Friday," and Todoist will automatically create the task with the correct due date. 

The AI assistant is a Todoist add-on that offers task suggestions, suggests ways to make tasks more actionable, and gives tips on how to complete tasks.

You can also use Todoist's AI to create custom filters using natural language, instead of having to build queries.

Asana's AI, known as Asana Intelligence, takes a more comprehensive approach to integrating artificial intelligence into project management. Asana Intelligence can assist in all sorts of ways, from generating summaries to creating goals to deriving action items from text. 

Asana Intelligence offers smart everything—from goals to statuses, fields to forms, and questions to answers, its AI is integrated fully throughout the platform.

It's a slam dunk win for Asana on the AI field in terms of working smarter, not harder. 

Asana has better automations and more native integrations, but both apps integrate with Zapier

Asana's edge in automation comes from its Workflows feature, a powerful built-in automation tool designed to automate repetitive tasks and processes within the platform. This means you can set up triggers and actions within Asana itself, without needing to rely on external tools. For example, you can automatically create subtasks or assign tasks to team members based on project stage. 

But they both integrate with plenty of third-party tools. And because Todoist and Asana both connect to Zapier, they work with thousands of other apps. That means you can trigger actions in Todoist or Asana when things happen in the other apps you use, or send data to other apps straight from Todoist or Asana. 

Learn more about how to automate Todoist and how to automate Asana, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Todoist vs. Asana: Which should you choose?

Choose Todoist if:

• You operate as a team of one or few, managing simple, straightforward projects

• You have a limited budget for a project management tool

• You prefer a minimalistic interface

Choose Asana if:

• You have a larger team spread across multiple projects and departments

• Customization and increased visibility are must-haves

• You need to speed things up with built-in automation and AI

If you're looking for a straightforward tool, Todoist is both easier to pick up and cheaper, but limited in its functionality when it comes to collaboration. Asana, meanwhile, is well-suited for nuanced teams with complex projects, collaborating on a larger scale. 

Related reading:

• Trello vs. Todoist: Which should you use?

• Asana vs. Basecamp: Which is best?

• Trello vs. Asana: Which PM tool is better?