"Are you available tomorrow at 11 a.m. for a quick call? How about next Monday at 3:30?" If reading that made you break out in hives, I'm right there with you. Meetings not only take up too much of the workweek, but the sheer effort of finding a time that works for everyone makes me want to pull my hair out.  

Thankfully (and to my scalp's relief), I never have to schedule meetings manually anymore now that I use a meeting scheduler app. These tools eliminate as much of the back-and-forth as possible by integrating with my calendar and availability, letting guests book meetings on their own, and even generating video conferencing links automatically.

There are countless meeting schedulers available to match every work style, budget, and set of scheduling priorities. I spent several weeks testing dozens of them to find the best meeting scheduler tools. If you're just starting out with meeting schedulers, or you're looking for a Calendly or Doodle alternative, here are the best options to consider.

The 10 best meeting schedulers

• Calendly for simplified scheduling

• Calendar for appointments in a free calendar app

• SavvyCal for ​​mixing polling with a standard scheduling tool

• SimplyMeet.me for a free meeting scheduler

• Clara for an AI scheduling assistant

• Motion for an all-in-one scheduling and project management app

• Sidekick for a variety of meeting venues

• Cal.com for maximum flexibility

• Clockwise for optimizing your schedule with internal meetings

• lemcal for beautiful booking pages

What makes the best meeting scheduler?

As I tested meeting scheduler apps, I narrowed down my recommendations according to some key criteria. Here's a look at what's important:

• Ease of use. There are two groups of people that use a meeting scheduler: the event organizer and the people responding to it. A good meeting scheduler should be easy for both groups to use, with bonus points if the scheduler overlays the invitee's real calendar to show their available schedule while they're choosing a time to meet.

• Integrations with other apps/services. Primarily, you'll need to connect a meeting scheduler to your calendar application, so the more calendar services an app supports, the better. I also gave extra weight to apps that integrated well with project management software as well as automation tools like Zapier.

• Ability to automatically set up video calls. Being able to quickly hop on a video call with people is more important than ever. Many meeting schedulers can not only add events to your calendar, but also generate links for video chats through common services like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.

• Appointment reminders and follow-ups. While a meeting scheduler might integrate with your calendar, there's no guarantee that any of your attendees will get a reminder to show up on time. Good meeting schedulers will be able to remind everyone that their meeting is coming up, and some will even allow you to automatically send follow-up emails with summaries of your meeting.

• Value for money. Usually, the core meeting scheduler features will be free for a certain number of users, but extra features, like reminders, video call setup, automation, or even scheduling multiple meetings, will be part of a subscription. I weighed how much value these tools offered versus the cost of their paid plans.

When testing these apps, I signed up for each one, integrated my calendar and video conferencing apps, and set up my booking page(s). I then scheduled a meeting with myself using another email account, watching for reminder notifications, ease of use, and any other features that made the app stand out.

The best meeting schedulers at a glance

Best meeting scheduler for simplified scheduling

Calendly (Web, iOS, Android)

Calendly pros:

• It's a trusted name—which can matter when trying to get people to book with you

• Connects to a lot of calendars

Calendly cons:

• Free plan only supports one meeting type

Calendly is the default meeting scheduler for a reason. It's reliable, easy to use on both sides, and the free plan is robust enough to get the job done no matter your tech stack.

Calendly users can "set it and forget it" by setting up a booking page, where invitees can choose from a selection of meeting types, see your availability, and book a meeting with you. It's an ideal app for anyone who receives a lot of meeting requests and needs a simple but clear reply.

When signing up for Calendly, you first give insight into when you're free by connecting it to your calendar (Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange, or Outlook). Then, create different meeting options for the types of meetings you offer, such as "30-minute phone interview" or "initial client intake meeting." Calendly has a slew of details you can add to each meeting type you offer. You can even create intake forms and, with a paid plan, create workflows for automated reminders, SMS messaging, and feedback surveys. 

Once your event types are set up, you can send a link to people who need to schedule meetings with you so that they can see when you're available and request the meetings they need. The free plan supports one type of meeting, but starting on the Premium plan, you can create as many types of meetings as you need. Calendly syncs confirmed appointments to your calendar and offers to create an event on your invitees' calendars as well. The new Chrome extension also lets you schedule meetings from your Gmail or LinkedIn account, grab your booking links, and access contact information from your browser.

While Calendly works well for scheduling meetings with individuals or team members within an organization, its custom events and outgoing links make it ideal for connecting with external clients, customers, and colleagues. Calendly even has a routing feature that uses advanced logic to route form-fillers to the appropriate booking page for their situation. The tool also has extensive integration options, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, GoTo Meeting, and Zapier, but you do need to subscribe to a paid plan to get the full benefits here.

By connecting Calendly to Zapier, you can do things like create new Zoom calls whenever a new meeting is scheduled or add new meeting attendees to your email marketing list. Learn more about how to automate Calendly, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Overall, Calendly has a minimalist but intuitive interface for both the user and invitee. If you need something with a quick setup process that gets the job done reliably and without too much effort on your part, Calendly is a great choice.

Calendly Pricing: Free with limited features; paid plans from $12/month

Best free meeting scheduler built into a calendar app

Calendar (Web, iOS, Android)

Calendar pros:

• Full calendar app with scheduling included

• Extensive meeting statistics

Calendar cons:

• Customization options are a bit labor-intensive on setup

Calendar is more than a meeting scheduler: it's a full-fledged calendar app. It offers web and mobile versions, and the whole interface feels very reminiscent of Google Calendar. It also offers meeting scheduler features, like creating customizable time slots and shareable booking links.

But where Google puts some of its best appointment scheduling tools behind a paywall, Calendar gives them away for free. You can create up to five customizable scheduling events with the free plan and connect the app to one of your existing calendar services.

On the paid plans, Calendar lets you create multiple workspaces to stay organized, which is especially helpful if you want to use Calendar for your personal and business schedules. Within each workspace, you'll set up individual scheduling pages and events—plus set your availability for each meeting type. While I found the multiple levels of settings somewhat labor-intensive on setup, I can see how Calendar's robust customizability is helpful for larger teams with multiple meeting types.

Where Calendar stands out from the crowd is its extensive statistics section. It tracks every one of your meetings, spotting where trends develop. Besides obvious stats like how long you've spent in meetings over the past day, week, month, or even year, it also spots attendance records, noting what percentage of people rejected or missed a meeting. It even highlights who you're most likely to have meetings with. It's the kind of thing that could be immensely useful when trying to work toward better engagement. And it's all bundled up in a neat overview section that's attractive and informative.

Using yet another calendar app might feel a little redundant—and I found the app's navigation to be less intuitive than, say, Calendly—but if you want to analyze your meetings in depth and get some meeting scheduling without shelling out money, Calendar is the place to go.

When you connect Calendar to Zapier, you can make it talk to the rest of your work tech stack, and do things like get Slack notifications whenever someone schedules a new meeting with you or add every meeting to a new row in Google Sheets.

Calendar pricing: Free; from $10/month for more connected calendars and scheduling events

Best meeting scheduler for mixing polling with a standard scheduling tool

SavvyCal (Web)

SavvyCal pros:

• Easy to use; Doodle-adjacent but much more robust

• Invitees can automatically overlay their calendars within the polling page

SavvyCal cons:

• Limited free plan (only polls)

SavvyCal is a multi-use scheduling app designed to prioritize easy collaboration and finding optimal times to meet. While the free plan is limited to meeting polls, users willing to pay $12 per month can also take advantage of individual and team scheduling links.

To get started, sign up for SavvyCal, and let the setup wizard guide you through the process of connecting your favorite calendars and video conferencing apps. From there, you'll have a very intuitive and minimalist dashboard where you can quickly access all of your scheduling links and meeting polls, customize your default availability across all meeting types, and see all of your upcoming events.

If you've ever used Doodle to create a poll, you'll feel right at home with SavvyCal's polling functionality. But unlike Doodle, SavvyCal's booking and polling pages come without ads—even on the free plan. Easily create a new meeting poll, name it and add any relevant information, and propose a few time slots from your calendar. Then, send the link to all participants and invite them to vote on meeting times that work for them. 

One thing I appreciated about SavvyCal compared to many other meeting poll apps is that it offers the option for invitees to automatically overlay their calendars within the polling page, which lets them quickly choose from available slots without worrying about double-booking themselves. No more toggling back and forth between the poll and your personal calendar.

And if you're on a paid plan, you'll also have access to SavvyCal's scheduling links, which turn this polling app into a minimalist mix of Calendly and Doodle. You can easily create different scheduling links with custom meeting lengths and locations, and even set unique availability hours for each meeting type if you want. These scheduling links can be multi-use (if you have an ongoing meeting type) or single-use if you have a one-off meeting you need to schedule. Once you've created a scheduling link, you can share it with your invitees and let them book a time with you that works for them.

By connecting SavvyCal to Zapier, you can automatically update your to-do list when people schedule a meeting with you, send yourself a text whenever you get a new meeting request, and further automate your scheduling workflows. Here are some examples to get you started.

SavvyCal Pricing: Free with limited features, paid plans from $12/month

Best free meeting scheduler

SimplyMeet.me (Web)

SimplyMeet.me pros:

• Super generous free plan (unlimited meeting types, 500 meetings/month)

• Clean and professional booking pages

SimplyMeet.me cons:

• Nothing particularly unique about it

• Customizing the widget and booking pages can be time-consuming and confusing

When I was freelancing, SimplyMeet.me (previously Harmonizely, which was acquired by SimplyBook.me) was my go-to scheduling tool. It's an excellent option for those looking for a meeting scheduler that's free but can still pack a punch. This tool lets you create multiple meeting types and share one link that guests can use to schedule a meeting with you. Then, invitees can pick a date and one of your available time slots to book an appointment.

So yes, it's similar to many of the other services I tested, but what makes it stand out is that it has one of the most generous free tiers. It's free for one user and up to three calendar integrations, with unlimited meeting types and video meeting integrations, and up to 500 scheduled meetings per month.

One thing I love about SimplyMeet.me is the granular customization options when setting up each meeting type. These options include making the meeting secret, adding intake questions, setting your availability, customizing email and SMS notifications, accepting payments, and setting the maximum number of meetings per day. And I like the ability to adjust the booking page's theme, color palette, and logo to match your brand.

Each booking page, which can be embedded into your website, looks clean, professional, and minimalist from your invitee's point of view. As I was testing, I also appreciated that each booking page automatically shows times in the invitee's timezone, which can help avoid awkward miscommunications.

And beyond the standard Google, iCal, and Microsoft calendar integrations, SimplyMeet.me can also integrate with any CalDAV calendar (such as Zimbra, FastMail, Nextcloud, and Zoho). 

You can get even more out of SimplyMeet.me by connecting it to Zapier. With these integrations, you can do things like send follow-up emails for new meetings or automatically add invitees to your customer database. Here are a few pre-built templates to start from, or you can create your own from scratch.

SimplyMeet.me pricing: Free for individuals; paid plans for teams start at $9.99/month per user license 

Best AI scheduling assistant 

Clara (Web)

Clara pros:

• Simple, email-based AI scheduling

• Never really need to sign in to the app

Clara cons:

• Very expensive

Welcome to the world of AI scheduling. If you're looking for more advanced tech, consider Clara, your friendly robot schedule assistant who handles the back-and-forth of deciding on a meeting time. 

I have to admit, I was skeptical of scheduling AI when I first started testing. But the process of using Clara is simple: once you've created an account, integrated your calendar, and chosen your preferred meeting times, the tool will provide an email address for your "assistant," Clara. (You can also change her name in the settings menu, if you prefer a different first or last name.) Then, all you need to do is email the AI calendar assistant whenever you'd like to set up a meeting. She takes it from there.

In my testing, I emailed another of my email accounts and asked Clara to set up a meeting with myself. She emailed my alter-ego with a selection of times. The email was friendly and professional, and it could have easily come from a real person. A few emails later, we had chosen a time that worked for everyone, and Clara had sent a Google Calendar invitation to both parties. The whole thing took less than a few hours—and as the event organizer, I didn't have to do anything beyond sending the initial email instigating the meeting.

Using Clara is like hiring a virtual assistant to handle your meetings. It's likely that regular users wouldn't need to log in to the platform much; you can do everything you need to do via email, and you'll see your upcoming schedule on whatever calendar you linked to Clara. But if you do log in to the platform, your dashboard will display a list of proposed and scheduled meetings.

One caveat: Clara is currently being updated. I completed this year's round of testing using my current account—but if you want to sign up for a new account, you'll need to join the waitlist. I spoke with the team at Clara Labs, and they let me know they'll be rolling out faster features with a reduced price tag in the coming weeks. Given the performance of the current product, I'm excited to see what they produce next. I definitely recommend joining the waitlist. 

Clara pricing: Was $99/user/month for the Personal plan; new pricing TBD

Best all-in-one scheduling and project management app

Motion (Web, iOS)

Motion pros:

• Uses AI to organize your entire schedule

• Built-in calendar functionality

Motion cons:

• There's a bit of customization overload if you just need a scheduling app

If you're anything like me, you can drive yourself crazy trying to optimize your schedule and task management process. Motion is an excellent solution to the never-ending struggle to prioritize, schedule, and automate your workload. It's an all-in-one project manager and calendar, with a built-in scheduling tool for all of your meetings.

What makes Motion unique is that it uses AI to organize your schedule. Start by creating an account and telling Motion your preferred work times for each day. Then, when adding a new task or project, simply fill in its priority level, due date, and how long you expect it to take—along with whether it's okay to break up that task into chunks. The AI then takes care of your schedule for you. It breaks your task list up into manageable segments for each day, keeping in mind each task's priority and approaching deadline.

And Motion's calendar functionality constantly reorganizes itself based on new additions to your schedule. Have a surprise meeting on Monday that throws off your agenda? No worries; Motion just rearranges your tasks as you go.

But of course, we're here to talk about meeting schedulers, so let's dig into Motion's. I found that the meeting scheduler in Motion is very reminiscent of tools like Calendly. From the Calendar tab, you can create a static booking link by choosing when guests can book meetings, picking a buffer time, and adding a few duration times that guests can choose from. You can also select the default video conferencing tool or custom location, enable and personalize email reminders, and customize your booking link.

One unique feature I appreciated about Motion's scheduling tool is that you can use it like a standard meeting scheduler—where you share your booking link with guests and let them pick a time that works for them—or you can manually choose a few time slots from your calendar. Motion will then generate a message ("Would any of these time windows work…?") that you can copy and paste into your email. The recipient can suggest one of the times, or they can click on the included booking link to pick another time that works better for them. This unique option saves you a bit of time if you want to go the more "manual" back-and-forth route without composing a new email each time.

While I was very impressed with Motion, it does have a few drawbacks. It's extremely expensive for a project management tool, and the interface isn't the most aesthetically pleasing or customizable. The platform also provides quick video tutorials at each step of the setup process, but the sheer number of options may still lead to customization overload for some less tech-forward users.

You can do even more with Motion by connecting it to Zapier. Automatically create new Motion tasks from Slack messages, emails, and any other tool you use at work. Learn more about how to automate Motion, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Motion pricing: $19/month (billed annually) for individuals; $12/user/month (billed annually) for teams

Best meeting scheduler for a variety of meeting types

Sidekick (Web)

Sidekick pros:

• Save your favorite physical locations (not just digital)

• Minimalist, intuitive dashboard

Sidekick cons:

• AI features aren't as great as they are on other AI scheduling apps

If you hold a lot of meetings in person, Sidekick is a great choice. It's a free calendar and scheduling app that lets you save a variety of your favorite meeting types. Not only can you integrate with your most-used video conferencing tools like Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet, but you can also save your favorite physical meeting locations. 

Like to network at your local Starbucks? Want to hold interviews at your office location? Save those under your My Locations tab, then create a unique scheduling page with that location automatically linked. Guests can book a meeting with you and receive the location's address instantly. No more back-and-forth about where to meet.

Beyond the multiple meeting venues, Sidekick is also reliable and easy to use. It has a very minimalist and intuitive dashboard layout, and you can easily set your availability preferences and default meeting durations across all meeting types. 

And for paid users, Sidekick also provides a "Forward to Schedule" function, which lets you forward incoming meeting request emails to the app. The requester will immediately get a friendly reply with a link to your booking page, saving you the time it would take to reply to each inbound meeting request. 

Sidekick pricing: Free for up to 3 scheduling pages; $5/month for unlimited scheduling pages, advanced analytics, and access to Forward-to-Schedule features.

Best meeting scheduler for maximum flexibility

Cal.com  (Web, macOS, Windows)

Cal.com pros:

• Highly customizable on the back-end

• Free for individuals

Cal.com cons:

• You can't customize the booking pages very much

Cal.com is an open source scheduling tool that impressed me with its flexibility and customization. No matter which calendars you use or tools you want to connect to, Cal.com can make it happen. And while the free individual plan is robust, the team plan also lets you set up custom workflows to automate anything from routing forms to reminder notifications.

The setup process with Cal.com is simple, and I appreciated that the tool comes pre-filled with a few event types to get you started. You can set your availability, create basic booking pages for an unlimited number of event types (even on the free plan!), and even choose whether to allow invitees to make recurring bookings.

I will say that if you want an especially customized or colorful booking page, you may not want to go with Cal.com. Aside from choosing a single brand color for light and dark themes, you don't have much control over booking page aesthetics. You can choose from a few custom calendar layout options (weekly, monthly, and columns), but other than that, your choices are limited.

But if you're more interested in customizing your automations and integrations, I recommend giving Cal.com a try. The app lets you choose from eight calendar apps, 20+ video conferencing tools (including Cal's in-house option, Cal Video), and many more. You can also use Cal's public API to build your own custom integrations.

And by connecting Cal to Zapier, you have even more flexibility and customization options. Easily send new bookings to your favorite CRM or task management app, for example, or try one of these pre-made workflows.

Cal.com pricing: Free for individuals; Team plans start at $15/user/month, billed annually

Best meeting scheduler for optimizing your schedule with internal meetings

Clockwise  (Web, iOS, Android)

Clockwise pros:

• Great for managing internal meetings

• AI auto-reschedule feature optimizes focus time

• Suggests "best" time slots for others to book with you

Clockwise cons:

• AI chatbot feature can be buggy/limited

A lot of my coworkers at Zapier use Clockwise, and after testing it, I can see why. It's more of a schedule manager in a broader sense than just a meeting scheduler—but its meeting scheduling functionality works well too. Clockwise uses AI to help you protect deep work blocks, automate internal scheduling, and dynamically reschedule meetings to optimize your day.

You can create traditional booking links to share with internal and external guests so they can book a meeting with you. Or you can ask the tool's AI chatbot to create a meeting, reschedule it, or generate a custom meeting link. I found the chatbot to be a bit limited in my testing, but in cases where I knew exactly what I wanted, a prompt like "Schedule @[name] for a 30-minute meeting next week" worked perfectly to create a meeting that fit both our schedules.

I also appreciated that the tool highlights the "best" time slots for the host. Clockwise nudges guests into booking the most convenient time for you—whether that's to protect your focus time, give you enough buffer between meetings, or both.

Clockwise pricing: Free basic plan; from $6.75/user/month for flexible meetings and auto-protected focus time.

Best meeting scheduler for creating beautiful booking pages

lemcal  (Web)

lemcal pros:

• Aesthetically pleasing booking pages

• Easy to navigate and set up

lemcal cons:

• Minimalist features

lemcal doesn't have all the flashy features of other tools on this list, but if you want to create booking pages that stand out, it's a great option. When setting up your booking page, upload a cover photo and headshot. Then, choose from stock photos, gradients, solid colors, or manually imported photos for the background image. You can even customize the page's layout to include real-time widgets of your social media feeds. 

When you sign up for lemcal, you'll choose your availability and connect with your calendar and chosen video conferencing tools. Create up to three active meeting types on the free plan, and add custom questions and lead routing preferences to each meeting type. You can also set up custom reminders and follow-ups. Paid plans support group and round-robin meetings, white-label branding, and payment processing through Stripe.

And by connecting lemcal to Zapier, you can add maximum functionality to your presentation-forward meeting scheduling setup. For example, you might send events to your favorite task management tool, or send Slack notifications for new bookings. Get started with these pre-made templates.

lemcal pricing: Free for 1 calendar and 3 active meeting types; $9/month for up to 5 calendars, advanced meeting types, white-label booking pages, and more.

Make meetings better with a meeting scheduler app

The right meeting scheduler helps you get meetings onto your calendar quickly and efficiently. You can keep the productivity going by automating your scheduling workflows and even automating meeting action items. That way, it's not just the scheduling that's a breeze, but the entire process that follows.

Related reading:

• How to use Scheduling Assistant in Outlook

• The best AI scheduling assistants

• The best AI meeting assistants

• Calendly vs. Google Calendar appointment schedule

• Microsoft Bookings vs. Calendly: Which is best?

This article was originally published in January 2019 by Jill Duffy and has had contributions from Jennifer Allen and Eric Ravenscraft. The most recent update was in November 2024.

Almost every sales and marketing team relies on a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to organize and track their pipeline through the sales cycle. With its all-in-one platform of sales, marketing, and business process management tool, Ontraport is a popular choice.

But Ontraport likely isn't the only app you use, and keeping it in sync with those other tools can feel like an impossible challenge. Instead of spending your time manually pasting in customer data—or giving up and letting your contact list get as outdated as a flip phone—consider letting your CRM update itself.

With Zapier, you can create fully automated workflows (we call them Zaps) that do work across your apps—like creating new Ontraport contacts, backing up data in a spreadsheet, and more. Here's how.

Table of contents

• Create contacts from events and appointments

• Turn form submissions into Ontraport contacts

• Connect Ontraport to your spreadsheet tool

• Add leads from digital and email marketing sources

• Stay on top of new purchases

• Customize your Ontraport workflows with webhooks

Create contacts from events and appointments

Whether you're running a tradeshow booth, scheduling individual sales demos, or providing appointment-based services, keeping your business contacts organized is crucial. As a CRM, Ontraport is great for organizing them—but you still have to get their info into Ontraport and keep it updated, which can be a real challenge.

Instead of manually typing in contact info or bulk importing it from a tool like your scheduling app, you can automate the process with Zapier. For example, you can use a Zap to automatically create (or update!) contacts in Ontraport based on event attendees, webinar registrations, or appointment bookings.

Turn form submissions into Ontraport contacts

Similarly, forms are a great way to collect specific information from customers—from their contact details to specific preferences. But human error can get in the way of correctly entering this info in Ontraport if you're relying on manual copying and pasting.

Thankfully, you can also use automation to streamline this process. Simply create a Zap that takes new form submissions and adds them to Ontraport as new—or updates existing—contacts.

Connect Ontraport to your spreadsheet tool

Spreadsheets are great for organizing and analyzing a lot of information, as well as backing it up. But CRM data is always changing—so keeping your spreadsheets up to date can feel impossible.

Rather than updating spreadsheets manually, you can automate the process. With Zapier, you can create an automated workflow that adds data to a spreadsheet based on Ontraport activity—like whenever a tag is added to a contact.

Or, if you use spreadsheets to collect important customer information from other sources and teams, you can use automation to do the reverse. This Zap will add or update contacts in Ontraport whenever there's a new row in a particular spreadsheet.

Add leads from digital and email marketing sources

Online ads and email marketing are must-have channels for modern businesses. Done properly, they can generate a lot of leads—which you then need to move into Ontraport so you can track them through the sales cycle.

Instead of moving those leads by hand, try automation instead. Try one of these Zaps that add new leads to Ontraport whenever someone replies to a social media ad or sends you an email.

Stay on top of new purchases

When someone makes a purchase, you want to make sure you add their information to Ontraport so you can stay in touch and encourage them to make additional purchases in the future. If you run a high-volume eCommerce business, however, staying on top of every transaction manually is out of the question.

That's where automation can be a huge help. You can create an automated workflow that automatically adds new contacts to Ontraport—or updates existing ones—every time there's a new purchase.

If you sell a digital product like an online course, you can also use a Zap to automate the process of granting access to any gated materials.

Customize your Ontraport workflows with webhooks

Your business and team are unique, so you might need more flexibility with how you automate Ontraport. But don't worry—you can still use Zapier, even if you need to create a totally custom workflow. 

With webhooks, you can automate work in any app that has an API. For example, you can create a Zazp that automatically creates or updates an Ontraport contact whenever it catches a new webhook.

Supercharge your sales and marketing with Ontraport and Zapier

Ontraport is a powerful CRM, and you can make it even more powerful with automation. By connecting Ontraport to your other apps with Zapier, you can streamline your sales and marketing workflows—and make sure your CRM always has the latest information. 

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

Much like my real-life chats with humans, my conversations with Claude are long-running and filled with tangents. This is all fine and good until I need to revisit an earlier portion of our chat—like the code snippet or diagram I asked it to generate. It's not impossible to work with these outputs within the chat, but when they're sandwiched between other irrelevant text boxes, things get messy. 

That's where Artifacts come in. They allow you to work on substantial, standalone content in a separate window next to your main conversation. 

Here's everything you need to know about how to use Claude Artifacts. 

Table of contents: 

• What are Claude Artifacts? 

• How to turn on Claude Artifacts 

• How to use Claude Artifacts 

• Types of Claude Artifacts 

• Limitations of Claude Artifacts 

What are Claude Artifacts?

Claude Artifacts are self-contained outputs that are generated from a Claude chat and appear in a dedicated window next to the main conversation.

Let's say you ask Claude to summarize a PDF. It'll respond to your request in the chat—for example, "I've generated a summary of the article to focus on the most important aspects of [topic]"—and automatically display that summary (the Artifact) in a separate window. 

Claude automatically generates Artifacts when it determines that the content is substantial enough to warrant being separate from the main conversation. "Substantial," in this case may mean that it contains over 15 lines of content, it's a complex piece of content that can stand on its own, or it's something you'll likely want to edit, iterate on, or reuse later on. 

How to turn on Claude Artifacts 

If you're using Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Artifacts should be enabled by default. If not, here's how to turn on Claude Artifacts. 

1. Go to claude.ai, and log in or sign up (you can access Claude Artifacts on a free account). 

2. Click your profile in the sidebar. 

3. Click Settings. 

4. In the Profile tab, scroll down to Enable artifacts. Toggle the switch to the right to turn it on.

   

How to use Claude Artifacts 

1. Chat with Claude as usual. 

2. Claude will automatically create an Artifact for specific types of content (more on that in a bit). When it does, the Artifact will appear in a new dedicated window next to the main chat. 

3. If it doesn't, you can explicitly instruct Claude to output an Artifact by saying as much in the prompt. 

   

How to edit Claude Artifacts

You can edit your Artifact in a few ways: 

• Get a new Artifact. If the output isn't quite what you're looking for, and you want to use the same prompt, click Retry below Claude's last response in the main chat. 

• Enter a new AI prompt. Tell Claude how you want to modify the Artifact by entering a new prompt in the main chat. 

• Improve a specific element. In the Artifact window, highlight the specific element you want Claude to edit. In the floating toolbar that appears, click Improve, and then enter your prompt. 

  

No matter how you edit, Claude will generate a new version of the Artifact—it won't override previous versions. You can toggle between versions using the arrows at the bottom of the Artifact window.

How to interact with Claude Artifacts

Apart from editing your Artifact, you have a number of other options for interacting with it.

• Copy the Artifact. Click the Copy content icon, which looks like a clipboard, and paste it wherever you want to use it. Note: If you copy an Artifact that contains a diagram, it'll copy the diagram code. 

• Download the Artifact. Click the Download to file icon, which looks like an arrow pointing down into a box. 

• Publish the Artifact. Click Publish to share your Artifact with anyone on the internet (your chat will remain private). In the popup that appears, click Publish & Copy Link, and share your link as you normally would. 

• Hide the Artifact. Click X at the top of the Artifact window to close it. 

• Ask Claude to explain an Artifact element. Highlight an element in the Artifact window (text or code). In the floating toolbar that appears, click Explain, and Claude will break down the highlighted component in the main chat. 

  

Types of Claude Artifacts 

Claude currently generates six types of Artifacts: 

• Code snippets 

• Documents

• Single page websites

• Scalable vector graphics (SVG) images 

• Diagrams and flowcharts

• Interactive React components 

Code snippets

True to one of its key strengths (generating code), Claude can create an Artifact with code in all major programming languages, including Python, JavaScript, and C#. For larger projects, I recommend asking Claude to modularize your code by generating functions or classes to keep things organized.  

Previously, you needed to run the code in an external environment to execute it. But Anthropic recently released the analysis tool in Claude which allows it to write and run JavaScript code. But first, you have to enable the feature.

1. Click your profile in the sidebar. 

2. Click Feature Preview. 

3. Toggle the switch next to Analysis tool to turn it on. 

   

Documents

Since Claude has a large context window, it's a great AI productivity tool for taking large amounts of text and distilling it into organized content. Whether you ask Claude to generate article summaries, trip itineraries, or any type or long-form content, it'll spit these Artifacts out as plain text or Markdown documents. 

Single page websites

Claude can generate single page websites using HTML (for structure), CSS (for styling), and JavaScript (for interactivity) all in the same Artifact. This way, you can create anything from simple static pages to design-focused, interactive websites. For example, Claude helped me create a functional calculator webpage using just HTML and JavaScript with a single prompt. Pretty slick.

If you want more control over your site's design, you can upload a reference—anything from a pencil sketch on a napkin to a Figma mockup—and ask Claude to generate the code based on it. 

SVG images

Need to create a logo for your brand? Or maybe you want to spice up your website with flashy graphics? With Claude, you can create scalable vector graphic (SVG) images that are outputted as Artifacts. In my experience, Claude had a harder time generating complex images. I'm expecting this to improve, but for now, I recommend keeping your image requests simple. 

Diagrams and flowcharts 

If you want help visualizing a workflow, Claude can generate Artifacts containing diagrams, flowcharts, or Gantt charts in a matter of seconds using Mermaid. You can also upload your own draft diagram or chart and have Claude recreate it using Mermaid. 

Interactive React components

React components are the last—and I'd say, my favorite—type of Artifact Claude can make. Using these Artifacts, you can create prototypes and build interactive, reusable UI elements. Let's say you have a customer satisfaction model. You can prompt Claude to create a simulator to calculate how much impact the various components have on overall satisfaction in various scenarios.

Limitations of Claude Artifacts

While Artifacts offer incredible functionality, they're far from perfect. Here are some limitations I ran into when using them. 

• Inability to browse the web. As of this writing, Claude can't browse the web. This means that if you want Claude to reference external information, you'll have to upload that data manually. If you're working with research-heavy content, expect to spend extra time preparing and uploading these files. 

• Bullet points and lists. When it comes to text, Claude tends to default to outputting bullet points and lists. But you can prevent this by instructing Claude to write in paragraph form, if that's what you want. 

• Placeholders. Claude also has a tendency to shorten or condense content by adding placeholders, especially when working with longer documents and code. You may find that when you're iterating on the content, documents get chopped up into smaller sections when you ask for changes, meaning you'll have to manually stitch them back together or update them yourself. This can be a bit of a hassle, but it's an easy fix if you keep an eye on the flow of your content.

• Hallucinations. As with other AI tools, Claude is prone to making things up. Always double-check the content for accuracy and consistency before relying on it.

Automate Claude

Artifacts offer one way to speed up your workflows. Using Zapier to connect Claude with the rest of your apps offers another with thousands of possibilities. For example, you can automatically send Claude-generated summaries of action items from meeting minutes to your project management app. Or get Claude to analyze form responses stored in your survey app. Learn more about how to automate Claude with Zapier, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Related reading: 

• Claude vs. ChatGPT: What's the difference?

• Claude API: How to get a key and use the API

• The best AI chatbots

I'm a writer, so I spend a big chunk of my time doing research. That's why I was so excited to get my hands on Google's AI chatbot, Gemini (formerly Google Bard). It's similar to other AI-powered text generation tools like ChatGPT, but it's supposed to pack the power of Google Search—where I spend most of my time—into a conversational bot. 

That has the potential to make my job a lot easier. Instead of scouring the internet for sources and current information on a given topic, I can just ask Gemini to give me the lowdown. But obviously, it's not quite that simple. 

Here's everything you need to know about how to use Gemini. 

Note: Gemini also refers to Google's family of AI models which powers Gemini the AI chatbot (it's confusing, I know). For the purposes of this article, I'm using the name Gemini to refer to only the AI chatbot. 

Table of contents: 

• What is Google Gemini? 

• What is Gemini Advanced?

• How to use Gemini on the web app

• How to use Gemini on mobile

• What can Gemini do? 

• What are some of Gemini's limitations?

• How to use Google Gemini: FAQs

What is Google Gemini?

Google Gemini is an artificial intelligence chatbot powered by Gemini 1.5 Flash. The multimodal AI model behind Gemini allows it to understand and generate text while also natively understanding, operating on, and combining other kinds of information such as images, audio, videos, and code. 

For example, you can upload an image of sea cliffs and ask the AI chatbot, "Where are these cliffs located?" Gemini will then respond to your prompt, provide more information about it, and respond to further prompts that ask for more complex information. 

You can ask Gemini to do things like translate a document from English to Korean (or one of the over 40 languages currently available), summarize an article, or tell you about the weather in your local area.

So why not just Google a topic? Isn't it the same thing? 

With Gemini, you don't have to check various pages, click through different links, or compare news articles. You can just ask Gemini a question, get a summarized version of what you're after, and then ask follow-up questions if you need more information. It's a great way to kick off things like research or trip planning. And if you want to dig a little deeper or fact-check something, you can always use Gemini's built-in fact-checker or click the links to additional resources. It's certainly far from perfect right now, but you can imagine how Gemini may eventually change the way search works.

What is Gemini Advanced?

Gemini Advanced is an AI chatbot available to users for $20/month. In addition to being powered by the more powerful Gemini 1.5 Pro, it offers a few other benefits. 

• Context window of up to two million tokens (Gemini's context window is half the size) 

• Ability to run and edit Python code directly in the app 

• Priority access to new features 

• Access to Gemini in other Google apps, including Gmail and Docs 

How to use Google Gemini on the web app

Here's the short version of how to use Google Gemini on the web app: 

1. Go to gemini.google.com and log in with your Google account or sign up (it's free). 

2. Type your prompt in the message box on the Gemini home page. 

3. Once Gemini spits out a response, you have a handful of options: 

   • Like or dislike the response 

   • Ask Gemini to modify its response

   • Share the response

   • Fact-check Gemini's response

   • Review different versions of Gemini's response

Now let's take a closer look at the finer details of using Gemini. 

1. Log in to Gemini

To get started, go to gemini.google.com, and click Sign in. Follow the prompts to sign in with your Google account (or create an account if you don't already have one). 

Note: If you're using a work or school Google account, your workspace administrator may have disabled access to Gemini. So if you can't access it, that's probably why. 

2. Ask Gemini a question 

Drop your prompt into the text box, and press Enter (or click the Submit icon, which looks like a paper plane). 

You can also upload an image of, say, a bird you spotted, and ask Gemini to tell you what kind it is, along with three fun facts about it.

3. Interact with Gemini's responses

In a matter of seconds, Gemini will generate a reply in an easy-to-scan format. From here, you have a number of options. 

1. Like or dislike the response. Gemini relies on real-world feedback to improve the quality of its responses. If the response was helpful, click the Good response icon, which looks like a thumbs-up. If it was inaccurate or unhelpful, click the Bad response icon, which looks like a thumbs-down.

   

2. Ask Gemini to modify its response. Let's say you want to change the tone of Gemini's answer to be less professional-sounding and more casual. Or you want to shorten it. Click the Modify response icon, which looks like a stack of horizontal bars, and select one of the available modifications: Shorter, Longer, Simpler, More casual, or More professional.

   

3. Share the response. If you want to share Gemini's answer, click the Share & export icon, and then select Share.

   

   In the popup that appears, choose to share This prompt and response or Entire chat, and then click Create public link. Copy the link to the chat and share it as you normally would. 

   

   When the person you shared the link with opens the chat, they can even pick up where you left off. (Note: If you upload an image to your chat and then share the entire chat, the image will be visible and downloadable by anyone who has access to that conversation.)

   

   To unshare a public link to a Gemini chat, click Settings, and then select Public links. Find the conversation you want to unshare, and click the Remove public link icon, which looks like a garbage can.

   

4. Fact-check the response. If you want to double-check Gemini's sources and their veracity (and I highly recommend that you do, given AI's tendency to make stuff up), click the Google icon to double-check and get related Google Search queries.

   

5. Review different versions of the response. If you want a more detailed response or more information, click Show drafts. This lets you review multiple versions of Gemini's most recent answer (not previous ones), which you can then like or dislike to let it know which answer was best. 

   

   Note: This feature isn't available for responses that Gemini generates with extensions.

How to use Google Gemini in the Chrome browser bar

You can also initiate a chat with Gemini directly from the browser bar of any Chrome window.

1. Enter @gemini in the address bar of your Chrome window.

2. Click @gemini - Chat with Gemini.

   

3. Enter your prompt in the address bar, and press Enter.

   

4. You'll be redirected to the Gemini homepage. Click Chat with Gemini. (You may be prompted to first sign in.)

5. Your response will appear in the web app.

6. Continue to chat with Gemini as usual.

How to use Google Gemini on mobile 

If you have an Android device, you can also chat with Gemini using the Google Gemini app. If you have an iPhone, you won't be able to download the Gemini mobile app, but there is a workaround. 

How to use Google Gemini on Android 

1. Open the Google Gemini mobile app.

2. You can prompt Gemini in a few ways. 

   

   • Type your prompt in the message box. You can also tap the microphone icon to generate voice-to-text prompts. 

   • Upload an image by tapping the camera icon. You can take a photo or choose one from your phone. 

   • Talk back and forth with Gemini by tapping the live icon, which looks like a star floating above three vertical bars. (For more details about chatting with Gemini Live, jump ahead.)

3. Interact with Gemini's responses the same way you would on the web app. 

How to use Google Gemini on an iPhone  

There's no dedicated Gemini app for iPhone, but you can still chat with Gemini using the Google app. 

1. Open the Google mobile app. 

2. Tap the Gemini icon at the top of the app (next to the Google icon). 

   

3. You can prompt Gemini by typing your prompt or uploading an image (the same way you would using the Android app), but you can't have a live chat using the Google app.  

4. Interact with Gemini's responses the same way you would on the web app.

How to talk to Gemini Live

Instead of typing in your prompt, you can have a back-and-forth conversation with Gemini (Google refers to this as Gemini Live). Here's how Gemini Live works.

1. Open the Google Gemini mobile app.

2. Tap the Gemini Live icon, which looks like a star floating above three vertical bars.

3. Say your prompt. 

4. Once you've finished speaking, Gemini will process your request (no need to hit send) and voice its response to you. Need to pause Gemini? Tap Hold. When you're ready to resume, tap Continue. Note: Gemini won't verbally pick back up from where it left off, but it will record the text version of what it would have said in your conversation history. 

5. After you've finished your conversation, tap End. 

   

Note: This feature is currently available only in the Gemini mobile app. It's not available on the web app or in the Gemini tab in the Google app.

What can Gemini do?

It would be impossible for me to list all of Gemini's use cases here, and what you'll use it for will almost certainly depend on your role. An engineer, for example, might use Gemini to understand the complexities of a piece of code. An events planner might use it to brainstorm venue locations. 

In the interest of time, I'll limit the use cases specifically to those where I find the most value. Here are my top categories:

• Retrieve information from your go-to Google apps

• Summarize articles and web pages

• Brainstorm and generate content ideas

• Write taglines and short copy for inspiration

• Get information about images

• Compare research and data in a chart

• Give travel and activity recommendations (with pictures)

• Create AI-generated images

Retrieve information from your go-to Google apps

With Gemini Extensions, you can ask Gemini to retrieve real-time information from other Google apps, including Gmail, Drive, Maps, Flights, Hotels, and even YouTube. Just type @[name of the app you want to look in] and then enter your prompt. 

This means you can do things like ask Gemini to pull details from an email thread in Gmail.

You can even ask it to share a link to a file stored in Google Drive. Or ask Gemini to output the contents of that file directly in your conversation, and it'll automatically share a link to the file as well.  

Gemini Extensions still has some kinks to work out—for example, when I asked it to refer to a Google Doc to tell me if there were any action items, it generated a list of non-existent action items. But I can see how Extensions has the potential to speed up workflows as its accuracy improves.  

Note: Gemini won't use extensions to access your personal content in other services without your permission. It's worth noting, however, that if you interact with another Google Service via Gemini, your activity might be saved by that other service. 

Summarize articles and web pages

How many times have you skipped an article because it was too long or ran across something that was so complex in nature that you gave up trying to wrap your head around it? Join the club. That's why I'm really digging Gemini's ability to summarize articles. I discovered this use case quite by chance, and I'm genuinely surprised that more people aren't singing its praises. 

With Gemini, you can drop a link to the article in the text box, and ask it to summarize it in a clear way. Check this out.

Hallelujah. 

It doesn't just have to be articles, either. You can also drop in links to studies, medical journals, and other large text documents for a succinct summary. But remember: tread lightly.

Brainstorm and generate content ideas

We know Gemini isn't bad at generating text that sounds human. But I'm still (rightfully) skeptical about it outperforming me: it's bog-standard at creating long-form content, like a blog post, from scratch. And when it comes to writing poems or songs, it definitely lacks a certain…everything. 

Creativity aside, I do use it to generate blog article ideas. You can type in prompts like "Give me a list of blog ideas about whale watching in Alaska," "Brainstorm blog ideas about Gemini for the Zapier blog," or "Write some titles for blog articles about the growing tiny house trend."

Just remember, the more detailed your prompt, the better Gemini's output. 

While the ideas it generates aren't always groundbreaking, they give me a frame of reference that I can use to further develop ideas. You can also ask it to elaborate on some topics, and hopefully, that gets you expanding on areas you might not have considered before. It's not a bad way to get the creative juices flowing if you're ever stuck or short on time. 

Another useful tip is that you can export all of Gemini's responses either to a Google Doc or as a Gmail draft. Click the Share and export icon beneath the response you want to export, and then select Export to Doc or Draft in Gmail. 

Write taglines and short copy for inspiration

I often struggle with writing microcopy (think: taglines for ads or subject lines for emails). To help me produce copy that packs a punch, I used to spend a lot of time looking at examples before getting to work.  

This is where Gemini now helps me form a "starting point," as I ask it to generate a number of options for me. 

Don't get me wrong—every option needs a heavy edit. But I've found that Gemini is actually better at writing short copy than it is at drafting longer content. That could be because it checks the internet for existing taglines (written by humans), but either way, it saves me a step or two. 

And yes, Gemini lacks the creativity and cultural understanding to make a piece of writing really good, but there's nothing wrong with using it as a springboard to bring your best writing to life.

Get more information about images

At least once a day, I'll spot something I'm unfamiliar with—a new logo, a scraggly dog that looks like more like a mop with four legs, or a uniquely-shaped tree. I used to try to describe these random things to Google to find out what I was looking at, but those searches would go about as well as you'd imagine.

With Gemini, I can upload a picture and ask Gemini to tell me more about it.

Compare research and data in a chart 

Another cool thing Gemini can do is create comparisons of online content. For example, I regularly use Gemini to compare different news articles on the same topic (particularly if they're complex in nature). 

Gemini then generates a chart that shows the similarities and differences between the two articles, outlining the focus and the perspective of each piece.  

As you can tell, it gets to the point fast—without me having to manually create data points or thoroughly analyze the pieces. You can even export the chart directly to Google Sheets. 

This same system works for other types of content, like product reviews, scientific studies, or even recipes.

You've got to admit, that's pretty neat. 

Give travel and activity recommendations 

I love going on vacation (duh?), but I detest the planning that goes into it. I spend way too much time scrolling through Airbnb, avidly amending filters (I once booked what was essentially someone's garden shed) and reading hotel reviews. 

Gemini isn't going to book anything for you. And don't bother asking it for travel tips unless you want insipid advice like "pack comfortable shoes!" But do ask it for good flight and hotel recommendations. Why?

1. It doesn't have any skin in the game like travel sites do.

2. It has access to the latest reviews. 

3. If you use Gemini Extensions, it can pull in real-time information from Google Flights and Google Hotels.

Not only that, but it's quite helpful for returning results that have availability for your chosen dates. Just be specific with what you're after.

Of course, I double-checked that this was true, and it turned out everything—from availability to prices—was accurate. (Note: When I asked ChatGPT the same thing, it gave me a mix of hotels and house-shares.)

And as long as I'm specific in my requests, it does a great job of giving me the info I'm too lazy to search for. 

If you need Gemini to tip the scales, you can even ask it to show you a pic of the spot you're interested in, which it pulls from the internet.

Create AI-generated images 

Gemini isn't limited to only sourcing existing images from the web. It also has the capability to generate images (powered by their Imagen 2 model). Enter your description, and watch as it brings even your wildest ideas—like, say, a happy mushroom watering flowers—to life.

Note: AI-image generation is currently available only in English-language prompts. 

What are some of Gemini's limitations?

From what I've experienced so far, Gemini can be a bit of an unreliable narrator, and it doesn't always follow through on the things it says it can do. For example: 

• It hallucinates. This occurs when the AI falsely states or insists that something is true, even when it's not grounded in logic or fact. As an example, when I asked Gemini to list the Oscar winners for Best Picture from 2014 to 2023, it got most of the film names right—but it assigned every film to the wrong year.  

• It shows a lack of writing skills. Ask Gemini to write a piece of content for you, and it's almost certainly going to be a little lackluster and Wikipedia-esque. Its writing skills are very limited when you compare them to those of a professional (human) writer.

• It forgets to cite sources. Gemini has this annoying tendency not to cite the sources for a topic it's talking about unless you specifically ask it to. When it does cite its sources, though, it's a bit hit-and-miss. I've seen it provide sources to sites that contradict what Gemini has said or aren't remotely relevant to the topic at hand, so be warned: it's a little glitchy. 

Use Gemini as a (casual) research tool

Gemini may not be reliable enough to do your work for you (that's good news), but it can be used as a valuable research tool to help you come up with ideas, summarize content, and present data in an accessible way.   

My advice: take what it says with a pint of salt. Gemini is still a work in progress, and only time will tell if it gets better at writing—and being honest about its resume. 

How to use Google Gemini: FAQs

We've covered a lot of ground in this Gemini tutorial, but since Google is constantly evolving its chatbot, it's understandable if you still have questions. Here are answers to some of the most commonly asked ones.

Is Google Gemini free to use? 

Gemini, running on the less powerful Gemini 1.5 Flash model, is free to use. If you want to use the more powerful Gemini 1.5 Pro model, you'll need to upgrade to Gemini Advanced for $20/month. 

What's the difference between Gemini and Google Assistant? 

Both Gemini and Google Assistant are AI chatbots, but they have key differences based on their intended use, features, and underlying technology. 

• Gemini is an AI chatbot that's designed to conduct human-like conversations and process more complex queries—for example, you can ask it to draft a summary of a 500-page research paper or describe an image. 

• Google Assistant is primarily a voice assistant that's embedded into a wide range of Google services and products, including Google Home and Android devices. Its intended purpose is to do quick, task-based interactions—for example, answer questions about the weather, perform calculations, and control smart home devices. 

How do I switch back to Google Assistant from Gemini? 

If you used Gemini to replace Google Assistant as your primary assistant on your Android device, it's easy to switch back. 

1. Open your Gemini mobile app. 

2. Tap your profile picture (top-right corner). 

3. Tap Switch to Google Assistant.

4. Tap Google Assistant.

5. In the popup that appears, tap Switch to confirm you want to replace Gemini with Google Assistant. 

Related reading:

• Bard vs. ChatGPT: What's the difference?

• How to use the Gemini API

• What is Llama 2 and why does it matter?

• AI will change how you search—here's how

• Google AI Overviews: What you should know

This article was originally published in April 2023 by Elena Alston. The most recent update was in November 2024.

Managing a small remote team means constantly navigating communication overload. At one point, if I wasn't dealing with inbox infinity, I was dealing with Slack—digging through an endless list of channels, trying to find important messages buried between casual chatter. Needless to say, I was drowning in notifications. 

Then a fellow small business owner threw me a lifeline: he suggested I use Campsite. It's the same team communication tool Buffer's remote-first team uses. 

It's been six months since our team transitioned to Campsite, and it's safe to say that it's enabled us to engage in more meaningful discussions without the usual headaches that come with asynchronous communication. 

Here are the nine Campsite features I use to simplify team communication. 

Table of contents:

• What is Campsite? 

• 9 Campsite features to simplify team communication 

• Campsite vs. Slack: How does Campsite stack up?

What is Campsite?

Campsite is a team chat app designed for asynchronous work. It de-emphasizes the need to respond to messages immediately and encourages users to post updates, share progress, and start discussions when it makes sense for them.  

9 Campsite features to help you simplify team communication

Here are the nine Campsite features that have consistently helped my team stay in sync. I've organized them based on which ones made the greatest impact on our communication, but you should pick and choose the features that make the most sense for you. 

1. Home feed 

The Home feed is my command center. It aggregates activity from across all my Campsite channels and groups them into one of three views: 

• For me shows posts that require my input. 

• Created shows posts I've made.

• All shows every team update.

This simple consolidation of posts makes it easy to quickly scan through posts and comments, respond to team questions, and check general announcements without needing to monitor multiple channels.

2. Channels

Think of Campsite channels as dedicated spaces for different projects or areas of focus. For my team, I've set up three main channels: 

• General for team-wide announcements.

• LinkedIn Content for social media updates. 

• Lead Management for tracking potential clients. 

You can also control who's able to join and view your channels by setting it to Public or Private. 

Need to quickly pull up a doc that someone shared in a channel? Click Docs in the menu at the top of the channel, and you'll find every doc that was shared. The same goes for posts and calls—click Posts or Calls in the top menu to find what you need faster. 

3. Posts

Posts are Campsite's primary format for in-depth discussions. The preset format encourages you to write a thoughtful message (instead of laying down a stream of consciousness) before hitting send. Not ready to publish? Save it as a draft. 

You also have the option to request specific feedback on your post, which I really appreciate. It's what helps our team move from sharing only what's happening to generating in-depth discussions and actionable feedback. 

Posts remain visible until marked as resolved so that important updates are easily accessible for ongoing reference. 

4. Comments and replies

Beyond organized channels and posts, Campsite's comments and replies build a structured way for conversations to evolve over time, showing relevant feedback, changes, and reasoning—all in one thread. 

I see this in action daily with our content creation process. For example, when a teammate posts an update, I, along with the rest of my team, can leave feedback as a comment. Others can continue to comment or reply to specific comments, creating threads. Either way, it ensures all messages are contained within the relevant post. 

Or, if we're reviewing a document in Campsite, the document will appear next to the comments in a split-screen view. The result: we can have focused conversations without losing sight of the original context. 

5. Direct messages and calls

Sometimes, all you need is a quick answer. Campsite's direct messaging provides just that. You get the benefits of both async flexibility and real-time immediacy in an easy-to-use interface. 

For moments when a quick back-and-forth isn't enough, you can hop on a call using Campsite—no need to toggle to yet another app. If the call is recorded, Campsite automatically generates a transcript and AI summary so you can reference it later on or share with absent team members. 

6. AI summaries

Campsite calls aren't the only things that get the AI treatment. Campsite also uses AI to automatically create summaries of team discussions. Every post gets an AI-generated summary capturing key points, decisions, and next steps. 

The AI summary also captures how the conversation evolved from the initial post to feedback to refinement. It's yet another way Campsite allows me to stay on top of what's going on without having to scroll through irrelevant chatter. 

7. Follow-ups

Sometimes I'll review a post that needs my attention or warrants a response, but I don't have time right then and there to do it. In these instances, I use Campsite's follow-up feature to remind me to revisit it later on. For quick and urgent updates, I might set a 20-minute reminder. For more substantial work, I might schedule a follow-up for the next day when I'm fresh. 

These reminders then appear in my Updates tab, making it easy to track what needs my attention and when.

8. Resolution system

Every Campsite post includes a Resolve button. If that post has been wrapped up—the topic has been addressed or the required action has been taken—click Resolve to mark the discussion as complete. 

Once resolved, a green badge that reads Resolved will appear next to the parent post in your Home feed, so you can quickly glean what posts have been addressed and what still needs your attention. 

9. Rich text documents 

My team and I use documents to collaborate on long-form content. Sure, we could do this in a separate note-taking app, but I'm all about keeping everything in one place. Campsite offers built-in docs, complete with a rich text editor, so you can draft content and maintain living documents without leaving the app. 

Since Campsite docs are integrated with the app, it's that much easier to share them across channels and pin important ones for quick access. 

Campsite vs. Slack: How does Campsite stack up?

The biggest advantage of Campsite is its focus on asynchronous communication. Instead of defaulting to quick chat messages that scroll away, Campsite encourages more thoughtful discussions through posts. 

But Campsite isn't perfect. For example, it relies on a progressive web app, resulting in a clunkier experience than Slack's polished apps. There's also no free plan. But I justified the cost by considering how much time my team wasted searching for information in Slack or having to repeat conversations because important messages got buried. The improved organization and reduced communication overhead made the price worth it for us. 

Despite some of Campsite's flaws (which I hope will improve down the road), the switch has been well worth it. 

Automate Campsite 

While Campsite packs a mean punch, there's a good chance you still rely on other apps to get your work done. Use Zapier to connect Campsite with the rest of your apps and create automated systems for your work. Automatically do things like schedule Campsite posts and get updates from other apps in Campsite. Here are some pre-made templates to get you started. 

Related reading: 

• The best team collaboration tools

• The best Slack alternatives for businesses

• How to overcome the biggest remote work challenges

• Why messaging apps are still useful in the office

I once spent an entire afternoon manually copying data from online forms into spreadsheets, muttering increasingly creative curses under my breath. If only I'd known about Paperform's automation capabilities back then. 

This versatile tool not only simplifies form creation and data collection but also plays well with others. With Zapier's automated workflows—we call them Zaps—you can seamlessly connect Paperform to your favorite apps. 

Let's explore four ways to supercharge your workflow with Paperform automation, and save you from the mind-numbing tedium of data entry. Your sanity (and vocabulary) will thank you.

Table of contents

• Import data to Google Sheets

• Send notifications via chat and email

• Add contacts to your marketing lists

• Add leads to your CRM

Import data to Google Sheets

By integrating Paperform with Google Sheets, you can organize your form responses in a streamlined way. Whether you're tracking leads, managing surveys, or collecting feedback, automatically transferring data from Paperform to Google Sheets keeps your records always up to date and easily accessible.

You can use these Zaps to automatically create new rows, update existing rows, or even create new spreadsheets—all based on incoming Paperform submissions. These workflows are great for adding new leads to your spreadsheet, updating contact information, or organizing large-scale datasets into their own sheet.

Send notifications via chat and email

When a new form submission comes through, you want to know as soon as possible, especially if it's a task that needs your immediate attention. By integrating Paperform with communication tools like Slack and email, you can automatically send instant notifications, keeping you and your team in the loop.

With a Zap, you can send a Slack channel message whenever a new form is submitted—perfect for informing your team about new leads, inquiries, or support requests in real time. Or, for more sensitive or urgent submissions, you can set up a workflow to send a Slack direct message to specific team members. 

If email is more of your jam, you can automate new form submissions to alert your team via your inbox instead. You can customize the email template and recipients, and Zapier will email them for you whenever a new Paperform submission comes in. You can also integrate with Gmail or Outlook to send emails directly from your account, if you'd prefer.

Add contacts to your marketing lists

Well-segmented contact lists are the backbone of most successful marketing strategies. By automating the process of adding new contacts to your marketing tools, you can keep your campaigns on target and your mailing lists current.

Whichever marketing tool you use—Mailchimp, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, or Campaign Monitor—you can set up a Zap to automatically create new contacts or subscribers based on Paperform submissions. Reduce manual data entry and keep your tools synced with the latest data collected through Paperform.

Add leads to your CRM

Every sales team needs to manage their leads effectively to maximize their potential for conversions. With Paperform, they can capture leads easily through customizable forms.

But capturing leads is just the first step. To properly follow up and nurture those leads over time, your team needs to then transfer that information from Paperform to your CRM tool of choice. 

Instead of manually adding each contact to your CRM, why not automate the process? With Zapier, you can automatically create leads from Paperform submissions, keeping track of lead generation and making sure no opportunity slips through the cracks. 

Streamline your Paperform workflows with Zapier

Automating Paperform extends its functionality far beyond simple form creation, turning it into a central hub for streamlined digital workflows. With these Zaps, you'll reclaim countless hours previously lost to manual data entry and task management. 

Whether you're running a small business, managing marketing campaigns, or juggling multiple projects, these time-saving techniques allow you to focus on what truly matters—growing your business and delighting your customers.

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

Ensuring your emails reach customers' inboxes is crucial if you're looking to scale your business. This is where Mailgun shines, offering an advanced email automation platform that allows businesses to send, receive, and track large volumes of emails effortlessly.

But the more emails you send, the more organization your team will need. Automation can help! It provides an efficient way to monitor performance and quickly respond to incidents. 

With Zapier's automated workflows—called Zaps—Mailgun users can send and receive critical notifications from events, keep an eye on deliverability in real time, follow up on leads, and more. Whether your team wants to update contact lists, send automated emails, or trigger workflows from other applications, it can all be done with these Zapier workflows.

Table of contents

• Get notifications for failed emails

• Send emails from webhooks

• Send emails from form submissions

• Send emails to new leads

• Send emails from spreadsheets

• Back up Mailgun data in a spreadsheet

Know when something fails

One of Mailgun's core features is email analytics and deliverability monitoring. The platform can detect patterns and irregularities, troubleshoot with detailed error codes, and protect your sending reputation. 

These workflows build on Mailgun's core functionality by updating you when a failed delivery event occurs. Instead of logging into Mailgun and monitoring every campaign, you can set up a workflow that will notify you only when something is wrong. This will free up your time to do other high-leverage activities while you take comfort in knowing critical issues will be sent straight to your inbox. 

By setting up one of these Zaps, you can immediately notify a Slack channel and let key stakeholders know as soon as an email fails or a campaign doesn't deliver properly. That way, your team can respond to issues quickly, preventing further disruption.

Send emails from webhooks

Webhooks are great for taking action based on specific events. And whenever Mailgun logs an open, click, unsubscribe, bounce, failure, or successful delivery, you should know. Zapier's catch hook trigger allows you to wait for a new POST, PUT, or GET event to a Zapier URL. From here, you can trigger an email to send directly from your Mailgun account. 

There are many occasions when you might want to trigger a separate email based on an event. For example, you might want to send an automated email to a customer who clicks a specific link in a transactional email. Use this Zap to get started:

Send emails from form submissions

Forms are great for capturing user information and automating tasks based on the responses. By integrating your form app with Mailgun, you can send automated emails to users based on their responses. Not only will this save you time, it will ensure you're sending the right responses to the right users at the right time.

Send emails to new leads

Lead capture is critical to running and growing a business—without new leads businesses struggle to grow. But if you capture that lead information and then do nothing with it, you won't get very far either.

These workflows connect your Facebook Lead Ads directly to Mailgun. You can either send an instant follow-up—maybe thanking your lead for their interest—or simply add these leads to your mailing lists to communicate with them when you're ready. 

Or, if you use Google or LinkedIn ads to collect lead information, you can use one of these workflows to send captured customer data to Mailgun. This is particularly helpful if your offer involves sending users information like an eBook or quote.

Send emails from spreadsheets

Spreadsheet tools like Google Sheets and Airtable are an integral part of running a business. They're used to do a range of tasks like organizing, analyzing, and visualizing data, and are especially useful if not everyone in your company has access to specialty tools, like Maillgun. 

But manually copying and pasting customer information from a spreadsheet to your email marketing tool can easily lead to dropped contacts or typos. Instead, use one of these workflows to send customer data directly from your spreadsheet to Mailgun.

Back up Mailgun data in a spreadsheet

Mailgun can collect a lot of detailed information about your email campaigns, but you may need to share those details with a broader team or want to slice and dice campaign data in more advanced ways best served by a spreadsheet. Or maybe you just want to back up things like opens and click events so they're always available in the future, no matter which email marketing software you use.

Whatever your need, these workflows will automatically back up Mailgun data in your spreadsheet tool of choice:

Seamlessly monitor email performance 

Automation helps businesses send information from Mailgun to the correct teams so they can take action. Whether the engineering team needs to know about failed events or the marketing team needs to know about new leads, these Zaps will make it easier for your team to stay on top of your emails. 

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

Every day, millions of tasks run through Zapier. Each one represents a moment saved, a process improved, or a goal achieved. 

At Zapier, we ship fast to get lots of cool new things to users as quickly as possible. But as designers, we couldn't help but notice that quality sometimes fell behind—from slow load times and jumpy transitions to disconnected workflows and unnecessary clicks. We'd been shipping, shipping, shipping without making enough time to polish.

While we love shipping new features that help you do more, you've consistently reminded us that it's often the smallest improvements that make you feel truly unstoppable. A clearer error message. A smoother page load. A smarter way to organize your interface. These moments of polish show care—both for the product we're building and the people who use it.

"These moments of polish show care—both for the product we're building and the people who use it."

That's why this October, we launched what we're calling "Happy Zapping"—a dedicated week where our entire product team paused all big feature work to focus on just one thing: the quality-of-life improvements you've been asking for. 

And thanks to all your thoughtful feedback, we knew exactly where Zapier could be better.

The result: Dozens of carefully crafted updates that smooth rough edges, reduce clicks, and make your automation journey more enjoyable. From faster troubleshooting to smoother navigation, these improvements touch every nook and cranny of Zapier. Each change might seem small on its own, but together they represent our commitment to making every interaction with Zapier a happy one.

Here are the improvements we're most excited to share. Happy Zapping! 😄

Watch the recap

See Bryce's favorite enhancements from Happy Zapping week.

Smoother, more organized Zap + account management

Managing dozens (or hundreds) of Zaps shouldn't mean starting from scratch every time you visit your dashboard. That's why we're excited to introduce saved views for your Zaps page—your preferred filters and sorting options now persist exactly as you set them. 

Whether you want to see the your folders first or keep certain integrations at the top, your workspace stays organized just the way you like it.

But staying organized is about more than just filters. We also shipped these improvements:

• Finding connected apps is faster with improved pagination. If you're automating with your team, your personal connections will appear at the top, so finding what you need is faster.

• Quick-access links help you browse Zaps by app or connection, making it easier to audit and update related workflows.

• Team management is more intuitive with new sorting options by name and last login.

Faster, more connected troubleshooting

When something goes wrong with a Zap, every click between spotting and fixing the problem matters. 

Now, you can edit errored steps directly from the Zap run—no more jumping between pages to make those crucial fixes. Plus, we've added direct links from Zap History to the exact step that needs attention in the editor, getting you to the solution in one click.

Because time spent troubleshooting is time away from your real work, we polished these features too:

• Your selected step stays highlighted when navigating between runs, helping you keep your place.

• Error messages are clearer and easier to read with improved styling. Plus, you can spot errors more easily with redesigned error icons in the editor.

• The trigger step automatically opens when you navigate from History, getting you started faster.

• Test your Zaps more thoroughly by replaying up to 50 runs at once.

More efficient Zap building

You shouldn't need to repeat yourself to build a reliable Zap. Now you can copy and paste entire error-handling branches between steps, dramatically reducing the time it takes to create robust backup plans across your Zaps.

Here's what else we've improved to speed up your building process:

• Run Zaps with a polling trigger, right from the published view.

• Navigate between steps, even in Focus Mode—maintaining your concentration while moving through your Zap.

• See entire field names—even the long ones—thanks to an expanded mapping dropdown.

• Set up conditional logic faster with our redesigned boolean field.

• Start with the perfect view of your Zap thanks to adjustable initial zoom levels.

Faster performance across Zapier

Nothing disrupts your flow like jittery UX. We've completely revamped how pages load across Zapier, especially on your Zapier dashboard. Content now loads smoothly without shifting or jumping, making the entire experience feel more polished and professional.

Speed matters everywhere, so we also shipped these improvements:

• The Chatbots editor loads significantly faster, getting you to a finished AI assistant sooner.

• The universal sidebar stays steady with reduced layout shifting.

• In Central, it's faster than ever to test out behaviors for your assistants.

• All page transitions are smoother throughout the app.

• The entire interface feels more responsive and snappy.

Better multi-product integration

Building a chatbot with a knowledge base used to require bouncing between products. Now you can create a new table for your FAQs right from the Chatbots editor, streamlining your setup process and keeping you focused on what matters—creating great conversational experiences.

We've made these additional improvements to help your products work better together:

• Notifications from your AI assistants in Central pop up our Google Chrome extension, so you can keep tabs on automation from anywhere.

• CSV exports from Tables now include helpful metadata (like record ID, created date, and last updated date), making your download more useful.

• Edit table rows directly in your interfaces with a single click.

Get smart suggestions for your buttons in Tables automation with Copilot-powered buttons

Enhanced team collaboration

Keep your automation knowledge in the team with new Functions sharing capabilities. Now, you can share any function you build with teammates, ensuring everyone can benefit from automation. Plus, you can now set public-facing names for your Interfaces while keeping your internal naming conventions—perfect for sharing with external users.

And because great teams need great tools, we've added:

• Bulk email updates for enterprise teams to streamline admin tasks.

• Improved team member sorting and filtering to find the right person faster.

Enhanced analytics dashboard for enterprise users to track team performance.

Streamlined notifications

Keeping track of notification settings shouldn't require endless clicking. Now you can see and manage all notification frequencies from a single view, giving you complete control over your Zapier updates at a glance.

To keep you better informed (but not overwhelmed), we've also improved:

• Notification override management for better control.

• Metered billing notifications for clearer charges.

• Error notifications to help you spot and fix issues faster.

Not sure where to start?

Finding the right Zap template shouldn't feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. To get the gears turning, we've got a template library where you can find complete systems for whatever you're trying to accomplish—with more multi-step examples pulled from real customer solutions. Whether you're managing leads or automating your marketing, you'll find templates that match the way you work.

Explore the template library to level up your automation game

These improvements represent countless small moments of delight we've added to your daily Zapier experience. While each update might seem small on its own, together they make your automation journey smoother, faster, and yes, happier.

Happy Zapping!

I like the concept of "work hard, play hard": ruthless concentration at work so I can truly relax when I log off? Sign me up.

Author Cal Newport takes this motto to the extreme with his concept of deep work.

I read Cal's book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, back in 2016, and it's been one of the only productivity books that's had a long-standing effect on how I function. I use the framework to plan my entire week—and I credit it for my ability to earn a good living despite working no more than five hours a day. 

This guide will give you a primer on deep work, with practical tips to incorporate deep work into your routine—all using my own experiences as inspiration.

Table of contents:

• What is deep work?

• Deep work vs. shallow work

• The 4 deep work philosophies 

• Tips for incorporating deep work into your schedule

What is deep work?

Deep work means ruthlessly focusing on one particular task with undivided focus. It's a concept coined by Cal Newport, a professor of computer science at Georgetown. 

Deep work is the opposite of what most of us do now. If you're anything like me, you'll check your emails every few minutes, browse TikTok while you wait for a meeting to start, or see what's happening on LinkedIn when you need a break from a brain-intensive task. 

If you practice deep work, it means you'll cut those habits out and focus on one thing: the most important task at hand, with no distractions and total mental focus. It's not easy, but the impact is worth it.

Deep work vs. shallow work 

Cal describes deep work as "professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate." 

Here's are some examples of things you can do deep work on:

• Creating content

• Designing a presentation

• Coding software

• Writing a book (or reading one!)

Shallow tasks are the opposite: they don't require much mental concentration and rarely make a big impact. Examples include clearing your inbox, scrolling through social media, scheduling meetings, data entry, and organizing your files.

The 4 deep work philosophies 

There's no single approach to implementing deep work into your schedule. Creator Cal Newport breaks it down into four philosophies or approaches:

• Monastic. This is an all-in approach. It's the most ruthless—you'll need to isolate completely from distraction and focus intensely on a single task or project for several hours a day, many days in a row. It's best if you're working on an urgent and important task. An author, for example, might do a workation to intensely focus on the final edit of their book.

• Bimodal. This style splits your week between deep and shallow tasks. It's less intensive than the monastic approach, and it usually looks like picking certain days for deep work and other days for shallow work. For example, you might dedicate two days of the week to deep work and fill the rest of your time with shallow tasks like emails, networking, or meetings.

• Rhythmic. This one is kind of like time blocking your deep work: you'll schedule routine time for deep work, maybe a few hours a day. This works best if you want to build a deep work habit.

• Journalistic. This approach is the least structured: you do deep work whenever you can and then slot in time for busywork whenever you've got space in your schedule or the need arises. You're most likely to slip on the deep work, but it can be a good way to try out deep work for the first time.

8 tips for incorporating deep work into your schedule

The deep work concept isn't really about work: what you do within this time doesn't matter. It's that word "deep" that matters more—it's about concentration.

But getting into deep work mode is easier said than done. It takes practice—especially if you're used to notifications pinging and drawing your attention away from the task at hand. Which, if you're human, you are.

Here are some tips to ease you in, based on my personal experiences with deep work.

1. Do a deep work audit

Before you try to overhaul your working habits, look at where you're currently spending your time. Record your schedule for the week and detail how you spent each hour. Was it productive? What did you get done? How many times did you get distracted? Which tasks did you find it most difficult to concentrate on and why?

Your deep work audit might find ultradian productivity rhythms, like the fact you're most productive in the early mornings or late at night. It can also help fine-tune your workflows to prevent issues that contribute to a lack of focus. 

Case in point: I'm a writer who gets distracted when I'm not learning something new. I got into the habit of checking LinkedIn due to boredom mid-draft. A task that usually takes a few hours would take upwards of six. Once I identified this routine, I added a new step into my writing workflow: a one-hour research block with the sole purpose of learning something new about the topic. 

Granted, this extra step requires another deep work block in my calendar—but it makes the writing process much easier. I solved the issue that was driving me toward social media mid-draft, making both blocks instantly more productive. And it's had a domino effect on other aspects of running a business: I've become more of an expert in my niche, and I can charge higher rates for that specialist knowledge.

2. Prioritize tasks

Sometimes it's clear what your focus should be during a deep work block. If you're an author, for example, writing a manuscript that's due with your publisher next week should take priority over posting on social media. 

But sometimes, priorities aren't as clear-cut. Writing the manuscript might sit alongside other tasks—like pitching your next book idea and interviewing a subject matter expert—in your project management tool. All three are important.

If you're struggling to identify what to focus on during the session, use a prioritization technique to identify urgent and important tasks to do in your deep work time block. 

For example, you could use the Eisenhower matrix to divide tasks into the following quadrants, in order of priority:

• Important and urgent (e.g., writing the manuscript before the publisher's deadline)

• Important but not urgent (e.g., taking an online course)

• Urgent but not important (e.g., responding to emails)

• Not urgent or important (e.g., content formatting or basic research.) These tasks can usually be outsourced or automated.

3. Create a deep work routine

To help build your deep work habit, try choosing a location, time, and duration for deep work. For example, you could "eat the frog" and spend the first few hours of every day doing the most important task. 

This is a daily routine I use: I put time in my calendar every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning for deep work. I don't check my emails first. I make a coffee, put my noise-canceling headphones on, and make sure my laptop is fully charged. Then I power through as much work as I can (before I let myself get distracted with emails).

Fellow freelance writer Lizzie Davey has a similar approach: "I build my schedule around doing deep work between 8:30 – 11:30. No calls, no nothing during that time except writing."

This aligns with the rhythmic deep work philosophy I outlined earlier, and it can be a great way to get your feet wet with deep work.

4. Combine deep work with time blocking

It's not realistic to spend the entire day doing deep work. Cal suggests an upper limit of four hours of deep work each day. Any more and our attention dwindles, ultimately rendering the concept useless. 

Time blocking is a great time management technique if you're a visual person who wants to see where you can slot in those four hours of deep work each day. You can color-code deep work time blocks in red to make it explicitly clear when you need to be distraction-free, or use something like Google Calendar's Focus time feature. (Any other scheduling assistant can help with this too.)

5. Take regular breaks

It's not always possible to be in heads-down deep work mode mode for hours on end. Even Cal Newport understands this: "Deep work is exhausting because it pushes you toward the limit of your abilities," he says. He argues that if you try to squeeze out more and more work, you might end up being less productive in the end.

Get enough rest by applying the deep work concept to time off, too. Resist the urge to check your work emails during the evening or jump on your phone when you can't sleep in the middle of the night. In other words: take the "play hard" part of the "work hard, play hard" motto seriously. 

Want to go all in? Take a page out of Bill Gates's book and plan a "think week"—an extended period where he'd do no official work, other than reading papers written by Microsoft employees. This session, which would traditionally be considered unproductive (hasn't he got real work to do?), resulted in world-changing inventions, like Internet Explorer.

6. Join co-working sessions 

Deep work requires ruthless concentration—chatting with your colleague about your plans for the weekend makes that impossible. But some people work better when they're not alone. That's why I suggest joining a co-working club. Flow Club, for example, hosts regular co-working sessions where you spend:

• 5 minutes setting your goals for the session

• 60 minutes doing deep work with your microphone and sound off

• 5 minutes reviewing your progress

This rigid structure gives you the productivity boost of working alongside other productive people, while also time-blocking a solid hour to get your most important work done in flow state. 

7. Build an environment for deep work

It's easy to blame notifications for ruining our concentration. But you can control those kinds of things. It's up to you to set up your working environment to be distraction-free and make the entire process easier. 

Here are some easy ways to avoid distractions: 

• Use a focus app.

• Put on noise-canceling headphones.

• Turn on your phone's Do Not Disturb setting.

• Find a quiet room where you won't be interrupted.

• Quit any apps and close any tabs you won't need.

"To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction," Cal writes.

8. Train your brain to avoid distractions

Setting time aside for deep work isn't enough—Cal argues that you should train your brain to avoid distractions outside of when you're trying to achieve that flow state. Concentration is a muscle that weakens if you don't practice it. 

Put extra effort into breaking habits that fill every spare moment with a distraction. Based on my own experience, these are things like:

• Picking up my phone in a five-minute line at the supermarket

• Mindlessly scrolling TikTok while waiting for a meeting

• Checking in on Instagram when I need a break from work 

I took this a step further with a complete digital detox. Going without my devices for the day highlighted how reliant I am on them—and how I used them as a crutch for any mental silence.

Cal explains: "The key here isn't to avoid or even to reduce the total amount of time you spend engaging in distracting behavior, but is instead to give yourself plenty of opportunities throughout your [day] to resist switching to these distractions at the slightest hint of boredom."

Does deep work work for you? 

My journey with deep work has evolved to be more than a "work smarter" concept—it's a way of life that's not just benefited me in work mode, but in my personal life too.

I've learned to be more present and "play hard," so that when I come back to my deep work sprint, I'm well rested and set up for success. I no longer have the need to check my emails mid-draft. My schedule is optimized for me. 

So I agree with Cal when he says: "To build your working life around the experience of flow produced by deep work is a proven path to deep satisfaction."

Related reading:

• Why you should set aside one day every quarter just to think

• 8 end-of-day routine ideas for more productive mornings

• What does "thinking big" really mean?

This month is packed with automation treats to help you solve problems and make your work life easier. From Notion's new actions to our new Azure OpenAI and Zoom Team Chat integrations, you can wrangle feedback rounds, add AI where you need it most, and much more.

Here's the latest Zapier integration news:

Jump ahead 

• Updated integrations

• New integrations

Updated integrations

Notion

Our Notion integration now supports comments! Your Zaps can now retrieve all comments from a page, search for specific comments, and create new comments. Automatically summarize feedback, tag teammates in comments, and much more. Need some inspiration? Check out these ideas for automating Notion.

Microsoft Teams

The wait is over, Microsoft Teams users: Your Zaps can now send messages in threads with the new Reply to Message action, so you can automate team chat etiquette and reduce message overload.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online has five new triggers and three new actions to help you knock out those accounting tasks. Trigger Zaps from new bill payments, refund receipts, updated bills, and much more. You can also find payments, create deposits, and create invoices through Zapier. Steal even more ideas for automating your accounting with QuickBooks Online.

Zapier Interfaces

Now you can collect payments and automate follow-up tasks with Zapier Interfaces. Trigger Zaps whenever there's a new Stripe payment from one of your custom interfaces, so you can automatically update your accounting software, send confirmation emails, and ensure a smooth purchasing experience for your customers.

Shopify

Our Shopify integration has a new Create Company action, making it easier to track your business customers. The Update Inventory Quantity action now supports line items too, so you can update multiple products at once. 

Pardot

Keep your prospect communication relevant with Pardot's new Remove Prospect from List action. Automate list clean-up after webinars, closed deals, or whenever engagement drops.

GitLab

Speed up your development workflow with three new GitLab actions. Now your Zaps can create new branches, commits, and merge requests, so your team can ship code changes and new features faster.

Xero

Xero has a new search action: Get Invoice History. Add this action to your Zaps to retrieve an invoice's change history, so you don't have to rely on memory (or a financial forensics team) to settle disputes or track accounting errors. 

ClickUp

Our ClickUp integration now supports chat, making it much easier to automate project-related communication. Trigger Zaps from new channel messages and reactions or automatically send direct and team messages. 

Cal.com

Take time off (without adding to your workload) with Cal.com's new Out of Office Created trigger. Automate team reminders about upcoming time off, adjust project timelines, or share coverage plans so you can focus on anything but work. 

lemlist

Lemlist has four new actions to help you personalize your marketing campaigns. Your Zaps can automatically search for existing emails and phone numbers, verify email addresses, and enrich leads with additional contact info from other apps.

Woodpecker.co

Nix unwanted outreach with Woodpecker.co's new Blacklist Domain action. Add this action to your Zaps to comply with "no contact" requests, exclude specific company domains from your contact lists, and ensure your campaigns reach the right people.

JustCall

JustCall has a handful of new triggers and actions to help you get more mileage from every sales call and campaign. Kickstart automated workflows from AI-generated call reports and answered calls, automatically add contacts to sales campaigns, and even send multimedia messages. 

Superchat

With Superchat's new Message Sending Failed trigger, you can monitor bounced messages and automate fallback plans. When customer messages end up in the wrong inbox, the Update Conversation Inbox action lets you automatically route customer queries to the right place without interruption.

Front

With Zapier, you can now add or remove handles from your Front contacts, so you'll always have accurate customer contact information. 

WooSender

WooSender's new Marked as Attention trigger makes it easier to flag important conversations and automate follow-ups for critical customer messages.

Salesmsg

Salesmsg's new Send an Asynchronous Text Message action lets you send time-sensitive messages and bulk campaigns in the background. That means your Zaps don't have to wait in line to run follow-up actions.

New integrations

Azure OpenAI

Azure OpenAI allows you to create Zaps with custom AI apps built in Azure OpenAI Service Studio. Unlock AI automation for your entire team with the security of Azure.

Zoom Team Chat

Zoom Team Chat lets you automate your team chat separately from your video meetings. Automatically set your presence status, send reminder messages, and more. 

Looker

Looker is an enterprise business intelligence and data analytics platform for exploring and sharing insights in real time.

Outreach

Outreach is a sales platform that helps teams engage customers, close deals, and improve overall sales productivity.

Krisp

Krisp is a tool that eliminates background noise and transcribes and summarizes calls.

Nextdoor

Running hyperlocal ad campaigns? Get more ROI from your ads with our Nextdoor integration. Route new leads to your sales pipeline, track conversions, and more.

TikTok Conversions

TikTok Conversions lets you send offline events from your customer relationship manager (CRM) tool to TikTok, so you can improve targeting for your ad campaigns.

Perfex CRM

Perfex CRM is a CRM tool that streamlines business processes.

Jodoo

Jodoo is a no-code app platform for creating customizable online forms and apps.

ManyRequests

ManyRequests is a client portal and ticketing software that helps agencies manage projects, billing, and customer interactions in one place.

Cleft

Cleft is a voice memo tool that records, transcribes, and generates AI summaries to help you organize your thoughts.

Dust

Dust allows you to create custom AI assistants that help you find information from internal company knowledge sources.

FullEnrich

FullEnrich is a data enrichment platform that retrieves email addresses and phone numbers for targeted business contacts.

Opinion Stage

Opinion Stage is an AI-powered tool for creating engaging quizzes, surveys, and forms to improve audience engagement and insights.

Paige

Paige is an AI-driven platform that automates Google My Business management for SMBs, optimizing profiles and streamlining tasks.

Selling online can be a nightmare without the right tools. You need reliable payment processing functionality, an easy experience for the customer, and effective funnels to guide each prospect through the sales process. That's where ThriveCart's online carts and sales funnels come in. The eCommerce tool's upsell, special offer, and subscription features can help you increase conversions and average order value.

But still, the old adage is true: you can have too much of a good thing. The more customers you land, the harder it is to manage all the administrative tasks that come along with running an eCommerce business. Thankfully, there are ways to set at least some of those tasks on autopilot, even as your business scales. 

With just a few Zaps—our word for Zapier's automated workflows—you can connect ThriveCart to the other apps you use every day. Here are some of the top ways to get started. 

Skip ahead

• Add new customers to your email list or CRM

• Recover abandoned carts

• Connect to your other eCommerce tools

• Keep track of purchase activity in a spreadsheet or database

• Use notifications to keep your team in the loop

Add new customers to your email list or CRM 

Your work isn't done once someone buys from you—far from it. After all, you have at least a 60% chance of selling to an existing customer, compared to just a 5 to 20% chance of closing a deal with a lead. That means you should nurture customers just as much as (if not more than) prospects.

To nurture new ThriveCart customers, it's important to add their contact information to your email list or customer relationship management (CRM) tool. But manually exporting customer data across tools is time-consuming, not to mention risks customers falling through the cracks. 

Instead, use one of these Zaps to create or update contacts in your CRM or email marketing app after every product purchase in ThriveCart. Automation can ensure you follow up with each new customer, nurture new relationships, and update existing contacts to reflect their purchase history.

Recover abandoned carts

Abandoned cart emails are a great way to reengage potential customers and help nudge them to make that final move towards a purchase. But to be at their most effective, these emails should be timed precisely—which is why it's best to automate them. 

Whenever someone abandons their cart, these Zaps will send that information to your email marketing tool. As long as you have automatic cart recovery emails set up, that prospect will automatically be encouraged to come back and complete their purchase.

Connect to other eCommerce tools

You might use Kajabi to sell digital products or host an online course catalog in Thinkific. Or maybe you have a paid community using Memberspot, MemberVault, or Mighty Networks. If so, it can be helpful to connect your ThriveCart account to these other tools to more easily engage and retain your customers.

For instance, maybe you'll grant access to a special offer in Kajabi whenever a new customer makes a purchase in ThriveCart. Or maybe you want to sell all your memberships and courses through one ThriveCart account to keep your accounting simple. These Zaps can add new users, send membership invitations, and grant unique discounts whenever a new purchase is made in ThriveCart. 

By automating your eCommerce tools, you provide a better experience for your customers while reducing busywork on the back end.

Keep track of purchase activity in a spreadsheet or database

When it comes to financial transactions, it's crucial to maintain accurate and up-to-date records. And not everyone on your team likely has access to your ThriveCart account, which is why it can be helpful to keep a backup of important sales data in a more universal tool like Google Sheets or Airtable. 

While you could export your ThriveCart receipts manually on a regular basis, that plan involves a lot of unnecessary effort. And unless you're conducting manual exports every few hours, your spreadsheets will almost always be out of date—especially as your sales rate increases.

It's better to simplify your record-keeping with automation. These Zaps send new activity in ThriveCart to a spreadsheet or Airtable base immediately. That way, you'll have an accurate, central source of truth for your sales data that doesn't require constant exports on your end.

Use notifications to keep your team in the loop

You can't be glued to your ThriveCart dashboard all day—but it's always good to be aware of sales activity so you can make sure things are running smoothly. Especially if that activity involves a failed or declined transaction, your billing team needs to resolve the issue quickly to avoid losing revenue. Or, your sales or customer success teams might want to know when a purchase is made so they can reach out to the customer for follow up. 

Whatever your use case, these Zaps send a Slack message or email to the right person (or channel) when a specified activity takes place in ThriveCart. 

Pro tip: If you want to avoid spamming your Slack channel with notifications for every purchase, you can add a filter step to limit the Zap to only certain types of transactions. Or, you can use a lookup table to send each notification directly to the right person.

Scale your sales with Zapier's ThriveCart integration

As your eCommerce business grows, all the administrative work involved in managing online sales can get overwhelming fast. You need to nurture customers with follow-up and abandoned cart emails, keep accurate records of transactions, and notify your team when important purchase activity takes place. And that's not to mention keeping yourself organized across multiple eCommerce tools.

Automation can help take some of that busywork off your plate. Setting up automated workflows with ThriveCart lets you improve the customer experience and keep your business records organized, all while saving yourself time to put back into delivering quality products.

This is just the start of what you can do with ThriveCart and Zapier. What will you automate first?

Cold email outreach is a powerful tool for businesses, but it's often a time sink. Crafting personalized messages, managing follow-ups, and tracking responses can be difficult to keep up with as your business scales. 

This is where lemlist, a specialized cold email tool, shines. It helps you create engaging, personalized campaigns and automatically tracks how recipients interact with your messages.

But even with lemlist's efficiency, there's still more you can do. By connecting lemlist to other apps, you can eliminate manual data entry, keep your team informed, and streamline your workflows—all automatically. Here's how you can use Zaps—Zapier's automated workflows—to transform lemlist email outreach from a time-consuming chore into an efficient, results-driven process.

Skip ahead

• Track subscribers in a spreadsheet

• Add subscribers to your CRM

• Keep your team informed

• Capture new leads

Track subscribers in a spreadsheet

Tracking subscriber information in a spreadsheet is often the first step for many sales and marketing teams to organize and analyze their outreach efforts. Spreadsheets offer the flexibility and simplicity for quick overviews, segmentation, or even deeper data analysis. 

For example, you might want to track how different subscribers engage with your emails—who opened them, who clicked on links, and who responded—to identify patterns or prioritize follow-ups. They also allow for custom reporting that may be more tailored than what's available directly in lemlist, giving you the ability to analyze subscriber behavior at a granular level or share reports with stakeholders in a more familiar format.

However, manually updating these spreadsheets can be a time-consuming, error-prone task, especially as your subscriber base grows. But that doesn't have to be your MO. Instead, you can use automation to automatically log subscriber information directly into your preferred spreadsheet or database tool. 

Add subscribers to your CRM

Manually keeping your CRM updated with information from lemlist can quickly become a bottleneck for your sales process. Consider the amount of time and effort it takes to constantly transfer data across systems—logging new contacts, updating lead statuses, recording email interactions. It's hard to keep up with as your business scales and you get more emails. 

This lag in information flow can inhibit your sales team's momentum, leading to missed follow-ups or delayed responses to promising leads. Manually moving data can also leave room for human error, like missing important updates or duplicating entries.

Instead, use automation to keep your CRM as up to date as possible. These Zaps will automatically create or update contacts in your CRM whenever there's new subscriber activity in lemlist, capturing all the relevant details in real time. This way, your sales pipeline is always updated and ready for your sales team to take action on the latest leads.

Keep your team informed

When there's activity in lemlist, you want to mobilize your team as quickly as possible to act on those opportunities. Whether it's a new subscriber, an email click, or a reply from a lead, those are key moments where timely follow-up can make or break a potential deal. The longer the delay, the colder the lead becomes.

Instead of manually alerting your team yourself or having them constantly check lemlist for the latest info, let automation do the heavy lifting. Whenever there's a new subscriber, email click, or reply in lemlist, Zapier will automatically notify your team in their inbox or team chat so they're ready to take action. Maximize your team's chances of engaging prospects when they're most interested with these instant notifications.

Capture new leads in lemlist

Manually importing leads into lemlist can slow down your outreach process. Automation ensures that new prospects are added to your campaigns immediately, so they can start receiving your personalized sequences without delay. Whether your new leads are coming from Facebook or LinkedIn ads, Calendly meetings, or form submissions, automation makes it easy to nurture those leads as soon as they enter your pipeline. 

By eliminating the lag time that comes with manual imports, you can respond to leads faster, engage them while they're still warm, and build momentum in your sales process. This not only improves your efficiency in prospecting, but also increases the likelihood of turning those new prospects into loyal customers.

Automate your outreach with lemlist

Automating Lemlist transforms your outreach from a series of manual tasks into a streamlined system of seamlessly connected workflows. You'll save time and follow up more consistently and quickly, with less human error. Automation also allows your team to focus on high-value tasks, like personalizing messages and closing deals. 

The result? A more efficient, scalable outreach process that can significantly boost your response rates and conversions.

And that's just the start of what you can do with lemlist and Zapier. What will you automate first?

WordPress doesn't come with a built-in appointment booking system as standard. That means you have two options: either embed a third-party standalone booking app on your WordPress site, or install a WordPress appointment plugin, which is usually a more affordable and easy-to-manage approach.

If you're looking for a customizable WordPress booking plugin that makes setting up an appointment as easy as possible for your visitors, automates staff scheduling, and accepts online payments, you've come to the right place.

As a long-time user of WordPress, I've come across loads of booking plugins. So for this piece, I considered and researched dozens of options and did in-depth testing on the top contenders to narrow it down to these seven WordPress appointment booking plugins.

The best WordPress appointment booking plugins

• Amelia for versatility

• Booking Calendar for accommodation availability

• BookingPress for separate staff and manager dashboards

• MotoPress Appointment Booking for service businesses

• MotoPress Hotel Booking for hotels and vacation properties

• Salon Booking System for salon-based businesses

• Simply Schedule Appointments for consultants and small businesses

What makes the best WordPress appointment plugin?

There are literally hundreds of free and premium appointment booking plugins for WordPress and, consequently, plenty of (longish) lists of the best ones. So what makes this list different? 

Here, I've selected the standout plugins. It would have been easy to produce another long list, but I've tried to weed out the "also rans" and leave you with the cream of the crop. For instance, plugins that only display available appointments but offer no way to make a booking weren't considered. I've also only focused on true WordPress plugins—not embeddable third-party apps like Calendly.

Also: I didn't just read these apps' marketing materials and customer reviews. I spent dozens of hours researching and testing the best WordPress appointment booking plugins. I either used the demo sites or installed and activated each one in turn, configured the settings accordingly, and tested the appointment booking functionality. 

The bottom line is that all these WordPress appointment booking plugins all do much the same to varying degrees. And while some are industry-specific, many are versatile enough to work in various sectors. As I was testing the plugins, here's what I was looking for:

• Ease of use. There are two sides to consider here. On the backend, you want a user-friendly admin dashboard to view and manage bookings, and on the frontend, you want a booking form that makes setting up an appointment as easy as possible for visitors. Any plugin that failed this first test was eliminated.

• Customization options. You'll also want settings that allow you to modify the booking experience, such as a customizable calendar or booking form that you can place anywhere on your website. I was also looking for integration options with standard calendar tools such as Google, Outlook, and iCal. 

• Automations. A big part of introducing an appointment booking system is automating your workflow. For example, triggering automated appointment confirmations and reminders upon booking for both the site admins and the users.

• Multiple services, schedules, and staff. In some cases, you'll want a plugin that supports multiple service providers, such as personal trainers, doctors, and dentists, on different schedules, in one or more locations.

• Payments. You'll also want options for accepting online payments for appointments, possibly supporting multiple languages and currencies.

Overall, I whittled the list down to the seven best appointment booking plugins for WordPress.

The best plugins for WordPress bookings at a glance

Best all-around appointment and event booking plugin for WordPress

Amelia

Amelia pros:

• Perfect for multi-site, multi-service businesses

• Provides an insightful admin dashboard with key metrics

Amelia cons:

• Some people may feel overwhelmed by all the features

The Amelia WordPress booking plugin for appointments and events is perfect for multi-site, multi-service businesses such as law firms, fitness gyms, health clinics, and spa salons. The plugin enables customers to select the right service, with the right person, and makes it easy for them to reschedule appointments.

With Amelia, you can send automated email, SMS, and WhatsApp notifications and reminders for booked, canceled, or rescheduled appointments, and you can choose whether you want to send them to employees, customers, or both. 

In the backend, business owners/managers get a dashboard with widgets, charts, and tables summarizing various metrics and KPIs, like approved appointments, revenue, and employee workload, plus an upcoming schedule. The WYSIWYG editor lets you customize colors, information, and fonts to make appointment booking forms and event calendar forms that fit your website. Plus, you can automatically calculate and apply taxes to services and events for compliance.

On the frontend, you can choose from several styles of mobile-friendly booking forms, like a classic step-by-step appointment booking form, a catalog booking form, or an event list booking form. Customers can quickly pick services (including multiple services with a single booking), employees, location, date and time, and payment details and change any settings without leaving the booking page.  

The free lite version is well-equipped, but you'll want the premium version for online payments, WhatsApp integration, recurring appointments, unlimited employees, custom notifications, reminders, multilingual support, and different event ticket options. 

Amelia pricing: Free lite version available; then premium plans starting from $49/year.

Best WordPress calendar booking plugin for accommodation availability

Booking Calendar

Booking Calendar pros:

• Supports an unlimited number of booking resources (properties or services)

• Import and export bookings to your Google Calendar 

Booking Calendar cons:

• The frontend display can look a little simplistic compared to other apps

Booking Calendar is ideal for all business sizes, from personal sites to multi-user services like accommodation bookings, equipment rentals, and resource scheduling. Visitors can check availability in the calendar and then make a reservation for their preferred days or time slots.

Although the plugin looks relatively simplistic on the front end, it supports unlimited booking resources, like properties or services, each with its own calendar, to prevent double bookings. So, you can display unavailable, pending, and booked dates (in different colors) for the various resources.

It has a user-friendly admin dashboard for receiving and managing bookings in a calendar overview or listing panel. You can configure the booking form structure and select your calendar skin to fit your site design. You can also customize email templates for different booking actions.

You get even more features as you move up through the premium versions. For example, you can start setting different rates for seasons, days of the week, or number of days selected. There are even options for early or last-minute booking discounts. The customization here is nice and means it'll work for a wide variety of businesses.

Booking Calendar pricing: Free version available; then premium plans starting from $79/year for a single-site license.

Best WordPress appointment booking plugin for individual staff and manager dashboards

BookingPress

BookingPress pros:

• Separate dashboards for site admins and staff members

• Extensive range of payment gateways and free add-ons

BookingPress cons:

• Some users may find the premium plans a bit pricey

BookingPress is a comprehensive WordPress appointment booking plugin for any service-based industry, including health and wellness, gyms, salons, medical clinics, service and maintenance, equipment rentals, and professional services. 

Behind the scenes, there are two types of dashboards: one for site admins and one for staff members. This allows anyone on your team to add and view their appointments, set days off, add services, and track their performance.

In the admin panel, you get a built-in editor to customize your booking form, from colors and fonts to titles and layout. Plus, you can set automatic notifications and reminders via email, WhatsApp, or SMS. BookingPress also syncs with other calendars like Google and Outlook so that staff can schedule bookings with other items in their personal calendars.

On the frontend, you can configure a step-by-step booking form taking visitors through your menu options. For example, select your hair stylist and type of cut, add any extras, choose a date and time, apply any coupons, and take a deposit payment.

The free version of BookingPress includes the PayPal online payment gateway as standard. But in the premium version, you get 20+ more online payment gateways and over 45 free add-ons—like coupons, deposit payment, and service extras—to optimize your bookings further.

BookingPress pricing: Free lite version available; then premium plans from $79/year

Best WordPress appointment booking plugin for service businesses

MotoPress Appointment Booking

MotoPress Appointment Booking pros:

• Works with multi-location, multi-service businesses

• Lets you add and customize unlimited services and employees

MotoPress Appointment Booking cons:

• Only displays booking form as a widget rather than a full page

The MotoPress appointment booking plugin makes it easy for service-based companies that use meetings, classes, or sessions to accept bookings and appointments online. It works with a range of appointment-based businesses that offer multiple services in several locations. For example, you could rent out recording studios in three cities for music production, podcast production, and recording sessions. Other typical businesses include:

• Barbershops, hairdressers, and beauty salons

• Tutoring businesses and online classes

• Healthcare and medical centers

• Sports facilities and fitness instructors

Visitors to your site can book appointments step-by-step via the mobile-optimized booking form widget. For example, select a category/service/location/person, choose a suitable date/time, and make the payment (online or upon arrival). Regular clients also have the option to log in to their accounts to schedule recurring appointments faster.

You can send automated email notifications and reminders to clients and staff members before and after the appointment. Plus, there's an optional premium extension to integrate Twilio for SMS notifications. 

The user-friendly admin dashboard lets you customize multiple settings. You can add time slot booking for numerous services, add lock-out hours, add and manage employees, set employee schedules and holidays, create discount coupons, and allow customers to book multiple services.

The dashboard also gives you a bird's-eye view of bookings in list and calendar format, so admins and team members can quickly check their current appointments. Aside from the booking widget, you can also create widgets to showcase employees' experience and design lists of services and locations.

MotoPress appointment booking pricing: Free lite version available. Premium version $79/year (single site) or $199/year (unlimited sites), plus a range of optional add-ons. 

Best WordPress booking plugin for hotels (and vacation properties)

MotoPress Hotel Booking

MotoPress Hotel Booking pros:

• Sync all your bookings from online travel agencies (OTAs) in one calendar

• Manage your bookings from anywhere with the dedicated Hotel Booking mobile app

MotoPress Hotel Booking cons:

• If you need the optional add-ons for managing payments, it becomes expensive

MotoPress also offers a hotel booking plugin: an all-in-one property management suite for hotels, resorts, vacation homes, apartments, campsites, bed and breakfasts, and other types of rental properties. It's capable of handling unlimited properties—including unlimited rooms in the accommodation—or a single property, and it can also process multiple bookings by one user in one reservation.

You can customize the settings for your property type from the user-friendly admin dashboard. For example, you can set the number of seasons, booking rules (minimum and maximum nights), rates (room, occupancy, weekly, monthly), extra services, taxes and fees, discounts and coupon codes, and email notifications.

On your site, visitors can check the availability of individual properties or rooms in a color-coded calendar or use a dedicated search form. You can manually confirm booking requests in the admin dashboard or process them instantly via email or upon payment (in full or fixed deposit). The plugin accepts payments via several gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and 2Checkout, but you can also integrate more through a dedicated WooCommerce payment extension.

The plugin enables you to synchronize all bookings across online travel agencies (OTAs) like Airbnb, Booking, TripAdvisor, HomeAway, or any other that supports iCal (with no per-booking or per-property commission). Plus, you can also add and manage your bookings on your mobile phone with the dedicated Hotel Booking mobile app.

MotoPress Hotel Booking pricing: Free lite version available. Premium version $139/year (single site) or $249/year (unlimited sites), plus a range of optional add-ons.

Best WordPress appointment booking plugin for salons

Salon Booking System

Salon Booking System pros:

• Manage your bookings and customers' details from the mobile app

• Add functionality like SMS notifications with 30+ free add-ons

Salon Booking System cons:

• Would benefit from more frontend styling and layout features

The Salon Booking System plugin is ideal for beauty salons, hairdressers, barbershops, and spas, but it's also been used by everything from COVID test centers and health care centers to therapists and tutors. 

The site admin can view, add, and cancel reservations from their Google Calendar with two-way synchronization. And on the backend, there's an easy-to-use admin panel for configuring salon settings by adding salon information, setting email notifications, creating scheduling rules, defining your services, and adding your assistants. The plugin automatically creates three default pages—Booking, Booking my account, and Thank you for booking—along with two assistants and three services to get you started.

You can customize the look and feel of the form's style with three different booking form sizes according to your page layout and a custom color palette. Once you're up and running, there's a calendar and list view of bookings and a reports section with stats on reservations and revenues.

On the frontend, visitors see a step-by-step booking system. At the checkout, you can enable guest checkout or offer a Facebook login for new visitors. Meanwhile, existing customers can log in to check, reschedule, and cancel bookings, view their reservation history, and make new appointments.

The excellent free version is well-equipped, but the premium version adds online payment options, a mobile app for salon staff and managers, free access to 30+ add-ons, and the option to display available time slots in the customer's time zone.

Note: If you want to manage multiple locations, you'll need the premium version Multi-Shops add-on—included in the Business plan or available to purchase for the Basic Plan.

Salon Booking System pricing: Free version available; then premium plans starting from $69/year (15% off renewals). 

Best WordPress booking plugin for consultants

Simply Schedule Appointments

Simply Schedule Appointments pros:

• Brilliant setup wizard gets your first appointment type live in five minutes

• Comes with unlimited calendars, appointments, and notifications

Simply Schedule Appointments cons:

• Requires the Business Edition (which is pricey) for multiple staff and resources

Simply Schedule Appointments is an easy-to-use WordPress appointment booking plugin. It's ideal for consultants and small businesses who want to schedule phone/video calls for consultations, interviews, or other predefined services. But it's not limited to those disciplines—you could easily use it for booking lessons, handyperson services, hair appointments, or anything else. Either way, visitors can select their preferred team member/consultant/stylist when scheduling appointments.

I was really impressed with the setup wizard, and true to its claims, I had my first appointment booking form live in five minutes. Compared to other plugins, it's a dream to configure. 

You can decide when you're available for appointments and block off dates when you don't want to be disturbed for bookings—no more phone calls or back-and-forth emails to find a meeting time that works. You also get to add buffer time and setup time, so, for example, you could set a lead time of two days to allow for meeting preparation and a buffer of 15 minutes before and after a booking for extra flexibility in your schedule. The customizable booking flow lets you select your preferred steps and layouts, and there's the option to add bookable resources, such as a meeting room, to each appointment.

You can embed the appointment booking calendars using the WordPress Classic or Block editor, Elementor widgets, Beaver Builder modules, and Divi modules. No matter how you do it, they look elegant and unobtrusive out of the box, but you can style them to match your brand and website.

The free version is excellent, but the premium version gives you extra features like Stripe and PayPal for payments, SMS notifications with Twilio, Zoom and Google Meet for virtual meetings, and Google Calendar Sync with your site's booking system to check your personal calendar for conflicts.

If you want to get really adventurous and create complex forms, you can integrate Simply Schedule Appointments with Gravity Forms or Formidable Forms. And if you want visitors to book events, you can use The Events Calendar integration. 

In short, if you're looking for the Calendly of WordPress booking plugins, this is it.

Simply Schedule Appointments pricing: Robust free version available; then premium plans from $99/year.

Should you use a booking plugin for WordPress?

If you want to take bookings on your WordPress site, you'll need a plugin or a third-party app. If you're already using a standalone app and are comfortable with its functionality, that may be your best bet. But if you're starting from scratch, then choosing and installing a WordPress plugin makes more sense—it's fully-integrated, offers the same functionality, and usually costs less.  

All the appointment booking plugins listed here come with a free version, so you can get a feel for what they offer before investing in the premium version. While one or two are industry-specific, many will work in various scenarios, so don't be afraid to see which works best for you.

If I were choosing one for my business, I'd go for Simply Schedule Appointments. But which one will you choose?

Related reading:

• The best WordPress form plugins

• The best WordPress SEO plugins

• 7 WordPress plugins that helped me grow my website traffic (and revenue)

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

Google Forms and SurveyMonkey are leaders in their category for different reasons: one is a completely free and simple tool belonging to a tech behemoth, and the other has been the poster child for survey creation for over two decades.

I've been updating this article for a few years now, and this year, I went back in to test them and see how things have developed. After spending time in each app, setting up mock surveys, and tinkering with features, here's what I found.

• Google Forms vs. SurveyMonkey at a glance

• Google Forms is easier to get started with

• SurveyMonkey supports you more as you create your surveys

• Google Forms offers more for free

• SurveyMonkey has more features for advanced survey creation

• Both apps integrate with Zapier

• Which should you choose?

Google Forms vs. SurveyMonkey at a glance

When it comes down to it, Google Forms is better suited for forms, and SurveyMonkey is better suited for surveys. It's a subtle difference (without a standard definition), but generally, forms collect specific data (think: purchase orders or event registrations), while surveys are meant to collect nuanced feedback or opinions. 

But, of course, there's more to it than that. Here's a quick rundown of features—take a look, and then keep reading for a fuller rundown.

Google Forms is easier to get started with

The only thing you need in order to use all of Google Forms' features is a Google account. So if you already use Gmail, there are no extra steps for signing up, no new password, and no fishing for a confirmation email to solidify a new account. The beauty of Google.

Once you're in the Google Forms dashboard, you can start a new form from scratch or choose from 17 basic templates. The template options aren't robust, by any means, but depending on what you're collecting data for, there might be something that works.

If you decide to create a form from scratch, you can choose from 12 different question types, including form-specific options for date, time, and even file upload, which could be useful for IT ticket systems or the like. The newest question type, rating, lets you set a scale from 1-10 stars—great for general feedback questions.

To the right side of your questions, you'll notice a small, vertical bar with six icons, starting with a plus sign. These icons give you quick access to add questions, images, videos, and sections as you build your form. 

Google Forms can even assist you with generating answer types automatically. For example, I started typing a question about rating the customer experience, and Google Forms automatically provided a linear scale answer type (pictured above). I did the same with the question, "When would you like to schedule your appointment?" and it generated a date field for the answer.

One feature I found especially convenient was the ability to insert images directly from Google Search. (The selection may include copyrighted images, so be mindful of that.)

And Google has finally introduced generative AI features, too. If you want a rewrite of a question or heading, just type it out or paste it first and choose a quick prompt to rephrase, shorten, or change the tone. You can also give it a specific prompt, like "make this question funnier" as I did below.

Even better: as of this writing, Google users who've been invited to Google Workspace Labs can use Gemini, Google's AI assistant, to generate entire forms using a simple prompt.

In terms of customization, you can add some basic form logic, sending users to a different section of the form depending on their answer, but there isn't much advanced power beyond that. Choose from some basic fonts, customize your color and header image, and then once your survey is ready, hit send, and you'll see three options to share your survey: email, link, or embed code. 

Once folks have filled out your form, accessing your data is simple. Just click the Responses tab, and you'll be able to see results in a summary view, a question-based view, and an individual responder view. You can even see new results come in as responders submit without needing to refresh.

You can also export your data to Google Sheets, or by connecting Google Forms to Zapier, send your data to wherever you want to store it.

So why did I just walk you through the entire process of creating a form in Google Forms? Because that's literally all there is to it. It's a simple tool with basic features—but it absolutely gets the job done.

SurveyMonkey supports you more as you create your surveys

For the most part, with Google Forms, what you see is what you get. SurveyMonkey, on the other hand, has so much bubbling underneath the surface. You'll need to explore and tinker, but you'll find any feature you could possibly want. Of course, you'll have to pay a premium for these features—I'll touch on that in a bit—but it'll be worth it if you want to create robust and authoritative surveys.

The main difference here: you have to do almost everything from scratch in Google Forms. Other than the 17 templates and basic AI prompts, there's not much support for you: no recommended questions, no question banks, nothing (though once fully AI-generated forms are available to all Google users, this could change).

With SurveyMonkey, you get multiple starting options. You can of course choose to build a survey from scratch, but you can also choose from hundreds of templates, copy and paste questions and answers you already have, or create your survey with AI. With the Build with AI feature, you'll choose a sample prompt—for example, customer satisfaction or market research—or write your own prompt using up to 1,000 characters. You can get as detailed as you want and within seconds of submitting, you'll have a complete form ready for editing and sending.

Even if you're creating a survey from scratch, you can still take advantage of SurveyMonkey's recommended questions. Tell SurveyMonkey what kind of survey you want to create from a dropdown menu of choices, and it will give you plenty of questions and answer choices to go with them. From there, you can add the questions you want to a side panel and put them in your survey. And if you don't like the results or want more variety? You can change the category to generate a new set of questions. (This feature actually comes with the free plan, but only for up to 10 questions per survey.)

SurveyMonkey also gives you the neat option of importing questions from elsewhere. All you have to do is format each question and possible answers (if applicable) on separate lines, and SurveyMonkey will import the questions into the survey.

Another reason SurveyMonkey works better for serious survey creators is that you can recycle previously used questions. Instead of having to duplicate the same survey and edit from there (hello, Google Forms), SurveyMonkey stores questions you've used in prior surveys and lets you add them to your new survey. Even if you delete a question on an unpublished survey you're still working on, SurveyMonkey will still remember the question for you. The process is made even more efficient with the search bar at the top.

Creating a well-researched, unbiased survey is a lot of work—SurveyMonkey does most of the heavy lifting for you. 

Google Forms is totally free to use

As long as you have a Google account, you can access Google Forms in its entirety—completely free. SurveyMonkey does have a free Basic plan, but it's pretty limited, especially compared to everything you get at no cost with Google Forms:

• Pictures and backgrounds. In Google Forms, you can upload any picture you want as a header, including your company logo, and change the background of your form to any color. Plus, you can search for any picture that exists in Google Images and insert it directly into your survey (just be sure you're not violating any copyright). In SurveyMonkey, changing the header picture and the background color are both paid features, and you can't source images directly from the web.

• Fonts. Google Forms allows you to change the font and size of your header text, questions, and any other text. SurveyMonkey requires an upgrade for this.

• Templates: All 17 templates in Google Forms are free to use. SurveyMonkey has over 250 templates, but most of them require a paid plan.

• Question types. You get access to all 11 question types that Google Forms has to offer for free. Once again, SurveyMonkey has more question types, but not all of them are free.

• Logic. SurveyMonkey has more advanced logic configurations, but they're only available for paid users. Google's (albeit basic) logic options are free.

• Quizzes. In Google Forms, you can set point values and correct answers for each question, along with automatic feedback—you can even batch-grade quizzes or grade individually. Any kind of quiz configuration in SurveyMonkey is part of an upgraded plan.

• Responses. The limit does not exist when it comes to the number of responses you can receive in Google Forms—or at least there isn't an official limit set by Google. SurveyMonkey's free (Basic) plan caps the number of responses you can view at 25. That's not going to get you very far.

• Questions per survey. Google Forms lets you ask as many questions as you want in a form (tread lightly). On its free plan, SurveyMonkey limits you to 10 questions per survey.

• Exporting responses. You can choose to save your Google Forms responses to a Google Sheets spreadsheet. With a paid plan, SurveyMonkey lets you export your data in a few different formats, like PDF or CSV.

So how much does SurveyMonkey cost? The cheapest plan is $39/month (billed annually), but it's only for individuals. If you prefer to pay month-to-month, the price is $99/month. For a team plan, your cheapest option is $25/user/month with a minimum of three users, billed annually, so $75/month if you're at the bare minimum. It's not overpriced, given the advanced features—more on that in a minute—but it's a far cry from free.

SurveyMonkey is more feature-rich

While Google Forms does offer a lot of basic features that SurveyMonkey charges for, SurveyMonkey has every feature you could ever want.

A/B testing

In SurveyMonkey, you can do A/B testing within your surveys—I've used several survey tools in the past, and this was a new option for me. You can test two versions of text, an image, or a question and choose which percentage of your respondents sees either option. This could help you see if your survey-takers answer differently when a question is phrased differently, or to see if they engage more or less when presented with one piece of content over another.

Purchasing responses

Another huge departure from Google Forms: instead of only collecting responses from your own, potentially small audience, in SurveyMonkey, you can buy responses from a much broader and larger group. SurveyMonkey lets you purchase this data by either (a) using audience profiles that the platform creates or (b) building custom audiences based on over 90 criteria, including country, gender, age, income, or even shopping app usage.

I didn't go forward with purchasing any responses, but to give you an idea of cost and delivery expectations: for the Community survey I created, SurveyMonkey automatically assigned me a target audience with 200 responses, at $1.40 per response with less than an 8-hour turnaround time. When I chose one of their pre-crafted audience profiles consisting of parents, the cost per response went up to $3.40 with 250 responses and still a sub-8-hour turnaround. You can make adjustments to the number of responses, but the price doesn't change for the most part.

Logic and branching options

SurveyMonkey's survey logic is also much more nuanced than Google Forms'. In Google Forms, you can only jump around from section to section. SurveyMonkey, on the other hand, has advanced branching logic to set conditions and actions for any of your survey questions. You can set limits on how many people can answer a question, and also randomize the way your questions, pages, or groups of pages (aka blocks) appear to the respondent (to reduce order bias).

AI features

As I mentioned earlier, with Build with AI, you only have to provide a simple prompt, like "I run a flower shop and I want to survey my customers about their shopping experience." From there, SurveyMonkey will generate a custom survey for you. If you need to make changes, just edit the survey directly or write another prompt.

Analytics

SurveyMonkey also has Google Forms beat in the analytics department. You get access to eight different chart types, and you can change the color of your charts and even the labels for each of your answer choices. For my users out there who are very particular about chart appearance or need to impress stakeholders, you can go into Display Options to customize the actual data that shows up in your charts, along with the format, including configuring decimal places or displaying percentages versus absolute values.

Saving and exporting responses

As far as saving your responses, SurveyMonkey lets you export data in multiple formats, including PDF, XLS, CSV, PPTX, or SPSS.  If you're a Dropbox user, SurveyMonkey directs you to Zapier, where you can easily automate a bunch of workflows, like uploading your responses as Dropbox files or creating folders for every new response.

Mobile app

Google Forms currently doesn't have an official mobile app (despite the many copycats you may see on the app stores).

SurveyMonkey, on the other hand, has a native app that makes creating surveys on mobile a seamless experience. You can't immediately access capabilities like importing questions or Build with AI, but once you start editing and designing the survey, it feels really intuitive.

You can easily move, copy, or delete questions, change color themes, and even access the question bank to insert pre-written questions. And when it comes to analyzing the survey data, you can still customize how you see your charts and graphs.

Creating and editing surveys on mobile is never ideal, but the app does a decent job of making it a smooth process.

Both apps integrate with Zapier

SurveyMonkey is jam-packed with over 100 native integration options, including Salesforce, Mailchimp, HubSpot, and even Google Forms (although in my testing, the Google Forms integration is pretty finicky). But both Google Forms and SurveyMonkey integrate with Zapier, so you can connect them to thousands of other apps, sending your survey data wherever it needs to go.

Learn more about how to automate Google Forms and how to automate SurveyMonkey, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Google Forms or SurveyMonkey: Which should you use?

As you can tell, it's kind of apples and oranges here. Google Forms is a simple tool and totally free; SurveyMonkey is a robust, paid app.

Choose Google Forms if:

• Your budget is $0

• You're creating forms for personal or small-scale use

• You already use Google Workspace and don't want to add another app to your stack

• You're creating simple forms that don't need advanced logic or question types

Choose SurveyMonkey if:

• You're a medium to large-sized business that uses surveys for marketing purposes

• You need to create surveys that may require advanced features like logic branching or A/B testing

• You want help creating a survey, including templates, question banks, and entirely AI-generated forms

• You want built-in access to survey respondents

Related reading:

• The best online form builder apps

• The best survey apps

• The best free survey tools and form builders

• 6 Google Forms settings you should know about

• Google Forms vs. Jotform: Which should you use?

• WPForms vs. Gravity Forms: Which WordPress form plugin is best?

This article was originally published in April 2019 by Laura McPherson. The most recent update was in October 2024.

No matter what you do for work, you probably need to manage tasks and projects. With its customizable workspaces, approval workflows, and AI-powered features, Wrike is a popular tool for keeping that work organized. 

But your daily tasks don't usually happen in a vacuum—or in just one app. You'll always need to use other tools, and trying to manually keep them in sync with Wrike can be a lot of extra work. That's where automation comes in. 

With Zapier, you can connect the apps you use every day into automated workflows (we call them Zaps). These workflows can do repetitive work for you, like creating new to-do list tasks, updating project statuses, and much more. Not sure how to get started? Here are a few of the most popular ways you can automate Wrike with Zapier. 

Table of contents

• Create Wrike tasks from form submissions

• Add Wrike tasks from chat and email

• Create routine tasks on a schedule

• Connect your calendar with Wrike

Create Wrike tasks from form submissions

Forms are one of the most valuable ways to collect leads, schedule demos, and field customer support issues. But staying on top of new form submissions can be challenging—especially if you're receiving a high volume of responses.

Instead of trying to triage and follow up on every form submission manually, you can automate adding them to Wrike. For example, you can create a Zap that automatically turns new form submissions into Wrike tasks—so you can focus on responding, not task management.

Add Wrike tasks from chat and email

Similarly, you might find yourself inundated with internal requests—like PTO that needs to be approved or project work that needs to be reviewed. These requests can come in through a multitude of channels like Slack and email, making them difficult to keep up with.

That's where automation can help. With Zapier, you can create an automated workflow that moves those messages into Wrike as new tasks. For example, you could create a Zap that creates new tasks for every message you save in Slack—or based on certain emoji reactions.

You can use a similar Zap to turn labeled emails into tasks, too.

And if you have a specific channel for employee requests, you can create a Zap that adds every single new message in that channel to Wrike as a new task.

Create routine tasks on a schedule

Sometimes, you might have tasks that need to be done routinely—like reviewing daily project progress, sending a weekly update, or pulling quarterly sales reports. But repetitive tasks can also easily slip through the cracks.

To stay on top of routine work, you can use Zapier to automatically add tasks to Wrike on a schedule. The best part is that you can control exactly when those tasks are added—whether it's daily, weekly, or monthly.

If you still struggle to manage your tasks, consider creating a workflow that sends you a task digest in Slack. You can set up this Zap to deliver your task digest whenever it's most helpful, like every morning at 9 AM or Friday afternoons before you sign off for the week. 

Connect your calendar with Wrike

Of course, the best project management tool in the world won't help you get stuff done if you're short on time. Thankfully, automation can help you with that, too! For example, you can create a Zap that adds new Wrike tasks to your calendar—so you always have dedicated time to get stuff done.

You can also create a Zap that does the opposite, adding new calendar events to Wrike as tasks. This workflow is a great way to make sure you always prep for important meetings, for example.

Streamline your project management with Wrike and Zapier

Managing individual tasks doesn't need to be a task in and of itself. By connecting Wrike to your other business critical apps with Zapier, you can make task management a breeze—and find more time for meaningful work.

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

Working in customer service means constantly putting out fires without losing your cool—so any tool that makes your life easier is welcome. Freshdesk simplifies your team's work by automating self-service and giving you one multi-channel hub to manage all your customer support conversations.

But when you need to respond to issues quickly, every second is valuable. You don't have time to copy information to and from your other tools. The time you spend on things like importing tickets, notifying team members, and backing up important information is time you could've spent building relationships with customers.

When you automate Freshdesk, you save time for your most important work. Here are our favorite Zaps—our word for Zapier's automated workflows—that can keep your customer service processes running smoothly.

Skip ahead

• Keep your team in the loop with notifications

• Connect Freshdesk to your spreadsheets and databases

• Add new tickets to your project management tool

• Create Freshdesk tickets from forms

• Connect almost any app to Freshdesk with webhooks

• Create tickets on a recurring schedule

Keep your team in the loop with notifications

It's important to respond as quickly as possible when a customer reaches out to you. But when your team is spread thin or operating across multiple business tools, you can't always be glued to your Freshdesk dashboard. 

Instead, why not set up automatic alerts for new activity in Freshdesk? Zapier lets you integrate Freshdesk with lots of team communications tools like Slack, Discord, and email. That way, you can get customer support notifications in the same place you get all your other messages. 

For instance, if your team lives in Slack, Zapier can send a message to your designated channel whenever there's a new Freshdesk ticket. Or you can set up a Zap that automatically sends an email for each new ticket in Freshdesk. That email could go to a team member for follow-up or to the ticket submitter as a confirmation of receipt (or both).

Pro tip: If you don't want to spam your inbox or Slack channel, use a filter step to choose what types of tickets trigger a notification. Or you can use a lookup table to send incoming tickets to the right agent via mention or direct message.

Connect Freshdesk to your spreadsheets and databases

While Freshdesk is great for monitoring a busy help desk in the moment, you probably also want an easy way to track your customer support team's trends over time. 

One way to bridge that gap is to use one of these Zaps to send completed Freshdesk tickets to your spreadsheet or database of choice. That way, your customer support team can enjoy Freshdesk's benefits while your internal managers still get all the data they need. 

You can also set up a Zap in the other direction to create tickets from new Google Sheets rows. 

This workflow is useful if others in your organization want to submit customer questions but don't have access to Freshdesk—they can just add new rows to a shared Google Sheet. It's a simple way to funnel all new requests into your customer service tool without unnecessary back-and-forth.

Add new tickets to your project management tool

It can be helpful to copy Freshdesk tickets to a productivity tool like Trello or Asana so you can track any additional work that needs to be done. Or maybe you use your project management app as your main collaboration space, so getting a notification in ClickUp is more useful than in Slack or email. 

Either way, manually copying and pasting incoming Freshdesk ticket information across tools is not only a huge time waster, but it risks typos bogging down and confusing your process. Instead, use automation to keep your team on track.

To streamline your workflow even more, you can even add a paths or lookup table option to dynamically assign each task to the right person.

Create Freshdesk tickets from forms

Form builders let you collect information and requests from customers wherever they feel most comfortable. Embed a contact form on your website, link out to it on your social media, and even create QR codes for quick feedback in your retail locations. 

But no matter how you collect customer inquiries, you need a reliable way to get that information to your help desk for quick triage. Thankfully, Zapier lets you integrate Freshdesk with many form builders, including Typeform, Google Forms, and Wufoo. Use these Zaps to send new form submissions to your Freshdesk dashboard automatically.

Connect almost any app to Freshdesk with webhooks

What if you want to connect Freshdesk to an app that isn't listed here or doesn't (yet) integrate with Zapier? That's where webhooks come in.

A webhook Zap lets you create Freshdesk tickets with a custom trigger from any API that accepts it. It may sound intimidating—but setting up webhooks takes less technical know-how than you might assume. For an introduction to using webhooks with Zapier, check out this helpful guide.

Create tickets on a recurring schedule

If your team has recurring tasks like maintenance or regular follow-ups, it can be helpful to automate those reminders. These Zaps create a new ticket in Freshdesk on a schedule you set, either monthly or weekly. That way, you can set your regular customer service tasks on autopilot.

Streamline your customer service workflows with Freshdesk automation

Freshdesk's multi-channel features let you handle a busy help desk with ease. And when you add automation, your customer support processes get even more powerful. 

Save time and reduce human error by connecting Freshdesk to your essential tools. Zapier's automated workflows save you time and energy—which you can redirect into nurturing and serving your customers better.

This is just the start of what you can do with Freshdesk and Zapier. What will you automate first?

This article was originally published in October 2022. It was most recently updated in October 2024.

The to-do list app on my Android is more than a way to check items off a list. It helps me keep tabs on long-overdue errands, stay on top of daily work tasks, document what movies and shows I want to binge next—the list goes on. 

Because the act of getting things done is so personal, there isn't a single Android to-do list app that's right for everyone. Each caters to a different workflow: some to-do apps are made for those who geek out over unique productivity methods, some focus on minimalism, and some are designed for multi-taskers.

I researched dozens of the most popular Android to-do list apps, conducted in-depth testing on more than 30 of them, and based on that testing, whittled the list down to the six best I could find. Whether you're a beginner or a power user, one of these apps will work for you.

The 6 best to-do list apps for Android

• Todoist for everyday use

• TickTick for productivity geeks

• Microsoft To Do for the best free option for Microsoft users

• Google Tasks for the best free option for Google users

• Any.do for collaboration

• Superlist for organizing your entire digital life

What makes the best Android to-do list app?

The best to-do list app for Android is the one you'll want to use every day. It takes the hassle out of the process, instead of adding to your workload and anxiety. So any app worth your attention needs to pass a basic test first: is it as intuitive as a sticky note? If its design is too intimidating, you might find yourself drifting back to writing your tasks on Post-it notes or in .txt files.

I ran dozens of apps through the "sticky note test." Many didn't make the list due to clunky or complex interfaces. Another key criterion was the ability to add tasks quickly and easily. If an app passed those two hurdles, I tested the app's full set of features, paying particular attention to features like task management, complementary tools like an AI assistant, and syncing between devices.

Based on my experience, the best Android to-do list apps have these five attributes in common:

• Clean and user-friendly design. Productivity apps tend to try to pack in as many features as possible, which can lead to an overwhelming experience. But the best to-do list apps find the perfect balance: they're aesthetically pleasing, have a minimal learning curve, and keep you coming back with intuitive features.

• Ease of adding tasks. Including this factor might feel redundant, but you'd be surprised how many apps overengineer the process of adding tasks. Most leading to-do list apps now have a quick add feature, but some still make you wade through multiple steps to add tasks.

• Versatile task management. Everyone uses a to-do app differently; more importantly, every project may demand from you a different set of skills and tools. While beginners can survive with just reminders and due dates, for example, advanced users need features like recurring tasks, Kanban boards, subtasks, Pomodoro timers, and priorities.

• Cross-platform sync. Navigating a small screen isn't always the most productive option, especially if you use your to-do list for work. A web-based or desktop client complete with cloud backup is essential for serious use.

• Complementary, smart tools. If you needed a text box to track your tasks for the day, even a notes app would suffice. The best to-do apps go beyond lists to supercharge your productivity, like integrating with your email and chat apps and helping you break down tasks into smaller chunks with AI. 

And, of course, each of these apps need to fit the Android experience and be nice to use on the small screen.

The best Android to-do list apps at a glance

Best Android to-do list app for everyday use

Todoist

Todoist pros: 

• Customizable Quick Add task feature

• Reschedule overdue tasks in one click

• Calendar view gives you a bird's-eye view of tasks

• Free templates and extension support

Todoist cons: 

• Reminders aren't included in the free version

Most apps on this list are either easy or complex. Todoist, by contrast, is layered: it can be as easy or complex as you need it to be. 

On a spectrum of beginner to advanced, my to-do list needs are firmly in the middle. I found it easy to add tasks in Todoist. I particularly appreciated the Quick Add feature, which has natural language recognition built in. When I wrote "weekly grocery shopping trip," for example, the app automatically created a weekly recurring event. You can also customize Quick Add to include only the task settings you typically need. More advanced features like subtasks, projects, priority levels, and filters are also a breeze to use.

With nearly two decades of development behind it, Todoist has been refined over time with thoughtful perks, like the ability to reschedule all overdue tasks with a single touch. Todoist's productivity tracker helps you stay on track over time, motivating you by visualizing your productivity streaks over time—and even maintaining your streaks while you're on vacation.

But don't let Todoist's clean interface fool you into thinking it can't support pro workflows. It neatly hides a variety of power tools if and when you need them. For example, you can create templates for projects so that you don't have to start recurring ones from scratch each time. (Importing an "Event Planning" template, for example, automatically populates a blank project with lists like "Venue" and tasks like "Create a speaking agenda.") And the optional AI assistant can suggest subtasks to add based on your end goals and break down existing to-dos into more actionable items.  

Extensions are available, too, allowing you to connect your Todoist account with third-party services. If you don't find what you need, you can integrate Todoist with Zapier, which connects it to thousands of other apps. For example, you can automatically create new Todoist tasks from Google Calendar events or from new items added to a Notion database. Discover the top ways to automate Todoist, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Todoist pricing: Free, although reminders aren't available in the free version. Starting at $4/month, Todoist Pro unlocks reminders, a calendar layout, an AI assistant, and more.

Best Android to-do list app for productivity geeks

TickTick

TickTick pros: 

• Pro productivity features like the Eisenhower matrix, habit tracker, and Pomodoro timer

• Unique "won't do" button, for when the best action is no action

• Customizable interface

TickTick cons: 

• The user interface isn't quite as slick as some competitors

• Monthly calendar view is a premium feature

Productivity geeks, rejoice: TickTick has you covered. The app's integrated Pomodoro timer helps you manage the time you spend on a task, its white noise features keep you focused, and its Eisenhower matrix automatically sorts your tasks based on how urgent and important they are. Fans of the Getting Things Done methodology will appreciate the "won't do" button, a subtle encouragement to reflect on whether you really have to do the task at all—or whether it might be better to trash it instead.

While TickTick isn't quite as visually polished as Todoist, it has everything you expect from a productivity-focused to-do list app. And the free version is impressively full-featured: reminders, subtasks, a habit tracker, and tags are included. (You'll need to upgrade if you want a calendar view or and other productivity features, though.)

You can add all sorts of things to your tasks: attachments, text formatting, comments, and notes. On Android specifically, TickTick can integrate with the system-wide text selection action, so you can select text on, say, a browser, and instantly add it to TickTick. 

I've been using TickTick for as long as I can remember, and the reason's simple: it's a no-nonsense to-do app that can pretty much do everything you want it to, especially if you don't want to pay. My only major complaint is its design can seem a little intimidating, especially if you're new to the to-do experience.

Connect TickTick to Zapier to integrate your workflows with other apps. Zapier can help you automatically convert new OneNote notes into TickTick tasks, for example, while Zapier's Google Chrome extension helps you add new tasks to TickTick directly from your web browser. Discover more popular ways to automate TickTick, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

TickTick pricing: Free. TickTick Premium, starting at $2.99/month, unlocks features like Pomodoro timers, white noise, and a full calendar view.

Best free Android to-do list app for Microsoft users

Microsoft To Do

Microsoft To-Do pros: 

• Completely free 

• Uncluttered design and intuitive features

• Smooth integration with Microsoft services

Microsoft To-Do cons:

• Some features are limited unless you use other Microsoft products

• Requires a Microsoft account

Most apps do their best to nudge you to upgrade to a premium version. Microsoft To Do takes a different approach: it includes every feature for free in the hopes that the experience pulls you into the Microsoft ecosystem of products (or keeps you there). The plan kicks in as soon as you launch it for the first time: it exclusively requires a Microsoft account to sign up. 

Business strategy aside, Microsoft To Do is an excellent app, and much more minimalist than I expected from a big corporation. The whole experience just makes sense: My Day takes tasks from all the different lists you have (Home, Work, etc.) and pulls them into a single list. Important pulls all your urgent tasks into one screen. Planned gives you a view of both today and upcoming days. And Microsoft To Do's big innovation is its Suggestions tab, which automatically proposes possible tasks by pulling from your linked Microsoft Outlook calendar and past to-do items. 

You can expand Microsoft To Do's capabilities by using Zapier to connect it with other apps, doing things like automatically converting your emails into tasks in Microsoft To Do. Discover more popular ways to automate Microsoft To Do, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Microsoft To-Do pricing: Free

Best free Android to-do list app for Google users

Google Tasks

Google Tasks pros: 

• Completely free

• Clean interface with all the to-do essentials

• Smooth integration with Google services

Google Tasks cons: 

• Very simple

Google Tasks is the search engine giant's attempt to lure you into its ecosystem—and a solid one at that. As someone who lives in Google's world, Google Tasks has often come in handy even when I wasn't actively using it. You can access the to-do app in a sidebar across most of Google's productivity platforms, like Docs, Gmail, and Calendar, and drag and drop items, like emails, to instantly turn them into a task. Similarly, you can access your Google Tasks data on Google's AI chatbot, Gemini, brainstorm ideas with it, and export them as to-dos. 

Apart from that, Google Tasks offers most of the essential features you'd expect to manage your to-dos, including subtasks, notes, and due dates, and it packs them all in an approachable interface. I also like that on the Android app, you can just swipe to switch between your different lists. The web client, on the other hand, lays out all your lists on a nifty Mission Control-like dashboard, allowing you to multitask between them. 

Google Tasks is also the closest on this list to a traditional to-do app. It focuses exclusively on helping you get the most out of your lists, rather than organizing your entire life. So if you're not looking for any complex workflows, Google Tasks is the way to go. 

If you do want to add some functionality, you can connect Google Tasks to Zapier so it works with all the other apps you use. Automatically create tasks based on activity in other apps, or send tasks from Google Tasks to other places you need them. Learn more about how to automate Google Tasks, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Google Tasks pricing: Free

Best Android to-do list app for collaboration

Any.do

Any.do pros: 

• Beautifully-designed app

• Robust collaboration features for teams

Any.do cons: 

• Free version doesn't include recurring tasks or integrations

• Interface can feel intimidating at first 

My "aha moment" with Any.do happened while creating a grocery list. Any.do suggested items for me—bread, eggs, coffee—that I actually needed. Then, it automatically sorted those items into categories (like Eggs & Dairy) to make the shopping experience easier in a grocery store.

Any.do takes this kind of user-first approach with all its features. For example, adding a reminder gives you one-click options for this evening, tomorrow, next week, or someday. I particularly liked Any.do's My Day feature, which is built to help you proactively work on important tasks rather than passively checking off items from a list.

It's also the most beautiful to-do app I've seen. The interface is clean and simple, and it's easy to hop between My Day and other task views that help you visualize your day, week, and longer periods. Any.do Teams, an upgraded version of the app, brings this same thoughtful design and user experience to collaborative tasks, with features like customized workflows and project boards, where all member activity is shared across the team.

Another highlight of Any.do is it cleverly offers little nuggets of AI-powered suggestions throughout the experience. While creating a task, for example, clicking the Suggest button will pull up a list of subtasks you could add. For a "Go jogging" task, it recommended I add subtasks like "Plan a jogging route" and "Check the weather conditions."

You can connect Zapier with Any.do to expand the possibilities of the app even further. For example, you can add new Trello cards as tasks on Any.do, or you can make your task management hands-free by creating Any.do tasks with voice messages in Google Assistant. Discover more popular ways to automate Any.do, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Any.do pricing: Free, although the free version doesn't include recurring tasks. Any.do's Premium plans start at $2.99/month and unlock recurring tasks, integrations, and team collaboration.

Best Android to-do list app for staying on top of your digital life

Superlist

Superlist pros:

• Versatile to-do design

• Great native integrations

• Robust AI features

Superlist cons: 

• Expensive premium subscription

• A bit of a learning curve to get the most out of it 

It's close to impossible to stand out as a to-do app when there are so many out there, but Superlist, the youngest task manager on the list, manages to do it with a modern take on the concept. Superlist is from the founders behind Wunderlist, which was one of the most popular to-do apps until Microsoft bought it and turned it into Microsoft To Do ages ago. 

The idea behind Superlist is simple: to-dos are no longer just a couple of checkboxes on a text list. It extends them into endless pages, where you can add information as you please: you can write notes and articles with full-fledged formatting options and even share public links to them. It turns your Android to-do app into a total powerhouse.

For me, Superlist's highlight is that it seamlessly connects to a bunch of third-party services, including Figma, Slack, and GitHub, and lets you import data from them and add them as tasks or as additional data to your existing tasks. For example, once I linked my Gmail account, it brought over any email I starred as a to-do and its content as an attached note. 

An AI assistant remains present throughout these activities. You can speak to it, and it will automatically detect individual actionable items and add them as tasks. You can also generate a task's content with it and ask it to expand on or clean up your existing notes. 

Despite Superlist's bolder ambitions, though, I appreciate that it sticks to a typical to-do app's persona on the surface. You can easily add new tasks from a giant plus button, browse your many lists on the homepage, and access task essentials like due dates and labels. 

Superlist pricing: Free for personal use; $8/month for those who want to share their lists with more than 5 people.

Other options for Android task management

If none of the apps above look like the right fit, here are a couple others I came across that have a different spin on things:

• Singularity, a quirky-looking to-do app, stands out for its Habits feature. Completing a habit for multiple days in a row creates a satisfying continuity graphic that encourages you to keep the streak going.

• WaterDo, a gamifying tasks app, tries to make to-do lists fun: first, by representing your tasks as bubbles and letting you pop them; and second, by earning points toward an in-app game.

Related reading:

• The best calendar apps for Android

• The best email apps for Android

• The best to-do list apps on any device

• How to schedule important info on Android

This article was originally published in February 2019 by Justin Pot and has also had contributions from Ryan Kane. The most recent update was in October 2024.

I was on a Zoom meeting recently, and we got onto the topic of screen time. Mine was so embarrassingly high that I didn't even want to share it.

I know that my device addiction isn't good for me. I'm all for rest and relaxation, but my concentration is suffering. I'm constantly comparing myself. I check LinkedIn on my phone, which ruins my work-life balance. And when I think about what I could do with the 4+ hours a day I spend on my phone, it makes me feel ill. 

So I did a digital detox. Here's what I learned.

Table of contents:

• What is a digital detox?

• What I learned from my digital detox

• How to do a digital detox

What is a digital detox? 

A digital detox means freeing yourself of all devices: smartphones, TVs, iPads, smart watches, and anything else with a screen.

The idea is that the time you spend away from these devices can bring you back into the "real world," improve your concentration, and even let you come back to work with better ideas and more mental clarity.

The digital detox forces you to go device-free, even if it's just for the day. It shows the harsh reality of our addictions and can (hopefully) change how you approach your routines.

What I learned from my digital detox

It's pretty well understood that sleep improves when you don't look at a screen before bed. Since my digital detox was only one day long, I can't really speak to this in the long-term, but my Oura ring did show that I slept more the night after my detox. 

Beyond that obvious benefit, here are a few things I noticed.

It forced me to think creatively

There's no beating around the bush: not having unlimited access to the internet was hard. I'm a naturally curious person who likes to Google any question that pops up into my brain. (One of my recent searches was "why does my dog steal things?")

I previously saw this as a productive way to go down rabbit holes and learn new things, but I realized I was using Google's brain instead of my own. The digital detox got me actually thinking because I had to question potential reasons, rather than consulting Dr. Google.

(Unfortunately, I'm still none the wiser as to why my dog steals things. But he's cute, and he's been doing it for almost five years now, so I'm just accepting it as an adorable albeit annoying personality trait.)

I was more productive

Hands up if you tell yourself you don't have time to do something, but then spend hours scrolling TikTok 🙋‍♀️

Knowing I couldn't sit on the couch and doom scroll meant I had to do something to keep my brain ticking. During the digital detox, I tidied my house, walked my dogs, journaled, and exercised—most of which were things I'd otherwise tell myself (or lie to myself about) that I didn't have time for on a normal day. It was the most effective productivity hack I've ever tried.

I thought about my relationship with tech

I don't label technology as good or bad. I think it's both. I keep in touch with my family more because I have instant access to them, and I've absorbed a ton of useful information through the internet. The ability to work online has also given me a job that I love. 

But the digital detox made me question whether these benefits outweigh the cost to my mental health, sleep, and focus. In the days since, I've second-guessed the urges to pick up my phone while I'm waiting in line at the supermarket or lying in bed when I'd usually do my night-time scroll. The experience taught me balance—and that willpower is a habit that's easier to do with repetition.

How to do a digital detox

Doing a digital detox is easier than it sounds, but there are some things you can do to set your experiment up for success.

Prepare in advance

I found that communication is the hardest part about doing a digital detox. Most people get in touch with each other through the phone—and I can imagine this being even more difficult if you're a caregiver. 

Tell people about your digital detox in advance so they don't worry if you don't reply. Feeling anxious that people are worried about you is likely to drive you toward your phone. 

You can also offer a way for people to get in touch with you in an emergency—like saving their number as a Favorite and turning your phone on "Do not disturb" with the Favorites override. That way, their call will come through without any other notifications. 

Start small

A digital detox is hard, especially if you rely on your phone and devices have become part of your daily routine. So maybe don't lead with a full technology detox. Start on a smaller scale to ease yourself in—perhaps going phone-free during your lunch break, doing a social media detox, or having screen-free mornings.

Keep a journal

What thoughts do you have when you're not able to distract yourself with social media feeds or online videos? If you're like me, the answer will be a lot. 

Maybe you have a new idea, find a topic you want to learn more about, or remember a conversation you want to have with someone. Keep a journal to jot down whatever you think about. You can come back to them when you've got your devices back. 

Remove temptations

I almost broke my digital detox because I felt scared that I was missing out on my online world. I stay in touch with my friends and family through WhatsApp and social media. "What are they up to today?" was a question that swirled around my mind. 

Instead of having my phone beside me and making the temptation feel overwhelming, I kept it on charge in my bedroom. The walk upstairs gave me time to reflect on my decision to go and get it. 

(This goes alongside my decision to remove email and certain social media apps from my phone. My work/life balance has gotten much better after removing constant access to work.)

Swap urges with alternatives

The human brain is a powerful thing—it'll still find reasons to pick up a device even when you've removed the temptation. "Just one check won't do any harm" is a tough mantra to avoid.

I found an easier approach was to replace the urge to check my phone with something productive, rather than let the thought spiral in my head. For example: 

• When I want to check Instagram, I'll do a five-minute training session with my dog.

• When I want to text my mom, I'll think about an activity we can do together later this week.

• When I want to Google something, I'll ask my husband for his input.

Is a digital detox worth it?

I'd imagine that digital detoxes become easier the more you do them. It was hard in the morning, but I found my rhythm by the evening. Now I want to include them in my monthly routine as a way to reset my brain.

If your screen time report also makes you queasy, or you're looking to wean yourself off device addiction, I'd encourage you to do the same—even if you only try it once. 

Related reading:

• Overwhelmed? Turn off your notifications

• Productivity isn't the point

• The upside-down world of bizarro productivity tips

If you're building a website for your business, two of the options you're probably considering are Shopify and WordPress. Both power millions of websites, from small family-owned stores, charities, and buzzy startups to massive enterprises with thousands of employees. Both have huge numbers of fans. And both are entirely justifiable choices.

But which one is right for you and your business? I've been building websites for almost 20 years—I've used both WordPress and Shopify in the past and dug back in for this head-to-head comparison.

They're both great platforms, but they have different strengths. Let's look at how they stack up. 

• Shopify vs. WordPress at a glance

• WordPress lets you build any kind of website

• Shopify is focused on online stores

• Shopify is far easier to use

• WordPress almost certainly wins on price

• Both are great website and online store builders

• Both integrate with all the other apps you use

• Which should you use?

Shopify vs. WordPress at a glance

Before digging into a deeper comparison, here's a quick overview of some of the major differences. 

WordPress lets you build any kind of website

WordPress is used by more than 40% of all websites. While you might associate it with small blogs, it's also used by large publications, government websites, online stores, and anything else you can imagine. If you don't know what CMS a website is using, it's a coin flip that it's WordPress. 

All this is to say WordPress is incredibly practical and flexible. The same core product can be adapted to fit almost any need, and if it doesn't work right out of the box, you can almost certainly find a plugin that does what you need. WordPress is open source, so there's a huge ecosystem of third-party tools and professionals that can help you build any kind of website. Obviously, it's simpler to make a basic blog than a private member site, but both are entirely possible—especially if you know a bit of HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript. 

Given that we're comparing WordPress and Shopify, it's worth pointing out that you need a plugin to use WordPress as an online store. The most popular one is called WooCommerce—and you can see how WooCommerce stacks up to Shopify—but you can also use plenty of other plugins (including Shopify!).

Shopify is focused on online stores

Shopify is nowhere near as flexible as WordPress. It's designed to make launching an online store fast and easy—and it succeeds. 

While you could use Shopify to build a normal business website, it would be pretty silly to do so. Its features are all geared toward selling products, both physical and digital. From the start, it's easy to create new products, track orders, manage inventory, and just sell, baby, sell. (You can also set up offline point-of-sale integrations, sell through social media, and even use marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.)

Shopify lets you build a blog, but it's only fine. You can create pages, but again, your options aren't as varied as they are with WordPress. There are third-party apps that add extra features, but they have nothing on WordPress's plugins ecosystem. Themes are more limited and more expensive. You can see the pattern. If you aren't ever planning to sell products through your website, seriously, skip the rest of this article and just install WordPress. Shopify isn't the app for you.

Shopify is far easier to use

While WordPress is justifiably popular, its flexibility comes with a lot of complexity. Let's start with the basics—signing up. 

But wait, you can't. WordPress is open source and available from countless different hosts. There isn't just one way to sign up. You have to choose. You can sign up through WordPress.com, which offers convenience but at the cost of some flexibility and dollars. You can download WordPress and install it on your own server, but that comes with all sorts of headaches. You can find a budget host that lets you handle things yourself, or go with a fully managed option that makes things easy but charges more. These are all things you have to consider before you even enter an email address. 

Assuming you've decided on a hosting service, you then have to build your site. The good news is that there are countless great tutorials that will help you get started. The bad news is that you'll probably need them. Your to-do list now includes finding and installing a theme, creating all the pages you need, adding any plugins for features you need, and so on, and so on. If you aren't familiar with WordPress, it's a lot. 

Shopify, on the other hand, is simple. Enter an email address, work through the onboarding wizard, and you'll have a basic store up and running. Yes, to get the most out of it you might need to watch a few tutorials and add a few apps, but on the whole, things are just a lot easier. 

Crucially, Shopify offers 24/7 chat support. If you do run into difficulties, you've got somewhere to turn. WordPress support is a hodgepodge of community forums, your hosts' customer support, plugin developers, and freelance professionals. 

If you're looking to build an online store and any of what I just said about WordPress scares you, save yourself the stress and go with Shopify.

WordPress almost certainly wins on price

WordPress is technically free, though you'll almost certainly have to pay for hosting. The cheapest good plans from the likes of Bluehost and SiteGround will cost you around $3/month billed annually, while WordPress.com starts at $9/month, and managed hosting from an enterprise host can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. Themes (which change how your site looks), plugins (which add extra features), and other services and adds ons can cost anything from free to thousands of dollars per year. If you're just starting out, a budget of $200/year isn't unreasonable—but it could be significantly lower. 

Shopify, on the other hand, starts at $39/month for the Basic plan (with your first month for $1). That means the absolute minimum you can spend is $430 before themes, apps, and transaction fees. If you aren't selling, Shopify is an expensive proposition—even if it has better support and features like an AI that can generate product descriptions.

Things get more complicated as you add plugins to WordPress to match Shopify's feature set, choose payment gateways, and otherwise try to compare them on a like-for-like basis, but in all but the most edgy of edge cases, WordPress is likely to be the more affordable platform. (For a more direct comparison, check out our guide to WooCommerce vs .Shopify.)

Both are great website and online store builders

The hard part of choosing between WordPress and Shopify is that there really isn't a wrong answer.

Let me put it this way: building a simple About My Business website with Shopify would be like hiring a building contractor to put in a lightbulb—but your customers won't know that you're overpaying for loads of awesome features that you aren't using. It's a bad idea, but you can still have a great website.

At the other end of things, selling products is easier to set up with Shopify, but it's very possible with WordPress—and you get a lot more flexibility. You can choose from WooCommerce, WPEasyCart, Ecwid, or even Shopify. And if you don't like any of them, there are dozens more options. 

Perhaps the biggest advantage WordPress has is that you can start off with a regular website, then, when you want to, list a few products for sale, launch a blog, or add a community. It's just that flexible. With Shopify, you need a store from the start.

Both integrate with the other apps you use

Both Shopify and WordPress have a ridiculous number of apps or plugins that extend the functionality. And if you don't find what you need there—or want to build entire systems around your online store—you can integrate either Shopify or WordPress with Zapier. Automatically track sales, stay in touch with customers, cross-promote content, and more.

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

WordPress vs. Shopify: Which should you choose?

Choose WordPress if you're building something other than an online store, or if you want all the flexibility and affordability it offers. Choose Shopify if you want the easiest option for selling online and don't mind paying a little extra.

Of course, you could also try both out, start building your website, and see which one you like more. 

Related reading:

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

• Wix vs. Shopify: Which is better?

• The best Shopify alternatives

• How to automate your eCommerce marketing with Shopify and WordPress

Ever walked out of a meeting feeling more confused than when you went in? We've all been there—discussions get muddled, action items aren't clear, and key points are buried in a flood of conversation.

It's frustrating—and worse—it can lead to missed deadlines, unclear assignments, and the dreaded follow-up meeting just to sort everything out.

But it doesn't have to be that way. With the onset of new AI meeting tools, you can streamline your meeting practices—before, during, and after—so everyone stays on the same page without the need for extra catch-up calls.

And when you combine those AI tools with Zapier, you can prepare for meetings, create transcripts from recordings, take meeting notes, and more—automatically.

Table of contents

• Prep for meetings

• Create transcriptions from recordings

• Upload transcript summaries, notes, and recordings to your files

• Share meeting notes with your team

• Add action items to your project management tools

Prep for meetings  

Prepping for meetings ahead of time can be incredibly time-consuming, especially if you're manually handling tasks like creating meeting agendas or scheduling calls. It's the kind of admin work that all too often falls through the cracks and you end up scrambling at the last minute to pull everything together. 

Fortunately, when you combine automation with AI-powered apps like ChatGPT and Gemini, you can do everything from creating detailed meeting agendas to scheduling calls—automatically. 

For example, you can create meeting agendas in a Google Doc using ChatGPT based on the details in a Google Calendar event. You can even create calendar events (with notes from Gemini) whenever a conversation in Slack calls for it. Whatever your use case, these Zaps can handle the heavy lifting, so you can focus on the meeting itself. 

Create transcriptions from recordings

Need a written record of important client meetings or webinar videos? Whether you want to keep your team accountable for projects or pull important quotes for customer testimonials, having it all on paper can make your job a lot easier. 

But don't waste hours listening to recordings and taking notes. Instead, you can use these Zaps to automatically transcribe recordings after the fact—be that new YouTube videos or Zoom recordings. 

You've now transcribed your audio and video recordings so that you can repurpose them for whatever use case. But if those transcriptions come from hour-long recordings, it can't hurt to also generate a quick summary, so that other folks in your company can get the gist fast—without the need to skim tons of pages. 

These Zaps will automatically take transcriptions and send them to your AI tool and summarize them. Zapier will then send those summaries to whatever tool you choose, making it easy for your team to quickly understand key takeaways without diving into the full transcript. 

Upload transcript summaries, notes, and recordings to your files

When you're constantly jumping from one meeting to the next, manually keeping your meeting notes, transcripts, and recordings organized can quickly become overwhelming. Storing them in a Google Doc or a spreadsheet is a great way to track everything in one place, but as your schedule gets busier, chaos can ensue. 

With these Zaps, you can automatically upload summaries, transcripts, and other key details from your meetings to your work apps the moment they're created in tools like Fathom or Grain. That way, you’ll never have to worry about falling behind on documentation or losing important meeting information. 

Share meeting notes with your team 

Imagine you're in back-to-back calls all day (I know, the horror). When your schedule is slammed, you probably don't have time to extract key details from your meetings and assign action items to your team members in places like Slack or via email. 

Ideally, you'd do that the moment a meeting is over so the rest of your team can kickstart any projects right away. These Zaps trigger anytime new meeting notes or action items are created in your AI meeting apps, automatically sending a Slack message or email to your meeting attendees. 

Add action items to your project management tools 

The days of appointing a team member to be the designated note-taker during meetings are long gone, but that doesn't mean managing meeting outcomes is any easier. 

While AI tools like Fireflies or Fathom can help by capturing detailed meeting notes and extracting next steps, manually adding them to task management tools like Notion or Trello can quickly become overwhelming as your meeting schedule fills up. 

Whether you’re using Asana, Trello, Notion, or Airtable, these Zaps will seamlessly add tasks, cards, or database items from AI-generated meeting notes—keeping your projects on track without the need for manual input.

Streamline the way you manage meetings

While every AI meeting tool is designed to make your life easier, combining them with Zapier can help you fully streamline the entire process. 

You can automate everything from scheduling to note-taking, generating transcriptions, and follow-ups—so you can focus on the conversation without worrying about the details.

Ever walked out of a meeting feeling more confused than when you went in? We've all been there—discussions get muddled, action items aren't clear, and key points are buried in a flood of conversation.

It's frustrating—and worse—it can lead to missed deadlines, unclear assignments, and the dreaded follow-up meeting just to sort everything out.

But it doesn't have to be that way. With the onset of new AI meeting tools, you can streamline your meeting practices—before, during, and after—so everyone stays on the same page without the need for extra catch-up calls.

And when you combine those AI tools with Zapier, you can prepare for meetings, create transcripts from recordings, take meeting notes, and more—automatically.

Table of contents

• Prep for meetings

• Create transcriptions from recordings

• Upload transcript summaries, notes, and recordings to your files

• Share meeting notes with your team

• Add action items to your project management tools

Prep for meetings  

Prepping for meetings ahead of time can be incredibly time-consuming, especially if you're manually handling tasks like creating meeting agendas or scheduling calls. It's the kind of admin work that all too often falls through the cracks and you end up scrambling at the last minute to pull everything together. 

Fortunately, when you combine automation with AI-powered apps like ChatGPT and Gemini, you can do everything from creating detailed meeting agendas to scheduling calls—automatically. 

For example, you can create meeting agendas in a Google Doc using ChatGPT based on the details in a Google Calendar event. You can even create calendar events (with notes from Gemini) whenever a conversation in Slack calls for it. Whatever your use case, these Zaps can handle the heavy lifting, so you can focus on the meeting itself. 

Create transcriptions from recordings

Need a written record of important client meetings or webinar videos? Whether you want to keep your team accountable for projects or pull important quotes for customer testimonials, having it all on paper can make your job a lot easier. 

But don't waste hours listening to recordings and taking notes. Instead, you can use these Zaps to automatically transcribe recordings after the fact—be that new YouTube videos or Zoom recordings. 

You've now transcribed your audio and video recordings so that you can repurpose them for whatever use case. But if those transcriptions come from hour-long recordings, it can't hurt to also generate a quick summary, so that other folks in your company can get the gist fast—without the need to skim tons of pages. 

These Zaps will automatically take transcriptions and send them to your AI tool and summarize them. Zapier will then send those summaries to whatever tool you choose, making it easy for your team to quickly understand key takeaways without diving into the full transcript. 

Upload transcript summaries, notes, and recordings to your files

When you're constantly jumping from one meeting to the next, manually keeping your meeting notes, transcripts, and recordings organized can quickly become overwhelming. Storing them in a Google Doc or a spreadsheet is a great way to track everything in one place, but as your schedule gets busier, chaos can ensue. 

With these Zaps, you can automatically upload summaries, transcripts, and other key details from your meetings to your work apps the moment they're created in tools like Fathom or Grain. That way, you’ll never have to worry about falling behind on documentation or losing important meeting information. 

Share meeting notes with your team 

Imagine you're in back-to-back calls all day (I know, the horror). When your schedule is slammed, you probably don't have time to extract key details from your meetings and assign action items to your team members in places like Slack or via email. 

Ideally, you'd do that the moment a meeting is over so the rest of your team can kickstart any projects right away. These Zaps trigger anytime new meeting notes or action items are created in your AI meeting apps, automatically sending a Slack message or email to your meeting attendees. 

Add action items to your project management tools 

The days of appointing a team member to be the designated note-taker during meetings are long gone, but that doesn't mean managing meeting outcomes is any easier. 

While AI tools like Fireflies or Fathom can help by capturing detailed meeting notes and extracting next steps, manually adding them to task management tools like Notion or Trello can quickly become overwhelming as your meeting schedule fills up. 

Whether you’re using Asana, Trello, Notion, or Airtable, these Zaps will seamlessly add tasks, cards, or database items from AI-generated meeting notes—keeping your projects on track without the need for manual input.

Streamline the way you manage meetings

While every AI meeting tool is designed to make your life easier, combining them with Zapier can help you fully streamline the entire process. 

You can automate everything from scheduling to note-taking, generating transcriptions, and follow-ups—so you can focus on the conversation without worrying about the details.

If you're building an online store today—whether you want to sell digital products, physical goods, subscriptions, or anything else—you're probably seriously considering both Shopify and WooCommerce. Between them, WooCommerce and Shopify power a huge chunk of the most popular eCommerce websites in the world, and both do a really good job of enabling you to sell products and services.

But with two great options to choose from, which should you go with? I've spent time over the past three years testing both eCommerce website builders, following the process of setting up an online store in each. Here's how they stacked up.

• WooCommerce vs. Shopify at a glance

• Shopify is much easier to use

• WooCommerce has more options

• Both are great at selling products

• WooCommerce can be cheaper

• Shopify is ahead on AI

• Which should you use?

WooCommerce vs. Shopify at a glance

Before diving in, here's a quick look at the major points of comparison between Shopify and WooCommerce. Feel free to scan it, but keep reading for a deeper dive.

Shopify is much easier to use

WooCommerce is designed to run on websites built with WordPress, the most popular CMS around. It's a (very robust) plugin that enables all the eCommerce features you're looking for on any WordPress site. Unfortunately, that means it brings a whole lot of WordPress-related baggage with it. 

Don't get me wrong. I love WordPress and think it's a great option for certain kinds of sites, but it's not very user-friendly. If you don't have at least a basic grounding in HTML, CSS, and ideally PHP and JavaScript, making the most of it can be a challenge—and even if you do, setting things up can still be quite technical. 

In the past, to install the WooCommerce plugin on my test site, I've had to update  WordPress just to start the install process, add a second plugin for WooCommerce payments, and sign up for Stripe to process those payments. Then to keep it updated over the years, I've had to update my WooCommerce database as well as the plugin associated with it, multiple other plugins, WooCommerce Extensions (which are different to plugins), and WordPress itself.

Depending on where you're starting from, you may need to find hosting, register and link a domain name, or go through some other kind of setup process to get a WooCommerce store up and running. It's not that any of these are an insurmountable challenge, but they all make things a bit more hassle—and a lot less intuitive—than signing up for Shopify. For my test store on Shopify, I just had to add an email address and password, then work my way through the onboarding wizard.

Things don't really change as you get deeper into the two offerings either. WooCommerce feels like it's fighting against the trapping of WordPress. Creating a product uses much the same user interface as creating a blog post; there are just a few more options to fill in. If you know WordPress well, this might be a bonus, but if you're unfamiliar with it, it's all a bit weird.

Shopify, on the other hand, is clearly purpose-built for eCommerce. Creating a new product still requires that you add the same information, but it's more obvious how you do it. Products is the second option in the sidebar, rather than the seventh after Dashboard, Posts, Media, Pages, Comments, and WooCommerce. 

This is also clear with the support offerings. WooCommerce, like any open source product, relies on the community to help users out. There's no phone number, email address, or live chat option. Your hosting provider may help you out with some basic setup issues, or you could hire a professional WordPress developer, but you're essentially on your own unless you're prepared to pay big bucks. Unless the problem is with a plugin or extension—in which case you have to contact the developer to see what support options they offer. Shopify, on the other hand, has 24/7 live chat, phone, and email support. If you run into issues, you have somewhere to turn for help.

WooCommerce has more options

For all the downsides of WooCommerce being built on top of WordPress, there are also some huge upsides. WordPress powers more than 40% of all the sites on the internet, and if yours is one of them, you can turn it into an online store just by installing a plugin.

This means you have access to the tens of thousands of different WordPress plugins. Need a store embedded in a blog tucked away as part of a private members section of a website? You can do it. Or more realistically, if you have a website or blog that you're happy with and want to add some eCommerce capabilities, you can do so without having to totally reconfigure your entire online presence. 

In particular, Shopify's blog engine is mediocre at best. Sure, it allows you to write blog posts, but it offers nothing close to the control and customization of WordPress. If you just want to write a "Meet the Team" blog post from time to time, it's fine, but if you plan to use your blog to promote your business, it's a bit lackluster. (While Shopify offers a Buy Button that you can embed in any website, including WordPress sites, it's a stripped-down tool rather than a full eCommerce service, so I'm not going to dive into it here.)

Similarly, there are approximately a billion WordPress themes out there. Your WooCommerce site, provided you have (or hire someone with) the necessary skills, can look exactly how you want it to. With Shopify, on the other hand, there are 13 free themes and 208 paid themes that cost between $100 and $500. You can find more options on sites like ThemeForest, but it's still a tiny fraction of the amount of options available to WooCommerce users. 

For apps and extensions, the story is similar, though a bit less clear-cut. WooCommerce has Extensions, while Shopify offers apps. Both are ways to add additional functionality like subscriptions, print-on-demand, newsletters, complex coupon codes, and the like to your online store. WooCommerce claims to have hundreds while Shopify has many thousands. The catch is that lots of what's available in the Shopify app store are already available as WordPress plugins, which makes counting and comparing them near impossible. 

Either way, though, if it's options and extensibility you want, WooCommerce is the clear winner—and that's before we even look at creating your own things with PHP. 

Both are great at selling products

Once you have everything set up (no matter how long it takes), both WooCommerce and Shopify are great at selling your products. In fact, unless your customers are familiar with the specifics of the different store platforms, they likely won't even notice a difference. They add your products to their cart, hit checkout, pay, and receive their goods a few seconds, days, or weeks later. Both offer a really good, totally normal online shopping experience. 

Honestly, once things are up and running, you probably won't notice much difference either—especially once you're familiar with how to add products, respond to customers, and generally navigate the respective menus. 

Take fulfillment. If you use a third-party fulfillment service to handle your orders, they likely integrate with both WooCommerce and Shopify. (Fulfillment by Amazon, for example, integrates with both.) This means that your inventory levels are automatically kept up-to-date; when a customer buys something, the shipping invoice is sent directly to your fulfillment provider who picks and packs it; and, really, all you have to do is sit back and let the money roll in. 

That's not to say both Shopify and WooCommerce are equally appropriate for your needs—just that you can operate a great online store with either. And if you're disorganized and don't have a clue what you're doing, neither tool is going to magically fix your issues.

WooCommerce can be cheaper

While costs are hard to calculate due to all the complexities, plugins, apps, and payment processing fees, in most like-for-like situations, WooCommerce will be cheaper. 

Firstly, WooCommerce is free and open source. You can download it and add it to any WordPress site for free, and then use very cheap hosting like Bluehost (from $2.95/month, billed annually) or SiteGround (from $2.99/month, billed annually). With Shopify, the best you can do is the Basic plan at $29/month billed annually, with your first month for $1.

Then there's card processing. WooPayments charges 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction for card payments, the same as Shopify does on its Basic plan. If you want to use a different payment gateway like PayPal or Stripe, however, you can do so for free with WooCommerce, while Shopify charges a 2% fee. 

Perhaps the biggest price difference is with the design side of things. Shopify themes are expensive: $250 is a lot of money to pay when you can get great WordPress themes for a fraction of that. 

Shopify is ahead on AI

As the more centralized experience, it should be no surprise that Shopify's generative AI features are better integrated (as long as you have the right apps installed). You can use Shopify Magic to generate text descriptions, create FAQs, reply to customer emails, remove image backgrounds, and generally do all the kinds of things you'd expect. Shopify Sidekick, a chatbot to help you run your store, is also in early access (though I haven't tested it). 

Out of the box, neither WordPress nor WooCommerce offers any AI features. You can find plugins and extensions that will add them, but as I've discussed, that's true of every single feature with WooCommerce. 

While I don't think Shopify's current AI features are a reason to choose it over WooCommerce, as they get better—particularly around sales and marketing analytics—they may well become a meaningful distinction. 

Both apps integrate with the other tools your business uses

In addition to extensions and plugins, WooCommerce and Shopify both integrate with Zapier, which means you can connect them to thousands of other apps. Stay in touch with customers, chase down abandoned carts, promote new products, and stay on top of order fulfillment—all automatically.

Learn more about how to automate your Shopify store and how to automate your WooCommerce store, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Shopify vs. WooCommerce: Which should you use?

You can use WooCommerce or Shopify to manage your online store without running any major risks. Deciding between them largely comes down to your biggest priorities. 

If you have an existing WordPress site, the technical chops to make the most of it, or concerns about price, especially when you're getting your store up and running, then WooCommerce is simple to recommend. On the other hand, if you want a convenient and hard-to-mess-up experience and don't mind paying for it, Shopify is the nicer option—and has 24/7 support. If you know its fees are going to be a minor business expense relative to your sales, it's the one to go with.

Related reading:

• How to automate your eCommerce marketing with Shopify and WordPress

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

• Shopify marketing: 4 ideas to boost your eCommerce sales

• Wix vs. Shopify: Which is better?

• The best Shopify alternatives

• Shopify vs. WordPress: Which should you use?

This article was originally published in February 2019 by Matt Ellis. The most recent update was in October 2024.

I get so much joy out of little surprises. An adorable Google Doodle, a perfect callback in a TV show, a Diet Dr. Pepper in the fridge with a note from my husband—they can make my day.

As a business owner, I've been thinking about how I can deliver the same mood-lifting experience for my clients. You can't doomscroll LinkedIn without seeing at least one post about "surprising and delighting" customers—but what does that actually mean in practice?

I think it's best to show, not tell, so here are some examples of surprise and delight marketing that I think work wonders.

16 surprise and delight examples in marketing

How you surprise and delight your customers will of course depend on who your customers are. So I looked across industries and audiences to find some examples that can inspire you, no matter who you're selling to.

1. Omnisend's T-shirts

Pija Ona Indriūnaitė, a brand manager at Omnisend, uses the traditional concept of swag—but with a twist. She sends unique (and, I'd argue, hilarious) T-shirts to customers:

• Customers who don't reply to customer success managers get a shirt that says "I ghosted Omnisend, so they sent me this awesome T-shirt."

• Their busiest clients get one that says "Another meeting that could have been an email."

• And for the customers that hate spam, a T-shirt with a big can of Spam on it.

Sure, they're a bit on the nose, but they absolutely brighten people's day—and they're memorable. Very few B2B companies would be bold enough to go this route. "We try to be relatable and sometimes even sarcastic. We want to stay entertaining and interesting and show that we don't take the business world too seriously," Pija explains. "At the end of the day, all of us are just people who want to feel connected."

2. Smartbridge's social media

Brooke Browne, Marketing Director at tech consulting company Smartbridge, does her best to change the idea that IT consulting is a snoozefest. She instituted what she calls Witty Whiteboard Wednesdays: "It began as hand drawn dad jokes on a whiteboard, and we'd post a picture of it on LinkedIn. We've even created a coffee table book for our office guests waiting in the lobby!" 

After posting these jokes consistently for five years, she's still surprised at how much they resonate with Smartbridge's ideal customers. "On separate occasions, we've had CIOs and other IT staff tell us that they look at their LinkedIn stream specifically to find our jokes," she says. That's impressive.

3. The New Yorker's loading screens

Loading screens can be frustrating, but they're also an opportunity to make customers smile. That happens to me every time I load up my New Yorker app. It switches between cheeky phrases like "Checking facts…" or  "Adjusting monocle…" until the home screen appears. It's subtle, but it gets me every time.

B2B companies can make this work, too. Salesforce, for example, switches up its loading screen for each quarterly release, matching its animal mascots to seasonal activities (think: Zig the Zebra sledding). And Contentful matches The New Yorker's witty loading copy.

4. LEGO's 404 page

404 pages are another pain point you can transform into a laugh.

LEGO's 404 page has an amusing tagline ("Oh bricks!") and even more clever subtext: "We'll try not to lose our head over this, but if we do…we'll put it back on." It got a chuckle out of me, at least.

5. Numeric's confetti screen

Many companies give customers certificates if they pass a course or send them swag for writing a review. But why not congratulate people on their day-to-day accomplishments?

Numeric, an AI accounting automation platform, is making a point to recognize the everyday wins. CEO Parker Gilbert told me: "There's a confetti celebration whenever accounting teams complete their month-end close on Numeric. Is it groundbreaking? No. But considering how much of a grind the month-end close can be, we think it's a decent acknowledgment of a team's perseverance."

He adds that he's dedicating a non-trivial amount of time in the next quarter to figuring out how to motivate teams that cut a day or two off their close time, close an entire quarter, or complete an audit. "Even minor features humanize the experience and foster trust and retention."

6. A university's postcard campaign

Most of the snail mail I get is either a bill or a request for a donation. A thoughtful note is sure to break the pattern.

Reddit user fergie_3, who works for a university, pitched the idea of sending postcards with handwritten messages to alumni athletes on the anniversary of a big milestone:

"Our softball team won the World Series in 2018, and this year is the 5-year anniversary. I want to send each player on that team a postcard that just says, 'Hey, this was awesome, and we still remember it!' Something they would definitely post on socials and keep on their fridge."

It wasn't (directly) about getting donations—it was about reliving an awesome memory together. 

7. Channeltivity's onboarding

You can bake a surprise and delight moment into any part of your customer experience.

Channeltivity, channel management software, adds new customer logos and color schemes every time it spins up a new instance. This saves customers a step during setup and makes their partner portal already feel like it's their own the first time they log in.

8. mazi + zo's gift orders

Lizzy Klein, Creative Director and Owner of mazi + zo jewelry, makes gifting easier for her customers:

"When I see that a customer is shipping to a different address from billing, I contact them and ask if they'd like me to include a gift note. And if it's a big order or a repeat customer, I'll offer to gift box it, too."

A quick double-check has a big influence on satisfaction and loyalty—customers know they can count on Lizzy to take the tiniest details into account. "I get the nicest replies!" she says.

9. An executive assistant's daily habit

Redditor redthoughtful is an executive assistant, and they get ideas for surprise and delight moments by saying "Let me see what I can do," at least once a day.

"I hear the ask, then start calling around to see if I can make it happen. [...] I also keep an eye on my boss' sent folder, to try and get ahead of him if I can. For example, he was in New York and emailed a place to see if they had reservations available. I went ahead and called and found out they had inside or garden available. Booked garden, then called to see which he wanted. Garden. Boom, already done. Here's your confirmation screenshot sent as a text.

Proactively thinking about how they can simplify or improve the client experience builds trust—they become the go-to person their boss can count on.

10. OneScreen's award nominations

One of the best surprises a professional can get is winning an award, and Charlie Riley, Head of Marketing at OneScreen, facilitates that—nominating his customers for awards he thinks they could or should win. As for the logistics: "Depending on the complexity of the questions on the submission form, I'll either let them know ahead of time to get their answers or share with them after the submission/winners are announced."

I do something similar on a much smaller scale. For example, I share podcasts I think my clients may be a good fit for as a guest. I've even pitched one of my clients' stories to our university's alumni magazine (and it got published!).

11. Annum's conference passes

Patty Radford Henderson, founder and CEO of Annum, speaks at national marketing conferences regularly, and she's often able to get a free guest pass. Rather than keeping the tickets for her team, she gives them away to customers.

"I love offering tickets to customers who live where a conference is being held. This generates a lot of goodwill and gives me an opportunity to spend one-on-one time with users of our software."

Even better, her donated tickets help customers broaden brand awareness within their target audience. "It's a win-win proposition," she says.

12. A.M. Custom Clothing's plant-a-tree shipping option

I found quite a few companies that surprise and delight in a way that directly aligns with their values. One great example: A.M. Custom Clothing, a B2B company that provides sustainable print and embroidered clothing. As a company, they place a heavy focus on the environment, so they plant ten trees in a designated forest for each of their top-spending customers. They also have a "plant a tree" shipping option for customers who are particularly sustainability-conscious.

Kelly Redican, their Marketing Coordinator, told me: "These initiatives resonate with like-minded, environmentally responsible brands and are not only a token of appreciation but also help strengthen customer loyalty."

13. A coffee shop's way of turning a bad day around

A pick-me-up can transform a customer's day and deeply impact their impression of your brand. Gauri Manglik, CEO and co-founder of Instrumentl, told a story about her experience at a local coffee shop:

"When I ordered my usual latte, the barista noticed me sigh heavily. He gave a knowing nod and said, 'I've got just the thing to turn that frown upside down.' Moments later, he handed me a latte decorated with a smiley face in the foam."

That simple gesture lifted her spirits and left such an impression she goes out of her way to go to that same coffee shop, even years later.

14. Chubbies' customer service

Customers have come to expect refunds, promotions, and kind words from customer service. What they don't always expect is humor.

Chubbies, a clothing brand, reacted brilliantly when they found out a customer's shorts were taken from his locker. They not only sent him a new pair—they also gifted him a set of karate lessons.

15. Owala's logo change

Owala is known for its approachable marketing. Recently, it's taken a page out of Google's book and changes up its logo depending on the season. Here's what it looks like in October.

It's a small touch, but it surprises and delights—and maybe makes people more likely to see what else is new.

16. My boxing gym's 50-class celebration

The boxing gym I go to does a great job of celebrating members. When you hit 50 classes, they bring you up on stage with the instructor, put on your favorite song, and play up the experience with fun lighting and encouragement. I'll admit, it's a tad embarrassing. But it also made me feel like I'd accomplished something big and pushed me to keep it up (and re-up my membership).

How to surprise and delight your customers

Sifting through these examples, I began to notice a few patterns. Here are a few things you can tap into to start surprising and delighting.

• Have fun. We all need a reminder once in a while not to take unimportant things too seriously. Why not take the lead? Just be sure you read the room—and never make things fun at the expense of your customers.

• Celebrate milestones. Even the smallest milestones can be transformed into a big deal. Celebrating your customers' wins makes them feel like you're on the journey with them—just be sure it feels authentic (or cheeky).

• Make things easier. People will never stop being busy, and that means they'll always appreciate you taking something off their plate. Small gestures can take a bit more effort and resources to bake into your product or services, but they're worth it. 

• Thank your customers. Your customers are the reason your company exists, so show your appreciation. I leave a note on all of my invoices to remind customers how grateful I am to work with them: "Thank you so much for your business. This is helping me shape a career I love!" 

Use these tips as inspiration, and then personalize it so it feels right for your business and authentic to your customers. If you're still feeling stuck, here's what I suggest.

• Run through your customers' workflow. What are they doing day-to-day that's boring, hard, or thankless? Think of a few ways to jazz it up. It might involve your product or service, or it might be totally unrelated. 

• Run through your own workflow. When do you engage with customers? Think of a few ways you could surprise and delight during those touchpoints.

And if all else fails: try a bad idea brainstorm.

Related reading:

• What is CX? Customer experience management 101

• How to boost customer loyalty with automation

• Why customer marketing should be a priority—and how to make it one

• Boost customer engagement with interactive marketing

The best pie in the world is the homemade buttermilk apple pie my grandmother baked every Thanksgiving (let me have this one, ok?). I'll never be able to re-create it, but as the saddest consolation ever, I'm really good at making pie charts. 

Here, I'll guide you through how to make a pie chart in Google Sheets—from entering your data correctly to customizing every slice to fresh-baked perfection.

It's no family recipe, but it can turn out almost as pretty. 

Table of contents:

• How to make a pie chart in Google Sheets

• Customize your Google Sheets pie charts

• How to export and share a Google Sheets pie chart

• How to make a pie chart from data in multiple sheets

• Automate Google Sheets

How to make a pie chart in Google Sheets

First, I'll walk you through how to create a simple pie chart. Just the data, no bells and whistles. If you want more details, keep reading.

1. Input your data into a new sheet.

2. Highlight the data range you want included in your pie chart.

3. Click Insert, and select Chart.

4. If it doesn't automatically create the chart as a pie chart, in the Chart editor panel that appears, select Pie chart under Chart type in the Setup tab. 

5. Customize your chart however you want by clicking the Customize tab in the Chart editor. You can change the labels, colors, and all sorts of other things.

6. To export, click the three dots in the top-right corner of the chart, select Download, and choose your file format.

If that didn't do the trick, here are a few more specifics.

1. Input data into a new sheet

The first step is to input your data into Sheets correctly. Data should be in two columns, one for the categories and one for the corresponding values. In this example, our category is Industry, and the value is the number of Participants from each industry. (Sheets will automatically turn those into percentages when you make the pie chart.) 

2. Select the data range

Next, select the data range. Click and drag to highlight the range of data you want to include in your chart. Make sure to include all fields—including column headings—you want to include in the chart, not just the numbers. 

3. Insert chart

Time to wave the pie chart wand. Go to the top menu, and click Insert > Chart. 

You'll immediately see a chart pop up on top of your sheet. Depending on the data you have, Sheets might guess that you want a pie chart and give it to you right away. If it doesn't, in the Chart editor that appears on the right side, look for the Chart type dropdown, and select Pie chart. 

4. Customize the title

Right now, your chart title may be a little vague ("Participants"). To change that, click on the chart, and then go to the Customize tab in the Chart editor. 

Click Chart & axis titles to expand it. Under Title text, replace the existing title with whatever you want it to say. 

Once your title is in place, your basic pie chart is ready to go. 

Note: If you change the data used in the chart, your pie chart will update to reflect the new data automatically.

Customize your Google Sheets pie charts

Now that you can make a basic pie chart in Google Sheets, you may be ready to shake things up. Dazzle stakeholders with colors, sparkles, and digital glitter glue. 

Here are some additional customization options: 

• Chart style: To change the background color, font, and border color, go to the Chart editor. Under the Customize tab, expand Chart style and adjust the color and font options to your preferences.

• Adjust chart size and layout: Click on the chart, grab the corners or edges, and drag to expand it for better readability.

• Convert 2D charts to 3D: In the Chart editor, under the Setup tab, select 3D pie chart to switch from 2D to 3D.

  

• Customize slice labels: In the Chart editor, under the Setup tab, expand the Label dropdown to choose which field to display next to each slice. 

• Customize label font and style: In the Chart editor, under the Customize tab, expand Pie chart and adjust the Label font and Label font size options to your preferences.

• Change legend position: In the Chart editor, under the Customize tab, expand Legend, and select the desired position from the Position dropdown menu. You can choose from Top, Bottom, Left, Right, None, Auto, and Labeled. 

  

• Change slice appearances. In the Chart editor, under Customize, expand the Pie slice section and choose the slice you want to adjust. You can then change the color of the slice and even separate it from the chart. 

  

How to export and share a Google Sheets pie chart

Unless you plan to beam it into your coworkers' minds, mental telepathy style (valid), it's time to export your Google Sheets pie chart.

Click the three dots in the top-right corner of your pie chart. 

You'll have the following options:

• Download: Click Download chart and select if you want to export your chart as a PDF, PNG, or SVG. 

• Publish: Click Publish chart, and you can either link directly to the chart, or embed the chart's code on the web. 

• Copy: Click Copy chart, and the image will be saved to your clipboard. Then, you can paste it elsewhere in that sheet or into a different sheet or document. 

How to make a pie chart from data in multiple sheets

So now we know how to make a pie with only one set of ingredients. But what if you have data in multiple sheets? Think of it like doubling the recipe. It's possible, but you'll have to do a little extra work. 

1. Ensure all the sheets you want to use in your pie chart have standardized column headers. The datasets you want to combine need identical labeling.

   
   

2. Add a third sheet to your doc to consolidate data. In this example, we have a sheet called Q1 and a sheet called Q2, which we'll combine in a third sheet called Calculations. 

   

3. In your new blank sheet, go to the top menu and click Insert > Chart. Under the Chart type dropdown, select Pie chart. 

4. In the Chart editor, under the Setup tab, click the Select data range icon (the little grid of four boxes) in the Data range section, and click Add another range to create fields for each sheet you want to include (two fields for this example).

   

5. Input the formula [Sheet name]![Cells:Cells] for each set of cells you'd like to add, customizing the sheet name and cell range accordingly. 

   

   In this example, those codes would be Q1!A1:B6 and Q2!A1:B6 since the data we want to include from sheets Q1 and Q2 are found in columns A through B and rows 1 through 6. (Be sure to put a single quotation mark around any multi-word sheet names and leave no spaces between any of the other symbols.)

Now, data from every sheet you selected will be combined into one pie chart with slices for each line you included (in this case, five from each sheet).

If the full dataset isn't populating, you may need to tweak the settings by going to Setup > Combine ranges and toggling between Vertically and Horizontally. In my case, it was set to horizontal by default, and switching to vertical ensured the data was aggregated from vertical cells in my input data.

Automate Google Sheets

Pie charts help viewers easily digest insights by instantly visualizing trends, patterns, and proportions. It's all the same data you're already working with—just now with a fresh-baked crust. 

To get that data into (and out of) Google Sheets easier, integrate it with Zapier. Then you can connect Google Sheets to thousands of other apps to automate your workflows. Zapier can automatically add new rows to your spreadsheets based on activity in other apps, notify teammates when your reports are updated, or send data to other apps when you update a specific sheet.

Learn more about how to automate Google Sheets, or check out these pre-built automations.

Related reading:

• Google Sheets automation ideas to organize your business

• How to automate spreadsheets

• Google Forms to Google Sheets: How to automatically update inventory

• How to connect ChatGPT with Google Sheets

Unless you live under a rock, you probably get more emails than you know what to do with. Your inbox is perpetually a mix of promotions and newsletters, calendar invites, project update requests from teammates, and even inbound sales inquiries.  

Keeping your Gmail account organized can be tedious—but it's a must unless you want to risk missing important communications. Thankfully, you can use automation to stay on top of your email without spending hours every day on admin. 

Our automatic workflows—we call them Zaps—let you do things like save email attachments, automatically follow up with new leads, comprehensively manage tasks, and even use AI to clean up your inbox. Here's how to automate Gmail.

Table of contents

• Generate a to-do list from your inbox

• Get AI to enrich your email workflows

• Easily save email attachments

• Declutter your inbox

• Send notifications from your inbox

• Follow up with new leads faster

Generate a to-do list from your Gmail inbox

Unless you have a photographic memory, it's practically impossible to keep track of every actionable email, especially if they're left to languish starred or unread in your inbox. And, if you're like me, a clean and efficient to-do list is a must to sleep at night. 

You can set up a Zap to connect your Gmail account to Google Sheets to create lists from specific emails, automatically add labeled emails to your task manager of choice, and more.

Get AI to enrich your email workflows

Do you need a helping hand when it comes to writing email copy that actually converts leads? Or maybe you sift through hundreds of emails every day, labeling them as you go—and you'd like to save yourself the hassle. 

Fortunately, you can use AI to help you do everything from penning emails to generating a daily digest of your emails in Slack. Once you receive a new email, ChatGPT or OpenAI will analyze the content, then carry out the instructions you give it. Finally, it will send the output wherever you need it to go. Here are a few examples: 

Automatically save email attachments

Constantly losing track of email attachments? This is an issue everyone with a Gmail account seems to face. By setting up automatic workflows, you can easily save Gmail attachments to Dropbox, Google Drive, or whichever cloud-sharing app you use. 

You can even save email attachments to specific folders so you can keep your organization streak going with your file management, not just your inbox. 

Declutter your inbox

Unfortunately, your Gmail storage isn't unlimited—which means you'll eventually run out of space. When that happens, you won't be able to use your Google apps until you clear some clutter. 

Instead of waiting for the hammer to drop, use automation to delete unneeded emails as you go. For instance, you can set up filters to watch for and delete promotional and spam emails. Or, maybe you'd like to save attachments to Dropbox, and then delete the original email. Whatever workflow works best for you, these Zaps can help you keep your email inbox tidy and free up valuable storage space. 

Send notifications from your inbox

Working collaboratively with a team comes with its fair share of challenges, with communication often at the top of that list. But with a few pre-set workflows, you can easily turn your Gmail inbox into an effective information-sharing machine. 

For example, you can send an email when a Google Sheet is updated so team members can stay up to date on a project. You can also send emails from your Gmail account to your team chat app of choice, streamlining communication. Or one of my personal favorites: you can send auto-scheduled email updates to your team, minimizing your daily repetitive tasks without sacrificing communication.

Follow up with new leads faster 

You work hard to acquire new leads. From running campaigns across multiple platforms to hosting webinars, you know it's also incredibly important to follow up as fast as possible. If you wait too long to respond—or *gasp* miss their email altogether—there's a decent chance you'll lose a customer. 

Automatically follow up with new leads by sending an email as soon as they show interest. With Zapier, you can set up personalized Gmail auto-responders for instant engagement with a high-intent lead.

The same goes for new customers who sign up for a webinar or subscribe to your newsletter. A simple welcome message can do wonders for your business. With these Zaps, you can automatically send emails in Gmail whenever you get a new subscriber in Mailchimp, for example, or a sign-up to your webinar. 

Take your Gmail inbox to the next level

With Zapier, you can integrate Gmail with the rest of your tech stack and manage your email without the anxiety.

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

This article was originally published in March 2021 by Ellie Huizenga, with previous updates by Elena Alston. It was most recently updated by Nicole Replogle in October 2024.