Best Automation Software (2026): The Tools I Use to Automate Everything

What’s the best automation software to solve your real life problems?

Building your own small army of automatons can save you thousands of hours, helping you get more done with less time and tedium, but mastering each automation software (and how they work together) can also be a whole job all on its own.

When I first put this guide together in 2023, AI was an exciting, questionably useful novelty. Now, for many people, it’s an essential part of their automation workflow, so knowing which tools to use is more important than ever.

I want to make it easier to build the automations that free up your life so you can focus on what matters, and as of 2026, that has almost completely changed!

In this updated guide, I look at the best automation software to solve your day to day problems, from automation builders to AI tools to email marketing to social media to communication and more. By the end of this, you’ll know which tool is the best for the job.

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The Automation Picks at a Glance

1. Daily Automation operating system: Claude Code (building on Cloudflare). Claude Code writes it, and Cloudflare runs it.
2. Email marketing: Kit. Mailcheap (Opensource self-hosted email) is the technical, very cheap alternative.
3. Database: Airtable. D1 on Cloudflare if you build with Claude Code.
4. Forms: Typeform.
5. AI: OpenRouter, every major AI model through one API.
6. CRM: HubSpot.
7. Notifications: Slack.
8. Social media: Buffer.
9. Payments: Stripe.
10. File storage: Cloudflare R2.

Want this list as a one-page guide you can keep? Send me the guide.

Ready to dive in?

The Best Types of Automation Software

Before we get into the specific tools, though, let’s talk a little about how automations are made, because there are a couple of different kinds of software that we’ll need to use to build our automaton army.

(This guide is about automation for small businesses, creators, and households, not IT or software testing tools.)

Essential Automation Software

• Automation Builders. Automation builders contain the logic and integrations we need to build nearly each of our automations. These might have visual builders or use code, but they are the tools that bring everything together.
• Database or Spreadsheet Tools and/or CRMs (Customer Relationship Manager). Most websites, at the end of the day, are essentially just fancy spreadsheets. There’s no getting around using some kind of spreadsheet or database at some level, especially in multi-step automations. Alternatively, CRMs are even bigger/fancier spreadsheets.
• Form Tools. But how do you get the data you’re going to be moving around and manipulating in your automations? One of the best ways to make sure you have consistent data to work with is through using a form! They also often make great triggers.
• Notification Tools. Finally, many automations require something to notify users that something has happened, whether over email, SMS, Slack, or some other platform.

Those are the essential categories of tools required in nearly every automation.

Other Automation Software that You Might Frequently Use

But you may also need to use other automation software, whether to do something with the data you have or to get more of it.

• AI Applications. AI tools have unlocked lots of new ways to use our automations, especially when we need to rephrase or rewrite data for different formats/users. Now they can even write the automations themselves.
• Email Marketing Platforms. Email marketing and newsletter platforms usually have automations of their own, allowing you to send the right message to the right person at the right time.
• Shopping Cart or Transaction Processors. If you think about it, shopping cart and payment tools are basically just forms that also come with money. Either way, if you do anything with sales or products, you will use these constantly.
• File Management Tools. While we don’t always work with files like documents, images, and other formats, you’ll usually need file management tools when you do.
• Social Media Automations and Content Management Platforms. Automations aren’t just for behind the scenes work. You can also use automations to publish things, whether on social media or through content management platforms like WordPress.
• Home Automation Platforms. Home automations are slightly different beasts, because they automate things in the real world! Home automations might use any of the above, but also sensors and devices to interact with the real world, from cameras and digital thermometers to motors and hydraulic systems.

Now that we’ve thought about the different kinds of automation software, let’s dive into the best software for each type.

But one last thing to note: some of the links below are affiliate links, which means that I earn a bit if you sign up, to keep my robot army in coffee and doughnuts (or whatever robots eat, electrons?). That doesn’t change anything for you, though, and it didn’t affect my review. Thanks!

The Best Automation Builder

Automation builder software, or automation platforms, are where you will do most of your automation setup work. Here you’ll set up your triggers, coordinate your actions by connecting the different apps you’ll need, and set up your conditional logic to make sure everything happens as you intend.

So what’s the best automation builder?

Claude Code + Cloudflare Workers

I used to recommend Zapier for automations, but after a huge drop in their customer service and a giant leap in Claude Code’s capability, you can now build your own APIs, automatically update local and cloud documents, access and connect to your local and online files, and connect it all in seconds.

But what makes Claude Code infinitely more powerful is when you connect it to Cloudflares architecture, especially workers.

Workers can many things, but one way they can function is to serve as api’s, helping you pass data to and fro your apps and devices, just as Zapier did in the past. The difference between this and zapier is speed and cost, I spend $5/mo for my worker plan vs. $800/mo at the highest point when I was using Zapier, and building these automations is so much faster.

For example, I use workers built with Claude code for my websites’ contact forms (to send them to my email newsletter service and my CRM), monitoring my sites hourly for uptime and errors, building detailed dashboards with live info pulled and stored from dozens of sources, and even pulling workout data from strava!

I walk through how in my guide to building your own web app with AI and how I built my AI calendar assistant.

Pros of Claude Code and Cloudflare:

• Very inexpensive. Most small automations can fit in Cloudflare’s free plan.
• No limits on integrations. Code can use any app’s full API, not just the triggers and actions a builder supports.

Cons of Claude Code and Cloudflare

• Learning curve. You don’t need to write code anymore, but you do need to read what Claude Code tells you, test carefully, learn the architecture, and keep security in mind.
• You’re the customer support. When something breaks, you and your coding agent get to figure it out together.
• Some APIs are tricky to get access to. Rather than working with existing integrations, this method relies on connecting with actual APIs, which often means manually (or through Claude in Chrome) filling out applications and navigating developer documentation. At first, this can be a little complicated, but your coding agent can help you find your way.

Cost of Claude Code and Cloudflare

Claude Code comes with a Claude Pro plan for $20 a month (although I’m on the Max plan right now). Cloudflare Workers is free for up to 100,000 requests a day, and the paid plan is $5 a month for 10 million requests, which is certainly enough for nearly all of us.

Bottom Line

If you’re willing to learn, Claude Code building on Cloudflare is the most powerful and least expensive option there is. I have fully replaced 100s of integrations and automations with custom workers and use it everything.

How My Tools Work Together: The Query Letter Generator

Here’s one real example. On The Write Practice, I offer a free query letter generator for writers who are trying to get a literary agent. This used to be a Zap. Now it’s a small program Claude Code wrote, and here’s how it works:

1. A writer fills out a form about their book.
2. A Cloudflare Worker receives the form the moment it’s sent.
3. The Worker asks Claude, through OpenRouter, to write a personalized query letter based on users information.
4. It emails the finished letter to the writer through Sendgrid’s api.
5. In the background, it tags the writer in ActiveCampaign, the email platform The Write Practice uses, so the right follow-up emails start.

Every submission used to burn several Zapier tasks, and now it costs essentially nothing. Better still, I control it: if the AI has a problem, the writer still gets an email, and I can change how letters are written myself.

Alternative: Make.com

If you’d rather use a visual builder, Make.com gets you far more integrations (including the Facebook Ads API) for about half the price of Zapier. It’s especially useful for low-code automations. It’s free for 1,000 credits a month, and Core is about $9 a month billed yearly. Check out Make.com here.

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For AI Steps: OpenRouter

When an automation needs AI (writing a draft, sorting a message, pulling details out of a form), I send it through OpenRouter. One API key gets you every major model, so you can switch from Claude to ChatGPT to Gemini without rebuilding anything. More on OpenRouter below.

The Best Email Marketing Automation Tool

Personally, I first got into automations through email marketing. Email marketing platforms are like CRMs mixed with automation builders mixed with notification tools all-in-one, and you can do some pretty neat things just with these platforms!

And since email marketing is still one of the highest performing marketing channels, the right tool (and the right automations) can become the foundation to your business’s growth.

Over the last decade, I’ve used most of the top email marketing platforms to send millions of emails, and so I have a pretty good sense of which platforms are the best for automations (although new tools come out all the time).

But what’s the best email marketing tool for automations?

Kit

Kit (formerly Convertkit) is my personal favorite hosted email marketing platform for automations. It’s easy-to-use, simple, usually intuitive and powerful. I have built crazy 100+ email automations in Kit that have taken me days to create and dozens of simple forms that have taken me minutes.

Plus, everything is beautifully and simply designed. Highly recommend! Check out Kit here.

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While it’s free up to 10,000 subscribers, you’ll want to upgrade to get access to the automation tools.

Pros of Kit

• Simple and intuitive. Kit’s design is simple and straightforward, even for those new to email marketing and automations.
• Powerful, visual automations. Kit’s visual automation builder intuitively makes sense, allowing you to path messages to the right contacts every time, but it also leaves room for complexity, enabling complex multi-step automations. With custom fields, you can even automate the customization of individual messages to each person. It’s a great tool!
• Integrations. Kit has a large and growing set of built-in integrations, from shopping carts to database tools to content management systems and more.

Cons of Kit

• Cost. Although this is constantly changing, I’ve found Kit tends to be on the medium-expensive side among other email marketing platforms. And as your list grows, you can start to spend some serious money on Kit, because you pay for every subscriber.
• Limited Template Selection: While you can design your own, Kit’s email template offerings are relatively limited, especially if you’re looking for visually elaborate designs. While you could see this as a negative because of their emphasis on simplicity, they tend to prefer text-based emails or simple visual-based emails which might not suit all types of businesses or marketing campaigns. Still, you or your designer can create your own templates with some simple html and css.

Cost of Kit

As I mentioned, while Kit has a free plan, to take advantage of their automations, you’ll need a paid “Creator” plan, which costs $33 per month (or $390 a year) for 1,000 subscribers.

There’s also a Pro plan, $66 per month at 1,000 subscribers, which includes subscriber scoring, a newsletter referral program (similar to Substack, if you’re familiar), and advanced reporting. Check out the pricing here.

Bottom Line

Kit is the best email marketing software for nearly every automation builder, combining ease of use, powerful automations, and a wide variety of integrations.

Check out Kit and sign up for free here.

Alternative: MailCheap

If you’re technical and want to spend far less, MailCheap is an open-source newsletter app by Marc Lou that you run yourself, sending through Amazon’s email service. Instead of paying for every subscriber on your list, you pay for the emails you send. I’m setting it up for my own newsletter now. The downside: setup might take many hours to get right, it lacks the big platforms’ visual automations, and as with Claude Code + Cloudflare, it’s up to you and your coding agent to provide your own support. Considering how important email is to many people’s businesses, this should only be done for experienced developers.

Cost of MailCheap

Self-hosted, MailCheap is free, plus $0.10 to $0.16 per 1,000 emails from Amazon. MailCheap Cloud starts at $19 a month for 20,000 emails. Check out MailCheap here.

The Best Database/Spreadsheet Tool

When you’re working with complex systems with multiple automations working together, you need somewhere to store the data in between steps. You also, frequently, need a place where real humans can look at and interact with information.

That’s where spreadsheets on the simple end and full databases on the more complex end come in.

I used to use Google Sheets for this, which allows easy integration with Zapier and dozens of other automation tools and has the added bonus of being free.

However, there are some drawbacks to Google Sheets and some reasons to switch to other tools, which we’ll talk about in a moment.

So what’s the best tool for automations?

Airtable

Airtable, at first glance, is just a prettier, harder to figure out Google Sheets, but once you start to dig in to what Airtable can do, you quickly realize that this is much more than your dad’s spreadsheet tool. Check out Airtable here.

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Here are some of the main differences between Airtable and Google Sheets:

Pros of Airtable

• Dedicated field types. With Google Sheets, each individual cell can be anything: a formula, a date, a number, a string of text, anything. One of the biggest things that makes Airtable weird (and as you get the hang of it, awesome) is that each individual column can only be one thing, whether a formula, date, string, etc. This is less flexible, but it can lead to much more stable systems and some cool interactions with automations.
• Each cell, field, row, and table has a unique ID. One issue with using Google Sheets in automations is that if you re-order your columns, it will completely break your automation. But with Airtable, everything has a unique ID, meaning you can move everything around completely and your automation will remain stable. Huge advantage, especially with complex automations!
• In-house automations and integrations. While you can do some integrations and automations with Add-ons and Extensions in Google Sheets, Airtable has a nice in-house automation system and many different automations that make it easy. Some of these automations are even unique to them, like working with custom views.
• Custom Views. Let’s say you have a table with hundreds of rows and thirty different columns. That might be overwhelming, right? But what if you want to share that same table with someone else but you just want them to focus on three of the columns, not the whole table? If you were to hide those columns in Google Sheets, that would break your automation. But in Airtable, you can just create a custom view, hide any columns you don’t want people to see, and share the view with just the information you want to show. Plus there are views for Trello-like kanban boards, calendar views, timelines, and more. It’s really cool!

All of this adds up to Airtable being a bit more like a database than a spreadsheet, only a more user-friendly accessible version of a database. This allows it to be a great tool for building automations, and even no- and low-code applications.

So that’s what makes Airtable different than Google Sheets, but what are the cons of Airtable?

Cons of Airtable

Of course, there are drawbacks to Airtable.

• Cost. Airtable has a free tier, allowing you 1,000 records per base, five editors, and 100 automation runs a month. The problem is that when you get beyond that, it quickly becomes quite expensive, especially as you add team members to your account. To make it work, I sometimes have to move certain bases into a free account to collaborate (but of course, that breaks all the automations, so you have to think through this option).
• Annoying to get started. You can create a new Google Sheet in a few seconds, even tables with dozens of columns. It takes a lot longer to set up an Airtable and configure all the fields correctly.
• Learning curve. It took me more than a year to fully wrap my head around what Airtable could really do and how it was different from Google Sheets, and I’m still discovering new things. I think that’s a good thing, overall, but it can be confusing to get started.

Cost of Airtable

Airtable will be free for most users, but as your usage gets more intensive, you’ll eventually need to upgrade to their paid options, which start at $20/month per seat (billed yearly). It’s worth it, in my opinion, but you have to be careful how many team members you add or it quickly becomes very expensive. I wish their “per seat” price was lower!

Check out Airtable’s pricing here.

Bottom Line

Airtable is an essential tool for automation builders who want to create stable, error free applications.

Check it out and sign up here!

Runner Up: D1 on Cloudflare

If you’re building your automations with Claude Code, D1 is the database behind my Workers. It’s Cloudflare’s own database, it lives right next to the code that uses it, and small projects fit in Cloudflare’s free plan. There’s no spreadsheet to look at, though, so Airtable is still the pick if you’d rather not code. Learn more about D1 here.

Google Sheets is still a great free place to build your first automation, but as soon as your data gets more complex, it’s more likely to break your automations.

The Best Form Tool for Automations

Automations work best when they’re using standardized content, and forms are a good way to make sure you get data from users in a standardized format.

They can also be great ways to trigger automations, especially when you want to deliver results back to users or send them to the next person who needs the information.

But what are the best form tools for automations?

Typeform

While there are hundreds of good form builders out there, I have a soft spot for Typeform, which is great at creating simple, visually appealing forms that users actually want to fill out. They can also work with complex logic, have their own set of internal integrations, and pair nicely with all of my favorite automation builders.

Form builders have been around since the start of the internet, so these tools can feel a bit generic. However, in the midst of that, Typeform manages to keep things simple and pretty. I like it! Check out Typeform here.

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Pros of Typeform

• Flexible. I’ve personally created 2 question forms in a couple of minutes and 50+ questions forms as part of complex assessment automations that have taken me a couple of days to build.
• Integrates well with other platforms. They have their own internal integrations to move data to the right place, and you can embed Typeforms on nearly every website builder.
• Visually appealing. They just look pretty, and even better, it’s not hard to get them to look pretty (as it is with some form builders).
• Converts well. Possibly because of their visually appealing nature, Typeforms tend to convert better than other forms.

Cons of Typeform

• Cost. As a power-user with websites that get a lot of traffic, I hate pay-as-you-go pricing. I tend to max them out quickly! So in addition to the fact that Typeform is pricey to begin with, they can quickly become very pricey if you over-use it.
• Limited customization. While Typeform is visually appealing, you’re also limited in how much customization you can make. Typeform has a certain look, and it’s not really possible to alter it too much apart from changing a few colors around.

Cost of Typeform

Typeform starts at $28 per month, billed yearly ($39 billed monthly), but only allows 100 responses at that rate. It goes up to $56 per month (billed yearly) to get 1,000 responses. Check out Typeform here.

Bottom Line

As you build more automations, you’ll probably need to have at least a couple of form builders for different situations, and Typeform is a great option. With Typeform, you can create visually-appealing, high-converting forms quickly, and integrate them into all your other tools.

Try Typeform here.

Runner Up: Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms is a WordPress form builder that has deep integrations both with WordPress itself and other automation platforms (like Zapier, Airtable, Stripe, Slack, etc).

Gravity Forms is a little annoying to get started with, just because it’s kind of ugly out-of-the-box and takes a little CSS, in my opinion, to make it look good. However, it’s a very powerful form builder, and when you pair it with Post Creation and Advanced Custom Fields, you can do some pretty crazy things with WordPress. It starts at $59 a year for one site.

Check out Gravity Forms here.

Free Option: Google Forms

Google Forms is the best free option for automations. I find it to be pretty ugly and limited, but it integrates well with Zapier and Google Sheets, so if you need a good, quick form for the right price, it can be great!

Try Google Forms here.

The Best AI Tool for Automations

There are so many exciting ways to use AI in automations.

Most of the time, I use AI tools as a middle-step in automations to rephrase things or put things in the right format for messages to customers or team members. For example, if you have an email that you’ve written the same way 100 times, you might pop it into an AI model to change it up a little bit. Then, you can put it into a draft in your email inbox so you can take a look before you send.

And now, AI doesn’t just run inside automations. With Claude Code, it builds them (see the automation builder section).

What’s the best AI tool for automations, though?

OpenRouter

For automations, my pick is OpenRouter, because it gives you access to all of the major AI models, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and open models, through one API key.

Note: I don’t use AI for writing! As a writer, it’s easier for me to create the content I want at the quality I expect myself. None of the guides or reviews on automatonarmy.com are written by AI. That being said, I do use AI tools to create outlines and think through issues.

Pros of OpenRouter

• Every model in one place. Use a different model for each step, all with the same key.
• Format and rephrase faster than a human. Certain tasks, like formatting or rephrasing, are just better done by AI than a human.

Cons of OpenRouter

• The tone can be annoying without feedback. I always have to tell AI models to avoid hype and words like “engaging” and “important,” and instead to use simple, clear, casual, and direct language like how a smart and informed person would talk in real life. In your automations, it’s good to give these kinds of instructions as well!
• Occasional mistakes. Every AI model will definitely make mistakes, make up things, and get things wrong. They probably get things wrong less than people do, but when they do get things wrong, it can be bad! Make sure you have someone review anything that’s going to be public.

Cost of OpenRouter

OpenRouter charges each model’s own price per token, with no markup, plus a small fee (5.5% by card) when you buy credits. I’d try it out for some small projects and see how much it costs before scaling up. See the models and prices here.

Bottom Line

AI tools will be a growing part of our automations going forward, but it’s important to have a level of human interaction in any automation involving AI.

Create an OpenRouter account here to start using AI in your automations.

Runner Up: ChatGPT

ChatGPT is still the most-integrated AI step in Make and Zapier. You can check out their pricing in more detail here.

Runner Up: Claude

Anthropic’s Claude especially excels in working with large documents and with coding (see my AI coding tutorial here). I’ve added whole books I’ve written to Claude and gotten back a detailed chapter outline, back cover copy, and a synopsis. Try out Claude here.

Also Good: Gemini

Gemini is Google’s AI tool. It’s built into Gmail and Docs, which makes it handy if you live in Google’s apps.

Have you used OpenRouter, ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini in any of your automations? How did it go? Do you have a favorite? Let me know your results in the comments!

The Best CRM for Automations

Since my email platforms function as de facto CRMs for me, I don’t use traditional CRMs very much, and certainly not to their full capability.

That being said, for businesses with more of a sales model, CRMs are an essential part of their process, and it would be good to automate things!

So what’s the best CRM for automations?

HubSpot

HubSpot can track your contacts and act as your one stop repository for contact management.

It works perfectly with the major automation builders, and even has its own internal automations.

The CRM is also free for two users and up to 1,000 contacts, which is always nice!

Sign up for HubSpot CRM for free here.

Runner Up: Cloze

Cloze reminds you who to follow up with. I wrote a full review of Cloze here. Its Pro plan is about $17 a month billed yearly.

The Best Notification Tool

Notifications let us know when an automation has completed, send users important updates, and can provide helpful reporting, all of which make them an essential part of the automation process.

When we talk about notifications, we’re not only talking about dings on your phone, but also emails, text messages, and other kinds of updates.

So what are the best notification tools for automations?

Slack

Slack is a team chat platform used by everyone from small startups to Fortune 500 companies.

I use Slack myself and find that it’s a great way to keep in touch and coordinate as a team. Check out Slack.

It’s also a perfect tool for notifications in automations, not only because I use it on a daily basis (often on an hourly basis!) to communicate with my team members. That means that when I add Slack notifications to my automations, I can not only get updates as the builder of the automation but also keep my entire team updated, if necessary.

For example, you might set up a notification for:

• Each time you get a new sale
• When a customer makes an inquiry
• When a customer service ticket is closed
• To remind people of a regular team meeting

But why is Slack so useful for automations?

Pros of Slack

• Fast, user-friendly communication. With Slack, you can organize your communication in channels, through direct one-on-one messages, or even within groups of team members. Then, with your automations, you can target your notifications just to an individual, a group, a certain project-specific channel, or even to the whole team, making sure you get the right message to the right people.
• Integrations. Slack has a variety of integrations all on their own, but both Zapier and Airtable integrate with them as well (not to mention many other services), meaning you can quickly and easily get automations set up in a lot of ways.
• Good free plan. Slack’s free plan is more than enough for most small to medium sized teams.

Cons of Slack

While Slack is helpful for team communication, it’s not the best option for all situations. Here’s where Slack might not be the best fit:

• Notifications can get overwhelming. In Slack, notifications can get out of control, and when you’re also working with automations that automatically send lots of notifications, it can get really out of control. So when setting these up, it’s important to choose the right channel or person to get your notifications so people don’t get notification fatigue.
• Cost. While the free plan is great, if you ever decide to upgrade to a paid plan, it becomes very expensive ($7.25 per user per month, so $870 per year for a team of 10). I wish they had a lower priced option to get started!

Cost of Slack

Slack includes a solid free plan, which allows unlimited messages for unlimited members. The only problem is that you’re limited to 10 integrations and you can only look at 90 days of chat history.

The cost to unlock your chat history and get unlimited app integrations is $7.25 per team member per month (billed yearly), or $8.75 billed monthly.

Check out Slack’s pricing here.

Bottom Line

Slack is a great team communication platform, and it’s only enhanced with automations.

Check out Slack and give it a try here.

Runner Up: Email

Email is still the most widely used communication tool on the internet, and an essential part of my automation tool suite.

Zapier, and other automation builders, have their own native email sending tools, but you can also integrate with SendGrid (now part of Twilio), Mailgun, and other dedicated email platforms if you need to send a lot of messages.

Try SendGrid.

The Best Social Media Automation

Social media is an important marketing channel, allowing you to publish content to millions of people or have thousands of one-on-one conversations.

But it can also be a huge distraction, taking up little bits of time at all hours of the day, and can even become a huge waste of time, time that you could be spending doing what really matters.

Social media automation tools can help, allowing you to batch post creation, post to multiple platforms at once, target the right times to post, and tap into larger audiences.

What’s the best tool for social media automation though?

Buffer

Buffer is a social media marketing automation tool that helps you schedule posts to optimize posting times, analyze their performance, and manage your content across multiple social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

I’ve used Buffer for years and have always found it to be fast, easy to use, and an extremely helpful way to organize my social content.

Plus, it integrates with Zapier and other automation builders, and even has its own AI tools to help you develop content faster.

Cost of Buffer

Buffer has a pretty good free plan for up to three channels. For more, you’ll have to upgrade to at least the Essentials plan, which costs $5 per month per channel. Check out Buffer’s pricing here.

Bottom Line

Buffer is a great social media automation tool that will allow you to easily create and schedule posts across a wide variety of platforms. It also connects to Zapier, so you can create some pretty cool automations with it (like, for example, auto-scheduling posts whenever you publish a new blog post). Check out Buffer here.

The Best Shopping Cart/Payment Platform for Automations

If you sell things online, Shopping Carts and payment platforms are essential parts of your tech stack, helping you capture information (and money, of course) from your customers, and then enabling the delivery of the physical and digital products and services they paid for.

But what are the best shopping cart and payment providers?

This is one of the hardest categories to speak to, because it’s so broad! There are thousands of tools, each with their own specialties in everything from digital products to virtual stores to services to in-person sales. Someday, I’ll do a full review of the best shopping cart and payment platform tools, but for now, I’m just going to give my very subjective recommendation.

Stripe

Stripe is one of the largest digital payment processors in the world, handling about $1.9 trillion in transactions in 2025. While it’s a little more focused on developers over normal users, it’s easy enough to create an invoice, set up a product, and create a payment link. That being said, without some coding knowledge (or Claude Code), delivering products, specifically digital products, through Stripe can be challenging.

That’s why I skip the shopping cart now and integrate with Stripe directly. When someone pays, Stripe tells a small program on Cloudflare (written by Claude Code), and it delivers the product, tags them in my email platform, and posts the sale in Slack. No monthly cart fee, and nothing in the middle to break. Try Stripe here.

The Best File Management Tool

The next category of automation tools is for file management, something that I don’t use often, but is extremely important to get right when I do need it.

Here are just a few use cases for file management in automations:

• Generate a document based on a user submission and then share it with them
• Have a user upload a document in a form and then store it
• Store a headshot or other image file

For example, I have a writing contest automation where a user copy and pastes their short story to the judges through a form. My automation then converts the document to a Google Doc and share it with the judges, storing the url on an Airtable. Then, once the judging is complete, I have another automation that sends the Google Doc with the story back to the user who submitted it, along with the judge’s feedback. It’s a cool automation!

But what is the best file management tool for automations?

Cloudflare R2

Cloudflare R2 is file storage like Amazon’s S3, except you never pay when people download your files. My podcast audio lives on R2. The first 10 GB are free, then $0.015 per GB per month. Learn more about R2 here.

Runner Up: Google Drive

Google Drive isn’t just a place to store files to the cloud. It also has a whole integration-friendly document management suite, letting you generate documents, spreadsheets, and more all through Zapier and other automation builders.

The file management system all on its own is extremely powerful and inexpensive (especially compared to other platforms).

Furthermore, for many users it can be free! Get Google Drive here.

The Best Home Automation Tools

Home automations work in the real world, with lights, locks, and cameras. I cover my favorite setups in how to automatically turn off the lights and my guide to Airbnb automations.

Why I Can’t Recommend Zapier Anymore

I’ve been a loyal Zapier user since 2017, and I’ve built hundreds of Zaps, from 100+ step automations that have run thousands of times to 2 step automations that just move data from one spreadsheet to another.

I love Zapier. I should say loved. When my legacy plan was retired, my bill went from $224 a month to $898 a month, with only two emails as warning. With newer tools like Make.com and Claude Code, plus some huge pricing increases, I think Zapier can still have a place in your automation workflow, but I’ve lost confidence that it can be trusted to be the main automation tool you use.

Their competitors are as good as them in some cases and better in others but often half the cost. You can do many of the same things for free with code written by Claude Code.

I wrote the whole story in my Zapier review.

Frequently Asked Questions About Automation Software

What is the best automation tool for beginners?

Start with Make.com, because it has a free plan and a visual builder. If you aren’t sure what to automate first, start with an automation audit.

Zapier vs Make vs Claude Code: which should I use?

Choose Make for a visual builder at about half Zapier’s price, and Claude Code if you’d rather build your own automations and run them on Cloudflare for pennies. I don’t recommend Zapier anymore, and here’s why.

Do I need to know how to code to automate things?

No. But with Claude Code, even non-developers can now build custom automations that used to need a programmer. That’s how I build most of mine.

What Are YOUR Favorite Automation Tools?

So there you go. Those are my all-time best tools for automations. Now I’d love to hear from you!

What tools do you currently use in your automations? What tools did you discover from this guide that you want to check out? Let me know in the comments!

Want all of this on one page? Send me the guide.