IFTTT

Overview

IFTTT (If This Then That) is a platform designed to connect disparate web services, applications, and smart devices through automated conditional statements known as Applets. Launched in 2010, IFTTT provides a no-code environment where users can define a trigger event from one service and a corresponding action to be performed by another. For example, an Applet might be configured to turn on smart lights when a user arrives home, or to log new Instagram posts to a Google Sheet.

The platform is primarily aimed at end-users and hobbyists seeking to streamline personal routines, enhance smart home functionality, and automate simple cross-service tasks without requiring programming skills. Its strength lies in its extensive library of pre-built Applets and its broad support for various consumer-facing services and IoT devices. This makes it suitable for individuals who want to integrate services like social media, weather apps, email, and smart home ecosystems (e.g., Philips Hue, Google Home, Amazon Alexa) into unified workflows.

While IFTTT is accessible to non-developers, it also offers tools for developers to create and integrate their own services, expanding the platform's ecosystem. These developer tools include the ability to publish services and offer triggers and actions to IFTTT users, thereby extending the reach of their own applications and hardware. This approach differs from platforms like Zapier, which offers a broader range of business-oriented integrations, by focusing heavily on the consumer and smart home automation space.

IFTTT excels in scenarios where a simple, event-driven automation is needed between two or more services. Its intuitive interface allows users to browse a catalog of existing Applets or create custom ones by selecting a trigger and an action from the hundreds of available services. This ease of use has made it a popular choice for personal productivity enhancements and for making smart homes more responsive and interconnected. However, for complex business process automation, multi-step workflows, or integrations requiring advanced logic and data transformation, alternatives like Microsoft Power Automate or Make (formerly Integromat) may be more appropriate.

Key features

• Applets: Core automation units that connect a trigger from one service to an action in another (e.g., "If a new photo is posted on Instagram, then save it to Dropbox"). Users can enable existing Applets or create custom ones.
• Hundreds of Services: Support for a wide range of popular web services, social media platforms, smart home devices, and IoT products, enabling diverse automation possibilities.
• Webhooks: Allows developers and advanced users to create custom triggers and actions using HTTP requests, extending IFTTT's capabilities beyond its pre-built service integrations.
• Developer Platform: Tools for service providers to integrate their applications and devices into the IFTTT ecosystem, enabling their users to create Applets.
• Filter Code (Pro/Pro+): Advanced users can add JavaScript code to Applets to introduce conditional logic, data formatting, and more complex decision-making before an action is executed.
• Queries (Pro/Pro+): Enables Applets to retrieve data from other services during execution, allowing for more dynamic and data-driven automations.
• Multi-Action Applets (Pro/Pro+): Allows a single trigger to initiate multiple actions across different services, building more comprehensive workflows.

Pricing

IFTTT offers a tiered pricing model, including a free option with limited functionality and paid plans that unlock advanced features and increased Applet capacity. The pricing below is accurate as of May 2026.

For the most current pricing details and feature comparisons, refer to the official IFTTT pricing page.

Common integrations

IFTTT supports integration with hundreds of services across various categories, including smart home, social media, productivity, and utilities. Some common integrations include:

• Smart Home: Philips Hue (IFTTT Philips Hue service), Google Home, Amazon Alexa, SmartThings, TP-Link Kasa, Arlo.
• Social Media: Twitter (IFTTT Twitter service), Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.
• Productivity & Storage: Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, Todoist, Trello, Slack.
• Utilities & Weather: Weather Underground, SMS (IFTTT SMS service), Email, Calendar.
• Web Services: Webhooks, RSS Feeds.

Alternatives

• Zapier: A no-code automation platform offering extensive integrations for business applications and more complex multi-step workflows.
• Make (formerly Integromat): Provides visual workflow automation with more advanced logic, data transformation, and branching scenarios, often favored for complex business processes.
• Microsoft Power Automate: A service for building automated workflows between apps and services, deeply integrated within the Microsoft ecosystem but also supporting external connections.
• Apache Airflow: An open-source platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows, primarily used by developers for data pipelines and complex orchestrations.

Getting started

As IFTTT is primarily a no-code platform, direct API interaction for building automations is not its primary use case for end-users. Instead, users typically get started by browsing and enabling existing Applets or creating new ones through the web interface or mobile app. Developers looking to integrate their own services with IFTTT would use the developer platform to define triggers and actions. Below is an example of how a developer might define a simple webhook trigger to be used within an IFTTT Applet. This example demonstrates a basic HTTP POST request that could act as a trigger, which IFTTT would then respond to.

# Example: Triggering an IFTTT Applet via a Webhook
# This cURL command sends a POST request to a custom IFTTT Webhook URL.
# Replace 'YOUR_EVENT_NAME' with the event name defined in your IFTTT Webhooks service.
# Replace 'YOUR_WEBHOOK_KEY' with your unique IFTTT Webhooks key.
# The 'value1', 'value2', 'value3' fields are optional and can pass data to your Applet.

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"value1":"Hello","value2":"IFTTT","value3":"World"}' \
"https://maker.ifttt.com/trigger/YOUR_EVENT_NAME/with/key/YOUR_WEBHOOK_KEY"

To use this, you would first need to enable the Webhooks service on IFTTT, create a new Applet where the trigger is "Receive a web request" from the Webhooks service, and then specify an event name. The unique webhook key is provided within your Webhooks service settings on IFTTT. This setup allows external systems or custom scripts to initiate IFTTT Applets.