IFTTT vs Zapier in five short points, plus the tool for alerts
Who each is for, what each costs, how much logic and speed you get, and why neither watches the web on its own.
By ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom · Editorial team
· 3 min read
IFTTT vs Zapier is the classic automation matchup, and both tools are good at what they were made for. The twist is that a lot of people comparing them actually want alerts: tell me when a page changes, when a competitor posts, when a thread mentions my product. Neither tool is a monitor. Here are five short points on how they differ, and a sixth on what to use for the alerts.
1. Who each one is for
IFTTT is aimed at people and small businesses connecting everyday apps and devices: smart home gear, phones, calendars, social accounts. Its plans page lists over 1,000 services.
Zapier is aimed at work software. It lists more than 9,000 apps, from CRMs to spreadsheets to help desks, with multi-step workflows called Zaps.
If your automation lives in your house, IFTTT. If it lives in your company's tools, Zapier.
2. What they cost
| IFTTT | Zapier | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 2 Applets, unlimited runs | 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps |
| Entry paid plan | Pro, $2.99/mo billed yearly | Professional, from $19.99/mo |
| Next plan | Pro+, $8.99/mo billed yearly | Team, from $69/mo, up to 25 users |
| What you pay for | Number of Applets | Number of tasks |
IFTTT is far cheaper. Zapier's bill grows with volume: every successful action is a task, though checking for new data is not.
3. How much logic you get
IFTTT keeps it simple. Pro adds multi-action Applets; queries, filters and conditional logic come with Pro+.
Zapier gives you multi-step Zaps, premium apps, webhooks and AI fields on Professional, plus tables and forms. If your workflow has branches, Zapier handles it more comfortably.
4. How fast they react
IFTTT's polling triggers, such as RSS, check hourly on the free plan and every five minutes on Pro and Pro+. Realtime triggers, like an incoming webhook, usually run within seconds. Zapier also polls for new data, and its pricing page notes that polling does not use tasks.
Both are fine for "do this when that happens". Neither is designed to notice that a web page changed.
In day-to-day use that means a realtime IFTTT applet feels instant, while a polling one on the free plan can lag by up to an hour. For a lamp that turns on at sunset, nobody minds. For a price drop that sells out in twenty minutes, the gap matters, and it is one more reason the alerting job is worth handing to a tool built around checking schedules, where you set the pace for each thing you watch instead of accepting the plan default.
5. Where both fall short: watching the web
To get an alert from a website with either tool, you need an event source. Usually that is an RSS feed. IFTTT's "New feed item matches" trigger fires when an item contains a keyword or short phrase, and Zapier works from whatever trigger you give it. Pages without a feed, such as pricing pages and job listings, need another tool. And keyword matches mean a lot of irrelevant alerts.
6. What to use for the alerts
AyeWatch fills that gap. It is a monitor, not an automation tool:
- Paste a URL, describe a topic in a sentence, or pick a social source like a subreddit or an X account.
- It reads each new item for meaning and alerts only when something matches your rule.
- Every alert includes a short summary and its sources.
- Alerts arrive in the app feed and as push on iOS and Android on every plan. Paid plans add email, Slack, Discord, signed webhooks and a REST API.
The webhooks are the bridge. Send an AyeWatch alert into a Zap or an IFTTT webhook applet, and the automation tool does the rest: update the CRM, post to the team, log it.
Pricing: a Free Preview with three lifetime runs and no card, then Pro at $9 a month with hourly checks and Pro+ at $19 with ASAP mode. Usage is counted in monitoring credits, mostly one per check.
The verdict
- Connecting devices and personal apps cheaply: IFTTT.
- Connecting work tools with multi-step logic: Zapier.
- Knowing when something on the web actually changed: AyeWatch, with either of the other two downstream if you need it.
If alerts are why you started comparing, start an AyeWatch preview before picking between the other two. You may find you need less automation than you thought.