IFTTT.ai Builds Your Automation From One Sentence – Free to Start
In short
- IFTTT.ai lets you describe an automation in plain language. It builds a multi-step Applet across 1,000+ services.
- Free plan: $0, 1,000 credits a month, unlimited Applets. Paid plans start at $2.09 a month.
- The money angle: replace a person who checks prices or copies data by hand for about $5 a month.
Ten years ago IFTTT was the toy with two boxes: if this, then that. Now it rebuilt itself around AI. You write one sentence and it builds the workflow. How much does it cost to try? Nothing. The free plan has unlimited Applets, and you only pay for runs when you outgrow it.
IFTTT.ai launched on Product Hunt this week and landed at number 10 for the day with 117 votes. That is interest, not proof. So here is what the tool really does, what it costs and where it breaks.
What the tool is IFTTT connects apps, devices and services. The new version adds an AI layer on top. You can describe what you want in plain language, or build multi-step Applets by hand with filters, queries, delays and several actions in a row. More than 1,000 services are supported.
The AI Agent can also watch web pages for changes. A price drop, a new listing, a new job post. You describe what to watch, and it tells you when something changes.
There is a second piece that matters for builders: IFTTT.ai MCP. It lets assistants like Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT run your Applets and use your connected services. Your chatbot stops being a talker and starts pressing buttons in your apps.
Pricing TABLE|Plan | Price | Credits per month | Applet check speed Free | $0 | 1,000 | Every hour Starter | $2.09 a month ($25.08 billed yearly) | 5,000 | Every 15 minutes Pro | $5.49 a month ($65.88 billed yearly) | 20,000 | Every 5 minutes Pro+ | $13.99 a month ($167.88 billed yearly) | 100,000 | Fastest speeds
All plans include all 1,000+ services, and building Applets is unlimited. The catch: AI features draw from the same credit pool as Applet runs and MCP usage. I could not confirm how many credits one AI action costs. That is the number to check before you scale.
How to set it up This is the flow. Button names may differ a little in the app, but the steps are the same.
- Create a free account at ifttt.com.
- Connect the services your automation touches, for example your email, a spreadsheet and a chat app. Each one asks for permission once.
- Describe the automation in one or two sentences. Be specific about the trigger, the action and where the result goes. Example: when a new order email arrives, add a row to my sheet and message me if the total is above €200.
- Read what IFTTT builds. Check the trigger, every filter and every action. The AI guesses, you approve.
- Run one test. Then look at your credit counter to see what a run costs.
- Turn it on and check the activity log after a day.
- Upgrade only if you need checks faster than once an hour.
Real use cases – Price watch. Ask the AI Agent to watch a competitor’s product page and message you when the price moves. For a shop with many competing listings, this is the first thing I would test. – Lead alert. A new form entry goes into a spreadsheet and you get a message. No copy and paste. – Listing and job alerts. Watch a page for new items and get a ping instead of refreshing it all day. – Order notices. Turn incoming order emails into rows in a sheet and flag the big ones. – Chatbot with hands. Connect IFTTT.ai MCP to Claude or ChatGPT and tell your assistant to trigger an Applet in plain words.
Do the math: say a person checks 30 competitor pages once a day, 2 minutes each. That is 60 minutes a day, about 22 hours in a month with 22 working days. At €8 an hour for a cheap assistant, which is my assumption, that is €176 a month. IFTTT Pro is $5.49 a month (about €5), Starter is $2.09. If one check costs one credit, which I could not confirm, 30 pages every day is about 900 credits a month, and that fits inside the free 1,000. Even if each AI check costs ten times more, you are at tens of euros, not hundreds. And the free plan only checks once an hour, which is fine for prices and too slow for urgent alerts.
Limits and weak spots – Hourly checks on Free. Fine for prices, too slow for anything urgent. – Shared credits. AI features and MCP use the same pool as normal runs. A busy agent can eat your month. – Unclear credit costs. I did not find a per-action credit price on the pages I checked. – Unclear AI tiers. The plan page says all features are unlocked on Free, but the comparison ticks did not load for me, so I cannot tell you which paid tier adds which AI feature. – It is new. Real-world reliability is untested. 117 votes on Product Hunt is a signal, not a track record. – AI guesses. Never let an AI-built workflow touch payments or customer emails before you have tested it by hand.
Alternatives – Zapier: the long-time standard with a huge app list. – Make: a visual scenario builder, better when your logic has many branches. – n8n: open source, you can host it yourself if you want full control.
Ivan’s Take
Worth a test, because it costs nothing to start and takes minutes. I would try one price watch on competitor listings and check the credit counter after a day. If the credits stay low, it replaces a daily manual check for the price of a coffee. For heavy logic I would still use a proper builder like Make. The part I am really waiting for is the MCP link, because that lets my AI assistant act inside my apps.
Sources: IFTTT · Product Hunt
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