Zapier
Zapier is an American software company that provides a platform for workflow and business process automation, application integration, and artificial intelligence orchestration. Its platform allows individuals and organizations to connect web-based applications, automate tasks, and incorporate AI into workflows and systems. Zapier serves a range of customer segments, from small and medium-sized businesses to larger enterprises. Founded in 2011 as a side project by three individuals from the U.S. state of Missouri, Zapier was officially launched in 2012 as part of the Y Combinator startup accelerator program. The company has been fully remote since its inception, making it an early pioneer of remote work. Its growth relied on a product-led growth strategy, in which the product drove customer acquisition and revenue through a self-serve model. As its customer base expanded, Zapier maintained this self-serve approach while also acquiring several companies in the 2020s and establishing an enterprise sales team.
As a low-code/no-code platform, Zapier is intended for users with minimal to moderate technical knowledge. Users can create custom workflows, use workflows from a library of preconfigured templates, or generate workflows using natural language prompts through AI. Zapier has a range of product plans with varying levels of functionality for individuals and companies of all sizes. Its Enterprise plan, the company's premium offering, is designed for organizations requiring complex workflows, stricter governance and observability, and workflow management across multiple departments.
History
Origins and launch
Zapier began as a side project in 2011 in Columbia, Missouri, United States, founded by Wade Foster, Bryan Helmig, and Mike Knoop, all of whom are from the Mid-Missouri region and attended the University of Missouri. Foster and Knoop were doing freelance work building small integrations for companies when they noticed they were frequently using the same connectors. The idea for Zapier first emerged on September 8, 2011, when Foster and Helmig discussed creating a tool to help users integrate multiple software applications, having identified a growing demand for application connectivity. Foster and Helmig, then colleagues at Veterans United Home Loans, began developing the project, with Knoop joining later that year. For several months, the team worked on the software while maintaining full-time jobs. After presenting their product idea at a Startup Weekend in Columbia from September 30 to October 2, 2011, the founders applied to Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley startup incubator, but were initially rejected. They reapplied the following year after building a prototype and gaining early users, and were accepted. In November, entrepreneur Andrew Warner, host of the startup podcast Mixergy, became Zapier's first paying customer, contributing $100 for access to its beta integration product.In December 2011, Foster left his job to work on Zapier full-time. Helmig followed in April 2012, and Knoop joined full-time in May, the same month the company launched its public beta. The founders relocated to Mountain View, California, to launch Zapier and formally join the Y Combinator program in June. Zapier is headquartered in San Francisco, California, but does not have work offices. The company has operated fully remotely since its founding and is considered a pioneer of remote work—an approach that was uncommon in the tech industry at the time. Zapier adopted a product-led growth model, a strategy in which the product itself drove customer acquisition and retention, primarily through a self-serve experience. In August 2012, Zapier launched its Developer Platform, which allowed developers to create and add custom integrations not yet supported in Zapier's app directory. At the time, Zapier supported over 60 applications. According to Foster, the platform was designed to help developers save time when building integrations. The launch was done in collaboration with 12 technology partners.
Since its founding, Zapier has grown with minimal outside fundraising, a practice that is uncommon among software companies. In October 2012, Zapier received a $1.2 million seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and several angel investors. In the announcement, Zapier stated that the funds would be used to invest in its core and developer platforms. The founders noted that BVP stood out for its immediate interest in the product, while DFJ was recognized for its expertise in selling enterprise software. Alongside the funding, Zapier announced the hiring of its first non-founding employee and outlined plans to build a robust customer support operation. The team also indicated that, with upcoming product enhancements, hiring one or two additional developers was under consideration. Unlike many early-stage software companies, Zapier prioritized building a relatively large customer support team for its size and revenue.
Profitability, continued growth
Zapier became profitable in 2014. In March 2017, Zapier introduced a $10,000 "de-location" package program to support tech workers who chose to move out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Foster stated the initiative was a response to the region's high cost of living and housing shortage, aiming to ensure employees would not have to choose between career advancement in the Bay Area and personal goals such as starting a family elsewhere. The program was limited to individuals intending to move away from the Bay Area and required a commitment of at least one year of employment at the company. Zapier received about 150 applicants over the weekend, including 50 who specifically cited the de-location package in their application. The initiative came amid growing frustration among Bay Area tech workers over housing shortages, rising costs of living, and broader concerns about displacement and gentrification linked to the tech industry's expansion.In December 2018, Zapier reported that its annual recurring revenue had surpassed US$50 million, reflecting nearly 50% growth since January, when ARR was US$35 million. The company also announced that it had reached its 200th employee.
In early 2020, during the onset COVID-19 pandemic, Zapier set up a US$1 million small business assistance fund for struggling customers. In the summer of that year, the company surpassed $100 million in ARR. In January 2021, investment firms Sequoia Capital and Steadfast Financial purchased shares from some of Zapier's early investors in a secondary market transaction. The terms of the deal, including the amount sold and the participating investors, were not publicly disclosed. The transaction valued the company at US$5 billion. Foster stated that the sale reduced pressure to pursue a liquidity event, such as an initial public offering or acquisition. He also confirmed that none of the founders took part in the sale. Foster added that with the involvement of Sequoia and Steadfast, Zapier would leverage their networks and support to drive further revenue growth through connections with their portfolio companies. As of August 2022, the company employed approximately 700 people in close to forty countries, all working remotely. In 2022, Zapier founded its enterprise sales team to support companies that needed additional support beyond the self-serve model.
In September 2025, Forbes ranked Zapier among the top 100 cloud computing companies in the AI space, placing it at number 48. It listed the company as having 736 employees and a valuation of US$5 billion. That month Zapier announced that it became available for purchase through the AWS Marketplace, an online catalog where customers can search, test, and deploy third-party software and services that operate on Amazon Web Services. The listing allowed for AWS users to purchase Zapier using cloud credits, which is intended to be faster way of procuring software compared to traditional models.
Acquisitions
In March 2021, Zapier acquired its first company, Makerpad, a no-code education service, for an undisclosed sum of money. Foster and Makerpad founder Ben Tossell stated that Makerpad would continue operating as a separate entity for a period of time. The acquisition came about in an unorthodox way, beginning with a tweet from Tossell in September of the previous year, in which he mentioned that Zapier was his company's second most-used software tool, just behind Airtable. An investor retweeted the post, sparking a broader conversation that caught Foster's attention. Foster then reached out to Tossell, and their conversations eventually led to the acquisition. Foster confirmed that Zapier had been aware of Makerpad since 2019, when Tossell tweeted about his experience building with no-code tools, including Zapier, at Makerpad. In an interview, Foster did not confirm or rule out the possibility of additional acquisitions but ruled out going public through a special-purpose acquisition company.In March 2024, Zapier acquired Vowel, an AI-powered video conferencing tool, as part of its efforts to expand its AI capabilities. Vowel's founder, Andrew Berman, joined Zapier following the acquisition. In July 2024, Zapier acquired NoCodeOps, an Atlanta-based community platform and no-code software company. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. NoCodeOps co-founders Philip Lakin and Brent Summers stated that they would join Zapier along with several of their employees, and that Zapier would take over management of the NoCodeOps community. NoCodeOps’ flagship product, Operator, was discontinued, though its insights would be used to expand Zapier's product offerings. Zapier's relationship with NoCodeOps began in 2021, when it participated in a $4.5 million seed funding round alongside other investors.
In October 2025, Zapier acquired Utopian Labs, a company specializing in the development of AI agents for sales use cases. Founded in 2021 in the Netherlands and originally known as Luna.ai, Utopian Labs announced that it would cease operations the following month after the acquisition. Its founders, Steven Nelemans and Robin Salimans, joined Zapier as part of the deal. Zapier co-founder Helmig stated that the acquisition aimed to facilitate the adoption of AI by integrating Utopian Labs’ agentic technologies to enhance workflow processes. In January 2026, Zapier acquired PerceptivePanda, a company that used AI to automate customer research interviews traditionally conducted by humans. As part of the acquisition, PerceptivePanda co-founder Andre Vanier joined Zapier's AI strategy team. Following the announcement, PerceptivePanda discontinued its independent operations.
Products and services
Zapier is a low-code/no-code enterprise software platform that integrates web applications, automates tasks, and transfers data across systems. It is intended for users with minimal to moderate technical skills to assist in workflow creation with little to no coding involved and without requiring programming knowledge. Its users are sometimes referred to as "citizen developers," a term for individuals with limited coding proficiency but business process knowledge who create workflows for their respective business functions using non-coding tools. Zapier's products serve a range of customers, from solopreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses to larger companies.The company is classified as an integration platform as a service and AI orchestration platform. It uses AWS as its cloud provider and runs AWS Lambda functions to complete its workflows in a serverless environment. Its automation system is built around workflows called "Zaps," which consist of a "trigger", an event in one application, and one or more "actions" carried out in other connected apps in response. Users can create workflows using a library of templates or build custom ones. These workflows can include multiple steps, perform several actions across various applications, and support a range of automations and data transfers. Workflows can be configured and edited both before and after activation, and conditions can be set to control execution. Workflows can also be created using Zapier Copilot, a tool that uses large language models to build and troubleshoot workflows through natural language prompts.
The platform has connectors to over 8,000 applications available in its directory. The data is exchanged through application programming interfaces. For integrations not available in the directory, users can create custom connectors using the Zapier Developer Platform. Zapier also has a no-code database called Zapier Tables, which allows users to store, edit, upload, and share data before integrating it across applications. Another product, Zapier Interfaces, is used to create custom web interfaces, forms, and applications that can connect to and trigger automated workflows. Zapier Canvas, launched in 2023, is a diagramming and visualization tool used to plan and document workflows, with integration into Zapier's automation platform.
Zapier offers multiple product plans with varying levels of functionality. The Free plan supports two-step workflows and a limited number of tasks. The Professional and Team plans are designed for individual users and small teams, respectively. The Enterprise plan is intended for organizations and includes features such as unlimited users, advanced security and governance controls, additional observability, an annual task allocation, and access to a technical account management team. Larger enterprises use Zapier's Enterprise plan for more complex workflows, its additional levels of governance and observability, and cross-functional workflow management features.
In 2023, Zapier announced that they were introducing AI offerings. In April 2025, Zapier published a playbook for companies evaluating how to do an internal AI rollout, as Zapier has rolled out one internally and reported that 89 percent of its employees had adopted AI tools in their day-to-day work. The playbook outlined how Zapier began early experimentation using LLMs and increased their usage following the release of OpenAI's GPT‑4 in March 2023. They hosted company-wide hackathons, training programs, and data governance policies, with the intention to gradually implement AI across the company., they include AI-powered workflows, chatbots, Model Context Protocol servers, and agentic AI.