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General Information
Key Zapier Concepts
Overview#
What is Zapier?#
Zapier is a tool for primarily non-technical users to connect together web apps.
An integration between two apps is called a Zap. A Zap is made up of a Trigger and one or more Actions or Searches.
Whenever the trigger happens in one app, Zapier will automatically perform the actions or searches in another app in order.
Zaps are very lightweight and easy to set up. Zaps do not import or export old data (they only operate on new items created after the Zap is enabled). Zaps are also not kept in sync ("two way syncing") after the Zap is triggered.
Zaps are deceivingly simple if you're used to dealing with complex and difficult integrations. Their simplicity is what enables anyone to create them.
What is the Developer Platform?#
The Zapier Developer Platform is a way for anyone to add their app or API to Zapier. There are two main reasons for building an app:
- So that you can hook your own internal API up to other apps for yourself or co-workers
- So that you can let anyone on Zapier hook your app up to others
Building an app is easy and should take a developer (or someone very familiar with APIs) about a week to build a completed app ready for the activation process. There are two interfaces to the Developer Platform. We cover the differences between the CLI and Web Builder here.
Why build on Zapier?#
The main reason you should build your app into Zapier is customer retention. Zapier enables you to say "yes!" when customers ask for integrations with other apps.
If you've built integrations before, you know the ongoing pain of supporting them. Zapier insulates you from ongoing API maintenance, migration, monitoring, failover and customer support for other APIs.
Building an app on Zapier is easier than integrating with other APIs and you only have to do it once. You'll automatically get integrations with everyone on Zapier today and into future.
Building your app on Zapier is free for vendors. Zapier is a Software-as-a-Service product and Zapier charges end-users to connect apps together.
Once your app is Global on Zapier, there are a lot of opportunities for co-marketing on the blog and email
Who can help me?#
If you have questions, you can always contact us! There are Development Partners who may be able to help build an app/integration for you.