The 12 best task automation tools in 2023

From the dishwasher to the Roomba, people are always looking for ways to save time (and avoid repetitive tasks). In 2022, it’s all about cutting down on busy work in the virtual world. Task automation software is designed to do just that.

But when it comes to choosing the best automation tool for you, the options can be overwhelming. Do you need to have emails sent? Data organised? Customer profiles updated? How big is your team? How large is your budget?

There’s a lot to consider, and the truth is: there is no one best task automation tool. The best task automation software is the one that fits your unique needs as a business.

What is task automation?

Task automation is the process of taking repetitive, manual tasks and turning them into streamlined, automated workflows. It’s a pretty spectacular development in the tech world and one that’s designed specifically to make life easier.

Automation can help boost productivity and make workflows more consistent and universal. A great piece of task automation software doesn’t just streamline a process—it also gives you your time back to focus on the more nuanced aspects of running your business.

Let’s say you run an ecommerce business on Paperform. You could use Paperform to send automatic emails every time a customer makes a purchase, or automatically update their purchase details in a Google Sheet for easy bookkeeping.

Or you could integrate with Zendesk, so that every time someone fills out your help request form your customer support team gets a notification. By creating these set-it-and-forget-it solutions, you can rest easy knowing that those mundane tasks will get done right, every time.

12 Best Task Automation Tools

We’ve compiled this list of nine disparate, high-quality tools and delineated them by purpose, so you can find the workflow automation tool that checks your boxes.

1. Paperform for beautiful forms that do work for you

Paperform may have started as a form builder, but it’s developed into a whole lot more than that. With our digital suite of tools, you can create forms, surveys, quizzes, websites, payment pages and more, all from our easy-to-use doc-style editor.

Paperform comes with a ton of automation power. You can send automatic, personalised email notifications from any form, and automatically view and assess your data with our robust built-in data analysis.

Need to crunch a few numbers in your responses? Our calculations have you covered. With this feature in place, you can complete advanced Excel-style functions without lifting a finger. Just set your conditions, and let your form do the maths for you. Check it out for yourself below.

Our built-in automation features are pretty serious. But the options become truly limitless when you look at our robust integrations library.

Let’s say you’ve made a new customer intake form. You could connect it with Hubspot to automatically update customer profiles with each submission, and integrate with Slack to notify the appropriate team member each time someone completes your form.

Or maybe you’re hiring a new employee and you need to schedule interviews. With Paperform’s dedicated booking field, you can create a booking form that handles the scheduling for you.

Integrate with Google Cal or Calendly to have your availability updated automatically, and send personalised confirmation emails to both parties upon form submission.

Paperform is a highly versatile, seriously helpful tool. Whether you’re a freelancer, an entrepreneur, or a CEO, this tool can make your everyday tasks run smoother. It’s kind of our whole shtick—providing powerful digital solutions that bring workers back to life.

Pricing

• Paperform offers a 14-day free trial
• Paid plans start at just $20/month.

2. Papersign for automating document workflows

We'd like to introduce our latest addition to the Paperform family—Papersign. Papersign is an eSignature solution created by Paperform, that's designed to streamline your process of collecting digital signatures.

With this tool, you can create custom documents, send them to signatories via email, and track the signing process in real-time.

Need your clients to sign contracts? Have important documents that need a quick turnaround? Whatever your needs, Papersign provides a simple, easy-to-use platform for you and your customers to put the ink on the (digital) dotted line.

The best part? Papersign integrates perfectly with Paperform, so you can combine the power of form building with the efficiency of eSignatures.

For example, after a client fills out an intake form on Paperform, you can immediately send them a contract through Papersign, reducing the time spent waiting around for paper documents to be signed, scanned, and returned.

Pricing

• Free plan available with 3 documents/month
• The Pro plan is $24/user/month

Create a free Papersign account and try it out for yourself. You'll wonder how you ever handled eSignatures without it. Get started.

3. Zapier for automating nearly anything

If you’re looking for a multitude of task automation options, Zapier is the tool for you. This third-party integration software helps you connect just about any two apps you can think of to automate advanced or simple tasks.

Want to send data from Salesforce to Hotjar? Zapier can do that. How about connecting Calendly and PayPal to coordinate bookings and payments? Zapier can do that, too.

Zapier is like an app translator. It allows tools that wouldn’t otherwise be connected to “talk” to each other.  It does this by creating “Zaps” that act as a bridge between platforms. When a trigger is hit in one platform, it causes an action in the other.

There are more than 5,000 Zapier integrations to choose from. If you can’t find your perfect pair, you can always create a custom Zap to fit your exact needs.

Zapier is relatively easy to use and offers a wide range of pricing options to accommodate any budget. Unfortunately, there’s no live support, but you can check out their help centre for basic troubleshooting questions.

Pricing

• Limited free plan available
• Paid plans start at $19.99/month

4. SyncApps for organised cross-platform automation

Like Zapier, you can use SyncApps by Cazoomi to share data across platforms without coding. While it only has 150 starter integrations to choose from, these connections are between popular tools, like Mailchimp and Salesforce or NetSuite and ActiveCampaign.

SyncApps might have fewer connections to choose from, but what it lacks in breadth makes up for in organisation.

Its Full Sync feature is particularly handy—it automatically deletes old data that no longer matches your automation criteria, so your platforms don’t get clogged with irrelevant information.

You can set actions and triggers bidirectionally, and add custom field mapping to make your automations as unique as you need them to be. And if you get stuck, there’s 24/7 live support waiting to help you.

Pricing

• No free plan available
• Paid plans start at $79.99/year for individuals.

5. ClickUp for automating processes from your project management tool

Like asking someone which Star Wars movie is best, most businesses have strong opinions about their favourite project management tools.

If you value task automation, ClickUp may be your Empire Strikes Back. It’s a simple, easy-to-use cloud-based project management tool with some powerful automation features.

You can set custom automation rules that trigger updates on your project board when you alter a given task. These rules are set using easy-to-understand logic. You could set a rule that automatically adds your colleague as a collaborator whenever you move your draft to the review column, so they can give notes before publishing.

These conditions keep your projects (and your team) up to date, without having to micromanage your project board by hand. You can update lists, add assignees, and change watchers automatically whenever you make edits.

Pricing

• Limited free plan available
• wide range of paid plans available starting at $9/month.

6. Make for visual learners

If you love the functionality of Zapier but you don’t love the interface, Make is the tool for you. This third-party integration platform allows you to share data across apps and automate manual processes, so you can free up your time for bigger and better things.

The biggest difference between Make and Zapier is the way you create automations. Make uses an intuitive drag-and-drop editor, whereas Zapier has you form zaps using if/then statements.

For visual learners looking to automate multi-step workflows without coding, Make is a fantastic option.

Pricing

• Limited free plan available
• Range of pricing options starting at $9/month

7. Moosend for automating email campaigns

Moosend is a simple yet powerful tool for managing email campaigns. It allows you to automate more of your email marketing processes so you can focus on the other aspects of running your business.

Moosend uses an intuitive drag-and-drop interface to design both ad campaigns and newsletters. But as any business owner knows, ads and newsletters alone won’t cut it.

The best email campaigns are personalised and sent in response to specific customer actions. With Moosends automation, you can do just that.

Set up custom workflows to automatically send email alerts based on custom variables, like when a customer abandons their cart, or when they fill out a form on your website.

You can alter the time between action and email, choose to loop emails, and even adjust individual lead scores based on their activity. They’ve even got built-in data analysis to check in on the success of your campaigns, and several automation templates available to make the set-up process even easier.

Pricing

• Free trial available
• Pro plans start at $9/month and increase based on subscribers, so you only pay for what you need.

8. Hubspot for marketing automation

If you already use Hubspot as a CRM and you're looking to streamline your marketing workflow, Hubspot marketing automation is the perfect solution.

This tool empowers you to create no-code set-it and forget-it solutions for everyday outreach processes. We’re talking about sending emails, nurturing leads, managing ad campaigns, or posting on social media.

When you create an email drip campaign, you can design customised emails and send them out on a schedule to help guide leads further down the funnel. You can also automatically move your leads around based on custom variables, trigger internal notifications to team members based on lead behaviour, and set up webhooks.

Like Make and ClickUp, Hubspot’s interface is highly visual, so you can drag and drop elements of your workflow around to create unique solutions easily.

If your team already uses the platform, great news. All your tools will play nicely together. You may find the cross-platform integration options a little disappointing if you don't. There are only about 100 to choose from.

Pricing

• No free plan available
• Marketing plans start at $45/month for non-enterprise options

9. Sender for email and SMS marketing automation

Sender is an affordable yet powerful email and SMS marketing platform for managing your email automation workflows.

You can create custom workflows like abandoned carts and welcome emails triggered by specific events. This way, you can automatically deliver perfectly timed and targeted messages to your subscribers and increase your chances of converting them into customers.

Beyond email automation, the platform also provides automated text message campaigns that help you engage your audience in seconds and with ease. You can manage both email and SMS campaigns in one dashboard and combine them to offer customers an omnichannel experience.

Its drag-and-drop email builder and responsive templates enable you to create email campaigns in minutes. With advanced segmentation, you can group customers based on their behavior and preferences and target them with personalized messages that resonate with them.

Pricing

• Free Forever plan available
• Paid plans start at $15/month

10. Keyboard Maestro for desktop-based automation on a Mac

Keyboard Maestro is a desktop automation tool. Unlike the rest of the tools on this list, Keyboard Maestro doesn’t connect two apps or complete processes based on the actions and triggers you feed it.

Instead, it uses your keyboard motion to create unique, repeatable automations. You set your automations by actually doing them. Because it requires a download and learns your actions, it’s a great option for freelancers or solopreneurs working mostly on their own devices.

Keyboard Maestro can be used to automate just about any process you can do on your Mac, like launching commonly used apps, downloading files, or auto-filling form fields.

To create an automation, all you have to do is set a trigger and a desired action from the app. You can set as many triggers per macro as you like, and connect with hundreds of potential actions. Macros are saved neatly in the app's library so you can review and edit them anytime.

Keyboard Maestro is designed for Mac users. If you’re looking for a desktop automation tool for PC, Macro Recorder is a great option. This tool records your mousepad movement to create macros, which you can then set to repeat to complete routine tasks automatically.

Pricing

• Free trial available
• The download is available for a one-time payment of $36

11. Workato for enterprise automation needs

For larger businesses looking to create custom task automations, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better option than Workato.

This workflow automation software uses “recipes” to automate even the most complex tasks. To make a recipe, just select a trigger or triggers, and choose your desired action. Workato handles the rest for you.

Workato has loads of pre-made recipes designed for teams working in HR, marketing, sales, IT, and more. You can also create your own recipes to automate more unique or complex workflows.

Workato is an enterprise solution, which means the features and integration capabilities are seriously robust. You can set multiple triggers and multiple actions across all of your favorite apps, all in one recipe, with no limit to the number of automations you can create.

For small businesses, it’s probably a little more than necessary (and quite a bit more expensive than its competitors).

Pricing

• Workato pricing plans are set on a case-by-case basis.
• You can buy recipes as packs, or purchase access to unlimited recipes for you and your team
• Either way, you’ll need to reach out to Workato for a quote.

12. Reclaim.ai for task scheduling

Reclaim.ai is an AI calendar app that automatically finds and blocks time for tasks in your calendar in order of priority. Simply connect your task list (from Asana, ClickUp, Todoist, Jira, Linear, or Google Tasks) with your calendar, or create tasks right in Reclaim to automatically block time in your schedule.

Apart from tackling your work assignments, you can also streamline your daily routine by automatically scheduling your one-on-one meetings, regular breaks, and healthy habits – while keeping tabs on your productivity every week with advanced time tracking and people analytics. And if you’re booking external meetings or trying to find time with your team, you can easily share your availability with smart Scheduling Links with both low and high-priority levels, so it doesn’t take weeks to get a meeting on the calendar.

This tool is a perfect fit for organizations looking to improve productivity and work-life balance for employees, contractors managing multiple jobs, and individuals who are managing big task lists and are looking to get more done.

Pricing

• Free
• Paid plans start at $8/month

Start streamlining tasks today

There’s no wrong answer when it comes to picking an automation tool. The one that makes your life easier is the best of the bunch.

Paperform is a great place to start. Not only can we help you automate everyday processes by connecting with over 3,000 of your favourite apps, but we can provide you with the digital Swiss Army Knife of tools to create your own unique online solutions.

Need an intake form for your new clients? Want to build camaraderie with your team with a virtual escape room? Or maybe you’re looking for a versatile way to sell your products online? Regardless of what you do, Paperform is here to help you get it done easier.

Give it a go today with our 14-day free trial, no credit card required, and let your Paperform start working as hard as you do for your business.