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Scheduling apps are awesome. You don’t have to worry about the back-and-forth emails or phone calls to set a meeting time… And you feel like a genius!

Then you realize you didn’t share the call information. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use Zapier to automatically add Zoom information to your Calendly invites. So you can keep being a genius.

How to create Zoom meetings for new Calendly events

Zapier lets you create automated workflows called Zaps, which send your information from one app to another. You can create your own Zap from scratch without any coding knowledge, but we also offer quick templates to get you started. 

If you’d like to start with a template, click on it to go to the Zap editor. You’ll need to create a Zapier account if you don’t already have one. Then, follow the directions below to set up your Zap.

Set up your Calendly trigger

First, set up your trigger—the event that starts your Zap. If you’re using the Zap template, the trigger app and event will already be selected for you. Otherwise, search for and select Calendly as the trigger app and Invitee Created as the trigger event. Click Continue.

Next, connect your Calendly account, if you haven’t already, then click Continue. 

Now, it’s time to customize your trigger. In the Webhook subscription scope field, select User. Calendly also has an Organization subscription scope field, but that only applies if you’re an admin or an organization owner for a Calendly account. As an individual user, the User setting will work best.

Then, click Continue. 

Next, test your trigger step. You’ll need at least one Calendly appointment in your account—this will be used to set up the rest of your Zap. If you don’t have any appointments, add one now.

Then, click Test trigger. Zapier will pull in the most recent Calendly appointments. Choose one of the appointments for this test, then click Continue with selected record.

Set up your Zoom action

Now it’s time to set up the action—the event your Zap will perform once it’s triggered. If you’re using the Zap template, these will already be selected for you. Otherwise, search for and select Zoom as your action app and Create Meeting as your action event. Click Continue.

Next, connect your Zoom account, if you haven’t already, then click Continue.

Now, it’s time to customize your Zoom action. 

First, select Meeting in the Meeting Type field. In the Topic field, select Event Type Name from the data dropdown. In the When field, select Scheduled Event Start Time.

In the Time Zone field, select your local time zone. Zoom requires a password, so add one to the Password field. We suggest using something easy that’s related to your meeting.

Finally, select Event Type Duration in the Duration field to automatically pull in the duration of the Zoom meeting from your Calendly appointment. 

When you’re happy with the setup, click Continue.

Next, click Test step to send a test meeting to Zoom. Zapier will create a new meeting for you.

To see if it worked well, open the Zoom app, and go to the Meetings tab. You should see a new meeting added to the sidebar. Open it to check if all the details are right. 

Here’s what our Zoom meeting looked like.

If everything looks right, you’re now ready to use your Zap. Now, any time you schedule a new Calendly appointment, it will automatically show up in your Zoom account, just like that!

Want to do more with your workflow? Add an additional step to your Zap to share the Zoom link. That way, you can make sure everyone can easily join your next meeting.

Or add a step in the middle to update your CRM at the same time:

This article was originally published in July 2019. It was most recently updated in April 2024.

You know you need software to help up your digital marketing game, but with thousands of apps out there promising to take your marketing strategy to the next level, how do you know which ones are right for you?

Here’s a comprehensive list of over 40 of the best digital marketing tools across various categories, along with their strengths and weaknesses, to help you build your digital marketing toolkit. 

Keep scrolling to learn more about the top digital marketing tools, or click on a category to jump ahead. 

The best digital marketing tools 

What are digital marketing tools? 

Digital marketing tools are apps that help you attract, engage, sell, and retain business online. You’ve likely heard the term thrown around a lot, and that’s because it can include apps in any category related to marketing—from social media to advertising to content optimization. You get the idea. It’s a broad-reaching term. 

Whether you’re starting your first business or you’re looking to scale an existing one, you likely need a collection of digital marketing tools—a digital marketing tech stack—to help you succeed. 

How to find the best tool for digital marketing

There’s no “best” digital marketing tool. Nor is there a one-size-fits-all starter pack. The best tool for digital marketing depends on various factors like budget, team size, and experience level. 

So instead of purporting to have the list to rule them all, my goal here is to help you find the best tools for your unique needs. I’ll suggest apps across various categories you’re likely considering—and maybe some you didn’t even know you needed. And if the suggested apps don’t check all the boxes for you, you’ll also find useful links to the best apps for each of the categories, so you can explore other promising options. 

How do we know these apps deserve to be on this list? The Zapier team and I have spent thousands of combined hours testing countless digital marketing platforms for our best apps lists, and these are the ones that came out on top.

The best digital marketing tools at a glance

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The best digital marketing tools to create website and social media graphics

Eye-catching visuals can make or break your company’s digital presence and branding. The good news is you don’t have to hire a designer or break the bank to get these scroll-stopping graphics. Here are the best tools to help you create high-quality visuals that will capture your target audience.

Unsplash for free stock photos

With over three million photos to choose from, Unsplash offers the most robust library of high-quality images across a wide range of categories, including Business & Work, Travel, and People. Unlike other free stock photo sites, Unsplash also allows you to curate photos you come across into personal collections—like “Festive” and “Mental health”—to use in future campaigns or projects. 

Unsplash also comes with an iOS app, so you can find and download images on the go. And its API is integrated into tools like Figma, WordPress, and Squarespace, which makes it easy to find stock photos without leaving your favorite platforms. 

Unsplash pricing: Free

Canva for template-based designs 

Let’s say you need to add simple text overlays to stock photos. Or perhaps you want to edit your own photos to be shared across different social media platforms. With its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, Canva makes this easy to do—even if you have zero background in design. 

Canva also offers pre-made design templates for every asset you could possibly need, including Instagram Reels, YouTube thumbnails, and presentations. This way, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every design. And for an even faster workflow, take advantage of Canva AI—their AI-powered tools allow you to do things like generate and edit images using only text prompts.

Canva pricing: Free for limited access to most of the features you need, including design templates, stock photos, and AI-powered design tools; $10/month (billed annually) for Canva Pro, which offers unlimited access to more design templates, stock photos, and AI tools. 

DALL·E 3 for an easy-to-use AI image generator 

DALL·E 3—the latest version of OpenAI’s AI image generator—has a lot going for it. But what makes it stand out is that it’s ridiculously simple to use, especially now that it’s integrated with ChatGPT. Enter your prompt (what you want DALL·E to create), click Generate, and within a few seconds, you’ll have two AI-generated images to choose from. You can use DALL·E to create app mockups, ideate physical products, generate custom art pieces—the list goes on. You can even make light edits using natural language prompts.

And if you connect DALL·E to Zapier, you can automate your AI image generation to create images straight from the other apps you use most. Learn more about how to automate art inspiration with DALL·E and Zapier, or get started with one of these workflows.

DALL·E pricing: DALL·E 3 is included as part of ChatGPT Plus at $20/month and available for free through Microsoft Copilot

Read more:  How to automate AI image generation

The best digital marketing tools for editing photos 

While AI image generators are fun to play with, more often than not, what you really need is an app to make your photos shine. Here are the best digital marketing tools for manually editing photos or with an assist from AI. 

Adobe Photoshop for a powerful photo editing and design app

When it comes to image-editing tools, Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard for a reason: it’s the most powerful full-featured image-editing and design app around—and that extends to its AI features.

Photoshop includes the advanced tools professional designers need, like layers, masking, blending modes, and RAW support. In terms of what photo editing tasks Photoshop can’t do…that’s still to be seen. To take the app’s capabilities even further, you can integrate it with a wealth of third-party plug-ins and extensions. The only downside? There’s a steep learning curve. 

You can also use Adobe Photoshop in tandem with Lightroom—another Adobe image editor that’s geared more toward managing and processing photos. Lightroom also integrates with Zapier, so you can automate your photo editing workflows. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Adobe Photoshop pricing: From $19.99/month for the Photography Plan, which includes Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. 

Pixlr E and X for an easy-to-use AI editor 

To clarify, Pixlr E and Pixlr X are two different apps: Pixlr E is the “advanced editor,” while Pixlr X is the beginner-friendly option. But honestly, both apps are easy to use. 

Pixlr E (pictured above) is a convincing replica of the industry leader, Photoshop. From tool selection to layers and even features like blending modes and opacity settings, every Pixlr E feature works just like you’d expect it to in Photoshop. Pixlr X is the equivalent of Adobe Express—it’s a great alternative for power users and graphic newbies alike to perform quick and easy edits. 

Both Pixlr E and X are featured here because of how they save you time when used together. For example, since Pixlr saves projects in a combined library, you can pop a photo into Pixlr X for a quick retouch, then switch back to Pixlr E for more advanced editing. 

Pixlr pricing: Free for limited AI use and 3 image saves per day; from $1.99/month for Plus, with 80 monthly AI credits, unlimited saves, and no ads.

The best digital marketing tools for social media management 

Social media is one of the most powerful tools you can use to find new clients, drive traffic to your website, and engage with customers. But doing all of this is next to impossible using regular consumer apps. To do it effectively, you need a social media management app. Here are the best social media management tools that allow you to automate, analyze, and manage your social media presence all in one place. 

Buffer for tailoring posts to each channel

When you have to be on multiple channels and want to tailor your posts to all of them, Buffer is the tool for the job.

When you create a new post, the AI Assistant detects which social media channel you’re writing for and adapts the output accordingly. After it generates the first option, you can cycle through more, ask to rewrite, or use the expand/shorten options as needed. 

The AI assistant is impressive, but the rest of the supporting cast is also strong. You can run multichannel campaigns—they work like email marketing drip campaigns—so you can reach the perfect balance between recurring and fresh content.

And now that you’re turning each idea into 10 tailor-made posts, you’ll want to connect Buffer to Zapier, so you can move data and trigger automations while you sleep. Learn how to automate Buffer with Zapier, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Buffer pricing: Free plan includes 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel, and 100 ideas; $5/month/channel (billed annually) for the Essentials plan, which includes 2,000 scheduled posts, engagement tools, detailed analytics, and storage for 2,000 ideas.

FeedHive for content recycling and conditional posting 

It’s not a crime to repurpose content. Quite the opposite. As your follower count grows, your new audience deserves to get the full picture of what you stand for, and your long-time fans could use a refresher.

FeedHive is a great tool for this. It uses AI to take posts you already published and reuse them in a new post for the same or different channel. It also leverages AI to help you fine-tune your posts for maximum engagement. 

You can also create post categories in FeedHive, allowing you to build a system out of your content schedule. For example, if you post how-tos on Monday, inspirational content on Wednesday, and a short-form video on Friday, you can lock in these categories on a weekly calendar. After that, you can create posts and assign them to these categories. They’ll be queued and will go out at the right time, in the right slot.

FeedHive pricing: Creator plan starts at $19/month for 4 social accounts with AI Writing Assistant included. AI hashtag suggestions and AI performance prediction available only on higher paid plans.

Read more: How to create social media posts with AI for free

The best digital marketing tools for making presentations 

Creating polished presentations is a tedious and time-consuming task—and that’s after you’ve outlined your slides. If you’re delivering a basic presentation, the classics like Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slides will do the trick. But if you want to quickly create professional-looking slideshows that actually keep your audiences engaged, here are the best apps for making presentations. 

Gamma for generative AI features 

With Gamma, you can leverage the power of AI to generate a fully fleshed-out deck in a matter of seconds. All you need to do is give the app a topic—or upload an outline, notes, or any other document—pick a presentation theme, and watch as your slides come to life. 

The results will likely need some fine-tuning—Gamma’s much more geared toward the iterative chatbot experience (à la ChatGPT)—but it still provides a useful jumping-off point. Gamma also offers a couple of practical features that help you keep your audience focused on the topic at hand: 

• Content blocks: group your content into collapsible blocks directly on your slide, expanding them only when you’re ready to present. 

• Spotlight: highlight one talking point at a time, while Gamma automatically fades out the rest. 

Gamma pricing: Free Starter plan includes unlimited users, 400 AI deck credits, and basic analytics; $8/user/month (billed annually) for the Plus plan that includes unlimited AI credits up to 15 cards and no “Made with Gamma” badge.

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

If you need help making your data and ideas look as good as they should, then Beautiful.ai is for you. As the name suggests, Beautiful.ai uses AI to automatically modify your presentations—from layouts to alignment to granular spacing issues. Need to edit your slides further? The platform is a little different from most presentation software, but it’s still intuitive to use. For example, to resize an image, simply drag a handle to make it bigger or smaller. 

And if you use Google Drive, you can connect it with Beautiful.ai to quickly save all your presentations in your go-to cloud storage app, making it more convenient for sharing and team collaboration.  

Beautiful.ai pricing: $12/month (billed annually) for the Pro plan that includes unlimited slides, AI content generation, and PowerPoint import/export; $40/user/month for the Team plan that includes extra collaboration and workspace features, like a shared asset library, and custom brand controls.

The best digital marketing tools for webinar hosting 

Webinars are a great way to increase your brand awareness, move leads through the sales funnel, and amplify your brand’s authority. But there’s more to hosting a webinar than simply creating compelling content—you also need to invite and manage attendees, interact with your audience, and actually run the webinar. This is where webinar software comes in. Here are the best webinar hosting platforms to help you streamline and automate all the logistics related to running a successful webinar. 

Zoom for a familiar user experience 

Chances are you’re already familiar with Zoom for video conferencing. But the same features that make it great for connecting with your teammates also make it ideal for hosting webinars, especially if you’re presenting a lot of videos or featuring multiple panelists. 

Since Zoom is such a popular tool, it’s safe to assume that everyone already has it installed on their computer and configured to work. This means that joining your webinar is as simple as clicking a link. 

Once your webinar’s live, Zoom offers additional features to create a dynamic webinar, including side-by-side views and engagement-boosting tools like Q&A, polling, and reactions. You can even connect Zoom with Facebook and YouTube, so you can extend your reach, or connect Zoom to Zapier to automate your webinar workflows. Learn more about how to automate Zoom, or get started with one of these premade templates.

Zoom Webinars pricing: Starts at $79/month (or $690/year), which includes up to 500 attendees and limited event analytics and reporting.

Livestorm for managing multiple webinars 

If you host webinars on a regular basis, you need an app that automatically tracks your event schedule, so you don’t have to. Enter: Livestorm. In addition to webinar schedule management and an easy-to-use interface, Livestorm comes fully loaded with all the features you need to host a webinar and keep your audience coming back for more: 

• Customizable registration forms that you can send via email, share via link, or embed right on your website. 

• Pre-built, automated email flows for every event, which you can edit or send as is. 

• Custom calls to action that can be pushed live any time during the event.

Livestorm also offers in-depth event analytics, so you can fine-tune your webinar based on what’s working for your audience—and what’s not. 

You can also connect Livestorm with the other apps in your stack via Zapier. With the Livestorm and Zapier integration, you can automate new registrant notifications and changes to your CRM data.

Livestorm pricing: Free plan includes up to 20-minute sessions and 30 live attendees per event; Pro plan starts at $79/month (billed annually), which includes up to 4 hours per session, 100 live attendees per event, and HubSpot integration. 

Read more: Automate your webinar marketing

The best digital marketing tools for video creation and hosting 

As social media platforms increasingly favor videos over still images, successful businesses need to jump on the video train if they want to get in front of their customers. While adding another medium (and all its related efforts) sounds daunting, AI video generators and video hosting platforms can help you streamline the process. Here are the best tools for the job. 

Peech for an intuitive workflow  

When it comes to content, it’s no longer enough to CO;TD (create once, tailor distribution). Peech speeds up the work of tweaking one asset to fit every channel’s technical specs and target audience.  

For example, you can highlight specific lines of a webinar transcript, and Peech’s built-in AI tools (available only on paid plans) will automatically transform them into videos with subtitles and sized to platform-specific ratios, ready to be published.

Peech pricing: Free plan includes 2 downloads and 3 video uploads per month with a Peech watermark; Creator plan for $89/seat/month (billed annually) gets you 10 uploads and downloads per month with a Peech watermark and a limited set of AI features.

Read more: How to automate your video post-production tasks

Wistia for marketing-rich features

If your primary objective for sharing videos is to generate leads and optimize your ROI, Wistia is the app for you. With Wistia, you can gate your content and use the app’s Turnstile email collector to prompt viewers to enter their email address, so they can access your video. Once a viewer enters their information, they’re automatically added to your email list using Wistia’s email integrations, including email marketing software like Campaign Monitor and Mailchimp. 

If you don’t want to gate your content, Wistia offers other powerful video marketing features, including annotation links, end-of-video CTAs, and detailed video stats. And you can connect Wistia to Zapier to automate your video hosting workflows. Here are a few premade templates to get you started. 

Wistia pricing: Free plan includes ten 15-minute videos with Wistia branding, basic video analytics, and Zoom and social media integrations; $19/month (billed annually) for the Plus plan that includes 20 30-minute videos with no Wistia branding, basic CTAs, and email integrations.

YouTube for free video hosting and its existing viewership 

If you want to increase your reach, YouTube is your best bet. Thanks to the platform’s popularity and built-in audience of over 120 million active daily users already interested in video content, all you need to do is optimize your videos for search—or encourage fans to “smash that Like and Subscribe button”—and you may be able to build a native audience.

Of course, you still have the option to add the videos to your website with a simple embed code—but note that every YouTube video embedded on an external website looks like a YouTube video.

When you connect YouTube with Zapier, you can automatically handle the manual tasks that otherwise make channel-building a chore. Learn more about how to automate YouTube, or get started with one of these workflows. 

YouTube pricing: Free for uploading and hosting videos.

The best digital marketing tools for building websites 

If you want to increase your brand’s visibility, you need a website. While building a website these days isn’t particularly difficult, it’s still time-consuming. That’s where website builders come in. Here’s the best free website builder you can use to build your website. 

Wix for an all-around site builder

If you need to build a website to do things like sell products, take bookings, or run a blog, Wix is a solid choice. And since you can access a lot of the necessary features on a free plan, it’s a budget-friendly option. 

You can create a website from scratch, choose from over 800 design templates, or use Wix’s Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) to create a site, complete with AI-generated writing and visuals. These powerful AI features are also why Wix tops our list for the best AI website builders. From there, customizing your site is intuitive with Wix’s drag-and-drop editor. Wix also offers detailed SEO features to help you rank on search. While it won’t replace hiring an SEO expert, it’s a good leg up.

As an added bonus, Wix integrates with Zapier, which means you can automatically send form submissions wherever you need them. Learn more about how to automate Wix, or use one of these pre-made templates to get you started.

Wix pricing: Free plan includes .wixsite.com domain, and basic features; $17/month (billed annually) for the Light plan, which includes no Wix branding, a custom domain, and a light marketing

The many horror stories I’ve heard over the years about running or being in a construction business are more than enough to convince me that I’m not built for that kind of work. They also make it very obvious why professionals in this field are in dire need of well-made construction management software.

The headaches of supply pipelines, project tracking, file sharing, customer management, and budgeting can be too much to handle, even for a small construction firm. And that’s what construction management software does: it provides you with the tools you need to carry your construction projects from start to finish.

Seeing as I’m not an expert in this field, I did some thorough research, spoke to the masses in the field, and did my fair share of Reddit diving to give you a list of the best construction management software as experienced by actual users.

The best construction management software platforms

What makes the best construction management software?

Construction management software can vary from compact solutions to comprehensive platforms with an abundance of features and complex processes. But bigger doesn’t always mean better, and some of these solutions outshine their more complex competitors.

Here are some construction management software features that every tool on this list absolutely had to have:

• Project planning: Setting up and managing the workflow, design, procurement, pre-construction tools, and tools to track permits and participants.

• Budget management: Managing budgets and invoices and having the tools to track them and issue them at any time.

• Document management: Tools that allow users to store and share drawings, specifications, invoices, and other documents, internally and with clients.

• Communication tools: Tools that provide instant chat, email integrations, project threads, and ways to conduct and maintain client communication.

• Mobile accessibility: An interface that’s optimized for mobile devices, be it through a mobile app or a mobile-friendly website or platform.

• Reporting and analytics: Tools that provide quick and in-depth analytics and custom reports through dedicated dashboards.

Businesses that leverage this type of software can conduct and maintain projects efficiently without the project management headache that usually ensues.

For example, a construction firm can set up a client project within their chosen software. They can then work through project planning, building the foundation, and managing financial aspects like budgeting and invoicing. Having a platform that hosts multiple projects allows them to move forward confidently, knowing all their documents and plans are organized and that their clients have the option of full visibility.

Assessing these tools based on the features above is likely not enough to base a decision on, as the majority offer features that more or less do the same thing in different ways. So to further narrow down the solutions, I was looking at the following criteria:

• User experience: I used this to assess how easy it is for a novice user to learn the software and how easy it is for veterans to navigate it. This criterion also clarifies how satisfied users generally are with the software and its features.

• Customization: Some projects require a different setup, be it to accommodate larger clients and projects or to highlight very specific items in reports. This piece assesses just how flexible and customizable the software can be, from specific project management features and tools to reports and analytics.

• Range of features: There’s a lot to be done in a construction project. This criterion helped me pinpoint which construction management software provides a feature for every step of the way.

Based on those criteria, and along with research, demos, and conversations with real users, here are my picks for the best construction management software.

The best construction management software at a glance

The industry standard construction management software

Procore (Web, iOS, Android)

Procore pros:

• Comprehensive set of features

• Best for handling multiple large projects

• Advanced user access and collaboration features

Procore cons:

Procore seems to have dominated the construction management software industry for quite some time, becoming one of the industry standards and almost everyone’s go-to solution.

And for good reason. Procore is an advanced, comprehensive app that goes above and beyond in terms of the collaboration tools it provides. That makes it an ideal solution for large construction companies managing multiple projects and clients at the same time. For example, you’re able to customize each user’s experience on each project, assigning them permissions to certain tools, pages, and documents. This makes it easier to share private documents in-house while giving third-party partners and clients access to everything they need.

One big caveat: user satisfaction with the platform isn’t at the level it should be for such a developed platform. Having said that, this seems to be mainly due to the pricing, which seems to be out of range for small and medium-sized companies. It feels as though it was designed to accommodate industry giants rather than smaller players in the field.

Many users find that a smaller solution at a more affordable price that allows them to do almost everything Procore does is a better investment. Sure, it’s rich with features, but it can be difficult to learn and set up, and it’s only valuable if you can make use of all it offers. Otherwise, it’ll be just like having more fancy toys than you can ever use—ones you keep paying for.

Procore pricing: By request

Best construction management software for all-around functionality

Contractor Foreman (Web, iOS, Android)

Contractor Foreman pros:

Contractor Foreman cons:

Contractor Foreman does a great job of providing easy-to-learn construction management software at an affordable price. Its features cover every aspect a construction firm could need, with ample room for customization.

The downside? There seems to be a sentiment of dissatisfaction with certain buggy elements within the software, namely the time-tracking and estimates features. It’s usually along the lines of “I love the estimates feature; it’s just a shame that it can be buggy.” So, while there’s value there, the user experience appears somewhat shaky.   

But even with that in mind, users seem to be flocking toward Contractor Foreman as a substitute for enormous and expensive construction management software. If a platform offers the tools you need at a cheaper price, it doesn’t make sense to stick to the shiny solution with 55+ tools you’ll never use. 

Ultimately, the appeal is understandable. Contractor Foreman covers the needs of most construction SMBs at a reasonable price range. It’s easy to use, implement, and learn, making it one of the more popular choices out there.

Contractor Foreman pricing: Basic ($49/month); Standard ($79/month); Plus ($125/month); Pro ($166/month); Unlimited ($249/month)

Best construction management software for collaboration

Autodesk Construction Cloud (Web, iOS, Android)

Autodesk Construction Cloud pros:

Autodesk Construction Cloud cons:

There seems to be a sentiment on loop among Autodesk users, and it’s that Autodesk is overkill.

Is that a good or bad thing? Well, it depends on the business using it. Autodesk is built for massive projects and massive companies with a wide range of clients. Think of construction firms that undertake projects in different states and cities at the same time, ones with big teams and big needs.

Autodesk excels at creating an amazing user experience. The dashboard is simple and easy to navigate. Tools are organized in such a way that they don’t overwhelm users as they navigate the platform, with a straightforward interface that looks a lot like other CRMs or project management software users might be used to. 

Despite the ease of navigation, it’s not an easy tool to learn due to the sheer number of features and their complexity, but there are a lot of resources, guides, and helpful content that can help new users get over that hurdle. For example, a construction company considering Autodesk can access workflow guides to see how they can implement the software into their day-to-day operations and what they stand to gain.

Maybe the biggest obstacle for Autodesk for most users is that, in spite of its well-rounded features, it’s likely too expensive for many SMBs. But for those with the onboarding time, personnel, budget, need for complexity, and patience, this construction management platform is in its own class.

Autodesk Construction Cloud pricing: Bundles (by request); Autodesk Build Monthly; ($145/user/month); Annual ($1,625/user/year)

The best construction management software for value for money

Buildertrend (Web, iOS, Android)

Buildertrend pros:

Buildertrend cons:

• Challenging automation and reporting features

• Limited customization of the client experience/interface

• Lack of integration capabilities with popular cloud storage solutions

Most popular among residential construction companies, Buildertrend offers great and easy-to-use features for project scheduling, client comms, and budgeting. Whitney Hill, the CEO of SnapADU, shared with me that “the recent enhancements in budget tracking have given the team more flexibility and improved their financial oversight.” They’re also fond of the mobile app experience, as it provides their superintendents with seamless on-the-go management.

She also argued that its reporting tools could be more comprehensive or robust and that its financial/budgeting management tools don’t quite measure up to bigger competitors. And there are a few other drawbacks: some key feature enhancements seem slow, leaving them wanting more in terms of automation and tailored client interfaces, and it doesn’t integrate with popular cloud storage solutions despite the comprehensive document management tools.

Here’s the thing: Buildertrend provides great value for its pricing. They update/enhance the platform and the features frequently, too, which tells me that Buildertrend will only get better over time and that user concerns are on the team’s radar. 

Buildertrend pricing: Essential ($199/month; $499/month after 1 month); Advanced ($499/month; $799/month after 1 month); Complete ($799/month; $1,099/month after 1 month)

The best construction management software for ease of use

Fieldwire (Web, iOS, Android)

Fieldwire pros:

Fieldwire cons:

Fieldwire excels at managing on-site tasks and providing teams with a mobile app that can keep them in the loop from start to finish and top to bottom. It’s easy to set up and navigate, even for the not-so-tech-forward folks.

Fieldwire’s support team gets a huge vote of confidence, as users say they consistently support users and actively tweak and add new features as needed.

That said, Fieldwire seems generally preferred for its on-site capabilities. Some users mix solutions, leveraging Fieldwire for on-site needs and another app for more in-depth project management.

Fieldwire is especially unique for its ease of use. It’s difficult to get some crews and partners involved in projects to adopt new software, but users say that Fieldwire’s ease of use makes it a less painful experience. Its efficiency—especially with on-site task management—makes it a very easy product to learn.

If your firm deploys crews to work on projects that require onsite paperwork or communication, Fieldwire provides exactly what you need at a great price. But if your business requires more of a focus on the project management side of things, it might not be the best fit for you, unless you pair it with another app.

Fieldwire pricing: Basic (Free); Pro ($39/user/month); Business ($59/user/month); Business Plus ($79/user/month)

Other flexible tools you could use for construction management

The construction world is massive, and its needs, in most cases, require very specialized software. But that’s not to say it can’t be done with a more generalist tool.

Lots of construction managers use popular and flexible project management tools that aren’t made for the construction industry—and it’s effective. Here are a few juggernauts that folks in construction say can help you manage your projects, especially if you’re working on a budget.

• ClickUp: ClickUp is a versatile platform, with some users noting that there are far too many ways to use it. This makes it industry-flexible, but a bit overwhelming, especially for new adopters. It also has a great free plan.

• monday.com: Like ClickUp, monday.com is feature rich and flexible—and it’s known for its advanced reporting.

• Zoho: Zoho has more than 70 different apps in its suite, and project management and customer billing are some of its strengths. 

For more project management apps that can help construction managers, take a look at the best free project management software, the best project management software for small business, and the best enterprise project management software.

How to leverage construction management software to its full potential

In my journey through user reviews, expert input, and shady Reddit recommendations, I’ve found that a huge factor in how businesses choose one construction management software over another is the balance between features and price.

That may sound obvious, but it matters on this scale. A construction giant won’t be able to leverage smaller solutions to accommodate their needs, and SMBs won’t be able to invest in a shiny solution they won’t use 80% of anyway.

The key is to find construction management software that you can confidently implement, onboard, scale, and afford long term. 

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You could argue that pretty much all analytics are meant to be predictive. Isn’t the point of analyzing past performance, on some level, to project future performance? (I guess you could just be nostalgic for the metrics underlying your favorite past fiscal quarter.)

As a dedicated tool class, however, predictive analytics software helps analysts of all kinds see what past data says about the future. While tools like these can’t tell you what will happen, they can tell you what massive amounts of data suggest is likely to happen.

So whether you’re in marketing, UX, risk management, manufacturing, or any other industry that the future matters to, predictive analytics tools like the ones I break down below should help you get the data-driven insights you need to make better decisions.

The best predictive analytics software

What makes the best predictive analytics software?

If you’re just looking for data management, reporting, visualization, or analytics tools, there are hundreds—if not thousands—of apps to choose from. Some of these solutions may include some forecasting capabilities, utilities that help analysts apply their own algorithms or AI processes, or tools for developing machine learning (ML) models to then use to perform predictive analytics.

For the purposes of this piece, I’m excluding all those tools. I’m defining predictive analytics software as platforms that have:

• Predictive focus: The focus of the software should be on performing predictive analytics for the user, not just giving the user tools to perform their own predictive analyses.

• Standalone utility: It should be accessible on its own without a subscription to a broader software product like a CRM or an ERP.

• Integrated ML and AI: Machine learning and AI should be primary features for enhancing predictive models, not just formatting data or automating workflows. It should also be able to apply native predictive models.

• Diversified data sourcing: The software should be able to draw data from a range of sources rather than one singular platform or proprietary repository.

Note: I’m also choosing to exclude media marketing mix (MMM) software from this list. Even though MMMs definitely meet the criteria, their use cases are a little too narrow.

Due to the richness and complexity of this software, I wasn’t able to personally test every app. So in addition to testing the apps I could, to improve the diversity and depth of my research, I also relied on product descriptions, third-party reviews, demos, and exchanges with marketing and data science professionals.

The best predictive analytics software at a glance

Best open source predictive analytics software

Prophet (Web)

Prophet pros:

Prophet cons:

• May strain resources for large data sets or complex forecasts

• Lacks advanced forecasting capabilities

• No multivariate forecasting capabilities

Admittedly, Prophet isn’t exactly a predictive analytics platform—it’s actually an open source Python procedure for automatic forecasting. But who’s counting?

A product of Facebook’s Core Data Science team, Prophet lives up to its name by forecasting time series data that’s easily broken down daily, weekly, and yearly with strong seasonal effects spanning multiple seasons of historical data. According to Aksinia Chumachenko, team lead product analyst for Simpals, “Prophet stands out due to its automated seasonal pattern detection, flexibility in handling holidays and events, robustness to missing data and outliers, and ease of use with minimal parameter tuning.” Aksinia also pointed out that it readily integrates with popular data analysis ecosystems.

Available for Python 3.7 and later, Prophet is a simple solution that’s readily available and easy to deploy. As an automatic forecasting procedure, it gives analysts an efficient, scalable way to help their organizations set goals and allocate resources more effectively.

As an open source option, Prophet isn’t the perfect predictive analytics solution for every user. Aksinia noted that it can be pretty demanding on systems when data scale and complexity increase, and it lacks advanced forecasting capabilities. But for those with simple forecasting needs, it could be a great (read: free) option.

Prophet pricing: Free

Best predictive analytics software for user decisions

Scios (Web)

Scios pros:

• Creates digital environments for predictive user decisions

• Slick, user-friendly interface

• Combines granular data from various sources with macroeconomic data

Scios cons:

You could manually finagle your data to show you some potential numerical outcomes to map a narrative onto—or you could use Scios.

What makes Scios unique is that it’s not a predictive analytics solution so much as it is a decision intelligence solution. Designed to show users what people would do in a hypothetical scenario, it creates digital “twins” of markets, populates them with virtual consumers, and runs input scenarios. 

Based on behavioral economics, Scios provides AI-powered insights in a slick dashboard that’s easy to navigate. Using diverse data sources, the platform injects real (or as real as data-modeled AI can get) human motivations into its virtual markets that make decisions and progress through journeys with data-driven probability. This lets you do things like find out which kinds of features your market is interested in, test update concepts, and gauge adoption likelihood. 

Rather than showing you data narratives, Scios allows you to run scenarios to test for specific outcomes of interest. It’s a little like playing God in a way that’s almost not at all creepy; it can be hugely valuable for establishing trustworthy projections and identifying possible problems in your product. With over 300 user prediction models, there’s enough granularity to align virtual consumer actions with your unique data needs. 

Obviously, Scios doesn’t specialize in creating the kinds of forecast trend reporting that many of the other tools on this list do, so it’s not for everyone. But if you’re really interested in analyzing hypothetical user behavior, Scios is for you.

Scios pricing: By request

Best predictive analytics software for automated forecasting

SAS Viya (Web, iOS, Android)

SAS Viya pros:

SAS Viya cons:

SAS is truly one of the forebears of data management software, so it’s hard not to include one of their products on this list. Admittedly more of a general data visualization platform, SAS Viya also has powerful automated forecasting features.

SAS Viya is almost more of a data automation engine than anything else, which makes its forecasting utility pretty compelling. The platform allows you to generate automated forecasts and visualizations based on your data, essentially hands-free. Since you don’t have to spend resources developing and tweaking forecasting models, you can save a SAS-load of time and reduce potential human bias. You can even tailor modeling techniques to individual data segments to stay flexible as you scale your data across time series.

While this automated forecasting is designed to be as automatic as possible, it’s also not completely rigid. You can feed it any known events like holidays or seasonalities to help shape the forecasts to your industry. Or, you can get your hands dirty and apply your own industry knowledge to manually override outcomes.

Does SAS Viya have the prettiest dashboard? No. Is it the easiest software to learn and deploy? Also no. Is it incredibly fast and responsive? Still no. But those nos are because this is complex, powerful software. It may take a while to onboard effectively, but once it’s up and running, it can pay for itself in insights and time savings. 

SAS Viya pricing: By usage

Best predictive analytics tool for people analytics

One Model (Web)

One Model pros:

One Model cons:

HR teams may struggle to retrofit most predictive analytics platforms into their people analytics processes—except for One Model, a dedicated people analytics tool.

Traditional employee management software can be great assets for overseeing practical elements of HR processes and collecting data points, but they have their limitations when it comes to managing that data. One Model allows teams to connect HRIS systems and turn that people data into actionable insights.

Since One Model is an analytics tool tailored specifically to the people analytics space, it has richer data features than just about any other HR tool and more utility for HR use cases than just about any other predictive analytics tool. Packed with plug-and-play analytics and predictive modeling, it automatically ingests data from wherever you house your HR data. 

Since it’s such a niche tool, I found One Model to be surprisingly flexible. One Model’s data visualizations are sharp, and you can create new data views on the fly to present data the way you want to see it. You can even manipulate metrics manually (say that five times fast), integrate with other preferred business intelligence platforms, and export findings to internal repositories. 

At the core of One Model is One AI, its proprietary end-to-end AI platform. For HR teams without their own suite of data scientists, One AI can pick optimal predictive models on its own, apply those models, and integrate outcomes into storyboards, so they’re instantly actionable. If there’s ever any question about a storyboard, you can easily trace any forecast to its core data point. It also has built-in bias detection and removal capabilities for both training and prediction data, which can really help keep models accurate and equitable. And if you’ve got your own models, you can use those, too.

One Model is such a user-friendly, adaptable tool that I almost wish it was a more generalized predictive analytics product. But for those who need predictive people analytics, this should be a go-to solution.

One Model pricing: By request

Best predictive analytics software for generative AI

SAP Analytics Cloud (Web, iOS, Android)

SAP Analytics Cloud pros:

SAP Analytics Cloud cons:

I almost didn’t include this tool because it’s a more general analytics platform, combining BI, analytics augmentation, and enterprise planning capabilities. But SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) has such strong predictive features that it’d be a shame not to mention it.

SAC is a built-in data utility offering for other SAP Cloud products, but it can also link to existing solutions and non-SAP sources to import and replicate siloed data or augment non-replicated live data. Once integrated, SAP makes it incredibly easy to visualize analytics with drag-and-drop dashboards you can build in minutes. 

While none of the above is necessarily unique, what makes SAP stand out is how well it integrates generative AI into its offering with Joule, the platform’s AI companion bot. For example, while creating reporting dashboards, you can ask Joule to come up with code to apply advanced features like timeline toggling, then drop the code into the dashboard editor and make it happen. 

You can also ask it questions like you would any other AI chatbot to get human-language insights into your data, alter data models, generate visualizations, and get tips. Taking this into predictive use cases, you can also use Joule to run simulations, automate forecasts, and even generate business plans based on findings.

Between Joule and SAC’s highly intuitive interface, the software makes it easy to manually run and automate predictive forecasts. You can choose between linear regression or triple exponential smoothing to help make allowances for complexities like seasonality. Graphs readily visualize historical data, trend projections, forecasts according to the period you preset, and confidence intervals, which you can click to drill further into.

SAC doesn’t necessarily do things other tools on this list can’t in terms of raw utility, but if you’re after the simplicity of integrated AI, SAC and the Joule copilot are meant for you. (Yes, that’s a very out-of-place Jewel reference.)

SAP Analytics Cloud pricing: $396/user/year

Best predictive analytics tool for interactive forecasting

Qlik (Web, Android)

Qlik pros:

Qlik cons:

I can’t decide if I love Qlik’s name or hate it, but one thing I have decided is that it’s a handy predictive analytics solution.

Aside from its propensity toward arguably overly clever spelling quirks (Staige 👀), Qlik is a slick data integration platform with useful predictive analytics features. Designed to bring no-code machine learning modeling and automation to relatively non-technical users, Qlik is designed to make analytical processes as simple as possible. 

That extends to its automated ML (aptly titled AutoML) application, which can nearly instantly find algorithms to apply optimal ML models to your unique data sets. You can then tinker with these models, test them, score them, and rank them so you can prioritize the ones that work best. Qlik is also serious about transparency, so you can funnel down through every data level to find the core of its predictions with SHAP values that tell the full story.

All those features make Qlik a good predictive analytics product, but what makes it really shine is the interactivity of its reporting dashboards. By loading your predictive analytics into Qlik Sense® (oddly spelled the way you’d expect it to be, which I didn’t expect), you can make predictive apps that bring that data to life. From there, Qlik can calculate data live as you interact with charts, graphs, maps, and other visualizations, helping you explore and report on your data more fully.

Qlik has secured a comfortable place in the niche of self-service users. It’s convenient for data exploration and handy for analytics automation, but advanced users might find that it’s got its hiccups with data load speeds and occasional programming roadblocks. And while pricing isn’t transparent, the word on the Reddit streets is that it’s one of the lower-priced options out there, so for growing enterprises with complex data processing needs, it may not be the best option.

Qlik pricing: By request

Which is the best predictive analytics software for you?

I may not be able to recommend the best predictive analytics software option for every user, but what I’ve at least tried to do here is highlight some standout use cases that could help you figure out which is worth looking into. 

It’s worth noting that this is by no means an exhaustive list of good (or even great) predictive analytics tools. I had to exclude quite a few just to stick to pretty defined criteria, and others may not have cracked the list because their top features were edged out by another option. 

While you whittle down your picks, remember that automating analytics tools helps you get more accurate results faster than ever—and Zapier can help. Its no-code automation connects thousands of apps, so you can do more with your data.

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I have no trouble admitting that I’m a productivity nerd. In my past life as a freelancer, I spent an unhealthy amount of time experimenting with what felt like every project management app on the market. And in my humble opinion, Asana and ClickUp are two of the best.

But while they might look similar at first glance, they’re definitely not interchangeable. The right tool for your needs comes down to what you value more: streamlined simplicity or feature-rich customizability.

I’ve already spent countless hours exploring and using these apps for my own business. But to update this article, I really dug in and thoroughly tested both platforms to see how they stack up.

Asana vs. ClickUp at a glance

The summary: 

• Asana is better if you want traditional project management with an easy learning curve and plenty of native integration options. 

• ClickUp is better if you want one customizable tool for doing all your work in one place. It’s also better for teams that don’t want to pay as much for more advanced features.

Here’s a quick comparison table for ClickUp vs. Asana, but keep reading to learn more about my experiences using each app.

ClickUp is more robust—but with a steeper learning curve

Asana is pretty solidly in the project management app category. ClickUp, on the other hand, has positioned itself as a customizable WorkOS.

But…what even is that? Basically, ClickUp wants to be “one app to replace them all”: a central workspace for collaboration and project management, so users don’t need to constantly bounce between apps and browser tabs. Going beyond simple project management, ClickUp is a work management tool: a project management tool, shared inbox, to-do list, internal knowledge base, whiteboard, chat app, and OKR tracker all in one. And then some.

When it comes to standard project management, both Asana and ClickUp offer the typical views to display your projects: list, board, timeline (Gantt), and calendar views. Here’s what a board looks like in Asana.

Other than the color scheme (and even that’s not all that different), ClickUp’s board view is pretty similar. 

But ClickUp goes well beyond the standard options. In ClickUp, you can embed views from other apps like Airtable and Miro, and even make changes to them within ClickUp. (Note that some of these embedded views, like Google Calendar, only allow you to track changes and not make modifications within ClickUp.)

There are also other unique features, like a documentation area, chat option, mind maps, and a digital whiteboard. While these aren’t traditional “views”—they don’t convert your tasks into a mind map or anything—it’s really nice to have these options built in.

The whiteboard feature even lets you quick-add embeds from Figma, YouTube, and Google Workspace, which makes it easy to create dynamic vision boards in a few minutes.

Within ClickUp, you have almost endless customization options. You can easily create custom dashboards to track anything from tasks to timesheets to custom embeds from around the web. ClickUp also contains multiple hierarchy levels, starting with Spaces for different teams or categories of work. Then, within each Space, you have the option to create individual Lists of tasks or items—or you can organize those Lists into separate Folders.

ClickUp also recently introduced ClickUp Brain, which is the platform’s native AI assistant that writes for you and answers questions about the content in your workspace. Asana also offers a basic AI assistant feature that summarizes tasks and suggests subtasks, but ClickUp’s is a bit more expansive.

Of course, if you’re using a project management app for the first time, or you’re just looking for something more traditional and easier to navigate, ClickUp’s options could be overwhelming. Personally, I find the Lists and Folders to be a little redundant. I experienced almost immediate decision fatigue when I was trying to set up my ClickUp workspace for the first time. (For instance, should each client get their own List within a Folder, or should I put all my client work into a single List?) But for larger teams that need complex data hierarchies, I can definitely see the value.

Asana’s views and features are more than enough for true project management, even at a large organization, so it can be the better choice if you want to go the more traditional route.

Asana is easier to set up and more intuitive to use

The simplicity of Asana’s features is echoed in its usability: clear navigation and labels, along with a contrasting color palette, make it pretty easy to find your way around. ClickUp, on the other hand, uses some obscure labels (“LineUp” and “Trending,” for example), and all the options can make it hard to find what you’re looking for.

Asana’s side navigation menu is simple, with several icons and labels to take you to wherever you need to go, whether that’s your tasks, reporting, or anything else. And if you get lost, it’s easy to find your way back to the home screen, where you’ll find your priorities, recent projects, and collaborators. Asana’s HQ is set up pretty nicely, with a customizable background and widgets that you can arrange to your liking.

Within a project, there’s a simple Add task button, or you can click into any section and add a task directly into it.

From there, it’s easy to drag and drop tasks, so they’re in the right section and order. Once you’ve created a task, you can add subtasks, assignees, and a due date, each in a click. 

It’s also easy to color-code your tasks or events in the calendar view, so they stand out a bit more and are easier to parse. 

None of this is novel or surprising, but that’s the point: Asana does exactly what you expect it to, which makes it easy to navigate.

ClickUp’s interface, on the other hand, isn’t as intuitive. For starters, from a distance, ClickUp seems a little like a blank piece of paper. Everything kind of looks like it’s written in pencil, with fine fonts and a lot of light gray. I will say, though, that the home page has improved in recent months. It’s now a dashboard with customizable widgets, so you can choose which views work best for you. But again, that leaves a lot of upfront work to you as you set up your ideal workspace—and the default home dashboard can easily get too busy.

One thing ClickUp’s interface has going for it is the task tray in the top-right corner. No matter where you are in the app, you can create a new task or doc, add a note or reminder, create a video clip, or pull up your calendar. I also appreciate that you can sync your Google Calendar to ClickUp so that your upcoming events appear on your agenda alongside ClickUp tasks.

All the must-haves are there in ClickUp, but because of the design—and the overwhelming number of features—it’s a bit harder to find your way around. 

ClickUp has highly customizable automation options on the free plan, while Asana’s require a paid subscription 

Even if you’ve never automated anything before, it’s simple to get started with ClickUp’s pre-built automation templates. Then, once you’ve got the hang of it, you can create your own custom automations based on whatever trigger and condition you want. Automatically change assignees, priorities, or task statuses based on any sort of custom logic.

Both apps offer solid built-in automation, but with Asana, you can only access them on paid plans. The Premium plan (at $10.99/user/month) gives you access to a few pre-set rules, forms, and templates—but if you want to create your own automation workflows, you’ll need to pay $24.99/user/month for the top-tier Business plan. Depending on how many users you have, that can add up quickly.

ClickUp, on the other hand, offers its customizable automations for free (you get 100 automations/month on the free plan, and it bumps up to 1,000 for only $5/user/month).

ClickUp has a robust free plan, but it can be too complex for new users 

ClickUp’s free plan is incredibly generous. You can set unlimited tasks and register as many users as you want (Asana’s free plan is limited to 10 users), so even if you have a large team, you can get a complete picture of how ClickUp works without spending a dime. And unlike Asana, ClickUp has a whole host of complex features included in the free plan, including sprints, mind maps, dependencies, and embedded spreadsheets. You also have access to more view types, custom fields, and templates, not to mention the customizable automations I mentioned earlier.

But depending on your use case, you might not need or even want all that. The free plan on Asana is more than enough for a small team doing basic project management—and it’s easier to work with if that’s you.

Asana has more native integrations, but both Asana and ClickUp integrate with Zapier

Any project management app becomes more powerful when you can connect it to the other apps in your tech stack. Both Asana and ClickUp offer native integrations in their free plans. Asana natively integrates with an impressive list of over 200 apps, while ClickUp connects with closer to 50.

But because both Asana and ClickUp integrate with Zapier, you’ll be able to connect them with thousands of other tools too, so you can automatically add tasks to your project management app or set off workflows whenever you mark a task as complete. Learn more about how to automate Asana and how to automate ClickUp, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

ClickUp or Asana: Which should you use? 

The right platform for you comes down to what you need and what will help you get your work done most efficiently. 

Choose Asana if: 

• You’re new to project management apps 

• You want a traditional project management tool

• You prefer simplicity and get frustrated by bloated apps

• You’re a small team (or don’t mind paying for more than 10 users)

Choose ClickUp if: 

ClickUp is one of the best Asana alternatives for people who want more from their project management software, but Asana is still the old reliable that many teams—including Zapier—use for their project management.

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This article was originally published in June 2022 by Holly Stanley. The most recent update was in April 2024.