IFTTT Pro Subscription Ditches One Trigger, One Action Limit

Smart assistants today let us do many things with our voice or sometimes a tap or two but the things they allow are often dictated by product manufactures and service providers only. Long before these home automation platforms came to be, IFTTT, short for "If This Then That", democratized connecting web services or even smart appliances together. It always has had one hard limit but now you can go beyond IFTTT's simple operation. That is if you're willing to pay the literal price.

IFTTT is simple in principle but admittedly a bit difficult to grasp for those without much tech background. The Internet-based service lets you connect a trigger, which may come from a smart thermostat or a new post on Twitter, with an action, like turning on your light, sending an email, or even playing music. IFTTT has always been free but it comes with one important limit. You can only map one trigger to one action.

The new IFTTT Pro subscription does away with that and you can create an Applet, what the service calls these automations, that connect multiple data sources to multiple actions in one go. This is pretty much what the likes of Google Assistant or Apple HomeKit call Scenes and Routines and simply lets you group together related tasks.

That may sound like an acceptable pro perk but one change in the service may prove to be more controversial. Subscribers will be allowed to create as many Applets as they want but those on the standard free tier can create only three. They can still turn on and use an unlimited number of Applets, though, so casual users might not mind that much.

IFTTT Pro will cost $9.99, which looks pricey for a relatively new subscription plan. The company promises that it will be a worthwhile investment that will help the company improve its services and automations. For a limited time until October 7, however, IFTTT Pro will let you set your own monthly price, as long as that price is at least $1.99.