“Build any business software, remarkably fast”
Retool is a game-changer for developers, empowering them to swiftly develop internal apps. By utilizing its user-friendly drag-and-drop components, you can rapidly create commonly-used applications such as admin dashboards, database GUIs, and mobile apps. Moreover, Retool allows effortless customization, enabling you to align your applications perfectly with your company's specific needs using code.
Retool stands out as a dedicated developer tool, requiring proficiency in JS and SQL for effective utilization. It caters to technical individuals, setting it apart from other low-code platforms that prioritize non-technical users. These platforms often sacrifice functionality customization despite their ease of building.
Retool remains committed to preserving coding flexibility, streamlining repetitive development tasks that consume valuable developer time.
How to use Retool?
Retool works by providing developers with a powerful platform to build tools quickly and efficiently.
Here's how it operates:
User-Friendly Interface: Retool offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that allows developers to create applications without extensive coding.
- Data Source Integration: It connects seamlessly with various databases and external resources, including PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, Stripe, and more, enabling to query and manipulate data.
- Customization with Code: While Retool simplifies the process with its drag-and-drop components, it also allows developers to customize applications further using JavaScript.
- 45 Native Integrations: Retool comes with 45 native integrations for popular external resources and services, making it easier to incorporate data and functionalities from different sources.
- Data Visualization: Retool offers a range of data visualization components, including charts, tables, and maps, enabling developers to create compelling and interactive visualizations of their data.
- For more advanced customization and scripting, Retool provides built-in JavaScript edits, allowing developers to add custom logic and functionality to their applications.
- Deployment Options: Retool can be deployed to various environments, providing flexibility and scalability for different use cases, whether it be on-premises, cloud, or Kubernetes.
Who can use Retool?
Actually all types of businesses, from startups to enterprises.
Retool is primarily made for developers and technical experts who possess proficiency in programming languages like JavaScript and SQL. It targets individuals who are comfortable with coding and provides them with a versatile platform to construct internal tools quickly and effectively.
While Retool offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface for ease of use, it also allows developers to delve deeper into customization by leveraging their coding skills. This flexibility empowers developers to create complex applications tailored to their organization's unique requirements.
By catering to technical professionals, Retool emphasizes providing a developer-focused experience. It offers features and integrations that enable seamless data connectivity with various databases and external resources.
A typical use case for Retool is to quickly test your ideas and develop projects like Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) or Proof of Concepts (PoCs). In 2023, we successfully assisted our customers in testing their ideas within a couple of days and with a low development budget.
Retool Dashboards
Retool Dashboards refer to the interactive and customizable visual representations of data and applications that can be created using the Retool platform. Retool Dashboards allow users to compile various data sources, visualize information in charts, tables, and maps, and build user interfaces for internal tools and applications.
With Retool Dashboards, users can create dynamic and real-time data displays, providing valuable insights and analytics to stakeholders. These dashboards can be tailored to specific business needs, enabling organizations to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), track metrics, and make informed decisions based on data visualization.
By leveraging the power of Retool's features and capabilities, developers can quickly build sophisticated and user-friendly dashboards for their internal applications, enhancing productivity and efficiency across the organization.
Mobile Internal Tools
Retool Mobile accelerates native iOS and Android app development, supporting JavaScript and SQL for instant creation and deployment. It seamlessly connects to various databases and APIs, allowing the building of customizable apps, harnessing native features like photos, scanning, geolocation, and NFC tag reading with a visual editor and code power.
Here is the case study where we created a mobile app using Retool.
Retool workflows
Retool workflows are composed of interconnected queries or code blocks (JavaScript,Python). Choose how you want your workflow to run, via a cron schedule or webhook. Integrate seamlessly with any database or API. Visualize your data paths instantly by connecting, rearranging, and duplicating blocks on the canvas. Modify data with JavaScript to handle complex conditional logic, string transformations, and more.
Retool offers pre-built building blocks for simple logic, while Loop, Filter, and Branch blocks accelerate common patterns. Automate tasks, alerts, notifications, and data updates. Move data wherever needed.
Exciting new features include On-prem hosting, Python support, Webhook responses, Custom libraries. Empower your development with Retool's enhanced capabilities.
Retool Templates
Retool templates are pre-built and ready-to-use application templates offered by the Retool platform. These templates serve as starting points for developers and help accelerate the development process of various internal tools and applications. Instead of starting from scratch, developers can use these templates as a foundation and customize them to suit their specific needs.
Retool provides a wide range of templates designed to cater to different use cases and industries. These templates cover common internal applications like admin dashboards, database management tools, customer support tools, reporting dashboards, and more.
By utilizing Retool templates, developers can save significant time and effort in building their applications. They can access a library of templates that are pre-configured with relevant components, data integrations, and logic, allowing them to focus on customization and fine-tuning.
Templates in Retool can be easily modified to match the unique requirements of an organization, making it a valuable resource for streamlining the development process and creating powerful internal tools efficiently.
Currently, there are 230+ pre-built templates available.
Retool Portals
With Retool's portal feature, you can build custom portals in a matter of hours, not months, creating dedicated portals and apps for customers, vendors, and partners to elevate their experience. The drag-and-drop interface offers over 100 UI components and end-to-end branding for effortless construction of personalized client portals.
Retool allows incorporating code across the platform for updates, data transformation, and business logic management. Provide customers with a secure, tailored way to interact independently with company data, products, and services. Out-of-the-box access controls, user management, and security ensure relevant data visibility.
This feature enhances brand identity with custom domains, themes, branded signup, login pages, emails, and onboarding. Retool's portal feature is available for business and enterprise plans, empowering you to create exceptional stakeholder experiences.
Learn more on how we created an internal admin portal using Retool in 48 hours.
Retool $25k for StartUps program
Startups, whether bootstrapped, angel-funded, debt-funded, pre-seed, seed, or Series A, and founded within the last 10 years, as well as new and existing customers on the Free plan, can receive up to $25K in Retool credits for a year. These credits can be utilized to automate manual tasks with custom internal tools. This approach exemplifies Retool's strategy in assisting startups to operate more efficiently and achieve faster growth through the use of internal tools.
Retool Pricing
The pricing for Retool starts at $10.0 per user per month. There are 2 types of users in Retool - standard user (can make edits and create workflows) and end user (can’t make any edits).
Retool has 4 different plans:
- Free, limited in number of features and up to 5 users
- Team at $10/month for standard user and $5/month for end user
- Business at $50/month for standard user and $15/month for end user
- Enterprise at $100/month for standard user and $25/month for end user
To learn more about Retool pricing you can visit this page.
What are Retool alternatives?
The low-code industry is experiencing rapid development, with new products regularly emerging on the market, posing competition to Retool. Our main competitors include:
We have published a detailed article highlighting 10 low-code platforms to consider for use in 2023. This article provides in-depth descriptions of their features and functionalities.
What is Retool as a company?
Retool was founded in 2017 by David Hsu and Greg Koberger. David Hsu had prior experience at Google, while Greg Koberger was an early Airbnb employee. Both had extensive software development backgrounds and understood the challenges developers encountered when creating internal tools.
The platform swiftly gained traction in the developer community, experiencing rapid user base growth. Its popularity stemmed from its capability to connect to various data sources, databases, and APIs, alongside its visual editor and code integration.
Currently, Retool boasts 340+ employees, 50+ enterprise customers, including Fortune 500 companies like Amazon and Boeing, and has raised a total of $141m in funding.
What is Retool not so good for?
While Retool is a powerful platform for building web and mobile applications, there are some scenarios where it may not be the most suitable choice. Here are some aspects where Retool might not be the best fit:
- While Retool offers a lot of flexibility, it may not be the ideal choice for extremely complex applications that require extensive customizations and integrations beyond its capabilities.
- For large-scale enterprise applications with complex workflows and thousands of users, a more specialized and scalable solution might be preferred.
- If your application requires real-time data updates or involves heavy computational processes, other dedicated platforms might be better suited.
- While Retool offers pre-built UI components and some branding elements, it might not be the ideal choice for those seeking highly customized and unique user interface designs.
It's essential to carefully evaluate your project requirements and consider factors such as scale, complexity, performance, and specific needs before choosing any development platform, including Retool. While Retool is an excellent choice for many use cases, it's essential to ensure that it aligns with your specific project goals and requirements.
Summary
To summarize, Retool is a potent platform offering a wide range of products that expedite internal tool development for developers. With Retool, companies can create apps within hours and days, maintaining technical excellence without compromising efficiency.
Retool is ideal for crafting a variety of internal tools, from simple to advanced. It seamlessly integrates data from all sources to build practical, functional apps facilitating data reading, writing, and action across the company.
Competitively positioned, Retool surpasses its rivals with a comprehensive suite of products and a well-established product and support team.
If you require further consultation for your specific project, reach out to us. We are an international software development company with over 7 years of experience in low-code development, including 2 years of expertise in Retool development.
Retool Dashboards with HubSpot Integration
Our client needed a centralized tool to aggregate account and contact activity, improving visibility and decision-making for the sales team.
The solution
We built a Retool application integrated with HubSpot, QuickMail, and Clay.com. The app features dashboards for sorting, filtering, and detailed views of companies, contacts, and deals, along with real-time notifications and bidirectional data syncing.
The result
- MVP in 50 hours: Delivered a functional application in just 50 hours.
- Smarter decisions: Enabled data-driven insights for strategic planning.
- Streamlined operations: Reduced manual tasks with automation and real-time updates.
Lead Generation Tool to Reduce Manual Work
Our client, Afore Capital, a venture capital firm focused on pre-seed investments, aimed to automate their lead generation processes but struggled with existing out-of-the-box solutions. To tackle this challenge, they sought assistance from our team of Akveo Retool experts.
The scope of work
The client needed a tailored solution to log and track inbound deals effectively. They required an application that could facilitate the addition, viewing, and editing of company and founder information, ensuring data integrity and preventing duplicates. Additionally, Afore Capital aimed to integrate external tools like PhantomBuster and LinkedIn to streamline data collection.
The result
By developing a custom Retool application, we streamlined the lead generation process, significantly reducing manual data entry. The application enabled employees to manage inbound deals efficiently while automated workflows for email parsing, notifications, and dynamic reporting enhanced operational efficiency. This allowed Afore Capital's team to focus more on building relationships with potential founders rather than on administrative tasks.
Learn more about the case
Retool CMS Application for EdTech Startup
Our client, CutTime, a leading fine arts education management platform, needed a scalable CMS application to improve vendor product management and user experience.
The scope of work
We developed a Retool application that allows vendors to easily upload and manage product listings, handle inventory, and set shipping options. The challenge was to integrate the app with the client’s system, enabling smooth authentication and product management for program directors.
The result
Our solution streamlined product management, reducing manual work for vendors, and significantly improving operational efficiency.
Building Reconciliation Tool for e-commerce company
Our client was in need of streamlining and simplifying its monthly accounting reconciliation process – preferably automatically. But with a lack of time and low budget for a custom build, development of a comprehensive software wasn’t in the picture. After going through the case and customer’s needs, we decided to implement Retool. And that was the right choice.
The scope of work
Our team developed a custom reconciliation tool designed specifically for the needs of high-volume transaction environments. It automated the processes and provided a comprehensive dashboard for monitoring discrepancies and anomalies in real-time.
The implementation of Retool significantly reduced manual effort, as well as fostered a more efficient and time-saving reconciliation process.
Creating Retool Mobile App for a Wine Seller
A leading spirits and wine seller in Europe required the development of an internal mobile app for private client managers and administrators. The project was supposed to be done in 1,5 months. Considering urgency and the scope of work, our developers decided to use Retool for swift and effective development.
The scope of work
Our developers built a mobile application tailored to the needs of the company's sales force: with a comprehensive overview of client interactions, facilitated order processing, and enabled access to sales history and performance metrics. It was user-friendly, with real-time updates, seamlessly integrated with existing customer databases.
The result? Increase in productivity of the sales team and improved decision-making process. But most importantly, positive feedback from the customers themselves.
Developing PoC with Low Code for a Tour Operator
To efficiently gather, centralize, and manage data is a challenge for any tour operator. Our client was not an exception. The company was seeking to get an internal software that will source information from third-party APIs and automate the travel itinerary creation process. Preferably, cost- and user-friendly tool.
The scope of work
Our experts ensured the client that all the requirements could be covered by Retool. And just in 40 hours a new software was launched. The tool had a flexible and easy-to-use interface with user authentication and an access management system panel – all the company needed. At the end, Retool was considered the main tool to replace the existing system.
Testing New Generation of Lead Management Tool with Retool
Our client, a venture fund, had challenges with managing lead generation and client acquisition. As the company grew, it aimed to attract more clients and scale faster, as well as automate the processes to save time, improve efficiency and minimize human error. The idea was to craft an internal lead generation tool that will cover all the needs. We’ve agreed that Retool will be a perfect tool for this.
The scope of work
The project initially began as a proof of concept, but soon enough, with each new feature delivered, the company experienced increased engagement and value.
We developed a web tool that integrates seamlessly with Phantombuster for data extraction and LinkedIn for social outreach. Now, the company has a platform that elevates the efficiency of their lead generation activities and provides deep insights into potential client bases.
Building an Advanced Admin Portal for Streamlined Operations
Confronted with the need for more sophisticated internal tools, an owner of IP Licensing marketplace turned to Retool to utilize its administrative functions. The primary goal was to construct an advanced admin portal that could support complex, multi-layered processes efficiently.
The scope of work
Our client needed help with updating filters and tables for its internal platform. In just 30 hours we've been able to update and create about 6 pages. Following features were introduced: add complex filtering and search, delete records, styling application with custom CSS.
Together, we have increased performance on most heavy pages and fixed circular dependency issues.
Creating MVP Dashboard for Google Cloud Users
Facing the challenge of unoptimized cloud resource management, a technology firm working with Google Cloud users was looking for a solution to make its operations more efficient. The main idea of the project was to create an MVP for e-commerce shops to test some client hypotheses. Traditional cloud management tools fell short.
The scope of work
Determined to break through limitations, our team of developers turned Retool. We decided to craft an MVP Dashboard specifically for Google Cloud users. This wasn't just about bringing data into view; but about reshaping how teams interact with their cloud environment.
We designed a dashboard that turned complex cloud data into a clear, strategic asset thanks to comprehensive analytics, tailored metrics, and an intuitive interface, that Retool provides. As the results, an increase in operational efficiency, significant improvement in cost management and resource optimization.
Elevating CRM with Custom HubSpot Sales Dashboard
Our other client, a SaaS startup, that offers collaborative tools for design and engineering teams, was on a quest to supercharge their sales efforts. Traditional CRM systems were limited and not customizable enough. The company sought a solution that could tailor HubSpot to their workflow and analytics needs.
The scope of work
Charged with the task of going beyond standard CRM functions, our team turned to Retool. We wanted to redefine how sales teams interact with their CRM.
By integrating advanced analytics, custom metrics, and a user-friendly interface, our developers provided a solution that transformed data into a strategic asset.
In 40 hours, three informative dashboards were developed, containing the most sensitive data related to sales activities. These dashboards enable our customer to analyze sales and lead generation performance from a different perspective and establish the appropriate KPIs.
Building a PDF Editor with Low-Code
Our client, a leading digital credential IT startup, needed a lot of internal processes to be optimized. But the experience with low-code tools wasn’t sufficient. That’s why the company decided to hire professionals. And our team of developers joined the project.
The scope of work
The client has a program that designs and prints custom badges for customers. The badges need to be “mail-merged” with a person’s info and turned into a PDF to print. But what is the best way to do it?
Our developers decided to use Retool as a core tool. Using custom components and JavaScript, we developed a program that reduced employees' time for designing, putting the data, verifying, and printing PDF badges in one application.
As a result, the new approach significantly reduces the time required by the internal team to organize all the necessary staff for the conference, including badge creation.
