How to Generate Bannerbear Images with Zapier (No Code Required)
Want to automatically generate dynamic images without writing a single line of code? In this tutorial, you'll learn how to connect Bannerbear to any data source using Zapier — and build a fully automated image generation workflow in minutes. We'll walk through a real example: a three-step Zap that pulls a daily quote from the ZenQuotes API and turns it into a unique, on-brand image using a Bannerbear template.
Here's what we cover:
• What you need to get started
• Designing a Bannerbear template for your images
• Building a three-step Zapier workflow from scratch
• Fetching live data with the Webhooks app
• Connecting Bannerbear and mapping your data to the template
• Testing and publishing your Zap
Once you've got this set up, you can swap in any data source — Airtable, Google Sheets, email triggers, webhooks — and the workflow stays exactly the same.
🔗 Resources:
• Bannerbear: https://www.bannerbear.com (https://www.bannerbear.com/)
• ZenQuotes API: https://zenquotes.io (https://zenquotes.io/)
• Zapier: https://www.zapier.com (https://www.zapier.com/)
If this helped you, hit the like button and subscribe for more no-code automation tutorials!
Video Transcription
[00:00:00] When you need a quick code-free way to connect apps and automate workflows, Zapier is the obvious choice. Thousands of apps, an intuitive interface, and you can build a workflow in minutes without touching a line of code. And here's the thing, generating dynamic images, just as easy. Connect Bannerbear to a data source, set a trigger, and you're done.
Today, we're building a three-step workflow. Every day, it will grab a quote from the ZenQuotes API and turn it into a Bannerbear image. Here's what we'll need: a ZenQuotes request URL, a Bannerbear template, and a paid Zapier account. ZenQuotes has a few options on their site, but we'll use the simple one.
The quote data is just an example. Once you see how this works, swap it out for anything, Airtable rows, emails, webhooks, whatever you need. We've got
[00:01:00] your data source, and now let's build the template. Every template you create in Bannerbear becomes an API. Feed it data, and it spits out unique images. Text images, shapes, QR codes, you decide what goes in.
Log in, create a new project, and name this. Now you could start from scratch, but we've also got plenty of pre-designed quote templates for you to choose from. Navigate to the Templates tab, search for quote templates, choose one, and add it to your project. And then it's time to design. Click to open the editor.
Change the background, fonts, colors, make it your own, and then click Save. Done. Now we connect everything together in Zapier. Here's what we're building, a Zap made up of three steps that run on a schedule. Every day, it kicks off at the same time to grab a quote and generate an image.
[00:02:00] No manual work and no code.
And yes, you can do this even if you've never touched Zapier before. Log in to Zapier and create a new Zap.
Now we need a trigger, something to kick this off We'll use Schedule, which is a built-in app. Click the trigger, search for it, and then set it to every day at 9:00 AM, weekends included. Once you're done, test it. Next up is grabbing the quote. This happens every time the workflow runs. Add a new step and search for Webhooks, another built-in Zapier app.
Paste in the ZenQuotes URL. It's free and public, so no additional params or authentication is needed
[00:03:00] Hit Continue And test. You should see a quote pop up in the output. Now for the magic. We're going to connect Bannerbear and map that quote data to your template. Add another step. Search for Bannerbear.
Your action is Create Image. To connect your account, grab your API key. Go to your Bannerbear project And click the Settings/API Key button. Copy it, paste it back into Zapier. Then hit Continue. Select your template from the dropdown Scroll to modifications. For now, stick with the basic mode. This allows you to insert simple data like text and image inputs
[00:04:00] Advanced mode will let you tweak fonts, alignment, borders, and all of that, but we don't need that today.
Click the plus next to each field and pick the data that you want from previous steps. Match the quote to the quote field, the author to the author field, and test it. Now, if you've done this correctly, you should see a link to a brand-new generated image in the data output section. And there we go. Simple, beautiful, and unique.
Just what we wanted. The hard part is over, and here's what's beautiful about this. You went from idea to running workflow in just minutes. You didn't use any code or deal with any API complexity. All you did is use an interface to connect data to a template, and you can take this workflow anywhere from here.
Use a different data source or attach those images to a Slack message. Add conditional
[00:05:00] logic. It all starts the same way: a template turned into an API.
