What you'll have in five minutes
By the end of this guide you'll have a browser dashboard: one tab holding a fixed 3×2 grid, with your five most-used apps within reach at once. Some load right there in the grid, live. Others — Gmail and Google Calendar are the common ones — are one click from opening in their own tab instead, and Gmail and Google Calendar side by side covers exactly how that pairing works day to day. Either way, you stop digging through tabs to find the thing you were just looking at — which is the whole point.
Set up takes about five minutes. Here's the whole path, start to finish.
1. Create your account
Sign up with email and a password, or use Sign in with Google — either takes under a minute. The free plan needs no credit card, so there's nothing to cancel later if TulipLot isn't for you.
Once you're in, you'll land on an empty grid: six cells, all blank, waiting for you to add apps. That's the next step.
2. Add your first apps
Click the + on any empty cell. You'll get two ways to fill it: pick from the built-in catalog, or paste any HTTPS URL and TulipLot will load it directly.
The catalog is grouped by category — email, productivity, news, media — and covers the apps most people reach for first: Gmail and Outlook, Trello and Notion, Hacker News, and more, each already addressed so you don't have to hunt for the right URL. Paste-a-URL covers everything else: your team wiki, a status page, a site the catalog doesn't have yet.
One rule either way: the URL has to be HTTPS. Plain http is rejected, because a dashboard that mixes secure and insecure pages in the same tab isn't one you can trust.
Not every app behaves the same once it lands in a cell, and TulipLot is upfront about which is which. Some sites — Trello is one — load live in the grid with nothing extra to do. Some, like Notion and Hacker News, need the TulipLot Companion extension before they'll embed; the cell walks you through it — a button to install the Companion from the Chrome Web Store, then a second click back in the cell, "Enable for this site," once it's installed. And sites that insist on their own login window, like Gmail and Google Calendar, open in a new tab instead of framing in the grid — still one click away, just not embedded. All three are useful; you'll just meet them a little differently.
If you're not sure where to start, a solid first five looks like this: Gmail for mail, Google Calendar, Trello for boards or tasks, Hacker News for a news source, and Notion for notes and docs. That mix touches all three behaviors above, so you'll see how each one works from day one. It fills five cells and leaves the sixth for whatever you add next — or for Premium later.
3. Arrange the grid
Once you've got a few apps in, drag any two cells onto each other to swap their positions. There's no free-floating or resizing — the grid stays fixed at six cells, which is the point.
A fixed layout means your eyes learn where things are and stop having to check. Open the dashboard on Monday and mail is still top-left, calendar is still next to it — no relearning, no misclicks. That's spatial memory doing the work instead of your attention.
Since the layout is fixed, it's worth being deliberate about where things go. Put whatever you glance at most — mail, chat, whatever pulls at you all day — in the top-left cell, since that's where your eyes land first. Everything else can follow.
4. Every cell control, explained
A cell that's loading live in the grid gets the full toolbar. A cell that opens in its own tab instead — Gmail and Calendar, from the starter five above — shows a simpler three: open in tab, edit, remove. A cell still waiting on the Companion shows that same simpler three until you enable it, then picks up the rest. Either way, there's no in-grid frame yet to reload, expand, or put to sleep, so those controls just don't apply. Here's what each one does, and where you'll see it.
Reload refreshes just that cell, the same as hitting refresh on a single tab — handy when a site's gone stale but you don't want to touch anything else on the grid. Live cells only.
Expand puts one cell into focus mode, filling the browser window so you can work in it without the other five competing for space. Press Esc to exit and return to the full grid. Live cells only.
Open in tab launches that cell's site in a normal browser tab, with its full URL bar and browser chrome. Every cell has this one — it's how the tab-only apps like Gmail and Calendar get used day to day.
Edit swaps the site loaded in a cell without disturbing its position. Change your mind about which calendar app you want? Edit the cell and the new site takes over the same slot — no rebuilding the grid. Works on every cell.
Sleep pauses a live cell — it stops refreshing and its background noise goes quiet. Wake brings it back exactly where you left off. Useful for a cell you need in view but don't need active every minute.
Remove clears a cell back to empty, ready for something new. Works on every cell.
5. When a site won't load
Some sites send headers that tell browsers not to embed them elsewhere — a security setting many banks and login pages use. When TulipLot detects one of these, it doesn't show you a broken frame. Instead it offers the TulipLot Companion, an optional Chrome extension that can unlock the site, or an open-in-tab option so you can use the site normally in its own window.
Read the full guide: Adding sites that refuse to be framed.
Try, free, and Premium in one minute
Not ready to create an account? Try TulipLot first: two live cells, no signup, saved to this browser only. The free plan gives you five usable cells plus one ad in the sixth, and it costs nothing — no credit card required. Premium is $4 a month, removes the ad, and unlocks all six cells for your own apps. Everything else — the catalog, custom URLs, drag-to-swap, the Companion — works the same across all three.
See the full breakdown: Premium vs Free.
Common first-day questions
Do I need the extension?
No — most sites load straight into your grid with no extension at all. The TulipLot Companion only matters for stubborn sites that actively block embedding; install it if and when you hit one.
Does it work outside Chrome?
TulipLot is built Chrome-first and works best there. The Companion extension is Chrome-only, so if you're on a different browser, sites that need it will open in a tab instead of unlocking in the grid.
Can I change apps later?
Any time. Use edit to swap the site in a cell without losing its position, or remove it and add something new. Nothing about your layout is permanent except the six-cell shape.
Your dashboard is ready whenever you are. Get started free and have your five-minute setup done before your coffee's cold.