diff --git a/docs/cli.rst b/docs/cli.rst
index 48cb7c1..ee25106 100644
--- a/docs/cli.rst
+++ b/docs/cli.rst
@@ -21,6 +21,43 @@ If you just want to see the FTS4 tables, you can use ``--fts4`` (or ``--fts5`` f
     $ sqlite-utils table_names --fts4 docs.db
     docs_fts
 
+Inserting data
+==============
+
+If you have data as JSON, you can use ``sqlite-utils insert tablename`` to insert it into a database. The table will be created with the correct (automatically detected) columns if it does not already exist.
+
+You can pass in a single JSON object or a list of JSON objects, either as a filename or piped directly to standard-in.
+
+Here's the simplest possible example::
+
+    $ echo '{"name": "Cleo", "age": 4}' | sqlite-utils insert dogs.db dogs -
+
+To specify a column as the primary key, use ``--pk=column_name``.
+
+If you feed it a JSON list it will insert multiple records. For example, if ``dogs.json`` looks like this::
+
+    [
+        {
+            "id": 1,
+            "name": "Cleo",
+            "age": 4
+        },
+        {
+            "id": 2,
+            "name": "Pancakes",
+            "age": 2
+        },
+        {
+            "id": 3,
+            "name": "Toby",
+            "age": 6
+        }
+    ]
+
+You can import all three records into an automatically created ``dogs`` table and set the ``id`` column as the primary key like so::
+
+    $ sqlite-utils insert dogs.db dogs.json --pk=id
+
 Vacuum
 ======
 
diff --git a/sqlite_utils/cli.py b/sqlite_utils/cli.py
index 0025dd4..523aad8 100644
--- a/sqlite_utils/cli.py
+++ b/sqlite_utils/cli.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import click
 import sqlite_utils
+import json
 
 
 @click.group()
@@ -55,3 +56,20 @@ def optimize(path, no_vacuum):
             db[table].optimize()
     if not no_vacuum:
         db.vacuum()
+
+
+@cli.command()
+@click.argument(
+    "path",
+    type=click.Path(file_okay=True, dir_okay=False, allow_dash=False),
+    required=True,
+)
+@click.argument("table")
+@click.argument("json_file", type=click.File(), required=True)
+@click.option("--pk", help="Column to use as the primary key, e.g. id")
+def insert(path, table, json_file, pk):
+    db = sqlite_utils.Database(path)
+    docs = json.load(json_file)
+    if isinstance(docs, dict):
+        docs = [docs]
+    db[table].insert_all(docs, pk=pk)
diff --git a/sqlite_utils/db.py b/sqlite_utils/db.py
index d9ff71e..773ac7a 100644
--- a/sqlite_utils/db.py
+++ b/sqlite_utils/db.py
@@ -128,6 +128,10 @@ class Table:
         ).fetchall()
         return [Column(*row) for row in rows]
 
+    @property
+    def pks(self):
+        return [column.name for column in self.columns if column.is_pk]
+
     @property
     def foreign_keys(self):
         fks = []
diff --git a/tests/test_cli.py b/tests/test_cli.py
index 429a6fe..541a7fe 100644
--- a/tests/test_cli.py
+++ b/tests/test_cli.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 from sqlite_utils import cli, Database
 from click.testing import CliRunner
+import json
 import os
 import pytest
 import sqlite3
@@ -65,3 +66,47 @@ def test_optimize(db_path):
     # Sanity check that --no-vacuum doesn't throw errors:
     result = CliRunner().invoke(cli.cli, ["optimize", "--no-vacuum", db_path])
     assert 0 == result.exit_code
+
+
+def test_insert_simple(tmpdir):
+    json_path = str(tmpdir / "dog.json")
+    db_path = str(tmpdir / "dogs.db")
+    open(json_path, "w").write(json.dumps({"name": "Cleo", "age": 4}))
+    result = CliRunner().invoke(cli.cli, ["insert", db_path, "dogs", json_path])
+    assert 0 == result.exit_code
+    assert [{"age": 4, "name": "Cleo"}] == Database(db_path).execute_returning_dicts(
+        "select * from dogs"
+    )
+    db = Database(db_path)
+    assert ["dogs"] == db.table_names()
+    assert [] == db["dogs"].indexes
+
+
+def test_insert_with_primary_key(db_path, tmpdir):
+    json_path = str(tmpdir / "dog.json")
+    open(json_path, "w").write(json.dumps({"id": 1, "name": "Cleo", "age": 4}))
+    result = CliRunner().invoke(
+        cli.cli, ["insert", db_path, "dogs", json_path, "--pk", "id"]
+    )
+    assert 0 == result.exit_code
+    assert [{"id": 1, "age": 4, "name": "Cleo"}] == Database(
+        db_path
+    ).execute_returning_dicts("select * from dogs")
+    db = Database(db_path)
+    assert ["id"] == db["dogs"].pks
+
+
+def test_insert_multiple_with_primary_key(db_path, tmpdir):
+    json_path = str(tmpdir / "dogs.json")
+    dogs = [{"id": i, "name": "Cleo {}".format(i), "age": i + 3} for i in range(1, 21)]
+    open(json_path, "w").write(json.dumps(dogs))
+    open("/tmp/dogs.json", "w").write(json.dumps(dogs, indent=4))
+    result = CliRunner().invoke(
+        cli.cli, ["insert", db_path, "dogs", json_path, "--pk", "id"]
+    )
+    assert 0 == result.exit_code
+    assert dogs == Database(db_path).execute_returning_dicts(
+        "select * from dogs order by id"
+    )
+    db = Database(db_path)
+    assert ["id"] == db["dogs"].pks