Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, I faced an interesting challenge with a B2B startup client that perfectly illustrates why most businesses get automation completely wrong. They came to me for a simple website revamp, but as we dove deeper into their operations, I discovered they were manually creating Slack groups for every new deal that closed in HubSpot.
"Small task," you might think. But when you're closing dozens of deals per month, those "small tasks" add up to hours of repetitive work that could be automated. The twist? I ended up building the same automation three different times using three different platforms before finding the right solution.
This experience taught me that the question isn't whether Zapier can help your startup—it's about understanding which automation platform fits your specific constraints and team capabilities. Most founders choose tools based on price or features, completely ignoring the most important factor: who will actually maintain and modify these automations over time.
Here's what you'll learn from my trial-and-error journey:
Why I tested Make.com, N8N, and Zapier for the exact same workflow
The hidden costs that make "cheap" automation expensive
How team accessibility trumps advanced features for most startups
My framework for choosing the right automation platform
Practical examples you can implement in your SaaS or startup today
Platform Reality
What every startup founder thinks about automation tools
The automation space is flooded with advice that sounds great in theory but falls apart in practice. Every productivity guru and no-code influencer has their favorite platform, usually based on superficial feature comparisons or affiliate commissions.
Here's what the industry typically recommends:
Choose based on price - "Start with the free tier and upgrade when you need more"
Pick the most feature-rich platform - "More integrations means more possibilities"
Focus on advanced capabilities - "Custom code injection makes it future-proof"
Optimize for developer control - "Self-hosted solutions give you complete ownership"
Start simple and scale up - "Begin with basic workflows and add complexity later"
This advice exists because it makes logical sense from a feature-comparison perspective. When you're looking at spreadsheets comparing integration counts and pricing tiers, these factors seem important. The problem is that automation platforms aren't just software—they're workflow tools that your entire team needs to understand and maintain.
Here's where conventional wisdom falls short: it completely ignores the human factor. The best automation platform isn't the one with the most features or the lowest price—it's the one your team can actually use independently. Most startups end up with powerful automation systems that become bottlenecks because only one person knows how to modify them.
The result? You save time on execution but create dependencies that slow down your team's ability to adapt and iterate. That's not automation—that's creating a different kind of manual process.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I started working with this B2B startup, the brief seemed straightforward: revamp their website and improve their brand presentation. But as I got deeper into understanding their operations, I discovered something that changed the entire project scope.
Every time they closed a deal in HubSpot, someone had to manually create a Slack group for the project. It sounds trivial, but they were closing 15-20 deals per month, and each Slack group setup took about 10 minutes when you factor in adding the right people, setting permissions, and creating the proper channels.
The client initially dismissed this as "just part of the process," but I saw an opportunity to demonstrate real value beyond just website work. More importantly, I knew this would be a perfect test case for automation—simple enough to implement quickly, but meaningful enough to show real impact.
The challenge was choosing the right platform. I had experience with different automation tools, but this was the first time I'd have the chance to test multiple solutions for the exact same use case with the same client. It became an unintentional experiment in platform comparison.
My first instinct was to go with Make.com (formerly Integromat) because of the pricing. For a startup watching every dollar, the cost difference between Make.com and Zapier seemed significant. The workflow was simple: when a deal status changes to "closed-won" in HubSpot, create a new Slack group with the deal name and add specific team members.
I built the automation in Make.com, tested it thoroughly, and it worked perfectly. For about three weeks. Then the client started reporting issues—sometimes the automation would stop working entirely, not just for that specific trigger, but for everything. I'd have to go in, troubleshoot, and restart the entire workflow.
This wasn't a one-time glitch. Every few weeks, Make.com would hit an execution error and the entire automation would freeze. For a growing startup that was increasingly relying on these automated processes, this unpredictability was worse than doing things manually.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After the Make.com reliability issues became a pattern, I decided to rebuild the entire automation using N8N. I was curious about self-hosted solutions, and N8N offered the appeal of complete control plus robust functionality that could handle complex logic.
The setup process was more involved—N8N requires actual server setup and more technical knowledge than point-and-click solutions. But once configured, it was incredibly powerful. I could build sophisticated conditional logic, handle errors gracefully, and customize every aspect of the workflow.
For about two months, this solution worked beautifully. The automation ran consistently, handled edge cases well, and never had the reliability issues we experienced with Make.com. However, a different problem emerged: every time the client wanted to make a small modification—like adding a new team member to the auto-invite list or changing the Slack group naming convention—they had to contact me.
The N8N interface, while powerful, wasn't intuitive for non-technical team members. What started as a simple automation became a dependency bottleneck. The client would have an idea for improving the workflow, but implementing it required scheduling time with me, explaining the change, and waiting for me to make the modification.
The Zapier Migration That Changed Everything
Finally, I migrated everything to Zapier, despite the higher cost. The difference was immediate and dramatic—not in functionality, but in team adoption. Within a week of the migration, the client's operations manager was confidently making modifications to the workflow.
The key was Zapier's interface design. When team members clicked through the automation, they could intuitively understand what each step was doing. They could see the HubSpot trigger, follow the logic to the Slack action, and understand how to modify parameters without breaking anything.
But the real breakthrough came when they started creating their own automations. Once they understood the basic pattern, they began automating other processes: automatically updating project status based on email responses, creating calendar events for kickoff calls, and syncing customer data between different tools.
My Framework for Platform Selection
This experience taught me that automation platform selection should follow a hierarchy of priorities:
Team Independence: Can your team modify and maintain automations without constant developer intervention?
Reliability: Does the platform consistently execute workflows without mysterious failures?
Scalability: Can you easily add complexity as your needs grow?
Cost: Only consider pricing after the above factors are satisfied
The lesson isn't that Zapier is universally better—it's that the "best" platform depends entirely on your team's technical comfort level and growth stage. For this client, paying extra for Zapier meant gaining team autonomy and faster iteration cycles.
Platform Testing
Tested 3 platforms for the exact same workflow: Make.com failed on reliability, N8N succeeded technically but failed on team adoption
Cost Analysis
Zapier cost 3x more monthly but saved 10+ hours per month in developer dependency time
Team Adoption
Client team went from requesting changes to building their own automations within 2 weeks of Zapier switch
Success Metrics
Automated 15+ repetitive tasks, reduced project setup time from 30 minutes to 2 minutes, eliminated human errors
The business impact was measurable and immediate. The original Slack group creation automation saved approximately 3 hours per month of manual work. But the bigger win was enabling the team to become automation-independent.
Within three months of switching to Zapier, the client had built 12 additional automations covering everything from lead qualification to project milestone tracking. Their operations manager became the internal automation champion, identifying and implementing new efficiency improvements without external help.
The cost comparison was eye-opening. While Zapier cost approximately 300% more than Make.com monthly, it eliminated roughly 10 hours per month of my time that was previously spent maintaining and modifying automations. When factored against consultant hourly rates, Zapier actually reduced their total automation costs.
Most importantly, the reliability was perfect. In 8 months of operation, we haven't experienced a single unexplained failure or workflow stoppage. The peace of mind this provided was invaluable for a growing startup that was increasingly dependent on automated processes.
The unexpected outcome was cultural. Automation stopped being seen as a "technical project" and became part of their operational DNA. Team members started identifying automation opportunities during regular meetings, and implementing solutions became as routine as updating a spreadsheet.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Choose based on team capability, not features: The best automation platform is the one your team can use independently
Reliability trumps cost: Unreliable automation is worse than manual processes
Test with real workflows: Platform comparisons don't reveal operational differences
Factor in hidden costs: "Cheap" platforms can be expensive when they require constant maintenance
Plan for scaling team usage: Individual automations should enable team-wide adoption
User interface matters more than you think: Complex platforms create dependency bottlenecks
Start with proven use cases: Begin with obvious repetitive tasks before attempting complex workflows
If I were starting this project today, I'd skip the platform testing and go directly to Zapier for startups with mixed technical teams. For developer-heavy teams with specific compliance requirements, N8N remains a solid choice. I'd only recommend Make.com for very simple, low-stakes automations where cost is the primary constraint.
The biggest lesson: automation success isn't measured by the sophistication of your workflows—it's measured by how much it empowers your team to operate more efficiently without creating new dependencies.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Start with customer onboarding automations (trial signups → welcome sequences)
Automate user activity tracking and engagement scoring
Connect support tickets to product development workflows
Set up automated churn risk alerts based on usage patterns
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce operations:
Automate order status updates across multiple channels
Connect inventory alerts to procurement workflows
Set up automated review request sequences
Integrate abandoned cart recovery with customer service