Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
When I landed my first B2B startup client, everything looked straightforward: revamp their website and walk away. But as I dove deeper into their operations, I discovered a bigger problem than just design. They were drowning in manual tasks that could be automated.
Here's what I found: every time they closed a deal, someone had to manually create a Slack group for the project. Small task? Maybe. But multiply that by dozens of deals per month, and you've got hours of repetitive work eating into their growth time.
Most businesses overlook this because they're focused on the big picture - getting more customers, improving their product, scaling revenue. But here's the uncomfortable truth: your team is probably spending 20-30% of their time on tasks that could be automated in an afternoon.
After experimenting with three different automation platforms for this same client, I learned some hard lessons about what actually works for small businesses versus what sounds good in theory. This isn't another Zapier vs Make comparison - this is about the real-world experience of implementing automation when you don't have a dedicated tech team.
Here's what you'll learn from my automation journey:
Why the cheapest automation tool almost killed our client relationship
The hidden cost of "developer-friendly" platforms for small teams
How to choose automation tools based on team autonomy, not features
My framework for testing automation platforms before committing
When Zapier's higher price actually saves money in the long run
Tool Comparison
What everyone's saying about business automation
Walk into any startup accelerator or business forum, and you'll hear the same automation advice repeated like gospel. The industry has created this narrative that's both compelling and misleading.
Here's the conventional wisdom everyone follows:
Start with the cheapest tool - Budget-conscious founders are told to begin with free or low-cost platforms like Make.com
Technical superiority equals business value - Everyone obsesses over which platform has more integrations or advanced features
Automation = instant productivity - The promise is always that you'll save time immediately after setup
More complex = more powerful - The assumption that developer-friendly tools are inherently better for business
One-size-fits-all solutions - Generic advice that doesn't consider team size, technical expertise, or business maturity
This advice exists because it sounds logical on paper. Why pay more when you can get "the same functionality" for less? Why choose simplicity over power? The automation industry has done an excellent job of selling features instead of outcomes.
But here's where this conventional wisdom breaks down in practice: automation isn't just about connecting apps - it's about enabling your team to maintain and evolve these connections without becoming a bottleneck.
Most automation advice comes from developers or technical consultants who assume everyone has the time and expertise to troubleshoot complex workflows. The reality? Small business teams need automation that just works, not automation that requires a computer science degree to maintain.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
Let me tell you about the project that changed how I think about automation tools. It started simple enough - a B2B startup needed their website revamped. Clean project scope, clear deliverables, should have been straightforward.
But during our discovery phase, I noticed something. Every time they closed a deal in HubSpot, someone on their team manually created a Slack workspace for that client project. Then they'd add team members, set up channels, configure permissions. The whole process took about 15-20 minutes per project.
"Not a big deal," they said. "We only close a couple deals a week." But when I dug deeper, I found they were actually closing 10-15 deals per month. That's 3-4 hours of manual work monthly, performed by people whose time was worth significantly more than the cost of automation.
The founder was hesitant about automation because they'd tried to set up workflows before and got frustrated with the complexity. They had this mindset that automation was either too expensive or too complicated for their size.
Here's what made this situation perfect for testing automation platforms: it was a simple, repetitive task with clear inputs and outputs. Deal closes in HubSpot → Slack workspace gets created with specific team members and channel structure. Clean test case.
I saw this as an opportunity to not just solve their immediate problem, but to test my own assumptions about automation tools. I'd been hearing about Make.com's affordability and N8N's power, but I'd never actually implemented them for a real client with real constraints.
So I proposed something unusual: I'd test three different platforms with their exact use case and let them experience the differences firsthand. We'd start with the cheapest option and work our way up, documenting everything.
What happened next taught me more about automation strategy than any tutorial or comparison article ever could.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
I decided to approach this scientifically. Same workflow, three different platforms, real-world testing with actual team members. Here's exactly what I built and what I learned.
Phase 1: Make.com - The Budget Champion
I started with Make.com because everyone said it offered "90% of Zapier's functionality at 30% of the cost." The setup was straightforward enough - trigger when a deal reaches "Closed Won" in HubSpot, extract client name and team assignments, create Slack workspace with predefined structure.
For the first two weeks, everything worked beautifully. The client was thrilled. We were saving time, costs were minimal, and I felt pretty smart about choosing the budget option.
Then disaster struck. One morning, I got a panicked call. "The automation stopped working and we have three new clients without workspaces." The issue? Make.com had hit an execution error and instead of skipping the failed task and continuing with others, it stopped the entire workflow.
But here's the real problem: diagnosing and fixing this required me. The client's team couldn't troubleshoot it themselves. Every time something broke - and it broke monthly - I became their emergency automation support team.
Phase 2: N8N - The Power User's Dream
After getting burned by Make.com's reliability issues, I migrated everything to N8N. If you're not familiar, N8N is like the Linux of automation - incredibly powerful, highly customizable, but requires technical expertise.
The setup took significantly longer, but the result was robust. N8N handled errors gracefully, the workflow was more sophisticated, and I could build exactly what the client needed without platform limitations.
The problem became obvious within the first week: the client's team was completely locked out of making any modifications. Want to add a new team member to the default workspace template? Call me. Need to change the channel naming structure? Call me. Want to add a simple notification? Call me.
I had built them a Ferrari when they needed a Honda Civic - technically superior but completely impractical for their day-to-day needs.
Phase 3: Zapier - The Expensive Revelation
By this point, I was skeptical about spending more money on Zapier. We'd already proven the workflow could work. Why pay premium prices for what seemed like the same functionality?
But after migrating to Zapier, something remarkable happened. Within days, the client's operations manager was confidently modifying the workflow herself. She added new triggers, updated team assignments, and even created additional automation workflows without my help.
The interface was intuitive enough that non-technical team members could understand and modify the logic. When something needed adjustment, they could handle it themselves instead of waiting for me to be available.
The Breakthrough Insight
This experience taught me that automation isn't just about connecting apps - it's about enabling teams to maintain autonomy over their processes. The "best" tool isn't the one with the most features or the lowest price. It's the one that empowers your team to evolve their workflows as their business grows.
Platform Reliability
Make.com's error handling can halt entire workflows, requiring technical intervention to restart
Team Autonomy
Zapier's intuitive interface allows non-technical team members to modify and maintain workflows independently
Hidden Costs
The cheapest automation platform often becomes the most expensive when you factor in troubleshooting time and consultant dependency
Implementation Speed
More powerful platforms like N8N require significantly longer setup times and ongoing technical maintenance
The transformation was immediate and measurable. Within the first month of using Zapier, the client's team had created three additional workflows without my involvement. They automated their customer onboarding emails, set up project status notifications, and even built a simple lead scoring system.
But the real results weren't just about time savings. The team gained confidence in automation. Instead of viewing it as a "black box" that only technical people could touch, they started seeing it as a business tool they could control and modify.
Quantifiable outcomes after the platform migration:
Zero automation-related support calls in the following three months
Team created 5 additional workflows independently
Project setup time reduced from 20 minutes to automatic
Operations manager became the "automation champion" and trained other team members
The monthly cost difference between Make.com and Zapier was about $40. But the value of team autonomy and reliability was worth far more than the price difference. When I calculated the cost of my intervention time during the Make.com period, Zapier was actually the cheaper option.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This project fundamentally changed how I evaluate and recommend automation tools. Here are the lessons that now guide every automation decision I make:
Team autonomy trumps technical sophistication - The best automation tool is the one your team can confidently use without external help
Reliability is worth paying for - When automation breaks, it doesn't just stop working - it breaks trust in the entire system
Hidden costs are real - Factor in troubleshooting time, learning curves, and consultant dependency when calculating true costs
Start simple, scale complexity - Begin with workflows that have clear inputs and outputs before attempting complex multi-step processes
User adoption matters more than features - A simple tool that gets used daily beats a powerful tool that requires expert intervention
Test with real use cases - Tutorials and demos don't reveal how tools perform under actual business pressure
Plan for growth - Choose platforms that can evolve with your team's increasing automation confidence
If I were to do this project again, I'd skip the "cost-effective" testing phase and go straight to Zapier. The learning experience was valuable for me as a consultant, but it cost the client unnecessary stress and delay.
The biggest pitfall to avoid? Don't optimize for features you think you might need. Optimize for the experience your team will actually have using the tool daily.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups implementing automation:
Start with CRM triggers (deal progression, user actions) for reliable data flow
Automate customer success workflows (onboarding, trial reminders, upgrade prompts)
Choose platforms your support team can modify without engineering involvement
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores implementing automation:
Focus on order fulfillment and customer communication workflows first
Automate inventory alerts and reorder notifications to prevent stockouts
Enable marketing team to create seasonal automation without technical dependencies