Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
When I started working with a B2B startup last year, the brief seemed straightforward: revamp their website. But as I dove deeper into their operations, I discovered something most businesses overlook completely.
Their client operations were scattered across HubSpot and Slack, creating unnecessary friction in their workflow. 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 that could be automated.
This kicked off my journey through three different automation platforms - Make.com, N8N, and Zapier - for the exact same use case. What I learned challenged everything I thought I knew about automation tools.
Here's what you'll discover in this playbook:
Why the "cheapest" automation tool cost my client more in the long run
The real reason most businesses choose the wrong automation platform
My framework for choosing between Make.com, N8N, and Zapier based on actual constraints
The hidden costs of automation that no one talks about
When to build custom vs. when to use existing platforms
This isn't another "Zapier vs Make" comparison post. This is what actually happens when you implement automation across all three platforms for the same business use case.
Industry Knowledge
What Every Automation Guide Gets Wrong
Pick up any automation guide today, and you'll see the same tired advice: "Start with Zapier because it's easiest, then move to Make.com to save money, and consider N8N if you're technical." This cookie-cutter approach is exactly why most automation projects fail.
Here's what the industry typically recommends:
Start with the cheapest option - Most guides push you toward Make.com because of pricing
Focus on feature comparison - Endless tables comparing triggers, actions, and integrations
Technical capability as the main factor - "If you can code, use N8N"
Set it and forget it mentality - The myth that automation just runs forever without maintenance
Platform-first thinking - Choose the tool, then figure out what to automate
This conventional wisdom exists because most content creators haven't actually implemented these tools in real business environments. They're comparing features on paper, not dealing with the reality of team adoption, error handling, and ongoing maintenance.
The fundamental flaw? They're optimizing for the wrong metrics. Everyone focuses on cost per task or number of integrations, when the real factors that determine success are team accessibility, reliability, and long-term maintainability.
When you follow this industry advice, you end up in what I call the "automation trap" - you build complex workflows that break frequently, require constant technical intervention, and ultimately create more problems than they solve.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The startup I worked with had a specific challenge that perfectly illustrated this automation dilemma. They were scaling fast, closing 20-30 deals per month, and each deal required creating a dedicated Slack workspace for project collaboration.
The manual process was killing them. Someone from their team had to:
Monitor HubSpot for new closed deals
Create a new Slack channel with specific naming conventions
Invite the right team members based on deal type
Set up initial project structure and pinned messages
What seemed like a 5-minute task was actually consuming 2-3 hours of someone's day when you factored in context switching and the inevitable mistakes that required cleanup.
I decided to test all three major automation platforms with the exact same workflow. This wasn't a theoretical comparison - this was going to be their actual business process, handling real deals with real consequences if it broke.
Phase 1: Make.com - The Budget Choice
I started with Make.com because, honestly, the pricing was attractive. For a growing startup, every dollar matters. The workflow setup was straightforward enough - HubSpot trigger when deal status changes, create Slack channel, invite users.
It worked beautifully... for about three weeks.
Then the errors started. Here's what the tutorials don't tell you: when Make.com hits an execution error, it doesn't just fail that one task - it stops the entire workflow. Not just pauses it, stops it completely.
We'd discover on Monday morning that the automation had been down since Friday afternoon because of a single API timeout. Three deals had closed over the weekend, no Slack channels were created, and the team was scrambling to catch up.
The real killer? Every error required my intervention to restart the workflow. I became the bottleneck in their automation.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Phase 2: N8N - The Developer's Paradise
Frustrated with Make.com's reliability issues, I migrated everything to N8N. The control was incredible - I could handle errors gracefully, add custom logic, and build exactly what we needed.
From a technical standpoint, N8N was perfect. I set up proper error handling, retry logic, and even built a dashboard to monitor workflow health. The automation was bulletproof.
But here's where my developer mindset got me in trouble: I became the single point of failure.
Every small tweak the client wanted - change the channel naming convention, add a new team member to the auto-invite list, modify the welcome message - required my involvement. The N8N interface, while powerful, wasn't something the marketing manager could navigate confidently.
Six weeks in, I was getting requests for changes faster than I could implement them. The client was frustrated because simple updates took days instead of minutes.
Phase 3: Zapier - The Expensive Solution That Paid for Itself
Against my developer instincts (and the client's budget concerns), we migrated to Zapier. Yes, it was more expensive. But within the first week, something remarkable happened.
The client's team started making changes themselves.
The marketing manager updated the channel naming template. The sales director added new team members to the auto-invite list. The project manager tweaked the welcome message format. All without calling me.
My Step-by-Step Implementation Process:
Constraint Analysis First - Before choosing any platform, I mapped out the client's real constraints: technical expertise, time availability, budget sensitivity, and change frequency
Team Capability Assessment - I spent an hour with each person who would interact with the automation, testing their comfort level with different interfaces
Error Scenario Planning - I documented every possible failure point and how each platform would handle it
Change Management Testing - I simulated common change requests to see how easily each platform could be modified
True Cost Calculation - I calculated not just subscription costs, but maintenance time, training requirements, and opportunity costs
The Zapier implementation included several key components that made it successful:
Smart Filtering: I set up conditional logic to handle different deal types, ensuring the right stakeholders were invited to each project channel.
Error Recovery: Zapier's built-in retry mechanism meant temporary API issues wouldn't break the entire workflow.
User-Friendly Interface: Team members could see the workflow logic, understand what was happening, and make changes confidently.
Comprehensive Testing: I built a staging environment where we could test changes before pushing them live, preventing disruptions to active deals.
Platform Selection
Choose based on constraints, not features. Team accessibility trumps cost savings.
Error Handling
Build for failure scenarios from day one. Your automation will break - plan for it.
Change Management
The platform your team can modify is worth more than the "perfect" technical solution.
True Cost Analysis
Factor in maintenance time, training, and opportunity costs - not just subscription fees.
The results spoke for themselves, though not in the way I expected.
Immediate Impact:
100% of deals now automatically triggered Slack channel creation
Team productivity increased as context switching disappeared
Zero manual errors in project setup since implementation
Unexpected Outcomes:
The team started automating other processes on their own
Client satisfaction improved because project kickoffs became more consistent
The marketing manager became the automation champion, creating new workflows monthly
But here's the real result: Six months later, they're still using Zapier, and I'm no longer involved in their automation maintenance. That's the true measure of a successful automation implementation.
The monthly cost difference between Make.com and Zapier? About $100. The value of team autonomy and reliable automation? Impossible to calculate, but definitely worth more than $100 per month.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Start with constraints, not features - Your biggest limitation usually isn't technical capability
Team adoption beats technical perfection - The automation platform your team actually uses is infinitely better than the one they're afraid to touch
Build for the long term - Consider who will maintain this automation in six months when you're focused on other projects
Test change scenarios early - Your automation requirements will evolve; make sure your platform can evolve with them
Price isn't everything - The "expensive" solution often pays for itself through reduced maintenance and increased team autonomy
Document your decision process - When questioned about platform choice, you'll need clear reasoning based on actual business constraints
Plan for handoffs - Your automation should work without you; if it doesn't, you've built technical debt, not business value
The biggest lesson? Stop optimizing for the wrong metrics. In automation, reliability and team accessibility matter more than cost per task or number of available integrations.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Prioritize platforms your non-technical team can manage independently
Build automation that scales with your customer acquisition growth
Focus on customer onboarding workflows that reduce support tickets
Integrate with your CRM from day one to maintain clean data flow
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores:
Automate order fulfillment notifications to reduce customer service inquiries
Set up inventory alerts before you run out of popular products
Create automated customer segmentation for targeted marketing campaigns
Build abandoned cart workflows that your marketing team can modify seasonally