Most small businesses we talk to are doing the same boring tasks by hand every day. Copying form leads into a spreadsheet. Sending the same welcome email. Adding new customers to the CRM. Posting the same update in Slack.
Automation tools fix that. The three we use most are Zapier, Make and n8n. People always ask which one is “best”. The real answer is: it depends on who’s going to maintain it.
Zapier: the easiest place to start
Zapier connects thousands of apps, and its setup is the most beginner-friendly of the three. You pick a trigger (“new form submission”), pick an action (“add a row in Google Sheets”), and you’re done.
- **Great for:** simple, reliable automations that a non-technical person can manage.
- **Watch out for:** cost. Pricing is based on tasks, and busy automations can get expensive as you grow.
Make: more power for the money
Make (formerly Integromat) uses a visual canvas where you can see your whole workflow, with branches, filters and loops. It handles complex logic really well.
- **Great for:** multi-step workflows with conditions, data formatting and error handling.
- **Watch out for:** a steeper learning curve. It’s not hard, but it isn’t as instant as Zapier.
n8n: maximum control
n8n is open-source friendly and can be self-hosted, which means your data can stay on your own server. It’s very flexible and popular for AI workflows.
- **Great for:** technical teams, high volumes, sensitive data and custom AI agents.
- **Watch out for:** if you self-host it, someone has to look after the server, updates and backups.
How we usually choose
- **One person, a few simple automations:** Zapier.
- **Growing team, more complex workflows, cost matters:** Make.
- **Lots of volume, custom AI, data privacy requirements:** n8n.
A rule we follow: build automations that someone on your team can understand. A clever workflow nobody can fix is a problem waiting to happen.
Where to start
Pick one painful task you repeat every day. Map out the steps on paper. Then automate just that. Once it’s been running smoothly for a couple of weeks, move to the next one.
If you’d like help mapping your workflows, take a look at our automation and AI service or tell us what’s eating your time. We’ll show you what can be automated.