Zapier, Make or custom: which automation fits your business?

Anyone who wants to automate their processes soon ends up at Zapier or Make. You build integrations between your packages by pointing and clicking, without programming, and within an afternoon the first automation is running. For many small and mid-sized businesses that's exactly right. But sometimes a handy automation grows into a tangle of flows nobody oversees any more, that occasionally fails silently and that gets more expensive every month.

We build custom automation, so you might expect a plea for custom work here. You won't get one. In a good share of cases an integration platform is the better choice, and then we say so. This article helps you decide which route fits your situation.

What Zapier and Make do

Both work on the same idea: when something happens in one package, carry out one or more steps in other packages. A new form on your website becomes a contact in the CRM and a task for sales. A paid invoice passes an order on to the warehouse. Both platforms have a large library of ready-made integrations with well-known packages.

The difference is mainly in the approach. Zapier is accessible and linear: step by step, easy to follow. Make is more visual, with branches and more control over how data is processed along the way, which makes it a bit more technical. There's also n8n, which you can run on your own server too. What they have in common: you pay for usage. The more steps run, the higher the subscription. Current prices are on their own websites.

When Zapier or Make is perfectly fine

• Volume is limited: dozens or a few hundred times a month, not thousands of times a day.
• The flow is simple and runs one way. Form to CRM to confirmation email.
• Both packages have a good standard integration on the platform.
• An error isn't a big deal, or you spot it quickly. A missed notification is different from a missed invoice.
• Someone in-house enjoys it and has the time to maintain the flows.
• You want to try out a process before you know what it should look like for good.

If that sounds like you, start with an integration platform. You won't earn back a build project on a flow a subscription handles just as well.

An integration platform isn't a stepping stone to real automation. For many processes it's the right choice.

Where it falls short

Costs at volume

Because you pay per executed step or task, the bill grows with your volume. Every step in a flow counts, and a flow that loops over every line of an order multiplies that. With a few hundred orders a month you'll hardly notice. With hundreds a day you will. A custom build doesn't have that effect: the build is a fixed amount and hosting barely grows.

Error handling

When a step fails, you usually get an email. But then what? A half-finished flow is the hardest: the client is in the CRM, but not in accounting. Restarting can lead to a duplicate client or a duplicate invoice. With a custom build you decide what happens: retrying without duplicates, a log per message and an overview of what didn't arrive. Why that matters is also covered in connecting your CRM to your accounting software.

Logic that doesn't fit a flowchart

As soon as there are lots of exceptions, data needs comparing with what's already there, or something needs calculating, a flow gets long. Thirty steps, filters, branches and a bit of code here and there. Then you're actually programming after all, just in an environment not made for it, without tests and without anyone else being able to read it easily.

Maintenance and overview

A familiar picture: forty flows on the account of an employee who has since left. Nobody knows exactly which flow does what, and a change in one package breaks three at once. That's not the platform's fault, but the platform does make it easy to start without agreements.

Data and the GDPR

Everything that goes through a flow goes through the platform. That can be client data, invoices or employee data. Find out where the platform processes and stores that data, whether it ends up outside the EU, how long the logs containing it are kept and whether there's a data processing agreement. That differs per platform and sometimes per plan.

When a custom build pays off

• Volume is high, and the subscription costs are growing faster than your revenue.
• It's a core process, where an error costs money or a client.
• The logic includes lots of exceptions, calculations or comparisons with existing data.
• More than two systems are involved, and the order matters.
• Sensitive data passes through, and you want to decide yourself where it's kept.
• Documents or emails need to be read and understood, not just forwarded.

With a custom build you get code you own, with logging, error handling and tests, on hosting that usually costs € 20 to € 80 per month. How we build it is on the page about workflow automation. If the automation also needs to understand emails, documents or free text, a language model comes into play. That's what AI automation is about.

The middle route

It doesn't have to be either-or. A common setup: the simple flows stay in Zapier or Make, and the heavy part, with the logic and error handling, becomes a small custom piece the platform calls. Or the other way round: the core process runs on a custom build, and whoever in the team likes building things hangs small extras off it with an integration platform. That's often the cheapest route, and we'll say so.

A simple rule of thumb

1. Is it a simple one-way flow with limited volume? Choose Zapier or Make.
2. Is the bill rising, or do hours go into fixing things every month? Then look at a custom build for that one flow.
3. Is it your core process, with several systems and lots of exceptions? Start with a custom build.
4. Not sure? Start with a platform and write down what goes wrong. That list later becomes the best specification for a custom build.

If you don't yet know which processes are worth automating, start one step earlier. That's the subject of when workflow automation pays off.

What it costs

• Zapier or Make: a monthly subscription that grows with the number of executed steps, plus the time of whoever builds, maintains and fixes the flows.
• Custom build at Voortware: discovery is free, a build project starts at € 9,500 with a fixed price up front, and a first working version is live in four to eight weeks on average. Hosting usually costs € 20 to € 80 per month.
• Ongoing: if you want to keep adding automations and have them managed, that's possible in a partnership from € 3,500 per month.

An honest comparison counts over a few years: the subscription plus the hours for maintenance and fixes, against the build plus hosting. If that doesn't come out in favour of a custom build, the platform is the better choice. All rates are on the pricing page.

Where to start

1. List your existing automations: what do they do, who maintains them and what do they cost per month?
2. For each flow, note the volume and how often it went wrong in the past three months.
3. See which flows touch core processes, and which are handy extras.
4. Leave the extras where they are, and check whether the core processes would run better on a custom build.

With that overview, one conversation is enough to know whether you can leave everything as it is, need to move one flow, or should set the whole thing up again. How we approach it is on the page about custom workflow automation.