What is Make.com?
Make.com (formerly Integromat) is a visual workflow automation platform that connects your business tools. You draw the workflow on a canvas — triggers, conditions, actions — and Make.com runs it automatically in the background.
Unlike Zapier, which works in linear steps, Make.com gives you conditional routing (if this, do that; otherwise do something else), loops, data transformation, error handling, and multi-step scenarios that interact with dozens of apps simultaneously. For businesses running real operations, that difference matters. Most of the workflows we're asked to build can't be done in Zapier without significant workarounds. Make.com automation handles them natively.
The pricing gap is also real: Make.com runs $9–$29/month for the same functionality that costs $50–$100/month on Zapier. Over a year, that's meaningful.
What we automate with Make.com
Client onboarding workflows
A new client signs a proposal. Make.com creates their Airtable record, sends the welcome email, builds their Google Drive folder, opens their Slack channel, assigns tasks to your team, and marks the record as active — before anyone on your team has done anything. For Nomads Cast, this took onboarding from an 8-step manual process to zero human steps. Per-client time dropped from hours to under a minute.
Lead capture and CRM updates
A form submission comes in. Make.com creates the record in Airtable, assigns it to the right sales rep based on source or territory, sends them a Slack notification, schedules the follow-up task, and routes a confirmation to the prospect. No one has to touch it. For Casa Blui, automating this part of the pipeline contributed to 30% faster lead closing — not because the sales process changed, but because nothing fell through the gaps.
Invoice and payment automation
A project milestone is marked complete in your project tool. Make.com generates the invoice, sends it via email, updates the Airtable record with the invoice number and amount, and notifies your accounting contact. Manual invoice creation is one of the most common things we automate — it's tedious, error-prone, and completely unnecessary for businesses on regular billing cycles.
Document generation
Pull data from Airtable, populate a Google Doc or PDF template, save it to the client's folder, and send it for signature via DocuSign — all triggered by a single status change. We've used this for contracts, onboarding packets, compliance reports, and weekly performance summaries. Anything that follows a template is automatable.
Email sequences without a dedicated email tool
If you don't want to pay for Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign, Make.com can run personalized email sequences triggered by Airtable status changes — drip sequences, follow-up reminders, re-engagement flows. Not as full-featured as a dedicated email platform, but adequate for most small business use cases at a fraction of the cost.
Cross-platform data sync
Keep Airtable, Google Sheets, QuickBooks, HubSpot, and Slack in sync automatically. When a record updates in one tool, Make.com propagates the change everywhere else. This is what we built for Scenthound — a retention automation system that saved their team 40 hours per week by eliminating the manual client follow-up work that had been distributed across whoever had time that day.
Compliance and certification reminders
Staff certifications expiring in 30 days? Documents due for renewal? Make.com checks your Airtable records on a schedule and sends reminders before deadlines — to the right person, with the right context. For home care agencies and other compliance-heavy businesses, this type of automation prevents the kind of documentation gaps that create real liability. See how we built this for Affinity Care.
Automated reporting
Weekly summary reports compiled from Airtable data and emailed to stakeholders every Monday morning — without anyone building a spreadsheet. Threshold alerts when a KPI drops below a target. Pipeline summaries at the end of each sales cycle. Reporting that happens whether or not someone remembers to run it.
Custom API integrations
Make.com has 1,500+ native integrations. For tools that aren't on that list, we build custom connections using Make.com's HTTP/API modules. If it has an API, we can connect it.
Have a workflow you've been meaning to automate?
Book a 30-minute call. We'll tell you whether Make.com is the right tool and what it would take to build.
Book a free call →Make.com vs Zapier: an honest comparison
Both are automation platforms. The right choice depends on what you're building.
| Make.com | Zapier | |
|---|---|---|
| Visual workflow builder | Yes — drag-and-drop canvas | No — linear step list |
| Conditional logic | Built-in, visual routing | Limited, harder to configure |
| Error handling | Detailed error logs, retry options | Basic |
| Pricing | ~$9/mo for 10K operations | ~$20/mo for 750 tasks |
| Number of app integrations | 1,500+ | 6,000+ |
| Learning curve | Medium | Low |
| Best for | Complex multi-step workflows | Simple 2-step automations |
The honest take: Make.com wins for any workflow with more than 3 steps or conditional logic. Zapier wins for quick-and-dirty connections between popular tools — it's faster to set up and has more app integrations. For businesses doing $500K–$10M that run on Airtable and need workflows with real logic, Make.com is almost always the better investment.
Zapier's integration count is higher, but in practice, the apps we're connecting most often (Airtable, Google Workspace, Slack, Notion, DocuSign, Stripe) all have solid Make.com modules. The gap matters more for niche SaaS tools. If your stack includes something obscure, we'll check Make.com coverage before recommending it.
Make.com also works well alongside our broader automation work, including n8n for businesses that need self-hosted automation, and custom code for edge cases that no platform handles cleanly.
Make.com subscription costs
Make.com's pricing is operations-based — you pay per task execution, not per workflow.
- Free — 1,000 operations/month. Enough to test a workflow, not enough to run one in production.
- Core ($9/mo) — 10,000 operations. Works for 1–2 simple automations running on low volume.
- Pro ($16/mo) — 10,000 operations plus more execution history, custom variables, and priority scheduling. Most of our clients start here.
- Teams ($29/mo) — 10,000 operations plus team features: multiple users, shared scenarios, role permissions. For businesses with more than one person building or maintaining automations.
Operations add up faster than you'd expect on high-volume workflows — a busy scenario that runs 50 times a day with 10 steps each uses 500 operations daily. We size the subscription to your actual volume during the build so there are no surprises on your first billing cycle.
Our workflow automation consultant fees run $500–$6,000 depending on complexity. A simple 3-step automation that connects a form to a CRM and sends a notification is on the low end. A multi-system client onboarding workflow with error handling, conditional routing, and documentation is on the high end. Fixed pricing; no hourly billing.
How a Make.com project works
Most automation builds run 1–3 weeks, depending on complexity.
- Discovery (1–2 days) — Map the manual process being automated. Identify triggers, actions, edge cases, and what happens when something goes wrong. This is where most automation failures start: the client described the happy path, and no one documented what happens when a record is missing or a form comes in incomplete.
- Architecture (1–2 days) — Design the scenario flow. Decide what data moves where, what conditions branch the workflow, and how errors surface.
- Build (3–7 days) — Build the Make.com scenarios, test with real data, add error handling, configure notifications for when something breaks.
- Documentation and training (1–2 days) — Loom walkthroughs of every scenario, written documentation of the logic, and enough context that someone on your team can maintain it without calling us.
Industries we automate for
We've built Make.com workflows for businesses across a range of industries. The specific automations vary, but the underlying pattern is the same: manual work that follows predictable logic is a candidate for automation.
- Healthcare and home care — Caregiver onboarding, compliance reminders, schedule updates, documentation workflows
- Real estate — Lead routing, transaction coordination, client follow-up sequences
- Agencies — Client onboarding, project kickoffs, delivery workflows, reporting
- E-commerce — Order processing, inventory alerts, customer communication, returns
- Financial services — Client reporting, document collection, compliance tracking
Frequently asked questions
- What is Make.com?
- Make.com (formerly Integromat) is a visual workflow automation platform that connects your business tools and runs repetitive tasks automatically. You build scenarios on a canvas that define triggers, conditions, and actions across any combination of apps.
- How much does a Make.com consultant cost?
- Our fees run $500 for simple automations to $6,000 for complex multi-system integrations. Make.com subscriptions start at $9/month and are billed directly by Make.com — we don't mark them up.
- Make.com vs Zapier — which is better?
- Make.com for anything with conditional logic, multi-step workflows, or data transformation. Zapier for simple 2-step automations between popular tools where ease of setup matters more than power. For businesses running real operations, Make.com is usually the better investment.
- How long does it take to build a Make.com automation?
- Simple automations take 1–3 days. Medium-complexity workflows take 1–2 weeks. Complex multi-system integrations with error handling and documentation take 2–3 weeks.
- Can Make.com connect to my tool?
- Make.com has 1,500+ native integrations. For tools not on that list, we build custom connections via Make.com's HTTP/API modules. If it has an API, it can be connected.
- Do I need a Make.com expert or can I build it myself?
- For 2–3 step automations, you can build it yourself. Once you need conditional logic, error handling, or multi-scenario workflows, a Make.com developer saves you significant time — and avoids the edge cases that cause automations to fail silently in production.
If you have a workflow in mind, book a free call. We'll tell you whether Make.com is the right tool, what it would take to build, and what it would cost. We also work in Airtable, Softr, and operations consulting — so if the automation is one piece of a larger system, we can scope the whole thing. For a broader look at what automation can do for your business, read about our workflow automation services.