Rebuilt a $15k/month Zapier automation in 12 minutes. Client's jaw dropped when I showed the invoice.
Rebuilt a $15k/month Zapier automation in 12 minutes. Client's jaw dropped when I showed the invoice. Fellow agency owners - this is how we compete with the overpriced players: THE DISCOVERY CALL Tech startup founder, Marcus: "Our automation costs are killing us" Me: "What are you running?" Marcus: "Customer onboarding sequence. 847 Zaps." Me: "Eight hundred and... what?" Marcus: "The last agency built it over 18 months" 🚩 Red flag: 847 Zaps for one process THE ORIGINAL MONSTER What the "enterprise automation experts" delivered: - 847 individual Zaps - 23 different apps connected - 156 webhooks firing constantly - 67 Google Sheets as "databases" - Monthly Zapier bill: $15,000 - Monthly maintenance: $8,000 - Failure rate: 23% (1 in 4 customers had issues) Marcus: "It takes 6 hours to onboard one customer" Their agency charged $180k for this nightmare. THE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO Customer signs up → 847 Zaps start firing - Zap #1 creates Slack message - Zap #2 updates Sheet #1 - Zap #3 checks Sheet #1 - Zap #4 updates Sheet #2 - Zap #5 checks if Zap #3 worked - ...and 842 more steps of madness When it broke (which was daily): - 4-hour debugging sessions - Customer stuck in limbo - Multiple duplicate emails sent - Refund requests THE 12-MINUTE REBUILD I opened Skada.ai and typed: "Build customer onboarding automation: payment confirmation → welcome email → account setup → course access → Slack notification → CRM update" 12 minutes later: ✅ One clean workflow ✅ All 23 apps connected properly ✅ Built-in error handling ✅ Automatic retry logic ✅ Real-time status tracking THE PERFORMANCE COMPARISON Old System (847 Zaps): - Success rate: 77% - Processing time: 6 hours - Monthly cost: $23,000 total - Maintenance hours: 40/month - Customer satisfaction: 6/10 New System (1 workflow): - Success rate: 99.2% - Processing time: 8 minutes - Monthly cost: $47 total - Maintenance hours: 0/month - Customer satisfaction: 9.8/10 THE PRICING STRATEGY My quote: $8,500 rebuild + $1,200/month management