Guide · Examples · Make.com

20 Make.com automation examples for small businesses

Short answer: The Make automations that pay off first in a small business are the boring ones. Send form leads to your CRM and Slack, chase unpaid invoices, draft quote follow-ups, log orders to a sheet, file email attachments and send a daily summary. Below are 20 examples Make can run today. Each one names the trigger and modules, gives a rough credit count per run and links to a step-by-step Flowpaja guide or a ready-made template, so you can build it rather than just read about it. Most run on Make's Free plan at low volume.

By Flowpaja · Published 3 October 2026 · Facts checked 3 October 2026

This guide contains affiliate links, marked “affiliate link”.

20 Make.com automation examples for small businesses: leads, invoices, quotes, orders, admin, alerts and AI, each linked to a step-by-step guide — 20 real examples, each with its modules, a credit estimate and a link to build it.

Checked on 3 October 2026: module names match Make's app pages on make.com/en/integrations and the linked Flowpaja guides, where each scenario is built step by step. Plan limits come from make.com/en/pricing, as seen from a US connection. Credit numbers are our estimates, counted from the modules in each scenario, not Make's figures. Check the real count in your scenario's History after a test run. We don't give time-saved or ROI figures because they depend entirely on your volume. We earn affiliate commissions from Make and sell some of the templates linked here.

All 20 examples at a glance

Difficulty is our rough rating: Easy means 2–3 modules and no data juggling, Medium adds a search, router or duplicate check, and Advanced involves an extra account setup, AI or several linked records. "Check" means a scheduled trigger run, which uses a credit even when nothing is new.

#	Example	Apps	Difficulty	Est. credits per run	Build it
1	New form response → Slack message	Google Forms/Sheets, Slack	Easy	1 per check + 1 per response	Free template
2	Form lead → HubSpot contact + hot-lead Slack alert	Sheets or Tally or Typeform, HubSpot, Slack	Medium	About 3 per lead (+1 per check)	Guide
3	Form lead → Pipedrive lead without duplicate people	Sheets or form app, Pipedrive	Medium	4–5 per lead	Guide
4	Typeform or Tally response → Google Sheets row	Typeform or Tally, Sheets	Easy	About 3 per response	Guide
5	Facebook lead ad → sheet row + email	Facebook Lead Ads, Sheets, Gmail	Medium	3–4 per lead	Guide
6	Polite invoice payment reminders	Sheets, Gmail	Medium	1 per run + 2–3 per reminder	Guide
7	Daily overdue-invoice digest to yourself	Sheets, Gmail	Easy	1–2 per day, about 4 with overdue invoices	Free template
8	Create invoices and record payments in QuickBooks or Xero	Sheets, QuickBooks or Xero	Advanced	About 6–8 per invoice	Guide
9	Quote follow-up drafts after 7 days	Sheets, Gmail	Easy	1–2 per run + 2–4 per follow-up	Free template
10	Send an email when a row is ready	Sheets, Gmail	Easy	1 per run + about 3 per email	Guide
11	Shopify order → sheet row + Slack alert	Shopify, Sheets, Slack	Medium	About 4 per order, more per line item	Guide
12	WhatsApp order confirmations	Sheets, WhatsApp Business Cloud	Advanced	1 per check + 2 per order	Guide
13	Save Gmail attachments to Google Drive folders	Gmail, Google Drive	Medium	1 per check + about 4–5 per email + 1 per file	Guide
14	Webhook data → sheet, without duplicate rows	Webhooks, Sheets	Easy	About 3 per new row	Free template
15	Booking form → Google Calendar event	Forms/Sheets, Google Calendar	Medium	About 5–6 per response (+1 per check)	Guide
16	Daily summary email from a sheet	Sheets, Gmail	Easy	About 3 per day	Guide
17	Form or payment alerts in Discord	Webhooks or Stripe, Discord	Easy	2 per submission	Guide
18	Sort incoming email with AI labels	Gmail, OpenAI (or Claude/Gemini)	Medium	1 per check + 2 per email, plus the AI provider's token bill	Guide
19	Support-email triage with a Make AI agent	Gmail, Make AI Agent, Sheets, Slack	Advanced	Varies with tokens and tools used	Guide
20	Ask Claude who owes you money (MCP)	Make MCP server, Sheets	Advanced	About 2–3 per question	Guide

Credits are our estimates for one run, counted at about 1 credit per module action. Routers, filters and error handlers use none. Check the real count in your scenario's History.

How we count the credits

Make bills in credits. Make's pricing page says each module action uses credits, whether it reads, searches, creates, updates, transforms, aggregates or iterates data, and that routers and error handlers don't. Filters aren't modules, so they're free too. For the standard modules in these examples that works out at about 1 credit per module, per bundle (item) it processes. Two things push the number up:

Scheduled triggers. A "Watch" or "Search Rows" trigger on a schedule uses a credit on every check, even when nothing is new. Checking every 15 minutes is up to 96 checks a day, which is about 2,900 a month on its own. An instant trigger (a webhook, Tally, Typeform, Facebook Lead Ads New Lead, Shopify Watch events) runs only when data arrives.
Many items per run. If a search returns 10 rows, every module after it runs 10 times. Our Make credits guide shows how to estimate a month, and the Make credits calculator does the sum for you.

AI modules can add token-based credits on top, depending on how you connect them. Each example below says how.

Sales and leads

Lead handling is where most small businesses start: a form fills up, and someone has to copy the details into a CRM, tell the team and reply. Make does all three in one scenario.

1. New form response → Slack message

Post every Google Form response to a Slack channel, so nobody has to keep the response sheet open.

Who it's for: any team that takes enquiries, bookings or internal requests through Google Forms and talks in Slack.
Trigger → modules: Google Sheets Watch New Rows on the form's response sheet → Slack Send a Message.
Credits: 1 per scheduled check (even with no new responses) + 1 per response posted.
Plan fit: Free. On Free, check hourly rather than every 15 minutes so the checks don't eat your 1,000 credits.
What usually breaks: the trigger runs but finds nothing, because it starts "from now on" (Watch Rows not triggering), or Slack answers channel_not_found (fix it here).
Build it: free Form responses to Slack template · step-by-step guide

2. Form lead → HubSpot contact + hot-lead Slack alert

Create or update the contact in HubSpot and ping Slack only when the lead looks hot, for example a large budget.

Who it's for: service businesses using HubSpot's free CRM.
Trigger → modules: Google Sheets Watch New Rows → HubSpot CRM Search for Contacts (by email) → Router → Create a Contact or Update a Contact → Router (hot lead?) → Slack Send a Message. With Tally, use Tally Watch New Responses → HubSpot CRM Create or Update a Contact instead.
Credits: about 3 per lead (search, create or update, Slack) + 1 per scheduled check. The Tally version is instant: about 3 per submission, with nothing spent on empty checks.
Plan fit: Free at low volume. If you use Typeform, its native HubSpot integration may be enough without Make; the Typeform to HubSpot guide explains when to use which.
What usually breaks: a plain "create" fails when someone submits twice, because HubSpot rejects a second contact with the same email. Dropdown properties also need HubSpot's internal value, not the visible label.
Build it: Google Forms to HubSpot and Slack · Tally to HubSpot · Lead Router template ($19)

3. Form lead → Pipedrive lead without duplicate people

Pipedrive's own automations only react to records already inside Pipedrive, so leads from a Google Form or website form need an outside tool.

Who it's for: small sales teams on Pipedrive.
Trigger → modules: your form trigger → Pipedrive Search Persons (by email) → Create a Person (only if none found) → Create a Lead → Create a Note with the answers.
Credits: 4 per lead for a known person, 5 for a new one.
Plan fit: Free at low volume.
What usually breaks: two submissions seconds apart can both create the person. Turn on Process data in order in the scenario settings, so each run finishes before the next starts.
Build it: Pipedrive and Make guide

4. Typeform or Tally response → Google Sheets row

Keep one clean sheet of every response, ready for reports or the next automation.

Who it's for: anyone collecting enquiries, orders or applications in Typeform or Tally.
Trigger → modules: Typeform Watch Responses or Tally Watch New Responses (use Typeform's instant version; Tally's is instant) → Google Sheets Search Rows (by response ID) → Router → Add a Row only if it's new.
Credits: about 3 per response (trigger, search, add).
Plan fit: Free. At 3 credits a response, 1,000 credits cover roughly 330 responses a month if nothing else uses them.
What usually breaks: a new question doesn't appear in the mapping panel until Make sees a fresh response, and multiple-choice answers show as [object Object] until you map the label. If nothing arrives at all, see webhook not receiving data.
Build it: Tally to Google Sheets · Typeform to Google Sheets · Typeform to Sheets, Slack and Gmail

5. Facebook lead ad → sheet row + email

Get leads out of Meta's Lead Ads into a sheet and in front of you while they're still warm.

Who it's for: local businesses running Facebook or Instagram lead ads.
Trigger → modules: Facebook Lead Ads New Lead (instant) → Google Sheets Search Rows (lead ID, optional duplicate check) → Add a Row → Gmail Send an email to you, or Create a draft email to the lead for review.
Credits: about 3 per lead, or 4 with the duplicate check.
Plan fit: Free at low volume.
What usually breaks: New Lead never fires because Make lacks Leads Access, the Page isn't ticked in Business Integrations, or the app isn't subscribed to the Page.
Build it: Instagram and Facebook automation guide

Invoices and getting paid

These keep money coming in without you rereading the invoice list every morning. All three start from a Google Sheet, so you can keep invoicing the way you do now.

6. Polite invoice payment reminders

Email clients a friendly reminder a few days after the due date, then a firmer one and a final one, and record what was sent.

Who it's for: freelancers and small firms that track invoices in a sheet.
Trigger → modules: daily schedule → Google Sheets Search Rows (unpaid) → filter (reminder due, fewer than three sent) → Update a Row (reminder count, date, recorded before sending) → Router (which reminder?) → Gmail Send an email.
Credits: 1 per daily run + 2 per reminder (3 if you also log each email).
Plan fit: Free. A daily run is about 30 credits a month plus the reminders.
What usually breaks: dates arrive as text in another format, so the "due" filter never passes (date errors in Make). It also can't know a client paid until you mark the row.
Build it: step-by-step guide · Polite Invoice Reminder template ($19)

7. Daily overdue-invoice digest to yourself

One email each morning listing what's overdue, sent only to you. Nothing goes to clients, which makes it a safe first scenario.

Who it's for: owners who want a nudge before they chase anyone.
Trigger → modules: daily schedule → Google Sheets Search Rows (overdue) → Tools Text aggregator → JSON Parse JSON (list and totals) → Gmail Send an email, the four modules of the free template.
Credits: about 4 on days with overdue invoices, 1–2 on other days, so roughly 30–120 a month.
Plan fit: Free.
What usually breaks: Search Rows returns nothing because of a filter or header mismatch (Search Rows empty).
Build it: free Overdue Invoice Digest template · step-by-step guide. No Make at all? Highlight overdue invoices with Sheets formulas.

8. Create invoices and record payments in QuickBooks or Xero

Turn rows in a sheet (or Stripe payments) into invoices in your accounting tool, and write the paid status back.

Who it's for: businesses that already use QuickBooks Online or Xero.
Trigger → modules: Google Sheets Search Rows → QuickBooks Search for Customers or Xero Search for Contacts → Create a Customer / Create a Contact if missing → Create an Invoice. For payments: Create a Payment, then update the sheet. Stripe Watch Events can start it instead.
Credits: about 6–8 per invoice in our worked example, including the aggregator that checks the search result.
Plan fit: Free to test. Check what your accounting plan allows through its API.
What usually breaks: a new customer is created every time, because a router after a zero-result search never takes the "found" route. The fix is an aggregator and a length() check (Iterator vs Aggregator).
Build it: QuickBooks and Xero invoices guide

Quotes and follow-ups

9. Quote follow-up drafts after 7 days

Find quotes that have had no answer for a week and put a follow-up draft in your Gmail. You read and send it yourself.

Who it's for: trades, agencies and consultants who send quotes and forget to chase them.
Trigger → modules: daily schedule → Google Sheets Search Rows (sent, no reply, 7+ days) → Gmail Create a draft email → Update a Row (follow-up drafted).
Credits: the free template uses 1 per run + 2 per draft (roughly 30–60 a month). The fuller guide build uses 2 per run + about 4 per follow-up.
Plan fit: Free.
What usually breaks: Update a Row fails without a row number (missing row number). Personal Gmail connections also need re-authorizing about every six months, according to Make's Gmail docs.
Build it: free One quote follow-up draft template · step-by-step guide · Quote Follow-Up Assistant ($19)

10. Send an email when a row is ready

Send a welcome, confirmation or "your order is ready" email when a row reaches a certain status, exactly once.

Who it's for: anyone running a process from a shared sheet.
Trigger → modules: schedule → Google Sheets Search Rows (ready, not yet emailed) → Update a Row (mark "sending") → Gmail Send an email → Update a Row (sent). Watch New Rows also works for brand-new rows.
Credits: 1 per run + about 3 per email, counted from the modules.
Plan fit: Free.
What usually breaks: Gmail returns "Invalid to header" when the cell has a trailing space, a line break or two addresses. Wrapping the field in trim() fixes most cases.
Build it: Gmail email for a new row guide

Orders and customers

11. Shopify order → sheet row + Slack alert

Log every order to a sheet for reporting or fulfilment and tell the team in Slack.

Who it's for: small Shopify stores.
Trigger → modules: Shopify Watch events (instant) or Watch orders (scheduled) → Google Sheets Search Rows (order ID) → Add a Row → Slack Send a Message. For one row per product, add an Iterator; for large orders, an Array aggregator and Bulk Add Rows (Advanced) write once per order.
Credits: about 4 per order with the instant trigger, counted from the modules. One row per line item adds credits per item, and the scheduled trigger adds 1 per check.
Plan fit: Free for a quiet store. Check your volume with the credits calculator.
What usually breaks: duplicate rows from webhook retries or re-runs. Search before you add, and remember that an empty search still passes one empty bundle on.
Build it: Shopify orders to Google Sheets guide

12. WhatsApp order confirmations

When an order is marked confirmed in your sheet, send the customer an approved WhatsApp template message.

Who it's for: shops and service businesses whose customers prefer WhatsApp.
Trigger → modules: schedule → Google Sheets Search Rows (confirmed, not yet sent) → filter → WhatsApp Business Cloud Send a Template Message → Update a Row.
Credits: 1 per check + 2 per order, so an hourly check that finds 3 orders uses 7.
Plan fit: Make's Free plan is enough to test. You also need a Meta business setup and approved message templates, and Meta may charge for messages, so check Meta's current pricing.
What usually breaks: the module shows success but nothing arrives. Usually it's a free-form message outside the 24-hour window, a free tier used up with no payment method, or a recipient who hasn't opted in.
Build it: WhatsApp automation guide

Admin and back office

13. Save Gmail attachments to Google Drive folders

File invoices, receipts and supplier documents from email into one Drive folder per month, automatically.

Who it's for: anyone whose bookkeeper asks for "all the receipts" every month.
Trigger → modules: Gmail Watch emails (filter by sender, label or "has attachment" in the trigger) → Google Drive Search for Files/Folders (month folder) → Array aggregator → Router → Create a Folder if missing → Search for Files/Folders again (folder ID) → Iterator over the attachments → filter (skip signature images) → Upload a File.
Credits: 1 per scheduled check, then about 4 per email (two folder searches, the aggregator and the Iterator), 5 when it creates the month's folder, plus 1 per uploaded file. Counted from the modules. Emails filtered out in the trigger cost nothing further.
Plan fit: Free for small volumes. The Free plan's 5 MB file size limit can block larger attachments; paid plans allow bigger files (make.com/en/pricing).
What usually breaks: files upload but won't open, or are 0 bytes, because the Data field is mapped to the whole attachments array instead of the current item (Iterator vs Aggregator). Signature images also pile up unless you filter by file type.
Build it: Gmail attachments to Google Drive guide. To read the saved PDFs or create your own: PDF automation in Make.

14. Webhook data → sheet, without duplicate rows

Catch data from your website, a booking tool or any app that can send a webhook, and add it to a sheet once, even when the sender retries.

Who it's for: anyone whose tool has a "webhook" setting but no Make app.
Trigger → modules: Webhooks Custom webhook (instant) → Google Sheets Search Rows (by ID) → filter → Add a Row. Add a Webhook response only if your sender expects a specific reply (one more credit).
Credits: 3 per new row and 2 per skipped duplicate, measured in our template test. No requests means no credits.
Plan fit: Free. The template uses no paid-only features.
What usually breaks: fields don't appear in the mapping panel because Make learned the structure from an empty request. Click Detect new values in the Custom webhook module and send a full sample. If requests never arrive, see webhook not receiving data.
Build it: free Webhook to Sheets with duplicate check template · step-by-step guide

15. Booking form → Google Calendar event

Turn a booking or appointment request into a calendar event at the right time, in the right time zone.

Who it's for: consultants, trainers and service businesses that take bookings through a Google Form.
Trigger → modules: Google Sheets Watch New Rows on the response sheet (or Google Forms Watch Responses) → three Tools Set variable modules (combine date and time, parse it in your time zone, work out the end time) → Google Calendar Search Events → Router → Create an Event → optional Google Sheets Update a Row.
Credits: about 5–6 per response (three variables, the search and the event, plus Update a Row if you use it), counted from the modules, plus 1 per check for the scheduled trigger.
Plan fit: Free.
What usually breaks: the event lands an hour or more off because the date was parsed without a time zone (date errors in Make).
Build it: Google Forms to Google Calendar guide

16. Daily summary email from a sheet

A morning email with today's jobs, new leads or open tasks as a small table.

Who it's for: owners and team leads who live in a shared sheet.
Trigger → modules: daily schedule → Google Sheets Search Rows → Tools Text aggregator (builds the table) → Gmail Send an email.
Credits: about 3 per day, counted from the modules.
Plan fit: Free.
What usually breaks: the email shows raw HTML tags (set the Gmail body type to Raw HTML), or an ampersand or line break in a cell breaks the table. escapeHTML() fixes most of that.
Build it: daily summary email guide

Team alerts

17. Form or payment alerts in Discord

Post new form submissions or Stripe payments to a Discord channel as a tidy embed.

Who it's for: small teams and communities that work in Discord rather than Slack.
Trigger → modules: Webhooks Custom webhook or Stripe Watch Events → HTTP Make a request to a Discord webhook URL with an embed. Make's Discord app works too.
Credits: 2 per submission (webhook + HTTP).
Plan fit: Free.
What usually breaks: quotes or line breaks in mapped text break the JSON string, so Discord rejects the request. The Make error cheat sheet lists the common 400 errors.
Build it: Discord automation guide

AI examples

AI steps are the newest part of Make and change fastest. Keep a human check wherever a wrong answer would reach a customer.

18. Sort incoming email with AI labels

Have an AI model read each new email and label it, for example quote request, invoice, support or spam, so your inbox sorts itself.

Who it's for: owners whose one inbox gets everything.
Trigger → modules: Gmail Watch emails → OpenAI Transform text to structured data (returns the category) → Gmail Update email labels. The Anthropic Claude and Google Gemini AI apps work the same way.
Credits: 1 per check + 2 per email (AI module + label). With your own API key, OpenAI bills the tokens separately. Claude's and Gemini's no-key Simple Text Prompt modules bill tokens in Make credits instead.
Plan fit: Free to build and test.
What usually breaks: a 401 error from a wrong or revoked API key, or a 429 rate limit. Add an error route so one failed email doesn't stop the run (Make error handling).
Build it: ChatGPT and OpenAI in Make · Claude and Gemini in Make

19. Support-email triage with a Make AI agent

An agent reads each support email, looks up the order, logs the request and alerts the team. It decides which tools to use rather than following fixed routes.

Who it's for: small shops and SaaS teams that already have the fixed-route basics running.
Trigger → modules: Gmail Watch emails → Make AI Agent (New) Run an agent, with tools: a "Find order" scenario (Search Rows → Router → Return output, scheduled On demand), Google Sheets Add a Row and Slack Send a Message.
Credits: varies. The agent uses credits per operation plus token-based credits when you use Make's AI Provider, and each tool it calls uses its own credits. Run a few test emails and read the History.
Plan fit: Make's pricing table lists AI Agents (beta) on every plan, including Free, with Make's AI Provider. Connecting your own OpenAI or Claude key needs a paid plan. The app is in open beta, so features and pricing may change.
What usually breaks: the agent never calls a tool because the tool descriptions are vague. Write descriptions that say "use when…" and name the tool in the instructions.
Build it: Make AI agents guide

20. Ask Claude who owes you money (MCP)

Connect Claude or ChatGPT to the Make MCP server and ask in plain language: "Who's more than 14 days overdue?" A Make scenario reads your invoice sheet and returns the answer.

Who it's for: owners who already use Claude or ChatGPT and want answers from their own data.
Trigger → modules: a scenario scheduled On demand with a scenario input (minimum days overdue) → Google Sheets Search Rows → filter → Array aggregator → Scenarios Return output.
Credits: about 2–3 per question, counted from the modules. The AI app's own usage is billed by that app.
Plan fit: the pricing table lists the MCP server and scenario inputs and outputs on every plan, including Free. Letting the AI build or edit scenarios needs management scopes, which are paid-only.
What usually breaks: the scenario doesn't show up as a tool. It must be active and scheduled On demand, and the connection needs the run scope.
Build it: Make MCP server guide

How to pick your first automation

The best first scenario is small, frequent and low-risk. Five questions help:

Do you do it every week? Copying leads, chasing invoices and filing receipts come up again and again. A once-a-year task isn't worth a scenario.
Is the data already in one place? Examples that start from a Google Sheet (6, 7, 9, 10, 16) are the easiest, because you can see and fix the data yourself.
Who sees the result? Start with something that reaches only you or your team: a digest (7), a Slack alert (1) or drafts you send yourself (9). Move to customer-facing emails once you trust it.
Does it fit the Free plan? Free allows 2 active scenarios, 1,000 credits a month and runs at most every 15 minutes (make.com/en/pricing, checked 3 October 2026). An instant trigger or a daily schedule keeps credit use low.
Can you test it with fake data? Use a copy of the sheet and a test channel or your own email address.

If you're unsure, start with the free Overdue Invoice Digest (7) or Form responses to Slack (1). Both take a few modules, reach only you or your team, and teach the pattern most of the other examples use: search a sheet, then do something with each row. New to Make altogether? Read Make.com for beginners first.

If you don't have a Make account yet, create a free Make account (affiliate link). Everything marked "Free" above runs on it.

Affiliate disclosure: links marked "affiliate link" include our partner code. If you sign up or later buy a paid plan through them, Flowpaja may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. More on the tools we use: best tools for Make automation.

Importing a template instead of building from scratch

Most of the "Build it" links above are step-by-step guides, and the templates come as a Make blueprint (a JSON file) you import into your own account:

Create a new scenario in Make and choose Import blueprint. It's in the upper-right corner of the Scenario Builder; older tutorials show it in the bottom toolbar.
Pick the .json file. It has to be under 2 MB, and a word processor that turns straight quotes into curly ones makes it invalid.
Reconnect every module. Blueprints carry modules and mappings, never connections, so each module that needs one shows a warning until you pick your own Google, Slack or Gmail connection.
Reselect your own sheet, channel or folder, set the schedule, and test with Run once on fictional data before switching it on.

The full walkthrough, including what to do with JSON text instead of a file: how to import a Make blueprint.

What these cost to run

On Make's Free plan, all 20 examples cost nothing to build and test. What limits you is the 1,000 credits a month, the 2 active scenarios and the 15-minute minimum interval. A few rough monthly figures, using the counts above:

Setup	How we count it	Rough credits a month
Overdue digest (7), daily	1–2 on quiet days, about 4 with overdue invoices	30–120
Invoice reminders (6), daily, 20 reminders	30 runs × 1 + 20 × 2	About 70
Tally → Sheets (4), 100 responses	100 × 3, nothing on empty checks	About 300
Form → Slack (1), hourly checks, 50 responses	720 checks + 50	About 770

The last row shows the usual trap: scheduled checks, not the actual work, use most of the credits. Checking every two hours halves that, and an instant trigger removes it. Before you switch a scenario on, put your own numbers into the Make credits calculator. Make credits explained has 12 ways to use fewer.

Plan check: none of the 20 examples needs a paid-only feature. According to Make's pricing table (3 October 2026), the MCP server, AI Agents (beta), the AI Content Extractor, scenario inputs and outputs, and subscenarios are on every plan, including Free (the Content Extractor's own app docs still say paid plans, so check your account). The Make Code app isn't on Free. Custom variables start on Pro, and custom functions are Enterprise-only. When you outgrow Free, mostly because of a third active scenario or more credits, compare Make with the alternatives in Make vs Zapier vs n8n.

Sources checked (3 October 2026)

make.com/en/pricing: Free plan limits, credit rules (routers and error handlers use no credits) and the per-plan feature table, as seen from a US connection
Make app pages on make.com/en/integrations for Google Sheets, Gmail, Slack, Shopify, Facebook Lead Ads, WhatsApp Business Cloud, Google Calendar, Google Drive, QuickBooks, Xero, OpenAI, Typeform, Tally, Pipedrive, Discord, Stripe and Make AI Agent; apps.make.com docs for HubSpot CRM, Shopify and Google Calendar
The linked Flowpaja guides and templates, for the scenario steps, credit counts and common errors in each example

FAQ

What can you automate with Make.com in a small business?

Mostly repetitive work between the apps you already use: sending form leads to a CRM and Slack, invoice reminders and overdue digests, quote follow-up drafts, logging Shopify orders to a sheet, saving Gmail attachments to Google Drive, calendar events from booking forms, daily summary emails, and AI steps such as labelling incoming email. This guide lists 20 examples with their modules and links to step-by-step guides.

What are the best Make.com use cases to start with?

Start with something you do every week that only reaches you or your team, such as a daily overdue-invoice digest, new form responses posted to Slack, or quote follow-up drafts that you send yourself. Once you trust the scenario, move on to customer-facing emails and CRM updates.

Are there free Make.com templates for these examples?

Yes. Flowpaja has four free Make templates: Overdue Invoice Digest, Form responses to Slack, One quote follow-up draft, and Webhook to Sheets with a duplicate check. Three fuller templates cost $19 each: Polite Invoice Reminder, Quote Follow-Up Assistant and Lead Router. All are listed on flowpaja.com/templates/.

Can I run these automations on Make's Free plan?

Most of them, at low volume. As of 3 October 2026, Make's Free plan includes 1,000 credits a month and 2 active scenarios, runs scheduled scenarios at most every 15 minutes, and limits files to 5 MB. None of the 20 examples needs a paid-only feature, but connecting your own OpenAI or Claude key to a Make AI agent requires a paid plan.

How many credits does a typical Make automation use?

Roughly 1 credit per module action for each item processed, so a simple three-module scenario uses about 3 credits per new item. Scheduled triggers also use 1 credit per check, even when nothing is new, while routers, filters and error handlers use none. The examples here range from about 2 to 8 credits per item. Check the real numbers in your scenario's History after a test run.

Do I need coding skills to use Make?

No. All 20 examples are built from visual modules, filters and a few built-in functions such as trim() or parseDate(). Make's Code app for JavaScript or Python exists but isn't on the Free plan, and none of these examples needs it.

How do I import a Make blueprint?

Create a new scenario, choose Import blueprint in the upper-right corner of the Scenario Builder and pick the .json file, which must be under 2 MB. Blueprints never include connections, so reconnect each module to your own accounts, reselect your sheets and channels, then test with Run once on fictional data before switching the scenario on.

What is the easiest first automation in Make?

A scenario that searches a Google Sheet once a day and emails only you, such as the free Overdue Invoice Digest, or one that posts new Google Form responses to Slack. Both use 2 to 4 modules, cost only a few credits a run and can't send anything to a customer by mistake.

Tools we use for these builds: our tools page.

Start with a template, not a blank scenario

Four of these examples are free Make templates: Overdue Invoice Digest, Form responses to Slack, One quote follow-up draft, and Webhook to Sheets with a duplicate check. Each comes with a setup guide and runs on Make's Free plan. When you want the fuller versions, Polite Invoice Reminder, Quote Follow-Up Assistant and Lead Router are $19 each, or all three for $39 in the Starter Bundle. Everything runs in your own Make and Google accounts.

Browse the templates (4 free) Starter Bundle: 3 templates for $39

Built one of these and it's failing? Send us the exported blueprint and a description of the error, no logins or calls needed: Make scenario fix / debugging on Fiverr, from $25.

← All guides · All templates

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