Plain answers before any project.
How each kind of assistant or automation works, what it costs to run with third-party prices and their sources, what we learned building our own, and when it is not worth doing.
- Inbound voice agents
What should an inbound voice agent answer, and what must it hand to a person?
Which calls a phone assistant can answer, which it must pass to staff with a summary, what voice platforms charge per minute, and when it is not worth it.
- Website chatbots
What does a website chatbot do for a small business, and when is it worth it?
What a website chatbot should answer, what it should pass to staff, what the chatbot vendors and model providers charge, and when a contact form is enough.
- WhatsApp assistants
How do you connect WhatsApp to an assistant with Meta's Cloud API?
The steps to connect a WhatsApp number to an assistant through Meta's Cloud API, what Meta charges from 1 October 2026, and the errors that stop a first setup.
- Support inbox automation
How do you automate a support inbox without sending a wrong reply?
How to let a model sort support messages and draft replies while a person approves every send, what helpdesks and model providers charge, and when not to.
- CRM and tool integrations
n8n, Zapier or Make: which one should a small business choose?
n8n, Zapier and Make bill by different units: executions, tasks and credits. Entry prices read today, how to compare them, and when each one fits.
- Document processing
How do you pull data out of hundreds of PDFs?
How to turn hundreds of PDFs into a checked table: collect, extract, validate and load. What OCR costs today, and what we learned building our own.
- Automated reporting
How do you build a report that updates itself when the data changes?
Keep the data in one place, rebuild the report on a schedule or on each change, and stop it when inputs are missing. What the tools cost and what we learned.
- Internal knowledge assistants
How does an internal knowledge assistant answer from your documents without making things up?
How an assistant finds the right passage in your documents, answers with a citation and says when it does not know, what it costs to run, and when not to.
- Content workflow automation
How do you automate a content workflow and keep an editor in control?
How to automate the repeated steps of a content workflow, from brief to scheduled post, while nothing publishes until a named editor approves it.
- Prospect research and CRM enrichment
How do you build a sourced lead list without buying one?
Build a lead list from public listings and each business’s own website, with a source on every field and unknowns marked. Costs read today and our lessons.
- Business websites
What does a small business website need to be found by Google and ChatGPT?
The files, markup and pages a small business site needs so Google, Bing and AI answer engines can read it, with the official sources, and how to check it.
- Customer portals
When does a business need a customer portal instead of email?
The signs that email has stopped working for customer requests, what a portal changes, what no-code portal tools list as prices, and when email is still enough.
- Internal tools
When should a business move a process off spreadsheets into an internal tool?
The signs a spreadsheet has become a risk for a team process, what an internal tool adds, what builders like Airtable and Retool list, and when to stay put.
- For agencies
Why does my n8n workflow run twice for the same thing?
Why the same lead, order or message is processed twice in n8n, how to find which cause it is, and how to stop it with a key you decide on.
- For agencies
My n8n workflow worked, and now it fails with 401 or 403. Why?
What 401 and 403 mean in an n8n node, why a Google connection can stop after 7 days, and how to fix the credential instead of retrying.
- For agencies
How do I find out when an n8n workflow fails silently?
How to make n8n tell a person when a run fails, and how to catch the worse case: runs that succeed but do the wrong thing.