Zapier made 'when X happens in app A, do Y in app B' a product anyone can wire: new row in the sheet → slack message; new lead → CRM entry. For linear, low-volume glue it is often the fastest correct answer, and the ecosystem of connectors is its moat.
The economics turn at volume and complexity: tasks are metered, branching logic gets awkward, and your data flows through a third party. That is the usual reason teams graduate to self-hosted tools like n8n or bespoke integrations — not ideology, arithmetic.
Related terms
n8n
An open-source workflow-automation tool that connects apps, APIs and AI models into repeatable pipelines — self-hostable, so data can stay on your own infrastructure.
Workflow automation
Making a repeated business process run itself — a trigger starts it, steps move the data between systems, and exceptions reach a human.
Webhook
A URL one system calls to tell another that something happened — the mechanism that lets automations react in seconds instead of polling.
The bench this belongs to
AI automationThe repetitive half of your week, handed to software that does not get bored. Inbox triage, follow-ups, reporting, data entry between tools that were never meant to talk.
