Zapier vs Make… what’s been your experience?
I’ve been building out more automations around Jobber lately and ran into something interesting. A lot of setups I see are using Zapier, but once workflows get more complex, the cost starts climbing ...
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We started with Zapier, but once our workflows got more complex it became harder to manage. We ended up hiring a company to build and maintain some custom automations and API integrations for us.
This is a really common path — Zapier works until it doesn't, then the complexity forces a decision between learning a new platform or bringing someone in.
The native Zapier connector covers the basics, but there's other options out there that extend this — including events and custom field data the native connector doesn't make available. A lot of businesses find it handles the complex workflows without needing custom development.
What kind of automations were you trying to build when things got complicated?
We tried automating our lead process so form submissions would create customers, jobs, and estimates automatically. We also built pricing rules to send rough price ranges based on the services selected.
The problem was that we were connecting too many tools through Zapier. When something broke, leads wouldn’t flow correctly, estimates wouldn’t get created, and we risked losing potential customers.
I absolutely understand the frustration! When the lead intake flow breaks, it's not just an operations problem, it's a revenue problem. Leads that don't flow correctly aren't just delayed, they can disappear.
Error handling aside, multi-step flows like that are only as reliable as the data available from an app and the ability to add data to an app. Jobber's native connector covers the basics, but creating a Client, Job, and estimate (Quote) from a single form submission, with pricing logic on top, sometimes requires field access that the native Jobber connector in Zapier doesn't provide. So people fill the gaps with extra tools, and each extra tool is another point of failure.
There are options in the Jobber marketplace that extend what's available without custom development: more triggers, more field data, and the ability to handle multi-step flows like what you described from a single connection. Might be worth a look even if you have something working, just to compare the complexity.
What are you using on the form side? Typeform, Gravity Forms, something else? Do you have your process all mapped out? I know you said you hired someone to help you here but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd like to share it here.
