General
Zapier is holding your business together and it keeps breaking
When a dozen Zapier or Make automations hold your business together, one changed field can break them quietly and you find out from a customer.
I replace them with integrations built for your workflow, with alerts when something fails, usually as a Connect build at $5,000.
What this usually looks like
A form in Jotform or Typeform creates a contact in HubSpot, which creates a deal, which posts to Slack, which creates a task in Asana, which eventually makes an invoice in the accounting tool. Each step is a zap.
Nobody remembers who built half of them. When one fails, it fails silently, and the data stops moving until someone notices a gap.
Zapier and Make both price by task, so the bill climbs as the business grows. Twenty zaps running a few thousand tasks a month adds up fast.
Why it got this way
Zapier is a great way to connect two tools on a Tuesday afternoon. That is exactly how most stacks end up with forty zaps: one quick fix at a time.
In my view, Zapier is duct tape. It holds, until a tool renames a field or changes an API, and then it does not, with no one watching.
The fix, three ways
Connect, $5,000
keep the tools, fix the plumbing
This is the usual fix. For $5,000, I replace the fragile chain with integrations built for your workflow, covering up to three systems. You get alerts within 15 minutes when a sync fails and a runbook so you are not dependent on me. It is the wrong choice if the tools at either end are the real problem.
Consolidate, $20,000
one app for the daily work, keep what still earns its place
If the zaps exist because work is split across too many tools, the better fix is fewer tools. For $20,000, I build one app for the daily work, so most of the hand-offs disappear instead of being automated.
Replace, $75,000 to $100,000
rebuild the part of the big platform you actually use
If the zaps are all propping up one big platform that does not fit, Replace rebuilds the part you use, for $75,000 to $100,000. That is rare for a Zapier problem. Usually Connect or Consolidate is enough.
What it looks like when it's done
The closest finished example is Spark. Spark replaced four tools and a payroll done by hand in Excel. It saves BigDog Solar 20+ hours a week of manual work and roughly $60,000 a year, and billing issues now live in 1 system instead of 3.
Read more: Spark for BigDog Solar.
When you should not do this
If you have one or two simple zaps and they rarely break, keep them. They are fine.
If nobody on your side can own the process for two hours a week, a new integration will drift the same way the zaps did.
Questions about this
Why do my Zapier automations keep breaking?
Usually because one of the tools changed: a renamed field, a new required value, an expired login, an API update. Zapier runs the step, it fails, and unless someone reads the error emails, nobody knows. The more zaps you chain together, the more places that can happen.
What replaces Zapier?
Integrations written for your specific workflow, running in your own cloud account. They check the data, retry when a tool is down, and alert a real person within 15 minutes when something fails. You own the code, so nothing breaks because a vendor changed its pricing.
How much does it cost to replace Zapier?
Connect is $5,000, fixed, and covers up to three systems and three integrations for one workflow. It takes 3 to 4 weeks. After that, support is optional at $500 a month.