The first version of your business will change. Choose tools that let you change with it.
A free plan can be a sensible place to start. The questions come later: can your website update the CRM? Can staff see an order without another paid account? Can you move your records when the tool no longer fits?
Our starting points are Attio for customer relationships, Airtable for business data and n8n for automation. Below, we look at where they fit, where Baserow, Make or Zapier deserve a look, and what to check before building around any of them.
01 — Quick comparison
Start with the job you need to do.
These tools do different jobs. You may need one or two, and you may already have a suitable tool. Keep it if it works and can make the connections you need.
| Tool / job | Where you can start | What can push the cost up |
|---|---|---|
| AttioCRM | Free for up to 3 seats; 50,000 records. | Seats, permissions and workflow usage. |
| AirtableBusiness data | Free plan; 1,000 API calls per workspace/month. | Billable seats, capacity and API allowance. |
| BaserowBusiness data | Cloud Free: 3,000 rows and 2GB storage per workspace. | Users, paid features or running your own hosting. |
| n8nAutomation | Self-hosted Community Edition; hosting and maintenance are yours. | Workflow executions, hosting and administration needs. |
| MakeAutomation | Free: 1,000 credits/month; 15-minute minimum scheduled interval. | Credits consumed by the actual scenario. |
| ZapierAutomation | Free: 100 tasks/month and two-step Zaps. | Billable tasks and the features your workflow needs. |
On a small screen, swipe the table to compare. Sources and paid-plan details are linked in each review. Prices retain the vendor’s currency; check tax and local pricing at checkout.
02 — Buying criteria
An API is a starting point. Check what it actually lets you do.
An API is how software reads or changes information in another system. An accessible one can keep your options open, even when the product itself is proprietary. Here is what we would test before relying on it.
01The work
Can it read and update the records you need?
Test a real customer, order or job. Check custom fields, attachments and relationships, not just the simplest contact record.
02The volume
What happens when usage increases?
Check monthly allowances and short-term rate limits. Include scheduled checks, retries and every system using the same allowance.
03The people
Who needs access, and what can they see?
Price the team that will use it. Check whether viewing, commenting, editing and administration require different paid seats.
04The exit
Can you get your information back out?
Try an export before committing. Check what happens to files, history and linked records, and what rebuilding the workflow elsewhere would involve.
Free, open-source and self-hosted mean different things.
Free describes a price. Open-source describes licence permissions. Self-hosted means you run the software. Attio and Airtable have APIs but remain proprietary services. Baserow has an open-source core. n8n is source-available with licence restrictions. Choose the trade-offs you need; none of these labels is a guarantee of an easy move later.
03 — Customer relationships
Attio: start with the sales process.
Attio
Proprietary · cloud
A starting point for customer relationships.
Start here when the job is keeping track of people, companies and sales conversations. Its API gives you a route to connect those records to other systems. Before committing, model your actual sales process: a handful of real customers, the stages they move through, and the information your team needs at each stage.
Before you commit. Check the permission level you need as well as the seat count. A free CRM is less useful if the team cannot share the right information without exposing everything. Test the fields and actions you need through the API; a connector logo alone does not prove they are covered.
Paying for it. Plus: US$35 per user/month, billed annually (US$420 per user/year).
Already using a CRM? Test its integration options first. Moving the team, records and history can cost more than improving the connection to what you have.
04 — Business data
Airtable vs Baserow: convenience, control and the work between them.
Airtable
Proprietary · cloud
Useful when your business records need their own structure.
Orders, suppliers, jobs and stock do not always fit neatly inside a CRM. Airtable is worth considering when people need to work with that information directly and you also want to connect it to a website or another tool. Decide which system owns each record before you create another copy of it.
Before you commit. The free API allowance can become the constraint before the interface does. Team increases the monthly allowance to 100,000 calls per workspace; the 5 requests-per-second limit per base still applies. Check API demand and billable seats before choosing a plan.
Paying for it. Team: US$20 per billable seat/month, billed annually (US$240 per seat/year).
A detail worth checking
One request an hour is already 720 calls in a 30-day month. That is before writes, extra pages of results or other integrations. It is an illustrative calculation, not a benchmark of a finished workflow.
Baserow
Open-source core · cloud or self-hosted
An alternative to assess when hosting control matters.
Put Baserow alongside Airtable if an open-source core and the option to run the software yourself are real requirements. That gives you a different ownership model. It does not make the two products interchangeable: try your relationships, views and integrations with a small set of representative records first.
Before you commit. The MIT-licensed core is distinct from paid features. Check permissions and administration requirements against the relevant plan. Self-hosting needs someone responsible for updates, backups, access and recovery; include their time in the comparison.
Paying for it. Cloud Premium: US$10 per user/month, billed annually (US$120 per user/year). Self-hosting has separate operating costs.
For a three-seat team, Airtable Team’s listed annual rate totals US$720/year. Baserow Cloud Premium totals US$360/year. That only compares those subscriptions: verify features and billable users before treating the lower number as a saving.
05 — Connecting the tools
n8n vs Make vs Zapier: who will build it, and who will look after it?
Start with a specific handoff, such as turning an approved quote into a job record. The best fit depends on the actions available, the complexity of the process and the person responsible when it fails.
n8n
Source-available · cloud or self-hosted
Our starting point for workflows that need development room.
Consider n8n when a workflow needs custom API requests, branching or code alongside standard integrations. That room matters when a ready-made connector stops short of the job. Choose cloud hosting if running the service yourself is a distraction; choose self-hosting only when the control is useful and someone can maintain it.
Before you commit. n8n uses a Sustainable Use License, with restrictions including on redistribution and resale. It is source-available rather than conventional open-source software. Community Edition and paid editions also differ in features: self-hosting does not unlock everything.
Paying for it. Cloud Starter: €20/month, billed annually (€240/year), with 2,500 workflow executions/month.
Make
Proprietary · cloud
A candidate when the team wants to own a visual workflow.
Try Make when a team member will maintain the automation and the visual scenario maps well to the process. Check whether they can understand and repair a failed run without the person who built it. That is a more useful test than how quickly a demo connects two apps.
Before you commit. Run a representative batch and inspect credit usage, including the work inside loops. Its scheduled interval is different from an event arriving through a webhook. Make also supports custom integrations; proprietary does not mean disconnected.
Paying for it. Paid plans add capacity and more frequent schedules. The Make management API is listed from Core.
Zapier
Proprietary · cloud
Worth considering for a small, well-supported handoff.
Check Zapier when the exact trigger and action you need already exist and the workflow is straightforward. A paid connector can be good value if it avoids custom code that someone then has to maintain. Confirm the required fields are available before making that trade.
Before you commit. A workflow can complete several billable tasks for one customer enquiry. Price the whole sequence at realistic volume, including follow-up actions, rather than treating an enquiry as one task. The free two-step limit also matters before traffic grows.
Paying for it. Professional adds multi-step Zaps, premium apps and webhooks. Check the price for your required task allowance.
Executions, credits and tasks are different units.
Do not compare the headline allowances as if they buy the same amount of work. n8n prices its cloud plans around workflow executions; Make uses credits; Zapier uses tasks. Build the same small process, run representative records through it and inspect what each platform counts.
Add setup, maintenance and failure handling to the subscription cost. Someone still needs to know when an order has stopped syncing.
06 — Putting it together
Start with one handoff. Make it dependable.
For a founder working alone, a CRM may be enough. Add a separate database when there is information or a process the CRM cannot sensibly handle. Add automation when the repeated work is clear.
01 / CRM
Sale approved
Customer, scope and reference are recorded.
02 / Automation
Check & transfer
Validate details and check for an existing job.
03 / Operations
Job ready
The team gets the record and its CRM reference.
If the transfer fails, someone gets an alert. Re-running it should not create a second job.
For a growing team, agree which system owns each piece of information, who can change it and who handles exceptions. An integration should remove repeated entry without leaving everyone unsure which record to trust.
In our project work
For a recruitment agency, we selected and tested a replacement CRM, used Airtable to hold data for custom tools and connected systems with n8n. The value came from designing the records and handoffs around the agency’s work.
Read the recruitment project07 — Scope and sources
A shortlist, with the trade-offs left in.
Attio, Airtable and n8n are the starting points chosen by Launched’s founder, Tom Hirst. Our linked recruitment project documents Airtable and n8n in delivered work. Baserow, Make and Zapier are researched alternatives here; this is not a claim that we have tested every product or plan side by side.
Product capabilities, allowances and listed prices were checked against the official pages linked beside each review on . The fit recommendations are our judgement. This is a focused comparison of CRM, data and automation, rather than a complete business software directory.
Quoted paid rates use annual billing where stated. Dollar prices are US dollars and n8n’s quoted price is in euros. Tax, currency conversion, extra usage, implementation and ongoing support are not included in our example totals. Check the vendor’s current plan before purchasing.