Cheap Business Automation That Actually Works (Marbella & Costa del Sol)

You copy a lead from your website contact form. You paste it into a spreadsheet. You open your email and type the same follow-up message you've sent 50 times this month. You update the CRM. You add a reminder to follow up in 3 days. You do this for every single lead.

That's 15 minutes per lead. At 10 leads a day, you're spending over 12 hours a week on work a machine should be doing.

This is the reality for most small businesses on the Costa del Sol. Restaurants, agencies, consultancies, property managers -- they know automation exists but assume it costs thousands and requires a full IT department. It doesn't.

What "Cheap Business Automation" Actually Means

Let's define the term, because people hear "cheap" and think "bad." That's not what this is.

Cheap business automation means a single, well-built workflow that handles one repetitive process end-to-end. No bloated platform. No enterprise software license. No six-month implementation project. Just one automated sequence that removes manual work from your day.

For businesses in Marbella and across the Costa del Sol, this is often the right starting point. You don't need a full digital transformation. You need the one task that eats your time to stop eating your time.

What €190 Gets You: The Auto Starter

Our Auto Starter package is built for exactly this situation. Here's what's included:

• 1 automated workflow, fully built and tested
• Setup on n8n or Make (your choice -- more on this below)
• Documentation so you understand what it does and how to adjust it
• 1 revision after launch to fine-tune triggers, timing, or content

That's it. One price, one workflow, no ongoing fees from us. The workflow runs on your own infrastructure or cloud account.

Concrete Examples

These are real workflows we've built at this price point:

Form submission to CRM with email notification. Someone fills out your website contact form. The system automatically creates a contact in your CRM, sends you an email notification with the lead details, and logs the timestamp. No more checking the form inbox. No more manual data entry.

New lead to automated welcome sequence. A lead comes in from your website, Facebook ad, or landing page. The system sends a personalized welcome email immediately, then a follow-up after 24 hours, then a third touch at 72 hours. Each email is pre-written and branded. You write them once, the system sends them forever.

Invoice to payment reminder chain. You send an invoice. If it's unpaid after 7 days, the system sends a polite reminder. After 14 days, a firmer one. After 30 days, a final notice. You never have to remember to chase payments again.

Booking confirmation and reminder. Someone books an appointment through your calendar tool. They get an instant confirmation email, a reminder 24 hours before, and an SMS the morning of. No-shows drop significantly.

Each of these replaces a task you're currently doing by hand, multiple times per day.

Why Not Just Do It Yourself?

Fair question. Tools like Zapier, Make, and n8n are available to anyone. You could learn them. Here's the honest breakdown:

If you enjoy building systems and have spare time, go for it. Zapier is the most user-friendly. You'll probably spend 30-40 hours learning the platform, debugging triggers, figuring out authentication, and testing edge cases. If your time is worth €25/hour, that's €750-1,000 in opportunity cost. And you still won't have documentation or a clean setup.

If you just want it done, that's where we come in. We've built hundreds of these workflows. What takes a first-timer 40 hours takes us a few. You get a clean, documented, tested system without the learning curve.

How This Compares to Other Options

Let's be direct about the alternatives, because you should understand the landscape before you spend money.

Hiring a virtual assistant: €800-1,500/month

A VA can do the manual work for you. The problem is you're paying that every month, forever. After 12 months, you've spent €9,600-18,000 and you still don't have a system. The VA gets sick, quits, or makes mistakes. Automation doesn't.

Hiring an agency: €5,000+

Most digital agencies charge €5,000 to €15,000 for automation projects because they bundle in strategy, project management, meetings, and overhead. For a complex multi-system integration, that's fair. For a single workflow, it's overkill.

Doing nothing: €0 upfront, but expensive

The hidden cost of manual work is real. If you're spending 5 hours per week on a task that could be automated, and your time is worth €30/hour, that's €600/month. The €190 automation pays for itself in less than 2 weeks.

Our Auto Starter: €190 one-time

One workflow, built properly, documented, with a revision included. No monthly fees. No contract. The workflow belongs to you.

The Tools: n8n vs. Make

We build automations on two platforms. Which one is right depends on your situation.

n8n (Self-Hosted)

n8n is an open-source workflow automation tool. You can host it on your own server, which means:

• No per-execution fees -- run it as much as you want
• Full data control -- nothing leaves your infrastructure
• No vendor lock-in -- you own everything

The tradeoff is that you need a server (a basic VPS costs €5-10/month) and someone to maintain it. If you already have hosting infrastructure or a developer on call, n8n is the better long-term choice. It's what we recommend for most businesses in Marbella that plan to scale their automation over time.

Make (Cloud)

Make (formerly Integromat) is a cloud-hosted platform. You sign up, and it runs:

• No server management -- Make handles everything
• Easy to understand -- the visual interface is clean
• Quick to deploy -- workflows go live in minutes

The tradeoff is a monthly subscription (free tier available, paid plans from ~€9/month) and per-operation pricing. For a single workflow with moderate volume, the cost is minimal. If you don't have any technical infrastructure and don't want to manage servers, Make is the simpler choice.

We'll advise you on which platform fits your situation during the project.

Be Honest: What This Won't Do

The Auto Starter is a single workflow. Here's what it does not include:

• Multi-system integration -- If you need data flowing between 5 different tools with complex logic, this isn't the package.
• Custom business logic -- If your workflow requires conditional branching across dozens of scenarios, you need something bigger.
• Ongoing monitoring -- We build it and hand it over. We don't monitor it 24/7 for you.
• Multiple workflows -- This is one automated process, not a full automation suite.

We're upfront about this because overselling leads to disappointment. If your needs are bigger than a single workflow, we have something for that too.

When You Outgrow the Starter: Workflow Pro

Some businesses start with the Auto Starter and realize they need more. That's the point -- start small, prove value, then invest further.

Our Workflow Pro package (€790-2,200) is designed for businesses that need:

• Multiple interconnected workflows
• Complex conditional logic and branching
• Integration across several systems (CRM, email, calendar, invoicing, etc.)
• Error handling and retry logic
• Monitoring and alerting
• Ongoing support

This is where affordable automation in Spain scales into a proper business system. But you don't have to start here. The Auto Starter lets you validate the concept for €190 before committing to a larger build.

The ROI Math

Let's make this concrete. Say you're a property management company in Marbella. Every new tenant inquiry currently requires:

• Copy inquiry details from website form (2 min)
• Paste into your tracking spreadsheet (2 min)
• Send acknowledgment email (3 min)
• Notify the relevant property manager (2 min)
• Schedule a follow-up reminder (2 min)

That's 11 minutes per inquiry. At 15 inquiries per day, that's 2.75 hours daily or 13.75 hours per week.

One automated workflow handles all five steps instantly. Zero minutes per inquiry.

At €30/hour, that's €412.50/week in recovered time. The €190 Auto Starter pays for itself in less than one week.

Even if your numbers are half of this -- fewer leads, less time per task -- the payback period is still under a month. There aren't many business investments with that kind of return.

Why This Works for Costa del Sol Businesses

The Marbella and Costa del Sol market has specific characteristics that make cheap business automation particularly effective:

Seasonal volume swings. Tourism-driven businesses go from quiet winters to overwhelming summers. Automation handles the volume spike without hiring temp staff.

Multilingual operations. Your leads come in English, Spanish, German, sometimes more. Automated sequences can respond in the right language based on the source or form field.

Small teams. Most businesses here are 2-15 people. There's no dedicated ops person to handle repetitive admin. Automation fills that gap without adding headcount.

International clients. Clients across time zones expect fast responses. An automated system responds at 3 AM when you're asleep. That lead from London or Munich gets an instant reply.

Get Started

If you're running a business in Marbella or anywhere on the Costa del Sol, and you're still doing manual work that follows a predictable pattern, you're overpaying for a solved problem.

The Auto Starter costs €190. One workflow, built on n8n or Make, documented, with one revision included. No contracts. No monthly fees.

Tell us which workflow you want automated and we'll scope it within 24 hours.

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QPC^8 is a software development company based in Marbella, Spain. We build websites, apps, and automation systems for businesses across the Costa del Sol. Learn more about our automation services.