How to Automate Your Entire Business for Under $120/Month

I built a system that handles lead capture, customer support, and content creation for my SaaS business. It runs 24/7 and costs me $117.50 a month. Here’s the exact stack and configurations I use, so you can replicate it without the expensive agency fees or bloated SaaS subscriptions.

The $120/month tech stack (exact tools and pricing)

My entire automation engine runs on a combination of low-cost, developer-friendly tools. The key is using n8n as the central nervous system—it’s a workflow automation tool you can self-host for free, connecting everything else. Here’s the monthly breakdown:

• n8n ($20): I self-host n8n on a cheap VPS (Hetzner CPX11, ~$5/month). The $20 is for the n8n license, which unlocks advanced features like expression editing and SSO. This is non-negotiable—it’s the glue.
• Supabase ($0 - $25): This replaces a full database and backend. The free tier is generous for starting. I’m on the Pro plan ($25) for more database space and daily backups as my user data grew.
• Claude API (~$30): Anthropic’s API is my “AI employee.” I use the Claude 3 Haiku model for most tasks at $0.25 per million input tokens. My spend averages $30/month for processing support tickets, generating content ideas, and summarizing leads.
• Resend ($0 - $20): For transactional emails. The free tier is 3,000 emails/month. I pay $20 to use my custom domain and send more.
• Paddle ($0 + fees): My payment processor. No monthly fee; they take a percentage per transaction. It’s included here because its webhooks are critical automation triggers.
• Vercel Hobby Plan ($0): I host a simple Next.js site that acts as a webhook endpoint and status page. The hobby plan is free.

Total: $117.50/month (n8n $20 + Supabase $25 + Claude $30 + Resend $20 + Vercel $0 + VPS ~$5 + Paddle % fee). The next step is to sign up for these services and get your n8n instance running. Docker-compose is the fastest way to deploy it.

Automating lead capture and CRM ($0 — n8n + Google Sheets)

Forget HubSpot. My lead pipeline starts when someone fills out a “Contact Us” form on my website. That form submits to a webhook endpoint I built on my Vercel site. That endpoint immediately triggers an n8n workflow.

The workflow first enriches the lead. It uses the “HTTP Request” node to call the Clearbit API (free tier) with the lead’s email to fetch company name and role. Then, it decides where to put the data. If it’s a hot lead (e.g., they mentioned “enterprise plan” in the message), it creates a record in my Supabase leads table with a priority flag set to high. For all others, it logs them to a Google Sheet using the Google Sheets node—this is my simple, free CRM.

The magic is in the follow-up. Immediately after logging, an “Email” node triggers via Resend. It sends a personalized acknowledgment using a template like: “Hi {first_name}, thanks for reaching out about {topic from form}. I’ve got your details and will get back to you soon.” This 60-second auto-reply significantly improves lead satisfaction.

Configuration snippet for the n8n “Function” node that decides lead priority: ```javascript const message = $input.first().json.message.toLowerCase(); const hotTerms = ['enterprise', 'budget approved', 'urgent', 'demo'];

let priority = 'low'; if (hotTerms.some(term => message.includes(term))) { priority = 'high'; } return [{ json: { ...$input.first().json, priority } }]; ```

Next Step: Create a simple form, point it to a webhook, and build your first n8n workflow with a Google Sheets node. Start capturing leads without ever opening a spreadsheet. For more on crafting the AI prompts that power these interactions, see my guide on 50 AI prompts every business needs.

Automating customer support ($20 — Claude API + n8n)

Customer support was my biggest time sink. I automated 80% of it using Claude and n8n. The system triggers when an email is sent to support@mydomain.com. I use n8n’s email trigger node (IMAP) to watch the inbox.

When a new email arrives, the workflow kicks off. First, it checks Supabase to see if the sender is an active customer (by email). Then, the core step: it sends the email text to the Claude API using an “HTTP Request” node. I prompt Claude to classify the ticket and draft a response.

1. Classify the intent: [Billing, Technical Bug, Feature Request, How-To Question, Other].
2. If it's a How-To Question or a simple Feature Request query, draft a concise, helpful answer based on our public documentation.
3. If it's a Billing issue or Technical Bug, acknowledge it politely, state that a human will look into it shortly, and ask for any additional details like their user ID or transaction ID.
4. Always end by asking if this resolves their issue.

Customer message: { { $json.body } } Documentation context: { { insert knowledge snippet from Supabase } } ```

If Claude’s classification is “How-To Question” and it’s confident, n8n automatically sends the drafted reply via Resend. For “Billing” or “Bug,” it creates a ticket in a Supabase support_tickets table and sends an acknowledgment email (“We’re looking into this!”). This immediate triage and response makes my support feel instant.

Next Step: Set up the n8n email trigger and connect it to the Claude API. Start with simple classification. This one workflow alone can save you hours per week, acting as your first line of defense. For a deeper dive on scaling this concept, I wrote about how I replaced 6 employees with similar AI automations.

Automating reporting ($0 — n8n + Telegram)

I don’t want to log into dashboards. Instead, I have n8n send me a daily and weekly summary of key metrics directly to a private Telegram channel. It’s a read-only broadcast for me, and it takes about 15 minutes to set up. Here’s the core workflow:

1. Data Fetching: I have an n8n schedule trigger (daily at 9 AM, weekly on Monday). It runs HTTP Request nodes to pull raw data from my various APIs: Supabase (for user counts, new sign-ups), Paddle (for MRR, new payments), and Vercel Analytics (for site traffic).
2. Data Processing: A Function node structures this into a plain-text report. I use simple template literals:
3. Delivery: The final node is the Telegram node. I created a bot via @BotFather, got the token, and added it to my private channel. The node uses the sendMessage method, posting the report variable as the text. It hits my phone instantly.

This $0 setup (n8n’s free tier, Telegram Bot API is free) means I’m informed without ever proactively checking data. For anything anomalous, I’ve set up a separate alerting workflow that uses a Filter node to ping me only if, say, sign-ups drop to zero.

Automating invoicing and payments ($70 — Paddle)

I don’t touch invoices. For SaaS products or digital goods, I use Paddle as my merchant of record. They handle everything: global tax calculation, collection, remittance, invoicing, and PCI compliance. My integration is dead simple.

When a customer purchases my $39 Business Automation Blueprint, here’s what happens automatically:

1. Checkout: They click a payment link I generated in Paddle’s dashboard, or go through a checkout I embedded on my site with Paddle.js.
2. Payment & Invoice: Paddle charges their card, calculates and adds VAT/GST/Sales Tax based on the buyer’s location, and instantly generates a compliant invoice. The customer receives it automatically via email.
3. My Backend Notification: Paddle sends a webhook to an n8n webhook node the moment the payment is completed. The payload contains all customer and transaction data.
4. My Automation: The n8n workflow uses this webhook to:

Paddle’s fee is 5% + $0.50 per transaction. For a $39 product, that’s about $2.45. On ~$1,400 in monthly sales, the fees total roughly $70. It’s worth every penny to never think about tax law, dunning, or invoice disputes.

The complete monthly cost breakdown

Here’s the exact, itemized bill for running this automated business stack:

• n8n Cloud (Starter): $20. My core automation engine.
• Supabase (Pro): $25. Database, auth, and instant API.
• Claude API (Anthropic): ~$30. Estimated for support and content tasks.
• Paddle Fees: ~$70. Based on ~$1,400 in monthly sales.
• Resend: $0. Under the 3,000 monthly email limit.
• Vercel Pro: $20. Hosting and analytics.
• Buffer (Awesome Plan): $15. Social media scheduling.
• Telegram Bot API: $0.
• Google Sheets: $0.

Total: ~$180/month.

Wait, that’s over $120. The key is that the Paddle fees are variable and come out of revenue. If I back out the $70 in payment processing fees (which I never “pay” directly, they’re deducted from sales), my out-of-pocket operational cost is ~$110/month. That’s for the software that runs the business. The $120/month figure in the title is a realistic target, leaving a small buffer for API overages.

Wrapping Up

You can automate the core pillars of a digital business—lead capture, support, content, reporting, and payments—for about $110 out-of-pocket each month. The stack is built on specific, composable tools like n8n, Supabase, and Paddle, wired together with webhooks and simple code. The goal isn’t complexity; it’s to remove yourself from repetitive tasks so you can focus on the work that actually moves the needle.

Want the complete step-by-step system? Get the Business Automation Blueprint for $39.

Start small, automate one process this week, and build from there.