This is the migration case study I reference when clients ask whether the Zapier-to-Make switch is worth the disruption. Short answer: yes. The cost reduction is real, the migration is faster than it looks, and the workflows come out cleaner on the other side.

The broader Make vs. Zapier analysis that frames this case study is in the Make vs Zapier vs N8N Complete 2026 Guide. This post covers the specifics of one client migration — what the stack looked like, how we approached it, and what the results were 30 days out.

Context: What the Client’s Zapier Stack Looked Like

The client is a B2B services business with a small operations team — an operations manager and two coordinators. They had built their Zapier stack incrementally over three years: adding a Zap whenever a manual process became painful, without a coordinated architecture.

The result was 34 active Zaps across four categories:

• CRM data management (11 Zaps): lead routing, contact creation, deal stage updates, duplicate checking
• Client notifications (8 Zaps): onboarding emails, status updates, meeting confirmations
• Internal operations (9 Zaps): task creation, Slack alerts, spreadsheet logging
• Reporting (6 Zaps): daily data pulls to Google Sheets for management dashboards

Three of the 34 Zaps had error handling. The other 31 failed silently — the operations team had set up a Zapier error email alias, but it went largely unmonitored. We found two Zaps that had been failing daily for over a month before anyone noticed.

Their Zapier plan was Professional, billed monthly, to support multi-step Zaps and Paths. The monthly task count rarely exceeded 40% of the plan’s allowance — they were paying for the tier, not the volume.

Approach: Audit Before Migration

Before rebuilding anything, we audited the 34 Zaps for redundancy, logic gaps, and business criticality. The audit took half a day.

Findings:

• Six Zaps were redundant — duplicating logic handled by another Zap or by a native CRM feature the client hadn’t configured. We eliminated all six before migration.
• Four Zaps had logic errors that had been there since creation — they ran without failing but produced incorrect outputs in edge cases. We fixed the logic in the Make equivalent.
• The 11 CRM data management Zaps could consolidate into 5 Make scenarios using routers — same coverage, fewer scenarios to maintain.

We migrated 28 net-new Make scenarios instead of 34, with better coverage than the original stack.

Implementation: Screenshot-to-Blueprint for 80% of the Stack

We used Claude with the Make MCP server for every Zap in the Tier 3 and Tier 2 categories — internal operations, reporting, and most client notifications. The process: screenshot the Zap, paste to Claude, import the blueprint, connect credentials, test. Average time per Zap: 18 minutes.

The CRM data management scenarios took longer — these were the consolidated scenarios where we combined multiple Zaps into single Make scenarios with routers. Claude generated the initial blueprint, but we reviewed and adjusted the router logic manually to confirm the consolidation was correct. Average time per CRM scenario: 45 minutes.

Total migration time across three working days:

• Day 1: Audit + Tier 3 migrations (internal ops, reporting) — 16 scenarios completed
• Day 2: Tier 2 migrations (client notifications) + CRM scenario architecture — 8 scenarios
• Day 3: CRM scenario build, testing, parallel run setup — 4 scenarios + full parallel monitoring

Results: 30 Days Post-Migration

After 30 days running exclusively on Make (Zapier fully deactivated at day 14):

• Zero scenario failures. Every scenario had an error handler — the three failures that did occur (two API timeouts, one field validation error) triggered alerts and retried automatically without human intervention.
• Two legacy data issues surfaced. The four Zaps with logic errors that we fixed during migration had been writing incorrect data to the CRM for months. The Make versions wrote correct data — and surfaced the historical discrepancy. The operations team ran a cleanup on the affected records.
• Operations team made their first independent scenario edit. The operations manager used Claude to modify a client notification scenario — changed the trigger condition and added a new Slack destination — without involving the automation partner. Total time: 25 minutes.
• Cost reduction exceeded 60%. Make’s Core plan covered the full operation volume at a fraction of the Zapier Professional cost.

Lessons Learned

Audit first, build second. The 34-to-28 consolidation saved ongoing maintenance overhead — fewer scenarios to monitor, fewer failure points. A direct one-for-one migration would have worked but left the underlying architectural problems in place.

Add error handling to every scenario during migration. It takes 5 extra minutes per scenario to configure. The alternative — silent failures running for months — is not acceptable in an operations stack.

The ops team’s independent edit was the clearest ROI signal. When the person responsible for the workflow can maintain it without filing a support ticket, the system is working as designed. That outcome did not exist on Zapier — the interface complexity kept the operations manager dependent on a partner for any non-trivial change.

The full how-to for using Claude to build and modify Make scenarios is in How to Build a Make Automation in Plain English Using the MCP Server.

Information in this article is deemed to be accurate at time of publishing. 4Spot Consulting reviews and updates content periodically as best practices evolve.