Cheap Business Automation Tools That Make Money Every Day

What if the tools you’ve been told you need are the very thing holding you back? When I restarted my business, I couldn’t afford £97 a month for Kartra. No savings, no safety net, just a decision to build anyway. And what I discovered is that the right cheap business automation tools, used in the right order, can run a business on autopilot, making money every single day whether you’re working or not.

Because the expensive all-in-one platforms? They weren’t the point. The structure was. And once I understood that, I built a system with four simple, affordable tools that now makes money for me every single day, whether I’m working or not.

In this post, I’m going to walk you through exactly what that stack looks like and, more importantly, why it works.

The Honest Reason I Didn’t Use Kartra

I’m going to be straight with you. I didn’t choose a budget tool stack because I’d done a thorough comparison and decided it was strategically superior. I chose it because I had no other option.

I quit my job without a plan. No cushion, no runway. So when it came to rebuilding my business, I had a very simple choice: wait until I could afford the ‘proper’ tools, or get started with what was actually available to me right now.

I chose to build. And in doing so, I accidentally discovered something important: most people don’t have a tools problem. They have a structure problem.

They’re buying expensive software before they’ve figured out what needs to happen in their business, and in what order. The result? A very expensive digital graveyard.

The Four Tools That Run My Business (And How They Connect)

My business now runs on four tools: ManyChat, MailerLite, Stripe, and Zapier. Each one has a specific job. Together, they mean money can come in whether I’m at my desk or not.

Here’s how they work. Not just what they are, but what they actually do for the business.

1. ManyChat — Catching warm interest the moment it appears

You’ve probably seen those posts: ‘Comment GUIDE below and I’ll send it to you.’ That’s ManyChat doing its job.

The reason it works so well is timing. When someone shows interest, they get a response instantly — while they’re still paying attention, still engaged, still warm. Not hoping they’ll come back later. Not relying on me to remember to follow up.

That moment of interest is precious. ManyChat catches it the second it appears.

2. MailerLite — The nurture, the follow-up, and the recovery

Once someone is in, MailerLite takes over. It does two jobs that I believe every online business needs:

A welcome sequence that runs automatically. New subscribers get to know me, understand what I do, and build trust — without me writing a single email in real time.
Abandoned cart recovery. If someone starts to buy and gets distracted, a gentle reminder goes out automatically. That recovery sequence alone has paid for the tool many times over.

I chose MailerLite over Kartra because I didn’t need an all-in-one. I needed great email. And MailerLite is exactly that, without the price tag.

3. Stripe — Payments that don’t need me

Stripe handles every transaction. But the part most people don’t think about is what happens after someone pays.

The automated receipt. The onboarding trigger. The next step in their journey, all fired without me lifting a finger. When someone buys from me, Stripe fires and everything that needs to happen, happens.

4. Zapier — The glue that holds everything together

This is the one that makes people’s eyes light up when I explain it. Zapier is what makes all of these tools talk to each other — without me in the middle.

When someone comes in through ManyChat, Zapier adds them to MailerLite. I’m not manually moving people between systems. It just happens.

That’s what automation actually means. Not fancy software, just things working together properly.

The Mistake I See Business Owners Make Constantly

Here’s what I want to be really clear about: these tools didn’t build themselves.

Before I could set any of this up, I had to design the structure. Figure out what needed to happen, in what order, and why. The tools just carry it out.

The mistake I see constantly is business owners buying software before they have a strategy. They end up with subscriptions they don’t use, automations that don’t work, and a growing sense that maybe they just ‘aren’t a tech person.’

Build the structure first. Then find the simplest tool that supports it.

Is Your Business Making Money Without You?

Here’s the question I come back to again and again: if your business only makes money when you’re actively pushing it forward, the structure isn’t strong enough yet.

That’s not a judgment. It’s where most people start. But it doesn’t have to be where you stay.

The goal isn’t to automate everything or disappear from your business. It’s to make sure the quiet systems are in place so that revenue isn’t entirely dependent on your energy that day.

Want to See Exactly How It Works?

I made a free guide called How My Business Makes Money Every Day. It walks you through the five quiet systems running in the background of my business — the ones that mean income doesn’t stop just because I step away.

→ Download the free guide here

And if you want step-by-step tutorials on setting up ManyChat, MailerLite, Stripe, or Zapier — I have videos for all of them on my YouTube channel.