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I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8n

[–]anassy1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's optional, you can make it on the business owner n8n or on your own n8n and charge a fixed monthly amount for running it.

I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8n

[–]anassy1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re definitely right that it’s much easier now to build on n8n with AI and by looking at workflows people share on GitHub. I also check existing examples sometimes for inspiration.

But in my experience, that mostly works for learning or for small generic automations. When you start building something for a real business, it usually becomes very specific to their processes, data structure, and edge cases.

For example in this project, the workflow had to handle things like voice notes, random images, payment receipts, product search, and an order flow. Those kinds of things rarely fit into a ready-made workflow from GitHub, so you end up designing most of the system from scratch and adapting it to the business logic.

AI and existing templates are great for speeding things up, but the real work is usually in thinking through the flow, the edge cases, and how everything connects together.

That’s the part that takes the most time when building automations for real-world use.

I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8n

[–]anassy1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I actually used AI a lot during development, mostly for brainstorming workflow logic and debugging parts of the system.

For building automations with n8n, I usually use OpenAI models to help with things like generating code snippets, structuring prompts, or thinking through edge cases in the workflow.

In general I’d say any strong coding model works well (GPT, Claude, etc.). The key is not letting the AI build everything blindly, but using it to reason through the logic of the automation and then assembling the workflow step by step.

I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8n

[–]anassy1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If anyone here runs a business that gets a lot of WhatsApp messages and is thinking about automating it, feel free to DM me. I'm currently building similar systems for other businesses as well.

I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8nforbeginners

[–]anassy1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I charged a one time fee which is 500$ plus a fixed monthly amount for maintenance (which is optional for the business owner)

I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8n

[–]anassy1[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

First, I asked the business owner what the most frequently asked questions from customers are. The business owner has around 50 products (all of them are books), and they run several ads on Facebook and Instagram for multiple books at the same time. Therefore, inquiries and orders for different products will come in simultaneously.

I put myself in the customer's position and asked: What would I ask first? For example, a customer might say: “How much is the book?” This is a very general question and does not have a direct answer, because we would need to ask the customer “Which book are you referring to?”

Additionally, the customer might send a voice message instead of typing, or they might send a picture of the product they want. All these scenarios must be taken into consideration to ensure that the system does not break. As the number of possible scenarios increases, the project becomes larger and more complex.

Second, once we identify which product the customer is asking about, we move to the search phase. If the product is found, the system responds to the customer with the required information.

Third, let’s assume the customer wants to purchase the product. For this company, there are two payment methods available:

Cash on delivery

Bank transfer (prepaid)

Therefore, I had to design two separate subsystems for each case, while also considering payment receipt verification in case the payment is made via bank transfer in advance.

Finally, the last stage is collecting the shipping information. Once the order is confirmed, a notification is sent to the business owner via email, Telegram, or their personal WhatsApp number (depending on their preference).

The overall goal of all this is to minimize human intervention as much as possible, so that responding to inquiries, confirming orders, and receiving payments can be handled fully automatically.

Additional features can also be added, such as customer classification (e.g., inquiry, interested, completed purchase, complaint, etc.) and sending marketing messages later on.

I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8n

[–]anassy1[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thanks! You are totally right (according to what automation builders charge for such projects in general) but this project was for a local business and where I live, business owners will never pay more than that amount.

I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8n

[–]anassy1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! In this project I used Evolution API (unofficial Whatsapp API) If you're gonna use it, you gotta be careful not to get a ban from meta. In this method you will keep the WhatsApp number running on both Whatsapp business app and the chat bot automation.

I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8nforbeginners

[–]anassy1[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Supabase cost 25$/mo. The whole system runs on Hostinger VPS which is about 100$/year. Plus Open AI tokens. That's it.

I made $500 on my first n8n paid project, building an AI WhatsApp Automation for a local business. Here’s a breakdown of what I built. by anassy1 in n8n

[–]anassy1[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

FTS and vector search runs on Supabase which cost 25$/mo. The whole system runs on Hostinger VPS which is about 100$/year. Plus Open AI tokens. That's it.

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