Stop Building Automations That Break Every Time an App Updates

One Zapier user spent five hours building a Zap to sort emails. Five hours. To sort emails.

"Wasted FIVE HOURS fighting with their ridiculous, overly complicated setup just to sort emails." — Trustpilot review

Then Gmail updated, and the Zap broke. Silently. No alert. Leads slipped through for a week before anyone noticed.

If you are a solopreneur who wants your admin handled — not a new hobby building flowcharts — keep reading.

What Is Zapier?

Zapier is the biggest automation platform out there. It connects 8,500+ apps with "if this, then that" workflows called Zaps. When something happens in App A, Zapier triggers an action in App B.

Zapier is good at connecting systems. If you need Salesforce data piped to Google Sheets every time a deal closes, Zapier does that reliably.

The question is whether you need a system integrator, or whether you need someone to just handle your email and receipts.

The Problem With Automation Platforms for Solopreneurs

You signed up for Zapier because you heard it could "automate your business." Here is what actually happens in practice:

Problem 1: Building Zaps requires programmer thinking.

You want to automatically save email attachments to Google Drive. Sounds simple. But in Zapier, you need to: choose a trigger (new email in Gmail), add a filter (has attachment = true), add an action (upload file to Google Drive), configure the folder path, map the filename field, test the whole thing, and pray it does not break when Google changes their API.

A reviewer on Trustpilot wrote:

"You basically need to hire an expert to set up even the simplest of things." — Trustpilot review

Problem 2: Zaps break silently — and you lose leads.

"You have to check the Zaps all the time in case they have stopped working." — Trustpilot review

"They continuously push bad code into production... I had to build a workaround for something that was working perfectly well." — Trustpilot review

On October 20, 2025, Zapier went down for a full day. Customers reported lost revenue. Zapier refused refunds.

Problem 3: The pricing math does not work for solopreneurs.

The free plan gives you 100 tasks per month. With any real usage, that runs out in days. The Pro plan is $29.99/month for 750 tasks — but each step in a multi-step Zap counts as a separate task. A 5-step Zap that runs 10 times a day burns 50 tasks. Your 750 tasks last two weeks.

One reviewer reported:

"They tripled the price on my renewal without notice... charged me $1,068 for the same plan." — Trustpilot review

Scale to 5,000 tasks and you are paying $300+/month. For comparison, Make.com offers 10,000 operations for $9/month.

Why Solopreneurs Switch From Zapier to Cora

The mismatch is simple: Zapier automates connections between apps. Cora does the actual work.

Here is the difference in practice:

With Zapier: You build a 7-step Zap to forward receipt emails to a Google Sheet, extract the amount with a formatter, categorize it, and notify you on Slack. Takes 2 hours to set up. Breaks when the email format changes.

With Cora: You photograph the receipt and send it on WhatsApp. Cora extracts the amount, vendor, date, and category. Takes 4 seconds.

With Zapier: You build a Zap to capture new leads from a form, add them to a spreadsheet, and send a template email. Takes 45 minutes. The email sounds like a robot wrote it.

With Cora: You say "Follow up with Sarah about Thursday's viewing, mention the property on Oak Street." Cora drafts a personal email in your voice. Takes 10 seconds.

With Zapier: You build a Zap to transcribe meeting recordings and send summaries to your inbox. Requires a third-party transcription service, costs extra, and needs ongoing maintenance.

With Cora: You send a voice note after the meeting. Cora turns it into structured notes with action items and follow-up emails. One step.

Cora vs Zapier: Honest Comparison

Where Zapier wins: If you need to connect Salesforce to Quickbooks to Slack to Mailchimp in a coordinated pipeline, Zapier is the right tool. It has 8,500 integrations and handles enterprise-scale data flows that Cora does not touch.

Where Cora wins: If your "automation" needs are really just "someone handle my email, receipts, and meeting notes," Cora does that without you building anything. No learning curve, no maintenance.

The Real Cost Comparison

Zapier (for a solopreneur):

• Pro plan: $29.99/month for 750 tasks = $360/year
• But 750 tasks with multi-step Zaps lasts ~2 weeks of real usage
• Realistic usage: $49.99-99.99/month = $600-1,200/year
• Plus: hours building and maintaining Zaps
• Plus: third-party tools for email drafting, receipt OCR, transcription
• Risk: silent failures losing leads, unexpected price increases

Cora:

• Free tier: 50 actions/month — enough to test everything
• Starter: $49/month = $588/year
• Actions are simple: 1 email = 1 action. 1 receipt = 1 action. No step multipliers.
• Includes: email triage, drafting, receipt processing, voice notes, and meeting summaries
• Setup: 3 minutes. Maintenance: zero.

When you factor in the time spent building Zaps (roughly 2-4 hours/month for a solopreneur), plus the cost of add-on tools Zapier needs for OCR, drafting, and transcription, the real cost is higher than the pricing page suggests.

Who Should Still Choose Zapier

Zapier is the right tool if:

• You need to connect specific SaaS tools that Cora does not integrate with
• You have complex, multi-step data pipelines between 5+ apps
• You have technical skills (or budget for a Zapier consultant)
• You run an e-commerce store or SaaS with high-volume automated workflows
• Your problem is "I need App A to talk to App B," not "I need someone to handle my admin"

9.2% of Zapier reviewers say it is too expensive. But for the right use case (enterprise data orchestration), it earns its price. Cora is not trying to replace Zapier for those use cases.

Who Should Choose Cora

Cora is built for you if:

• Your "automation" wish list is really: handle my email, track my receipts, take meeting notes
• You have no interest in building workflows or debugging broken Zaps
• You work from your phone more than your laptop
• Your clients reach you on WhatsApp
• You would rather say "send Sarah a follow-up about Thursday" than draw a flowchart
• You tried Zapier and felt like you needed a computer science degree to sort your inbox

The Real Question

Solopreneurs do not have an automation problem. They have an admin problem.

The $150/hour consultant building Zaps at midnight is not being productive. They are doing $15/hour work when they should be sleeping.

You do not need to automate your email. You need someone to handle it. You do not need to automate your receipts. You need someone to process them. You need a secretary, not a flowchart.

Try Cora Free — 50 Actions, No Credit Card

Start with 50 free actions per month. Forward a few emails. Snap a receipt. Send a voice note after your next meeting.

No flowcharts. No Zaps. No debugging.

Open WhatsApp and tell Cora what you need.

Try Cora Free — 50 Actions, No Credit Card

Last updated: February 23, 2026. Zapier pricing and review data sourced from zapier.com/pricing, Trustpilot reviews, and independent review sites. October 2025 outage reported by multiple Trustpilot reviewers. Cora is a product of Cora AI. This page is maintained for accuracy — if anything is out of date, contact us.