# Decision guides.

> Practical articles for deciding what to automate, what to build, and when a workflow has outgrown the tools around it.

Practical articles for deciding what to automate, what to build, and when a workflow has outgrown the tools around it.

![Code on screens seen through a pair of glasses](https://automatics.dev/assets/images/article-cover-code.jpg)

Decision guide 6 min read

## [Custom software or no-code?](https://automatics.dev/articles/custom-software-or-no-code/)

A practical guide to knowing when Zapier or Make is enough, and when the workflow needs software you own.

Read the guide

## What these guides are for

Every guide here comes out of a decision we have helped a client make: build or buy, automate or hire, keep the no-code canvas or move to software you own. They are written for the person who owns the workflow, not for developers.

Expect concrete thresholds instead of general advice. The volume where per-task pricing quietly overtakes software you would own, the point where a customer-facing flow stops being a job for duct tape, the signals that a canvas has become too tangled to change safely.

New guides get added when the same question keeps coming up in Discovery. If you are weighing one of these decisions right now, skip the reading and tell us where the workflow breaks down.

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