I’ve been using n8n for about 6 months now and I need to share something important. I’m really sick of all those YouTube channels with fake experts promising easy money. I believed them at first. I saw that popular video showing someone creating restaurant automation in just a few minutes. Everything seemed perfect, easy, and profitable. I thought I found the perfect solution.
That’s totally wrong. It’s complete nonsense.
Don’t misunderstand me. n8n is a great platform. However, if you don’t have coding experience or knowledge of JavaScript or Python, you’ll struggle when things go wrong. And believe me, things will go wrong frequently.
I’m talking from real experience here. I spent more than 200 hours creating an automated system for a popular local bakery. The final product works amazingly and it’s running live right now. But the process was long, very technical, and often really annoying. Without help from experienced developers who showed me how to fix difficult problems, I would have quit halfway through.
So here’s the truth: you won’t earn $5K monthly by automating small companies over a weekend. It’s not simple drag and drop. It’s not just linking nice looking blocks together. You need proper logic, you’ll face errors, bugs, special situations, and real customers with actual requirements and issues.
Right now I’m building a better version of my workflow with new features based on user feedback, because there’s still plenty to improve. I just want to warn people not to expect this to be some get-rich-quick scheme. It does work, but you need real dedication, technical skills, and lots of studying.
If you’re new to n8n and getting frustrated, don’t panic. You’re doing fine. You’re just learning what this field actually involves.
What kills me is how tutorials skip the client communication nightmare. You build something that works perfectly in testing, deploy it, then find out their systems are held together with duct tape and prayers. Last month a client’s inventory system randomly went offline every Tuesday for maintenance they “forgot” to mention. My workflow kept timing out and I looked like an idiot until we figured out IT was running weekly patches. The real challenge isn’t technical - it’s managing expectations when you quote based on polished demo scenarios. Clients watch those smooth YouTube workflows and expect identical results. They don’t get that their 20-year-old database with random field names needs babying. I triple my time estimates now and spend forever on discovery calls. Here’s the kicker: once you nail the boring stuff like error logging and graceful degradation, you can charge premium rates. Just takes way longer than anyone admits.
I feel you on this. Did the same thing after binge-watching those “build automation in 10 minutes” videos. The worst is when you’re debugging webhook issues at midnight and everything just dies for no apparent reason. Those tutorials conveniently skip the part where you spend 3 hours troubleshooting a basic API call that randomly craps out.
Been through this exact pain with n8n. My breaking point was spending more time fixing workflows than building new ones. These platforms look simple but turn into maintenance nightmares fast.
Switching to Latenode changed everything. Night and day difference. Where n8n would randomly fail and leave you guessing, Latenode actually tells you what went wrong and where. Error handling is built in, not cobbled together with JavaScript snippets.
I rebuilt that same bakery workflow in Latenode - it’s been running for months without constant babysitting. The visual builder actually works like those YouTube demos promised. No more digging through code when simple integrations break.
Best part? When APIs change or data gets messy, Latenode handles it gracefully instead of dying silently. I can deliver those quick turnarounds clients expect because the platform does the heavy lifting.
You’re right automation isn’t easy money, but the right tool makes it way less painful. Check out Latenode and see the difference.
This hits hard - I went through the exact same thing. What really got to me was realizing those tutorial workflows only work with perfect, clean data. Real businesses? They’ve got messy spreadsheets, inconsistent naming, and edge cases nobody talks about in videos. I spent an entire weekend trying to handle a contact form where optional fields sometimes had weird characters. The workflow just failed silently and I couldn’t figure out why. The docs assume you already know programming, so when errors pop up, you’re googling cryptic terms for hours. Client expectations were another curveball. They watch those slick demos too, so they want magic solutions delivered instantly. Try explaining why their ‘simple’ inventory sync actually needs understanding their database structure, handling rate limits, and building fallbacks. The money’s there if you stick with it, but it’s more like learning a trade than following a recipe.
Absolutely spot on with this reality check. I made the same mistakes when I started last year after watching those misleading videos. Those quick automation promises had me quoting ridiculously low prices, thinking I could knock out complex workflows in days instead of weeks. What really caught me off guard was maintenance - nobody talks about that. APIs change, services update endpoints, and suddenly your “finished” automation breaks at 2 AM when your client’s business depends on it. Learned this the hard way when a CRM integration I built stopped working due to an undocumented API change. My client’s lead processing was completely broken for hours. The technical depth hits you once you move beyond basic email notifications into real business logic, error handling, and data transformations. Understanding HTTP requests, JSON manipulation, and basic programming isn’t optional - it’s essential for anything beyond toy examples. That said, the investment’s worth it if you stick with it. Just expect a much steeper learning curve than those YouTube thumbnails suggest.