Automating Repetitive Tasks with n8n: A Developer's Practical Guide

As a developer, I love building web applications. What I don't love? The repetitive tasks that come with running a business.

Sending follow-up emails. Notifying myself about new leads. Emailing subscribers when I publish new content.

These tasks are important—they drive leads and engagement. But they steal time from actual development work.

I needed a solution that didn't require hiring someone or paying for expensive enterprise tools.

Why n8n?

I evaluated several automation platforms:

n8n won for three reasons:

1. Self-hosted = No monthly fees. I deploy on Railway for ~$5/month total.
2. Unlimited workflows. Zapier charges per "zap." n8n doesn't.
3. Developer-friendly. I can write JavaScript inside workflows when needed.

My First Real Workflow: Blog Subscriber Notification System

The first workflow I built solves a real problem: notifying subscribers when I publish new content.

How It Works:

GitHub Push → Webhook → Fetch New Posts → Loop Subscribers → Send Email (EN/ES) → Mark as Notified

The Flow:

1. GitHub webhook triggers when I push code to my repository
2. n8n fetches new blog posts from my Next.js API
3. Checks if subscribers need to be notified
4. Loops through each subscriber
5. Sends personalized email in their preferred language (English or Spanish)
6. Marks the post as notified to prevent duplicate emails

What I Learned Building This:

• How webhooks work in n8n
• Using HTTP Request nodes to call my own API
• Loop nodes for iterating through data
• Switch nodes for conditional logic (language routing)
• Error handling when things go wrong

The Stack

• n8n on Railway (~$5/month)
• PostgreSQL for data storage
• Resend for transactional emails
• GitHub webhooks for triggers

Getting Started: Your First Workflow

If you want to try n8n, here's my recommendation:

Start Simple:

1. Sign up at n8n.io (cloud) or self-host
2. Create a webhook that receives data
3. Send an email notification when triggered
4. Test it and celebrate

Don't try to automate everything on day one. Start with one painful task and expand from there.

Lessons Learned

1. Don't over-engineer. Simple workflows are easier to debug.
2. Add error handling. Workflows will fail. Plan for it.
3. Document everything. Future you will thank present you.
4. Start with low-stakes tasks. Master the basics before automating critical processes.

What's Next?

I'm continuing to learn n8n through real practice, using AI as a learning assistant to solve problems as they come up. It's a different approach to learning—building first, asking questions when stuck, and iterating.

The combination of learning by doing + AI assistance has changed how I approach new tools.