8 n8n workflow examples that save an SMB real time.

How to read these examples.

Each example follows the same three-line format:

• Trigger: the event that starts the workflow (a form, an email, a schedule, a payment).
• Chain: the n8n nodes, in order. Names are those of the official documentation.
• Result: what has changed once the workflow has run, and for whom.

These are not templates to copy as is. Every company has its own fields, rules and exceptions: that is where the difference lies between a workflow that runs for a month and one that runs for years. If you are new to the tool, start with the n8n guide.

Sales: never let a lead go cold.

1. Qualify every inbound lead and create it in the CRM

• Trigger: n8n Form, Typeform Trigger or Webhook (your website form).
• Chain: HTTP Request (company enrichment from an authorized source) → Information Extractor (industry, size, stated need) → If (does the lead match your criteria?) → Pipedrive or HubSpot (record created with a summary) → Slack (alert to the right sales rep).
• Result: sales calls back within minutes, knowing who they are talking to. Off-target leads are sorted out without anyone spending time on them.

2. Update the CRM when a payment lands

• Trigger: Stripe Trigger (successful payment, subscription created or cancelled).
• Chain: Edit Fields (data formatting) → HubSpot or Pipedrive (customer, deal stage and amount updated) → Slack (team notification).
• Result: the CRM reflects actual cash collected, with no re-typing. Cancellations surface the same day, while there is still time to act.

Finance: get paid faster without thinking about it.

3. Chase unpaid invoices, and stop at payment

• Trigger: Schedule Trigger, every morning.
• Chain: HTTP Request (open invoices in your invoicing tool) → Filter (overdue or nearly due invoices) → Switch (D-7, D+1, D+7, D+15) → Gmail or Send Email (the right message for the step) → Slack (call task at D+15).
• Result: every invoice follows the sequence, nothing is forgotten, and no reminder ever goes to a customer who has already paid. Message templates are in Automated Invoice Reminders.

4. File supplier invoices received by email

• Trigger: Gmail Trigger or Email Trigger (IMAP), on the inbox that receives invoices.
• Chain: Filter (messages with a PDF attachment) → Extract From File (invoice text) → Information Extractor (supplier, date, amount, number) → Google Drive (filed in the month's folder) → Google Sheets (row in the invoice register).
• Result: accounting gets a complete folder and an up-to-date register, with nobody sorting attachments. Our own back office works on the same principle: detect, download, file by month.

Steering: up-to-date numbers without hunting for them.

5. Send the weekly report every Monday

• Trigger: Schedule Trigger, Monday at 8 am.
• Chain: HTTP Request or Google Sheets (sales, production, support data) → Aggregate and Summarize (totals, averages, changes) → Code (the indicators specific to your business) → Send Email or Slack (the week's dashboard).
• Result: leadership starts the week with fresh numbers, no exports, no copy-paste. At Maeva & Co, automatically consolidated reporting gave back over 400 hours a year.

6. Monitor your market in a single message

• Trigger: RSS Feed Trigger (blogs, news, video channels of your competitors and your industry).
• Chain: Filter (keywords that matter to you) → Remove Duplicates → Summarization Chain (a summary of each item kept) → Aggregate → Slack or Send Email (one daily digest).
• Result: market watch read in two minutes instead of an hour of browsing, and the important signals no longer slip through.

Data: one place that is up to date.

7. Sync the CRM with the email marketing tool

• Trigger: Schedule Trigger, every hour, or your CRM's trigger.
• Chain: HubSpot or Pipedrive (contacts created or updated) → Filter (marketing consent) → Remove Duplicates → Brevo (added to or updated in the right list).
• Result: campaigns go to up-to-date lists with no manual import, and a contact who withdrew consent receives nothing more.

Reliability: know right away when something breaks.

8. Get an alert as soon as a workflow fails

• Trigger: Error Trigger, fired by the failure of any workflow linked to it.
• Chain: Edit Fields (workflow name, failing node, error message, link to the execution) → Slack or Send Email (alert to the person in charge).
• Result: a connection problem or an API change is caught within the hour, not three weeks later when a customer asks about an invoice that never went out.

This is the workflow to install before all the others. It earns nothing directly; it protects everything else.

Where to find templates, and how to adapt them.

n8n maintains an official template library at n8n.io/workflows, published by n8n and the community, which you import into your instance in one click. It is a good starting point to see how a workflow is built.

Three rules before putting a template into production:

1. Replace the credentials with your own, and give each connection the minimum rights it needs.
2. Test on real data, edge cases included: empty field, duplicate, zero amount, unreadable attachment.
3. Link it to the failure alert (example 8) before activating it.

To go further: the cost of each option is in n8n Pricing 2026, and how to add AI that decides, not just executes, in How to Build an AI Agent with n8n.

n8n workflow examples: what people ask us.