Is Your Automation a Franken-stack?
Let me tell you a story about my Franken-stack.
Setting Up The Franken-stack
At first, it made sense. A free email tool here, cheap funnel builder there. Then a $97 “lifetime deal” CRM, plus a few zaps to glue everything together.
Every time I hit a new problem, I added another app.
Soon I had different logins, different dashboards, and a different “truth” about my leads in every tool.
What I didn’t calculate was the hidden costs. The extra hours clicking between tabs and leads slipping through the cracks.
Plus campaigns I couldn’t confidently measure because data lived everywhere and nowhere at once.
Where “free” got expensive
The cracks showed up quietly at first. A tag would fail to sync, so a warm lead never got the follow‑up email.
A landing page app updated its pricing and suddenly my “cheap” plan didn’t include the automation feature I’d built a whole workflow around.
Every switch, patch, and workaround came with an additional cost.
Time spent troubleshooting instead of selling.
Retraining myself (and team members) on new interfaces.
Rebuilding flows that broke whenever one tool updated its rules or API.
By the time I added up the “small” subscriptions, I was paying more than an all‑in‑one system. So I paid more and didn’t have the simplicity or reliability of an all-in-one system.
The moment it snapped
The breaking point was a launch.
I had leads coming in from ads, DMs, and email, all funneled into different tools.
On paper, the tech stack could handle it.
In reality, half the people who asked for more information never got tagged correctly. One segment didn’t receive the cart‑open reminder. And I couldn’t quickly see who had clicked but didn’t buy.
Instead of focusing on live conversion conversations, I spent the most important 48 hours of the launch fixing automations that were supposed to save me time.
That launch didn’t just underperform. It exposed exactly how expensive the “free” approach was.
Moving to one all‑in‑one
Switching to a single all‑in‑one marketing automation platform felt expensive at first.
But the cost was clear and the value was immediate.
I had one login, one contact record per person, one place to see emails, tags, pipelines, and purchases.
No more guessing which app was right about a lead’s status.
Consolidating the stack cut down on subscription overlap.
It reduced the need for custom integrations.
It made training and delegation dramatically easier.
Most importantly, it gave me a single source of truth. So when something broke, I knew exactly where to look.
And when something worked, I could finally scale it with confidence.
The lesson for anyone chasing “cheap”
The lesson was simple: stacking free and low‑cost tools didn’t just cost me money. It cost clarity, conversion, and growth.
An all‑in‑one system might look more expensive on a line item, but once support, reliability, and reclaimed time are factored in, it’s often the least expensive option you can choose.
Click Here if you want my favorite all-in-one system. Not only do you get a great system, you get 24/7 tech support. And hands on set up.
Is Your Automation a Franken-stack?
Let me tell you a story about my Franken-stack.
Setting Up The Franken-stack
At first, it made sense. A free email tool here, cheap funnel builder there. Then a $97 “lifetime deal” CRM, plus a few zaps to glue everything together.
Every time I hit a new problem, I added another app.
Soon I had different logins, different dashboards, and a different “truth” about my leads in every tool.
What I didn’t calculate was the hidden costs. The extra hours clicking between tabs and leads slipping through the cracks.
Plus campaigns I couldn’t confidently measure because data lived everywhere and nowhere at once.
Where “free” got expensive
The cracks showed up quietly at first. A tag would fail to sync, so a warm lead never got the follow‑up email.
A landing page app updated its pricing and suddenly my “cheap” plan didn’t include the automation feature I’d built a whole workflow around.
Every switch, patch, and workaround came with an additional cost.
Time spent troubleshooting instead of selling.
Retraining myself (and team members) on new interfaces.
Rebuilding flows that broke whenever one tool updated its rules or API.
By the time I added up the “small” subscriptions, I was paying more than an all‑in‑one system. So I paid more and didn’t have the simplicity or reliability of an all-in-one system.
The moment it snapped
The breaking point was a launch.
I had leads coming in from ads, DMs, and email, all funneled into different tools.
On paper, the tech stack could handle it.
In reality, half the people who asked for more information never got tagged correctly. One segment didn’t receive the cart‑open reminder. And I couldn’t quickly see who had clicked but didn’t buy.
Instead of focusing on live conversion conversations, I spent the most important 48 hours of the launch fixing automations that were supposed to save me time.
That launch didn’t just underperform. It exposed exactly how expensive the “free” approach was.
Moving to one all‑in‑one
Switching to a single all‑in‑one marketing automation platform felt expensive at first.
But the cost was clear and the value was immediate.
I had one login, one contact record per person, one place to see emails, tags, pipelines, and purchases.
No more guessing which app was right about a lead’s status.
Consolidating the stack cut down on subscription overlap.
It reduced the need for custom integrations.
It made training and delegation dramatically easier.
Most importantly, it gave me a single source of truth. So when something broke, I knew exactly where to look.
And when something worked, I could finally scale it with confidence.
The lesson for anyone chasing “cheap”
The lesson was simple: stacking free and low‑cost tools didn’t just cost me money. It cost clarity, conversion, and growth.
An all‑in‑one system might look more expensive on a line item, but once support, reliability, and reclaimed time are factored in, it’s often the least expensive option you can choose.
Click Here if you want my favorite all-in-one system. Not only do you get a great system, you get 24/7 tech support. And hands on set up.