I built a zero-budget AI social publisher with n8n — here's what broke
The promise of "zero-budget AI social content" is incredibly tempting. Imagine an automated system that drafts posts, generates accompanying images, and publishes them across your channels, all without touching your wallet. I decided to turn this dream into reality using a potent combination of n8n for workflow orchestration, Google Gemini for text generation, Pollinations.ai for image creation, and Telegram as my command center. What I didn't expect was the sheer volume of little "breaks" I'd encounter along the way, and the creative solutions needed to fix them.
My goal was simple: send a prompt to a Telegram bot, have Gemini draft a social post, Pollinations.ai generate an image based on that post, and then send the complete package back to me for review (or even publish directly). The "free" aspect meant relying on free tiers and open-source solutions.
The Tools of My (Free) Trade
Let's quickly introduce the key players in this automation saga:
