I build automations for agencies for a living. All of it on n8n, most of it self-hosted. Over a couple of years the same handful of workflows keep coming up, because they remove real hours of manual work every week instead of being clever demos that never run twice.
Here are the seven I set up first for almost every agency, roughly in the order they pay back.
1. Client onboarding
The trigger is a deal marked won in the CRM. From there n8n creates the project, spins up the folder structure, sends the welcome sequence, adds the client to billing, and posts to the team channel. Nobody touches a checklist. Nothing gets forgotten in the rush of closing.
Why it goes first: onboarding is where a new client forms their first impression, and it is almost always done by hand, which means it is slow and inconsistent.
