This is a twice-monthly email about AI automation for people running small businesses. Each issue takes one workflow — chasing unpaid invoices, capturing leads, triaging an inbox — and shows the actual build: which tools, what it costs per month at real volume, and the step that broke when I tested it. Free. Two emails a month, never more.
What’s in every issue
Every issue has the same four sections, in the same order, so you can skip straight to the part you care about. Total read time is about four minutes. Nothing is gated, and there is no “click here to read the rest on my blog” — the build is in the email.
| Section | What you get | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| The build | One automation, step by step, in the order you’d click it. Copy-pasteable. | 400 words |
| The bill | What it costs per month at low, medium and heavy usage — on each platform I tested. | 120 words |
| What broke | The step that failed on me, why, and the fix. This is the part other newsletters leave out. | 120 words |
| One tool | A single tool worth your attention, plus the catch nobody mentions in the review videos. | 80 words |
What a real issue looks like
Here’s the kind of number that makes it into “the bill”. I priced the same three-step automation — form submission, then a spreadsheet row, then a Slack message — across three platforms in July 2026, reading the pricing pages directly rather than repeating other blogs.
It came out to $49/month on Zapier, $9/month on Make, and €20/month on n8n. Not because one is three times better, but because Zapier bills per action step, Make bills per module run, and n8n bills per whole workflow execution. Same automation, same volume, wildly different invoice. That comparison is broken down in full in Zapier vs Make vs n8n.
If that’s the sort of thing you’d rather know before you commit a business process to a platform, the newsletter is for you. If you want AI news roundups, it isn’t — there are better options for that, and I don’t cover it.
Who it’s for
It’s written for one specific reader: someone who runs a small business or freelances, has no engineering team, and is losing hours a week to work a computer should be doing. Roughly this:
- Freelancers and solo operators who bill by the hour and want those hours back
- Local businesses drowning in bookings, quotes and no-shows
- Etsy, Shopify and eBay sellers automating listings and customer replies
- Anyone who has opened Zapier, seen the pricing page, and closed the tab
It’s a bad fit if you’re a developer looking for API deep-dives, or if you want prompt packs and “10x your output” threads. I write about plumbing, not hustle.
Where to start while you wait
The first issue can be up to two weeks out, so here’s what to read in the meantime. These four cover the ground most new subscribers ask about:
- The Business Automation Playbook — what to automate first, and in what order
- Best AI automation tools for small business — the honest comparison, with a stated methodology
- Automation ROI — the formula, benchmarks, and how long payback actually takes
- 8 automation mistakes that waste money — what each one costs, so you can skip mine
Everything is organised by topic on the topics page if you’d rather browse.
What happens to your email address
Your address is stored in Hostinger Reach, the email platform this site runs on, and used for exactly one thing: sending you this newsletter. It is never sold, rented, or handed to a third-party advertiser.
- Two emails a month. That’s the cap, not the average. No “quick bonus” sends.
- One-click unsubscribe in the footer of every email. No confirmation loop, no “are you sure”.
- No third-party sharing. Full detail in the privacy policy.
- Affiliate links may appear in issues where I recommend a paid tool, always disclosed — see the affiliate disclosure.
Newsletter FAQ
How often will you email me?
Twice a month, usually a Tuesday. That’s a hard ceiling — the sending account is capped, so even if I wanted to email you weekly I couldn’t. If a month is quiet, you get one issue instead of two.
Is it free?
Yes, and there’s no paid tier to graduate into. The site earns from affiliate links on tools I’ve actually used, which is disclosed in every issue that contains one.
Do you write it with AI?
I use AI to draft and to check facts, then rewrite it. The builds, costs and failures are things I ran myself — that’s the whole point of the “what broke” section. An AI can’t tell you which step timed out on your data.
Will you send me sales emails?
No launch sequences, no webinars, no courses. If that ever changes, it’ll be announced in a normal issue and you can leave before it starts.
How do I unsubscribe?
One click on the unsubscribe link in any issue’s footer. You’re removed immediately, and I don’t send a “sorry to see you go” email. If the link ever fails, reply to the email and I’ll remove you by hand.
The confirmation email never arrived — now what?
Check spam and Gmail’s Promotions tab first, then search for mouen.site. If there’s nothing, the address may have been mistyped — sign up again. Adding hello@mouen.site to your contacts stops future issues being filtered.
Pricing figures above were read directly from vendor pricing pages on 26 July 2026 and are re-checked each time they’re cited.