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Custom Workflow Engine Development

Replace fragile automation chains with a purpose-built workflow engine that handles your business logic reliably.

Zapier, Make, and n8n are great for simple automations — "when X happens, do Y." But complex business processes have conditional logic, parallel paths, human approvals, error handling, and retry mechanisms that no-code automation tools weren't designed to handle.

A custom workflow engine is purpose-built software that orchestrates your complex business processes reliably. Every step is auditable, errors are handled gracefully, and the logic matches your actual business rules — not what a drag-and-drop builder can express.

What You Get

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Complex Logic

Conditional branches, parallel paths, loops, and decision trees that match your actual business rules.

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Human-in-the-Loop

Approval steps, review queues, and escalation paths for processes that need human judgment.

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Retry & Error Handling

Automatic retries, fallback paths, and alerting when workflows fail — no silent failures.

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Audit Trail

Every step logged with timestamps, actors, and decisions. Full compliance and debugging visibility.

Performance at Scale

Handle thousands of concurrent workflows without the rate limits of SaaS automation tools.

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Deep Integrations

Native connections to your systems — not generic API connectors that break on edge cases.

When Zapier Isn't Enough

Zapier is the duct tape of business automation. It works brilliantly for simple connections, but complex processes expose its limitations: multi-step workflows with conditional logic become unmanageable, there's no good way to handle errors or retries, data transformation is limited, and per-task pricing gets expensive at scale.

If you have a Zapier setup with 20+ Zaps that depend on each other, or if you're spending more than $500/month on automation tool subscriptions, it's probably time for a custom workflow engine.

What We Build

Custom workflow engines for: order processing (quote → approval → fulfillment → invoicing), employee onboarding (document collection → account setup → training → equipment), content publishing (creation → review → approval → publishing → distribution), and compliance processes (data collection → verification → approval → reporting).

Each engine is built to handle the specific complexity of your process: conditional routing, SLA tracking, escalation rules, and whatever else your business requires.

Reliability You Can Trust

Unlike Zapier chains that fail silently or lose data when a step errors, custom workflow engines are built for reliability. Every step is transactional (it either completes or rolls back), errors trigger alerts and retry mechanisms, and the full state of every workflow is visible for debugging and auditing.

For businesses where workflow failures have real consequences — missed SLAs, compliance violations, lost orders — this reliability isn't a luxury, it's a requirement.

Technologies We Use

TypeScriptNode.jsPostgreSQLRedisBull QueueTemporal.ioReact

Frequently Asked Questions

How is this different from just using Zapier?
Zapier connects tools with simple trigger-action pairs. A custom workflow engine orchestrates complex multi-step processes with conditional logic, error handling, human approvals, and audit trails. If your process is "when X do Y," use Zapier. If your process has 15 steps with branches and approvals, you need custom.
How long does a custom workflow engine take?
A single workflow (e.g., order processing) takes 6-10 weeks. A general-purpose workflow engine that handles multiple business processes takes 12-20 weeks.
Can non-technical people modify workflows?
We can build an admin interface for modifying rules, thresholds, and routing — so your operations team can tune the workflow without code changes. Major structural changes still require development.
What does it cost?
Single workflow projects start around $30,000. Full workflow engine platforms range from $60,000 to $150,000. This typically replaces $500-2,000/month in automation tool subscriptions plus eliminates the engineering time maintaining fragile Zapier chains.

Need Reliable Automation?

Book a free consultation. We'll review your current automation setup and show you what a purpose-built workflow engine could look like.

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