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Stop Losing Local Leads: The Ultra-Affordable Open-Source Aggregator

Are you a home service pro juggling leads from Google Business Profile, Local Services Ads, and website forms? When leads are scattered across different platforms, it's easy to miss opportunities. Slow response times mean potential customers are calling your competition, and you're wasting valuable ad spend on leads that go cold.

This playbook guides you through building a powerful, low-cost lead management system using open-source tools. We'll show you how to set up Chatwoot as a central inbox for all your customer communications. Using the self-hosted automation tool n8n, you'll connect your channels and automatically trigger instant welcome emails via SendGrid. You get a unified view of every lead, lightning-fast response times, and complete control over your data, all while keeping monthly costs near zero.

Expected Outcomes

  • Consolidate all leads from Google Business Profile, Local Services Ads, and other sources into a single, manageable inbox.
  • Drastically reduce lead response time with automated, instant email acknowledgements.
  • Eliminate missed follow-ups and lost revenue by having a clear, unified view of every customer conversation.
  • Gain full control over your customer data and infrastructure with a self-hosted, open-source stack.
  • Minimize your monthly software spend to almost zero, freeing up budget for advertising and growth.

Core Tools in This Stack

Chatwoot

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Chatwoot is an open-source customer engagement suite that unifies conversations from various channels like email, website chat, and social media into a single shared inbox for collaborative team support.

Key Features
  • Multi-channel inbox (Email, Live Chat, Social Media)
  • Real-time team collaboration with private notes and @mentions
  • Automation rules for routing and workflows
  • Chatbot integrations (e.g., Dialogflow, Rasa)
  • Self-hosting option with a free community edition
  • Mobile apps for iOS and Android
  • Reporting and analytics
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Education & Non-Profit, Other

Pricing

Model: Subscription, Free, Custom

Tier: Mid-range

Ease of Use

Moderate

n8n

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n8n is a source-available, low-code workflow automation tool that enables users to connect various applications and services through a visual, node-based editor. It allows for creating complex automations and syncing data between different platforms without extensive coding knowledge.

Key Features
  • Visual node-based workflow editor
  • Over 400 pre-built integrations for various apps and services
  • Self-hosting option for full data control and privacy
  • Source-available and extensible, allowing for custom node creation
  • Ability to execute custom code (e.g., JavaScript, Python) within workflows
  • Advanced features like branching, merging, and error handling
  • Built-in AI capabilities and integrations
  • Both cloud-hosted and self-hosted deployment options
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Open Source, Subscription, Usage-based

Tier: Low-cost

Ease of Use

Moderate

SendGrid

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A cloud-based email platform for sending transactional and marketing emails. It provides reliable delivery, scalability, and real-time analytics through flexible APIs and a marketing campaign builder.

Key Features
  • Flexible Email API (SMTP and HTTP)
  • Email Marketing Campaigns with A/B testing and automation
  • Email Validation API
  • Advanced deliverability tools and analytics
  • Dynamic templates for personalization
  • Dedicated IP addresses for high-volume senders
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Low

Ease of Use

Moderate

The Workflow

graph TD subgraph "Open-Source Lead Aggregator" direction LR N0["Chatwoot"] N1["n8n"] N2["SendGrid"] N0 -- "Sends webhook on new conversation" --> N1 N1 -- "Sends welcome email" --> N2 end classDef blue fill:#3498db,stroke:#2980b9,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef green fill:#2ecc71,stroke:#27ae60,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef orange fill:#f39c12,stroke:#d35400,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; class N0 blue; class N1 blue; class N2 blue;

Integration Logic

  • n8n Google Lead Workflow

    This integration triggers when a new conversation is created in a specific Chatwoot inbox. The n8n workflow receives the conversation data via a webhook. It then extracts the contact's information (name and email). The workflow checks a designated Google Sheet to see if this contact already exists. If the contact is new, it appends a new row to the Google Sheet with the lead's details and a timestamp. Finally, it uses SendGrid to send a pre-defined welcome email template to the new lead's email address.

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