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Automating Customer Follow-ups: HubSpot, RPA, or Power Automate? A Guide for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses 2026
What You'll Learn
This guide compares the leading customer follow-up automation solutions for French SMEs: HubSpot Sales Hub, Power Automate, RPA tools (UiPath, Power Automate Desktop), Make, and Zapier. It helps you choose the tool that best fits your existing infrastructure, your volume of work, and the complexity of your workflows.
Key Takeaways
- HubSpot Sales Hub automates follow-up sequences directly from the CRM, without the need for third-party tools—but it cannot read billing statuses without an integration.
- Power Automate (Microsoft 365) is the fastest way for small and medium-sized businesses in a Microsoft environment to get started, often at no additional cost.
- RPA tools (UiPath, Power Automate Desktop) are the only viable solution for ERP and invoicing software that lack an API.
- Make and Zapier support no-code workflows between SaaS tools, with more than 500 connectors available.
- Pennylane natively integrates accounting and payment reminders, without the need for third-party tools.
Why Automate Customer Follow-ups?
Manual follow-up takes an average of 4 to 7 minutes per invoice. With 50 unpaid invoices per month, that amounts to nearly 6 hours of repetitive administrative work. Automation makes it possible to:
- Reduce average payment terms (DSO)
- Ensure a systematic follow-up with no one left out
- Free up teams to focus on higher-value-added activities
- Adjust the tone and frequency based on the customer profile
The choice of tool depends primarily on your existing ERP or CRM system and the level of customization required for the scenarios you need to cover.
HubSpot Sales Hub: Follow-up Sequences Integrated into the CRM
How It Works
HubSpot Sales Hub offers a built-in sequences module that automates sales and financial follow-ups directly from the CRM. A sequence is a series of emails and tasks that are automatically triggered according to a defined schedule:
- You create a sequence with N steps (emails, call reminders, to-do items)
- You can add a contact manually or using an automation rule
- Each step is triggered according to a configured time interval (Day 1, Day 3, Day 7, etc.)
- The sequence stops automatically if the contact responds
Typical use cases: follow-ups on unsigned quotes, B2B invoice reminders, and post-meeting follow-ups.
Pricing: HubSpot Sales Hub Pro starting at €90 per month per user. Includes sequences, email templates, and engagement reports.
Limits on Financial Collection Efforts
HubSpot is a CRM, not accounting software. It does not directly read payment statuses from your ERP. To trigger a reminder for an unpaid invoice, you need to connect HubSpot to your accounting tool (Pennylane, Sage, Stripe, etc.) via Make, Zapier, or the HubSpot API.
Direct answer: Can HubSpot trigger a reminder for an unpaid invoice? Not natively. An integration with your invoicing software is required.
Power Automate: Automating Follow-ups in the Microsoft 365 Ecosystem
Why Start with Power Automate If You're Using Microsoft 365
Power Automate is the native automation tool for Microsoft 365. It is included in most Microsoft 365 Business licenses at no additional cost. For small and medium-sized businesses that already use the Microsoft suite, this is the solution they should prioritize deploying.
A Power Automate flow for customer follow-ups can:
- Read a list of unpaid invoices from an Excel or SharePoint file
- Check the due date and payment status
- Automatically send a reminder email via Outlook with the invoice details
- Record each reminder in a SharePoint log
- Create a task in Microsoft Planner for the sales rep if the invoice is more than 30 days past due
Power Automate Desktop: The RPA Version
Power Automate Desktop goes a step further: it can interact with desktop applications (legacy ERP systems, software without APIs) by replicating a user’s clicks and keystrokes. It is the most accessible entry point to RPA for French SMEs, as it is included in Windows 10 and 11.
Direct Answer: What is the best automated follow-up solution for an SMB using Microsoft 365? Power Automate, included with your Microsoft license, covers 80% of your needs without any additional investment.
RPA Systems for Automating Follow-ups Without APIs
What is RPA?
RPA (Robotic Process Automation) refers to software that replicates a user’s manual actions on a screen: clicks, data entry, and copying and pasting between applications. It is the only viable solution when your invoicing or ERP software does not provide an API.
Top RPA Tools Available in 2026
A Concrete Example of an RPA Workflow for Payment Reminders
Your invoice management ERP system doesn't have an API. Every morning, an RPA bot:
- Open the ERP system and retrieve the list of invoices with the status "past due."
- Compare with your CRM or tracking spreadsheet
- Generates and sends reminder emails via Outlook
- Updates the status in your management tool
This feed runs in the background, without human intervention, 7 days a week.
Short answer: Is RPA suitable for small and medium-sized businesses? Yes. Power Automate Desktop (included in Windows 10/11) makes RPA accessible without any specific investment. For large-scale deployments, UiPath or Automation Anywhere offer greater robustness.
Make and Zapier: No-Code Flexibility for SaaS Stacks
Make (formerly Integromat) and Zapier are no-code automation platforms that connect hundreds of applications through visual workflows. They are particularly well-suited for small and medium-sized businesses that use SaaS tools (Stripe, Shopify, Airtable, Notion, HubSpot).
Make vs. Zapier — What's the Difference?
- Make: more powerful for complex scenarios (loops, data transformations, conditional logic). Starting at €9/month.
- Zapier: easier to get started with for linear workflows. Starting at €19/month.
Neither of them supports software without an API.
Comprehensive Comparison Chart of 2026 Solutions
Which solution should you choose based on your profile?
You are using Microsoft 365
→ Start with Power Automate. It covers 80% of your needs at no additional cost.
You already have a HubSpot CRM
→ Enable Sales Hub workflows and connect them to your billing software via Make or Zapier.
Your ERP doesn't have an API
→ UiPath or Power Automate Desktop are the only viable solutions that do not require custom development.
Are you looking for a turnkey accounting and collections solution?
→ Pennylane and Billit natively support both features, without the need for third-party tools.
You manage multi-tool SaaS workflows
→ Make for complex workflows, Zapier for simple ones.
How can you combine multiple tools to maximize automation?
This is often the best approach for small and medium-sized businesses that already have an ecosystem of tools in place. Example of a common architecture:
- Pennylane generates the invoice and updates the payment status
- Make detects a status change (webhook or polling)
- HubSpot sends the personalized email follow-up sequence
- Power Automate creates a task in Microsoft Teams for the sales representative if the invoice is more than 30 days past due
This type of architecture can be deployed on an existing IT system in just a few days.
Frequently asked questions
Can HubSpot trigger follow-up reminders for an unpaid invoice?
Not natively. HubSpot is a CRM, not accounting software. To trigger a follow-up sequence based on an invoice’s status, you need to connect HubSpot to your invoicing software (Pennylane, Stripe, Sage) via Make, Zapier, or the HubSpot API. IT Systèmes implements this type of integration for small and medium-sized businesses.
Is RPA suitable for small and medium-sized businesses, or is it reserved for large companies?
Power Automate Desktop, included in Windows 10/11 and Microsoft 365, makes RPA accessible to small and medium-sized businesses without requiring a specific investment. For high-volume or complex processes, UiPath or Automation Anywhere offer greater robustness, though at a higher cost and with greater integration complexity.
Is it possible to automate customer follow-ups without a developer?
Yes. Power Automate, Make, and Zapier allow you to create no-code automation flows. For software without an API (legacy ERP systems, older billing software), Power Automate Desktop lets you simulate user actions without any specific development work.
How much does a debt collection automation project cost for an SME?
It depends heavily on your existing infrastructure. If you’re already using Microsoft 365, Power Automate is included. For a project using Make or HubSpot, expect to pay between €50 and €200 per month for licenses, depending on volume. A custom RPA integration project (UiPath, Automation Anywhere) typically starts at a few thousand euros for the integration itself.
Does IT Systèmes support small and medium-sized businesses with these projects?
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