From my first Zap to Make.com (http://Make.com) Level 5: six years of building automation that runs businesses
I started six years ago with the smallest kind of automation: a form response landing in a sheet, an invoice that sent itself, a Zap that saved someone ten minutes a day. Client by client on freelance marketplaces, those ten-minute fixes turned into a company, Nex Automations, and into 1,200+ automations running in production today for 210+ clients across 12+ countries.
Somewhere along the way I learned what automation actually is. It is not robots replacing people. It is the invoice cycle of a US transport company dropping from 30 days to 7, a 77% cut, because the paperwork now moves itself. It is a lead reaching the right salesperson in under 2 seconds instead of sitting in an inbox overnight. It is an operations team getting 15 to 20 hours back every week for the work that actually needs a human.
The tools shape the work. Zapier is where most businesses should start, fast to build and hard to break for simple links between apps. Make.com (http://Make.com) is where the serious systems live, visual scenarios with routing, iterators and real error handling. Self-hosted n8n is where I put AI agents when the data cannot leave the client's server. Knowing all three means the problem picks the tool, not the other way around.
Along the way Make certified me at Level 5, the top of their ladder, and Nex Automations became an official Silver Partner, listed in both directories:
make.com/en/partners-directory/nexautomations
zapier.com/partnerdirectory/partner/nex-automations
Every build still ships the way the first one should have: error handling, logging, alerting and documentation, because an automation only counts if it holds at 2 AM.
Happy to answer any Make or Zapier questions in the comments.🚀
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What does "Make.com certified" actually mean when you are hiring an automation expert? It depends entirely on which rung of the ladder the badge is, and most buyers never ask.
Make certifies individuals on a five-level ladder. Levels 1 to 3 are the Academy badges you see on most marketplace profiles: Foundation, Basic, Intermediate. Level 4 is Advanced. Level 5 is the top: scenario architecture, error handling, data transformation, API integration and performance optimisation, assessed by Make itself. A "partner" badge is a different thing again, an agency listing, not an individual skill certification. So two profiles can both say "Make certified" while sitting four rungs apart.
Here is a check I ran on 31 August 2026, the way a buyer would. I searched Contra for "make.com automation expert" and read the first 50 profiles returned. One profile carried Make's Level 5 certification. It happens to be mine, held since 2024, recertified 2026, alongside Zapier Certified Expert status, which around 180 people worldwide hold as of 2026. I am not the biggest seller here and plenty of profiles have more reviews. But "who holds the platform's highest individual certification" has a very short answer list, and you can rerun that search yourself today.
How to use this when you hire anyone, including me:
1. Ask which level the Make badge is, one to five. If the answer is a partner logo or a screenshot, ask again.
2. Verify at the source, 30 seconds: Make and Zapier both publish public directories. A real credential is findable on the platform's own site, not just on the resume.
3. Weigh the ladder against reviews. Reviews measure how a seller ran past projects. Certification measures what the platform verified they can build. You want both, but never accept one dressed up as the other.
The full breakdown of every badge I hold, with the directory links to check them, is in the credentials project on my profile.
Which badge do you weigh more when hiring, the platform's certification or the marketplace's review count?
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Make.com Level 5 Expert & Zapier Certified: Proof, Not Promises
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Zapier to Make.com migration: 198-module launch scenario
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