What it does
Automations in NETICS are CRM journeys. Each starts from a trigger and walks a contact through steps in order, with waits and Yes or No branches between them. They live in Business > NETICS CRM > CRM workspace > Automations > Workflows.
There are six triggers: Contact is created, a tag is added, a contact joins a list, a form is submitted, an AI Voice call completes, or Started manually. Steps come in five groups. Messages send an email, a WhatsApp message or a text. Timing pauses the contact for minutes, hours, days or weeks. Logic splits the path on a condition, such as pipeline stage, tag, list, marketing status, company, country or whether they clicked an email link. Contacts steps add or remove tags and lists. CRM steps move the contact to a pipeline stage, update their marketing status or create a follow-up task.
These steps send for real. Every message step checks consent and the channel's rules before anything leaves, and every run records whether each step was sent, skipped or failed, and why.
Who it is for
Any business that repeats the same follow-through by hand. A Lagos shop can welcome every new contact with a designed email, a school can message parents who joined an enquiry list, and a salon can send an offer to clients a week after they are tagged. It works alongside the sales pipeline, which has its own follow-up ladder.
How it works in NETICS
- Open CRM workspace > Automations > Workflows and press Create automation, or start from one of the Pre-built recipes such as New contact welcome.
- Choose the trigger under When. For a tag, list or form trigger, pick the exact tag, list or form.
- Press Add action to add steps, or the plus between two steps to insert one. A condition gives two paths, and only the matching Yes or No path runs.
- Press Ask NETICS to open "Work on this automation with NETICS". Type a change, for example "Add a three-day wait after the selected step", or ask it to explain the workflow. Review the suggestion, then Apply changes or Discard suggestion. You can undo the last change it applied.
- Press Save draft to keep your work without running it, or Activate to go live. A draft says "Saved but not running: nothing fires until you start it", and a paused automation fires nothing until you start it again.
- Test on one person first: a manual run lets you choose the exact contact to use.
- Watch results under Contact activity, which lists each live, completed or failed journey. Each automation's card counts the emails it sent, opened and clicked.
- When you switch on a tag or list automation, NETICS says how many people already carry that tag or sit on that list. Send to them too includes them, 25 every half hour so sending limits hold.
Key capabilities
- Consent first. Email, SMS and WhatsApp steps only reach contacts marked Subscribed. SMS and WhatsApp also need a phone number on the contact.
- WhatsApp done properly. A WhatsApp step sends free text only if the contact wrote to you on WhatsApp in the last 24 hours; otherwise it sends the Meta-approved template you name. With neither, the step is skipped and the run says so. See WhatsApp.
- Designed emails. Email steps use your templates and styles from the CRM's Emails module, with merge tags such as the contact's name.
- NETICS on the canvas. Describe a change in plain words and NETICS edits the workflow using only steps that can actually run.
- Moves the pipeline. An automation email, SMS or WhatsApp counts as outreach, so a New lead becomes Contacted, and a set stage step moves a contact on purpose.
- Follow-ups. The Follow-ups tab lists every follow-up due now, today and later, each with a Complete button.
- n8n and Make. The n8n & Make tab takes a webhook URL from your tool, lets you tick which NETICS events to send, shows a signing secret once, and offers starter workflows such as "Order paid, tell the team on Slack". Zapier and anything with a webhook trigger work the same way.
Plan availability
Workflow automation is included on every plan. Up to 3 automations can be switched on at once on the 3-day free trial and on Pay as you go (no monthly fee, pay from credits), 10 on Starter (NGN 50,000 a month) and 100 on Growth (NGN 200,000 a month). Enterprise and Custom have no limit. Drafts and paused automations do not count, and neither do tracked links. On every plan, each SMS an automation sends costs NGN 10 from your usage credits, and the step is skipped if the wallet is short. One credit is NGN 15, and top-ups start at NGN 1,500. The n8n & Make connection uses API & Webhooks, which is on every plan from the trial up. Prices exclude VAT.
What it does not do yet
The AI Voice call step depends on outbound calling, which is not available yet. WhatsApp steps send from your own business number only once that number is connected for customer messages; until then the step is skipped with a note to connect it under Integrations. There are no order or booking triggers inside the canvas: send order and booking events to n8n or Make through webhooks instead. There is no native n8n community node.
Frequently asked questions
Will an automation message people who never agreed?
No. Message steps only reach contacts marked Subscribed. Contacts imported, synced from your customers or found through Generate Leads start as No verified consent, so they are skipped until they are marked Subscribed. Only mark people Subscribed when they have agreed to hear from you.
Can NETICS build or change an automation for me?
Yes. Open the canvas, press Ask NETICS and describe what you want, such as adding a wait or editing an email subject. NETICS proposes the change on the canvas and nothing is kept until you apply it and save. You can also ask NETICS from the orb on any page.
How many automations can I run?
On the trial and Pay as you go, three can be switched on at the same time, ten on Starter and 100 on Growth; drafts and paused automations do not count. Enterprise and Custom have no limit. If you try to switch on one more than your plan allows, NETICS asks you to pause one or upgrade.
Can I use n8n, Make or Zapier with NETICS?
Yes. Paste your tool's webhook URL in the n8n & Make tab, pick events such as a new contact, a form submission or a paid order, and NETICS sends each one signed. Your tool can also act on NETICS with an API key, for example to create a customer, an order or a booking.