If you’re a B2B marketer, sales operator, or founder, you’ve probably heard about “GTM automation tools” more times than you can count. The promise: less grunt work, more deals, and better pipeline. But once you start looking under the hood, the choices get overwhelming — and pretty confusing. This guide is for anyone trying to figure out if Bardeen or another automation tool is actually worth your team’s time (and budget).
Let’s cut to the chase: most teams end up paying for a lot of features they never use, or get stuck duct-taping together tools that sort of talk to each other. I’ll break down what Bardeen really does, how it stacks up against other GTM automation platforms, and what matters (and what doesn’t) when picking the right tool for your workflow.
What is GTM Automation, and Why Should You Care?
GTM (Go-To-Market) automation is a broad label. For most B2B companies, it means using software to automate the repetitive, manual processes in sales and marketing — things like:
- Prospecting and lead enrichment
- CRM data entry
- Email outreach and follow-ups
- Lead routing and assignment
- Reporting and pipeline updates
The goal: save your team time, cut down on mistakes, and (hopefully) close more deals.
But here’s the thing: not every team needs the same kind of automation. What works for a 10-person sales team is different from what a founder-led startup or a big enterprise might want. The trick is knowing what’s actually useful, and what’s just shiny “AI” marketing.
Meet the Contenders: Bardeen, Zapier, Workato, and Salesloft
There are dozens of GTM automation tools out there. For this guide, I’ll focus on the ones that come up most in B2B conversations:
- Bardeen: A browser-based automation tool, built to automate workflows between web apps, scrape data, and trigger actions based on custom logic.
- Zapier: The OG of “no-code” automation. Connects thousands of apps and automates pretty much anything with an API.
- Workato: An enterprise-grade automation platform. More power, more complexity, bigger price tag.
- Salesloft (and similar sales engagement tools like Outreach): Focused on automating sales outreach, cadences, and pipeline activities.
There are others (like Make/Integromat, Tray.io, and HubSpot’s built-in automations), but these four cover the main flavors you’ll run into.
What Does Bardeen Actually Do?
Bardeen is a browser extension that lets you automate tasks across your favorite web apps, with a focus on sales and prospecting workflows. The pitch: forget clunky spreadsheets and repetitive copy-paste jobs — you can scrape data, trigger actions, and connect your tools right from your browser.
Common Bardeen use cases:
- Scrape LinkedIn profiles in bulk and push leads to your CRM
- Auto-fill forms, send templated emails, or trigger workflows based on new data
- Connect Google Sheets, Notion, Salesforce, and dozens of other apps
What’s actually good:
- Speed to launch: You can set up useful automations in minutes, no coding needed.
- Browser-first: Works where salespeople live — in Chrome, not buried in a backend tool.
- Affordable: Way cheaper than most enterprise automation platforms.
What’s not so hot:
- Browser-based limits: If your team needs server-side automations, Bardeen isn’t built for that.
- App coverage: The app integrations list is growing, but it’s not as massive as Zapier’s.
- Scaling: While fine for small and mid-sized teams, you’ll hit walls if you need robust controls, multi-step workflows, or compliance features.
Zapier: Jack of All Trades, Master of None?
Zapier is everywhere for a reason: it connects thousands of apps, and you don’t need to know how to code. You build “Zaps” with a trigger (like “new lead in Typeform”) and actions (like “add to Salesforce and send an email”).
Where Zapier shines:
- Breadth: If an app has an API, Zapier probably connects to it.
- Simplicity: Easy to set up basic workflows and get value fast.
- Community: Tons of templates, guides, and support.
Where it struggles:
- Complexity ceiling: Multi-step, conditional workflows get messy or expensive.
- Speed: Zaps can be slow (minutes, not seconds), and reliability can be spotty.
- Cost: Gets pricey as you scale up usage.
Who should use it: Great for “gluing” together SaaS apps, automating simple stuff, and teams that don’t want to mess with code. If you’re running your GTM motion out of a handful of well-known apps, Zapier is often “good enough.”
Workato: Power and Price for the Enterprise Crowd
Workato is like Zapier’s big sibling — built for companies with serious integration needs, security requirements, and IT oversight. If you need to automate complex processes across dozens of systems (think: Salesforce, NetSuite, Marketo), Workato can handle it.
The pros:
- Deep integrations: Handles complex data transformations, approvals, and multi-step workflows.
- Security: Enterprise-grade compliance, audit trails, user controls.
- Support: Dedicated help, onboarding, and training — because you’ll need it.
The cons:
- Big learning curve: Non-technical teams will struggle without IT support.
- Cost: If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it (think thousands per month).
- Overkill for most SMBs: If your team’s under 50 people, Workato is probably too much.
Who should use it: If your company has an IT team, complex data flows, and a real budget, Workato is solid. For most startups and growth-stage B2B teams, it’s overkill.
Salesloft & Sales Engagement Platforms: Outreach on Autopilot
Sales engagement tools like Salesloft and Outreach are built for one thing: automating the sales process. They handle email cadences, follow-ups, call logging, and pipeline tracking — all from one dashboard.
What they nail:
- Sales workflow: Everything is built for SDRs/BDRs. Templates, sequences, analytics — all in one place.
- Integrations: Plays nice with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot.
- Reporting: Track opens, replies, meetings booked, etc.
Where they fall short:
- Limited app automation: Not designed to automate outside the sales process (no scraping, no general app-to-app automation).
- Price: Can get expensive, especially when you add seats.
- Rigid workflows: If you want to automate weird or non-standard processes, you’ll hit limits fast.
Who should use it: Teams running high-volume outbound sales, who want everything sales-y in one spot. Not a replacement for broader automation tools.
What Actually Matters When Choosing a GTM Automation Tool?
Here’s the stuff that really moves the needle — and the stuff that’s mostly noise.
1. Actual Daily Pain Points
Don’t buy a tool for features you “might need.” Write down the 2-3 things your team does every day that everyone hates. That’s your short list.
- Is it copying LinkedIn leads into Salesforce?
- Is it sending the same email 50 times a week?
- Is it moving data from one spreadsheet to another?
If a tool doesn’t make those pains go away, skip it.
2. Integration Depth (Not Just App Count)
It doesn’t matter if a tool “integrates with 5,000 apps” if none of those integrations do what you need. Check:
- Does it work with the exact fields and objects you use?
- Can you trigger actions based on the data you care about?
- Is the integration read-only, or can it update records automatically?
3. Ease of Use vs. Flexibility
- Bardeen: Fast, simple, and browser-based, but not for huge, multi-step backend automations.
- Zapier: Easy for simple stuff, starts to creak for complex flows.
- Workato: Flexible and powerful, but requires technical muscle.
- Salesloft: Super streamlined — but only for outbound sales.
Be honest: how technical is your team? If you need IT to set up every workflow, you’ll end up with shelfware.
4. Pricing and Scalability
- Bardeen: Affordable for teams, no big upfront costs.
- Zapier: Free tier is useful, paid plans can add up fast with lots of tasks.
- Workato: For companies with real budgets.
- Salesloft: Per-seat pricing, can get expensive as you grow.
Don’t get seduced by “unlimited” plans that actually limit you in sneaky ways (like task caps, throttling, or support limits).
What to Ignore (Mostly)
- AI hype: If the automation tool promises “AI-powered everything,” squint hard. Most of the time, it’s just a fancy way of saying “if this, then that.”
- App marketplaces: A huge integration list looks impressive, but most teams use 3-5 core tools.
- Fancy dashboards: Unless your team actually reads them, reporting bells and whistles are a distraction.
Pro tip: Ask for a live demo of your top 2-3 pain points. If it takes more than 10 minutes to set up, or the workflow isn’t smooth, move on.
So, Which One Should You Pick?
Here’s the honest breakdown:
- If you want browser-based, fast sales automations for things like LinkedIn, Gmail, Google Sheets, and Notion, and you don’t have a big IT team? Try Bardeen.
- If you need to connect a bunch of SaaS apps with simple triggers and actions? Zapier is still the default.
- If you’re a big company with gnarly backend data flows and a budget? Workato is worth a look.
- If your team lives and dies by outbound sales cadences? Salesloft (or Outreach) is built for you.
Still not sure? Keep it simple. Start with your most painful manual process, use a tool that solves just that, and iterate. Don’t try to automate everything at once. Most teams get the biggest wins from automating the boring, repetitive stuff — not by chasing every shiny new feature.
Pick the tool that works for your team right now. If you outgrow it, you’ll know — and you can always level up later.