Verified purchaser
Absolutely hopeless.
I set up a simple integration, when a new row is detected in Google Sheets, it'll add them as a subscriber to my mailchimp account. Nothing fancy right?
Well, the integration simply doesn't work. When new rows are added, no action gets logged in the Automation Log. I had the schedule set at 1 minute, so it should be checking for new rows every minute, and yet, what do you know? No activities logged and no subscribers added to the mailchimp account.
Further, their 'Test automation' button is permanently greyed out and displays the message "testing of this trigger is currently unavailable". It's greyed out all the time even for different automations I've set up (which have not worked either).
What's even worse, is that, remember how I had set the schedule to be every minute? Well, everytime the automation checks for new rows in the spreadsheet, that counts as an action, every minute. and if you have three steps for that automation, then that counts as 3 ACTIONS PER MINUTE. I had set up the automation at night, and woke up in the morning to see that there were almost 900 actions logged against my monthly quota - how stupid is that? And the automation didn't even work because it still hasn't picked up any new rows in my google sheet (Facepalm).
Lastly, their team is based in europe, so their live chat button is basically useless unless you overlap with their timezone.
Don't believe the 5-tacos hype - Albato is a terrible, non-functional alternative to Zapier and Make and a complete waste of your time.
Leo_Albato
May 9, 2024Hello Doghasfur,
Leo Goldfarb from Albato here.
First of all, I'm really sorry that you've had such a negative experience with our product. Thank you for flagging all of these issues. Rest assured, we will address each and every one of them. We are definitely not hopeless and are very eager to work on improving your satisfaction, whatever it takes. :) Let's start one by one:
1. Can you please share your user ID or Albato email address and the G Sheets-MailChimp automation ID? I will have the team dig in and pinpoint the issue without delay.
2. Are you using the webhook trigger for Google Sheets? If so, this is why the testing is unavailable. It only works for API triggers. You can see this tip when you hover over the greyed-out "Test" button.
3. As for the operations, indeed, Albato consumes one operation for every API call, even if the data is not updated. We've always been transparent about this model, and we did our best to give generous limits for operations within each pricing plan. Please feel free to check out this article https://albato.com/blog/publications/how-to-save-operations with our best practices on how to reduce operation consumption. If it doesn't help you, feel free to reach out to me directly at leo@albato.com. We will look into your case and try to work out the best solution.
4. Our support is spread across the globe. We have support agents in India, Brazil, and Europe. Can you please elaborate on "their live chat button is basically useless" and provide some specific cases with our support not replying to you? Generally, our customers around the world are very happy with our support efficiency. Our average response time is < 5 minutes. Feel free to share your negative cases either on this page or at leo@albato.com.
I'm really eager to help you out in the hope that you will give Albato a second chance. :)
Best,
Leo