Lead follow-up: score, reply, CRM, alert

Works with: Website form (webhook), OpenAI, HubSpot, email, SlackSteps: 9 nodesTested on: n8n 2.45 (imports on 1.70 and later)

Every new lead from your website form gets a quick reply, goes into HubSpot, and is scored by OpenAI. Leads that score high trigger a Slack alert to your sales team.

What it does

1. Webhook: receives the lead from your form tool (Typeform, Jotform, Webflow, Gravity Forms, or any tool that can POST JSON)
2. Normalize lead: maps your form's field names to name, email, phone, company and message
3. Score lead: asks OpenAI for a 1–10 fit score, a reason, and a one-line summary
4. Reply to lead: sends a short thank-you email with your booking link
5. Upsert contact: creates or updates the contact in HubSpot, matched by email
6. Hot lead?: if the score meets your threshold, posts the lead to Slack

What you need

• An n8n instance (n8n Cloud or self-hosted)
• An OpenAI API key
• A HubSpot private app token with the CRM contacts scopes
• An SMTP account to send email
• A Slack incoming webhook URL

Setup

1. In n8n, open Workflows → Import from file and choose workflow.json.
2. Open Config and set your business name, from address, booking link, Slack webhook URL and the hot lead score.
3. Create a Header Auth credential named OpenAI (name Authorization, value Bearer <your key>) and select it on Score lead (OpenAI).
4. Create a Header Auth credential named HubSpot (name Authorization, value Bearer <private app token>) and select it on Upsert contact (HubSpot).
5. Add your SMTP credential to Reply to lead.
6. Copy the production URL from New lead (webhook), point your form's webhook at it, and activate the workflow.
7. Send one test submission and check each step's output.

Make it yours

• Change the scoring prompt in Normalize lead to describe your ideal customer.
• Swap the HubSpot step for Pipedrive, GoHighLevel or Follow Up Boss using their API or n8n node.
• Add a Wait node and a second email to turn the reply into a short follow-up sequence.

Notes

• No credentials are included. Every value marked REPLACE_ME or REPLACE_WITH_... must be set before you activate the workflow.
• Test with sample data first. Check each step's output in n8n before you point real traffic at it.

Importing it

In n8n, open a new workflow, choose the … menu at the top right, then Import from file and pick the downloaded workflow.json. You can also open the file, copy everything and paste it onto an empty canvas. New to n8n? Start with what n8n is and how templates work.

Background reading: Lead follow-up automation.

Want it set up and running in your own n8n? Send us a short brief.