Why I couldn't make Notion work for content automation (yet)

I tested Notion as a cheaper alternative to Airtable and ran into some frustrating roadblocks.

I spent the last week trying to figure out if Notion could replace Airtable for my content automation system. The idea was simple: Notion's Plus plan costs around €12 per month (about half of what I pay for Airtable), and they recently added webhooks. Seemed like a no-brainer, right?

Well, not exactly.

Why I wanted to ditch Airtable

Don't get me wrong - my current Airtable system works great. I've got this core content automation running through Make.com that I'm pretty happy with. You can actually grab the whole setup (including the Airtable template) from my AI Marketing Masters community if you want to skip the trial and error phase.

But here's what bugs me about Airtable: the pricing is expensive, and I can't do much with the content output once it's generated (for example, Notion would allow me to edit it with a team, leave comments, etc).

That's where Notion caught my attention. Better formatting options, document-style editing, and cheaper pricing. What's not to love?

Setting up webhooks in Notion (the easy part)

The webhook setup in Notion is actually pretty straightforward. Once you upgrade to the Plus plan, you get access to the automation features through that lightning bolt icon.

I created a simple trigger based on a status field - when I set a record to "generate content," it fires off a webhook to Make.com and automatically changes the status to "in progress" so it doesn't re-trigger while the automation is running.

This part worked exactly as expected. I was getting excited thinking this might actually be better than Airtable.

Where everything fell apart

But then reality hit me with a bunch of problems:

The 2,000 character limit

This was the biggest issue. In my system, I generate full newsletters or blog posts through AI. In Airtable, I can dump thousands of characters into a single field without any issues. But in Notion databases, only the main content field (like my "idea input") can handle long text. All the other fields are basically Excel-style records with a 2,000 character limit.

That's nowhere near enough for a full piece of content.

Terrible formatting from Make.com

When I tried to work around the character limit by creating separate Notion pages for the content, the formatting was awful. Everything came through as markdown text in one giant paragraph.

To get proper formatting, I'd need to split my AI output into separate modules - one for headings, one for bullet points, one for regular paragraphs. We're talking 10-20 different AI modules with different prompts just to format one piece of content properly.

That's unreasonable complexity compared to my current Airtable setup where one AI output gets formatted nicely automatically.

Make.com modules are confusing

Maybe this is just because I'm used to Airtable modules, but setting up the Notion integration in Make.com was way more complicated. I kept getting confused about database items, parent pages, and IDs.

With Airtable, I send just the record ID through the webhook and use a simple "get record" module to pull all the data. Clean and straightforward.

The workarounds (and why they're not worth it)

Notion does have some potential solutions. They've added AI blocks that could theoretically format content better. I could set up a prompt like "format this content nicely but don't change the actual text."

But again, this adds more complexity. I'd need to create specific modules for these AI blocks, add exact prompts, and basically rebuild my entire system in a more complicated way.

The whole point was to make things simpler and cheaper, not more complex.

Why I'm sticking with Airtable (for now)

Look, I think I could probably make Notion work eventually. But it definitely can't be the same type of streamlined system I'm used to with Airtable.

For now, my Airtable-based content system just works. It's proven, it's reliable.

If you want to skip all this trial and error and get straight to a working content automation system, check out AI Marketing Masters. You'll get my complete Airtable templates and Make.com blueprints that are already tested and working.

I'll definitely keep experimenting with Notion, and if I crack the code on a system that works as well as my current setup, I'll share it.

But until then, sometimes the more expensive option is worth it if it actually works.

Have you tried building content automations with Notion? I'd love to hear if you've found solutions to these formatting and character limit issues.