12 Python Scripts That Automate Everything in My Small Business

Brad — Wed, 13 May 2026 08:17:34 +0000

Running a small business or freelancing without automation is leaving money on the table. Here are 12 Python scripts I use daily — and you can get them all in one toolkit.

Why I Built These

After years of freelancing, I noticed I was spending 3+ hours daily on repetitive tasks:

Sending invoice reminders manually
Checking competitor prices every morning
Backing up databases (when I remembered)
Scraping leads one-by-one

So I automated all of it. Here's what I built:

Script 1: Web Scraper (`web_scraper.py`)

Universal scraper with rate limiting and retry logic:

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import time

def scrape_page(url, delay=1.5):
    headers = {'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36'}

    for attempt in range(3):
        try:
            response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, timeout=10)
            response.raise_for_status()
            soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser')
            time.sleep(delay)  # Be respectful
            return soup
        except requests.RequestException as e:
            if attempt == 2:
                raise
            time.sleep(delay * 2)

# Usage
soup = scrape_page('https://example.com/products')
prices = [el.text for el in soup.select('.price')]

Script 2: Email Automation (`email_automation.py`)

Bulk personalized emails via SMTP (works with Gmail, Zoho, any SMTP):

import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
import csv

def send_bulk_emails(template, contacts_csv, smtp_config):
    with open(contacts_csv) as f:
        contacts = list(csv.DictReader(f))

    with smtplib.SMTP_SSL(smtp_config['host'], 465) as server:
        server.login(smtp_config['user'], smtp_config['password'])

        for contact in contacts:
            msg = MIMEMultipart('alternative')
            msg['Subject'] = template['subject'].format(**contact)
            msg['From'] = smtp_config['user']
            msg['To'] = contact['email']

            body = template['body'].format(**contact)
            msg.attach(MIMEText(body, 'html'))

            server.send_message(msg)
            print(f"Sent to {contact['email']}")

Script 3: Invoice Generator (`invoice_generator.py`)

Professional HTML invoices from JSON config, with PDF export:

def generate_invoice(invoice_data):
    template = """
    <html>
    <body style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; max-width: 800px; margin: auto;">
        <h1>INVOICE #{invoice_number}</h1>
        <p><strong>From:</strong> {from_name}<br>{from_address}</p>
        <p><strong>To:</strong> {client_name}<br>{client_address}</p>
        <table border="1" style="width: 100%">
            <tr><th>Description</th><th>Amount</th></tr>
            {line_items}
        </table>
        <p><strong>TOTAL: ${total}</strong></p>
    </body>
    </html>
    """

    line_items = "\n".join(
        f"<tr><td>{item['desc']}</td><td>${item['amount']}</td></tr>"
        for item in invoice_data['items']
    )

    total = sum(item['amount'] for item in invoice_data['items'])

    html = template.format(**invoice_data, line_items=line_items, total=total)
    return html

Script 4: Price Tracker (`price_tracker.py`)

Monitor competitor prices and get alerts when they change:

import sqlite3
from datetime import datetime

def track_price(url, selector, db_path='prices.db'):
    # Scrape current price
    soup = scrape_page(url)
    price_text = soup.select_one(selector).text
    price = float(re.sub(r'[^\d.]', '', price_text))

    # Store in SQLite
    conn = sqlite3.connect(db_path)
    conn.execute("""
        CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS prices
        (url TEXT, price REAL, timestamp TEXT)
    """)
    conn.execute(
        "INSERT INTO prices VALUES (?, ?, ?)",
        (url, price, datetime.now().isoformat())
    )
    conn.commit()

    # Check for significant changes (>5%)
    prev = conn.execute(
        "SELECT price FROM prices WHERE url=? ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT 2",
        (url,)
    ).fetchall()

    if len(prev) > 1 and abs(prev[0][0] - prev[1][0]) / prev[1][0] > 0.05:
        send_alert(f"Price changed: {url} now ${price}")

    return price

Script 5: Database Backup (`database_backup.py`)

Automated SQLite/PostgreSQL backup with compression and S3 upload:

import subprocess
import gzip
import boto3
from datetime import datetime

def backup_database(db_config, s3_bucket=None):
    timestamp = datetime.now().strftime('%Y%m%d_%H%M%S')
    backup_file = f"backup_{timestamp}.sql.gz"

    if db_config['type'] == 'sqlite':
        with open(db_config['path'], 'rb') as f_in:
            with gzip.open(backup_file, 'wb') as f_out:
                f_out.write(f_in.read())

    elif db_config['type'] == 'postgresql':
        result = subprocess.run([
            'pg_dump', db_config['database']
        ], capture_output=True)

        with gzip.open(backup_file, 'wb') as f_out:
            f_out.write(result.stdout)

    # Upload to S3 if configured
    if s3_bucket:
        s3 = boto3.client('s3')
        s3.upload_file(backup_file, s3_bucket, f"backups/{backup_file}")
        print(f"Backed up to s3://{s3_bucket}/backups/{backup_file}")

    return backup_file

Script 6: API Monitor (`api_monitor.py`)

Watch your API endpoints and alert on downtime:

import requests
import time

def monitor_endpoints(endpoints, check_interval=60):
    while True:
        for endpoint in endpoints:
            try:
                start = time.time()
                resp = requests.get(endpoint['url'], timeout=5)
                latency = (time.time() - start) * 1000

                if resp.status_code != endpoint.get('expected_status', 200):
                    send_alert(f"❌ {endpoint['name']} returned {resp.status_code}")
                elif latency > endpoint.get('max_latency_ms', 2000):
                    send_alert(f"⚠️ {endpoint['name']} slow: {latency:.0f}ms")
                else:
                    print(f"✅ {endpoint['name']}: {resp.status_code} ({latency:.0f}ms)")

            except Exception as e:
                send_alert(f"💥 {endpoint['name']} DOWN: {e}")

        time.sleep(check_interval)

Script 7-12: More Automation

The toolkit also includes:

Social Media Scheduler — Queue tweets/posts, auto-post at optimal times
Lead Scraper — Extract B2B contacts from public directories
Slack/Discord Notifier — Send formatted alerts to your team channels
CSV to Database Importer — Auto-detect schema, bulk import CSV/Excel
Data Cleaner — Normalize inconsistent data (dates, phone numbers, addresses)
Report Generator — Auto-generate HTML dashboards from your data

Get All 12 Scripts

The complete toolkit (all scripts + README with setup instructions) is available for download:

👉 Python Business Automation Toolkit — $29

Each script is:

Production-ready with error handling
Documented with usage examples
Easy to customize for your use case

What automation saves you the most time? Let me know in the comments — I might add it to the next version.

DEV Community: Brad

12 Python Scripts That Automate Everything in My Small Business

Why I Built These

Script 1: Web Scraper (web_scraper.py)

Script 2: Email Automation (email_automation.py)

Script 3: Invoice Generator (invoice_generator.py)

Script 4: Price Tracker (price_tracker.py)

Script 5: Database Backup (database_backup.py)

Script 6: API Monitor (api_monitor.py)