hi @Piet_Strydom ,
Many thanks for the elaborate reply and the insights. I picked quite a few interesting things like RoamResearch I use Google Keep but see what makes RR attractive.
I used AT quite a bit. For larger SMB the price is not an issue in my experience, but I read what our are saying about your target group. 10 or 30 dollar per month per user is quite a difference. AT for the moment does a better job in dealing with larger datasets, it is more robust in this regard. I moved to Coda due to the formula syntax and the canvas logic, the combination permts for a nicer reporting. My clients never understood why I used AT and even with Coda they have great difficulties and leave the data management over to me. It is not as intuitive as I like to believe. And this is mabye partly because due to the simple fact that we do not directly understand that everything you do with Coda can be understood as a list and that data on rowlevel is an item in a list and that lists can be linked and manipulated via functions. The many easy examples on how to use filters, a lookup and so much more rarely mention this basic structure. It was only after reading and reviewing the posts of @Paul_Danyliuk that bit by bit I saw the logic he applied and once you see this, it is very hard to ‘unsee it’.
My clients love the output (datasets / insights) I generate, but they continue often with Excel or any other spreadsheet, not because of the price, but it takes them too long to do what I do and they want to be able to change here and there a bit. I left Excel for 90% (even for complex business cases and related calculations in my role as ‘controller’ ) because Coda forces you to reflect before inputing data 
I use mainly these tools when I automate
- MailJet
- PaperForm
- Zapier
- Coda
To support cliens, I remain the only maker, they can enter data, but not alter the logic. Once the problem is well defined, this works like the example I describe here. So they become passive Coda users.
Thanks again for sharing!
Best from Belgium, Christiaan