How Axians scales multi-tenant automation from 14 active customers to 150 with Windmill
Axians is a 500-person managed service provider managing network infrastructure for 150 enterprise customers across Europe. They needed scalable automation infrastructure to gradually onboard customers to self-service automation.
About
Axians is a 500-person managed service provider in Rotterdam, Netherlands, managing network infrastructure for 150 enterprise customers across Europe including government agencies, hospitals, schools, and corporations. They needed scalable automation infrastructure to gradually onboard these customers to self-service automation. Today, 14 customers actively use Windmill for network automation, with the remaining customers in the onboarding pipeline. The challenge was finding a platform with the right architecture and economics to support this scaling journey.
The problem
Ben Willems, Product Owner of Axians' Automation Team, faced a scaling challenge: how to provide automation capabilities to 150 enterprise customers without massive upfront costs.
"We manage Wi-Fi and LAN networks for our customers like the government, schools, hospitals, large corporations. They say here is my entire network, just fix it for me. Instead of spending €100 an hour for an engineer to do something which can easily be automated, we want to enable our engineers to build scripts for themselves in a managed, secure, and compliant environment."
— Ben Willems, Product Owner, Automation Team
The mission: become a data-driven managed service provider by gathering information, transforming it into insights, and automating actions at scale. But the path to scale was the problem—customers would onboard gradually, not all at once. The infrastructure needed to support this growth pattern:
- Multi-tenant architecture - Separate isolated environments for each customer
- Gradual scaling - Start with early adopters, expand as adoption spreads
- Usage-based economics - Pay for what you use, not fixed enterprise licensing
- Compliance-ready - ISO and IC certifications require auditing and logging
Axians evaluated over 10 platforms including Kestra, Ansible Automation Platform, and n8n. Ansible Automation Platform was technically solid but economically impossible for gradual scaling: "We would have to pay over a million euros a year to use it and our business case could not cover that."
Fixed enterprise licensing meant paying for 150 customers upfront, even if only 14 were actively using it. That economics didn't work.
The solution
Windmill scored 8.9 out of 10 in proof of concept testing. The decision came down to architecture that enables gradual scaling.
Multi-tenant architecture that scales with adoption
Windmill's workspace model solved Axians' core challenge: start with early adopters and scale as customers onboard, without massive upfront costs.
"You have a separate environment just for one customer and you can build all your applications, all your flows in that. We use Windmill Hub Private to share scripts between customers when appropriate."
— Ben Willems
Ben's platform team manages Windmill hosted in Azure. Customer teams—network engineers managing specific client accounts—build and maintain their own automations within their workspaces. The platform team provides infrastructure; the customer teams own their automation scripts.
This model scales efficiently. Axians doesn't need to hire developers to build automation for every customer. Early adopters build scripts, other teams adopt them, and the automation library grows organically.
Economics that support gradual growth
"The fact that you also pay really on the value you get is attractive to our needs."
— Ben Willems
Windmill's usage-based pricing meant Axians could start with 14 active customers and add more as they onboard—paying proportionally rather than facing fixed licensing costs for 150 customers upfront. This changes the economics of providing automation-as-a-service.
"Usually it's the concept of a developer has to build the script and nobody wants to pay the hours. They just want to use the script."
— Ben Willems
Once early adopters create value, others follow. Windmill's pricing supports this adoption pattern.
Compliance that drives centralization
Axians' ISO and IC certifications require strict auditing. This compliance requirement actually accelerates adoption.
"We don't want anyone to run scripts on their own laptop anymore. We want to have in a central orchestration platform which is Windmill. Everything that you do in Windmill is audited, is registered, and logged."
— Ben Willems
As more customers onboard, they inherit the compliance foundation from day one.
Real-world transformation
A network engineer managing infrastructure for a major energy supplier needed internet connectivity at 180 substation locations. Previously, each deployment took 4 hours. The engineer taught himself to code and built an Ansible script in Windmill. Deployment now takes 5-10 minutes per location.
# Example: Self-healing network automation
def remediate_network_issue(device_id: str, issue_type: str):
status = check_device_health(device_id)
if issue_type == "access_point_down":
restart_device(device_id)
log_to_servicenow(device_id, "auto_restart_completed")
elif issue_type == "outdated_firmware":
schedule_update(device_id)
notify_team(device_id, "update_scheduled")
return {"device": device_id, "action": "remediated", "logged": True}
Scripts like this get built by early adopter customers using Python, then shared and adopted by customers onboarding later. The platform's value compounds as adoption grows.
The result
Axians started with early adopters and is now scaling across their customer base. Fourteen customers actively automate with Windmill, with the remaining customers onboarding as adoption spreads.
"You see the adoption is increasing now. Instead of last year where primarily technical people were using it, now you see a lot more business people also pushing for a script or an automation."
— Ben Willems
Transformational efficiency at the active customers
For the 14 customers actively using the platform, the results are dramatic. Network deployments that took 4 hours now complete in 5-10 minutes. Self-healing automation restarts failed access points automatically. Network equipment updates happen on schedule. Invoice workflows run end-to-end from quote to payment.
Economics that enable the scaling journey
Axians avoided the €1 million+ annual cost of enterprise platforms by choosing usage-based pricing. As they scale from 14 to 150 customers, costs grow proportionally rather than in large licensing steps. This makes the business case work.
"We've asked to add Ansible to the platform and within like two weeks you guys built it. Heads off for the speed on that."
— Ben Willems
Organic growth through network effects
The platform enables network engineers to solve their own problems. Once early adopters build scripts, other teams adopt them. The automation library grows as more customers onboard.
"Usually it's the concept of a developer has to build the script and nobody wants to pay the hours. They just want to use the script."
— Ben Willems
With everything centralized, Axians passes ISO and IC audits without manual documentation. Every automation is logged, every execution traced. As the remaining customers onboard, they inherit this compliance foundation.
"As far as we can see, an ideal platform for use cases like this."
— Ben Willems
Conclusion
Axians demonstrates how managed service providers can scale automation-as-a-service using Windmill's architecture. Starting with 14 active customers and growing toward 150, they needed infrastructure that could scale gradually without massive upfront costs.
Windmill's workspace isolation provides multi-tenancy, usage-based pricing enables proportional growth, and audit logs ensure compliance. For MSPs scaling automation across dozens or hundreds of customers, this architecture makes the economics work. After evaluating 10+ platforms, Windmill scored 8.9 out of 10—nearly double the next competitor.
The lesson for MSPs: choose platforms that support your growth trajectory, not just your current state.