Workflow automation pricing in 2026 starts at $0 on the free plans of Zapier, Make and n8n, and most small businesses pay between $12 and $130 a month once they're past the free tier. The bigger question isn't the sticker price: it's what each tool counts as a billable unit, because the same workflow can cost ten times more on one platform than on another.
Quick answer: As of October 2026, Zapier's Pro plan starts at $19.99 a month for 750 tasks, Make's Core plan is $12 a month for 10,000 credits, and n8n's cloud Starter plan is 20 euros a month for 2,500 workflow runs, all billed annually. Zapier and Make charge per step; n8n charges per full run. A custom automation from Eltherion starts as low as $1,000 for small, tightly scoped work.
Every vendor price below comes from the official pricing pages of Zapier, Make and n8n, prices checked October 31, 2026. Vendors change plans often, so confirm before you budget.
What does each workflow automation tool charge for?
The three big tools use three different meters. Understanding the meter matters more than comparing the entry price, because it decides how your bill grows when your business does.
- Zapier counts tasks. A task is each action step that runs successfully. Per Zapier's pricing page, triggers, polling for new data, and built-in tools like Filter, Formatter, Paths and Delay don't count. Failed actions don't count either. Some actions, such as AI steps and MCP tool calls, cost more than one task.
- Make counts credits. Most module actions use 1 credit, and some AI features use more. Make's operations help page explains that a module runs once per bundle of data, so adding 5 contacts to a sheet uses 5 operations, and a trigger that checks for new rows uses one each time it checks. Router and error-handler modules are free.
- n8n counts executions. An execution is one full run of a workflow from start to finish, no matter how many steps it has. Its pricing page describes every plan as workflow executions "with unlimited steps."
In plain terms: a 10-step workflow costs 10 times as much per run as a 1-step workflow on Zapier or Make, but the same on n8n. If your automations are long, that difference adds up fast.
Workflow automation pricing compared: Zapier vs Make vs n8n vs custom
| Option | Free plan | Entry paid plan | What you pay for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier | 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps | Pro: $19.99 a month for 750 tasks | Each successful action step |
| Make | 1,000 credits a month | Core: $12 a month for 10,000 credits | Each module action |
| n8n cloud | None listed; self-hosted Community Edition on GitHub | Starter: 20 euros a month for 2,500 executions | Each full workflow run |
| Custom (Eltherion) | Free estimate | Starts as low as $1,000 for a small scoped automation | A fixed price to build; you own the code |
Paid tiers scale with volume. On Zapier Pro, billed annually, 2,000 tasks cost $49 a month, 10,000 tasks $129, 50,000 tasks $289 and 100,000 tasks $489. Zapier's Team plan, which adds up to 25 seats, starts at $69 a month for 2,000 tasks. Make's Pro plan is $21 a month and Teams $38 a month at 10,000 credits, with extra credits at $1.20, $2.10 and $3.80 per 1,000 on Core, Pro and Teams. n8n Pro is 50 euros a month for 10,000 executions.
What does one real workflow cost on each tool?
Here's a common example. A new lead fills out your website form. The workflow adds them to HubSpot, posts a message in Slack, sends a welcome email and logs a row in Google Sheets. That's one trigger and four actions. Say it runs 2,500 times a month.
- Zapier: the trigger is free, so each run uses 4 tasks. That's 10,000 tasks a month, which is the $129 Pro tier billed annually ($193.50 billed monthly).
- Make: all 5 modules use a credit, so each run uses about 5 credits, or 12,500 a month. That's the $12 Core plan at 10,000 credits plus roughly 3,000 extra credits at $1.20 per 1,000, so about $16 a month.
- n8n cloud: 2,500 runs is exactly the Starter plan's 2,500 executions, so 20 euros a month billed annually.
Same workflow, same volume, and the monthly bill ranges from about $16 to $129. Zapier often costs more per run, but many teams pick it anyway for its app library and ease of use. We cover that trade-off in Zapier vs Make vs n8n.
The entry price tells you almost nothing; the billing meter tells you what you'll pay a year from now.
What hidden costs push the bill up?
The plan price is only part of the cost. These are the items business owners most often miss when they budget for workflow automation software:
- Overage. On Zapier, if you enable pay-per-task, extra tasks cost 1.25 times the base rate on annual plans and 2.5 times on monthly plans, and usage pauses at 3 times your subscription. On Make, scenarios stop when credits run out unless you buy more.
- AI steps. Zapier prices AI steps by model tier and they draw from your task pool. Make says some AI features use more than 1 credit. An automation that summarizes emails with AI can burn through a plan much faster than a simple one.
- Polling triggers. On Make, a trigger that checks an app for new data uses credits every time it checks, even when nothing is new.
- Seats. Zapier's Free and Pro plans include 1 user. Shared team access needs the Team plan or higher.
- Your team's time. Someone has to build the workflows, fix them when an app changes, and notice when one silently fails. That time is often the largest cost, and it never shows up on an invoice.
