In the Zapier vs Make vs n8n decision, Zapier is the easiest and most expensive per step, Make is the cheapest hosted option for busy workflows, and n8n is the cheapest at high volume if someone on your team can run it. For a typical five-step workflow running 1,000 times a month, the bill ranges from about $12 to $89 a month depending on which tool you pick.
Quick answer: Pick Zapier if your team is non-technical, your volume is low and you want the widest app library. Pick Make if your workflows have many steps, branches or data shaping and you want to pay less. Pick n8n if you have a developer, run high volume, or need data to stay on your own servers. When a workflow becomes core to how you make money, consider custom code.
How do Zapier, Make and n8n charge you?
The three tools look similar on the surface. The real difference is the unit they bill on, and that unit decides whether your bill stays small or grows every month.
- Zapier bills per task. A task is each action step that runs successfully. Triggers, filters, formatters, paths and delays are free, so a trigger plus four actions costs 4 tasks per run. The Pro plan starts at $19.99 a month on annual billing for 750 tasks, per Zapier's pricing page.
- Make bills per credit. Most module actions cost 1 credit, including the trigger that reads new data. Loops count every item, so a step that processes 50 rows uses 50 credits. On annual billing, the Core plan is $12 a month for 10,000 credits, per Make's pricing page.
- n8n bills per execution. One run of a whole workflow is one execution, whether it has 3 steps or 30. The hosted Starter plan is 20 euros a month on annual billing for 2,500 executions, per n8n's pricing page. The self-hosted Community Edition has no execution fees at all.
That's why reviews disagree on which tool is cheapest. Each one is cheapest for a different shape of workflow. Short, simple automations favor Zapier's free steps. Long workflows with many actions favor n8n, because 30 steps still count as one execution.
What does the same workflow cost on each platform?
Take a common small business workflow: a new website lead comes in, gets looked up, is added to HubSpot, receives a welcome email and triggers a Slack alert. That's one trigger and four actions. Here's what it costs at 1,000 leads a month, using each vendor's published annual-billing prices as of October 2026.
| What you compare | Zapier | Make | n8n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billing unit used | 4,000 tasks | About 5,000 credits | 1,000 executions |
| Plan you'd need | Pro, 5,000 tasks | Core, 10,000 credits | Starter cloud, or self-hosted |
| Monthly cost | $89 | $12 | 20 euros, or server cost only |
| Setup skill needed | Low | Medium | Medium to high |
| Fastest schedule | Every 2 min (Pro) | Every 1 min (Core) | Your choice |
Scale that same workflow to 10,000 runs a month and the gap widens. Zapier needs 40,000 tasks, which lands on its 50,000-task Pro tier at $289 a month. Make needs about 50,000 credits. n8n cloud needs 10,000 executions, which fits its Pro plan at 50 euros a month, and self-hosted n8n still costs only the server.
The cheapest automation tool isn't the one with the lowest sticker price. It's the one whose billing unit matches the shape of your workflow.
What are the limits that catch people out?
Every one of these tools works well for a while. The trouble usually shows up after you've built 20 workflows on it and switching feels expensive. These are the limits worth knowing before you commit.
Zapier's free plan is narrow. It gives you 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps only and 15-minute checks for new data. If you go over on a paid plan with pay-per-task turned on, extra tasks cost 1.25 times your base rate on annual plans and 2.5 times on monthly plans, and everything pauses at three times your allowance.
Make's loops eat credits. Any step that repeats for each item in a list charges for each item. A daily job that processes 300 orders can quietly use 9,000 credits a month on one step. When you run out, scenarios stop until you buy more credits or upgrade. Unused credits expire at the end of the term.
n8n's hosted plans cap run time and concurrency. The cloud Starter plan limits each run to 5 minutes and 5 runs at once, and keeps logs for 7 days. Those caps rarely matter for lead routing. They matter a lot for long AI jobs or bulk imports, which may need the Pro plan or self-hosting.
Is self-hosting n8n really free?
The software is free. Running it isn't. Self-hosted n8n means you rent a server, install updates, set up backups, watch for failures and handle security. A small cloud server typically costs $5 to $40 a month on the wider market. The bigger cost is the hours someone spends keeping it healthy, and what breaks when nobody does.
There's also a license detail most comparisons skip. n8n's Community Edition uses the Sustainable Use License, which allows use for your own internal business purposes. You can automate your company's operations with it. You can't resell n8n itself as a paid service to others without a commercial agreement.
Self-hosting makes sense when you have strict data rules, such as patient or financial data that shouldn't pass through a third party, or volume high enough that per-run pricing hurts. It doesn't make sense for a five-person company with no one technical on staff.
