If you're looking at stepping into creating automations, you've probably come across the question of cost. And it's not as easy, especially if you are starting off and haven't built anything yet.

For example, Zapier offers 100 tasks per month, with "unlimited zaps", which is the actions per task. That said, free account is capped at 2 zaps, so you are looking at 200 zaps per month total. Compare that to Make. Make's free option is 1,000 credits per month. Sharing terminology, 1 credit is like 1 zap. The free version lets you do what Zapier is offering 400 times more.

And what about n8n? It has a self-host community option, which means you are running n8n on your own resources. It's less easy right out of the box, and you need to make your own integrations. At the moment, n8n has 1,138 integrations out of the box. Make has double that. Zapier has even more. But with n8n and Make, you can make your own pretty easily.

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It depends on what you need though.

Lets use an example of getting a signup, and then sending a welcome package. This is a point A to point B scenario. If that's all you need, then doing either an automation is enough for you. Make or Zapier can do that.

But what if we wanted to involve AI? Get a signup, use AI to customize the package, send the welcome package. That's an AI automation, and Make or Zapier or n8n can do that pretty well.

But what if we don't have a pre-planned welcome package? We get a signup, and we send back a never-before-seen welcome package. N8n shines here.

Think of pure automation as 2D art. AI Automation as 2.5D art, and AI Agents like n8n as 3D art. It's all art at the end of the day, but different types.

For a free account, Make is great for structured AI Automation. And n8n's self hosted option, if you have the developer skills, works too. That said, chances are you will need more than what the free account can deliver.

So what about paid plans?

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This is all going to be monthly pricing - because lets be honest, if you're looking at experimenting in building AI automations, you don't want to fork over thousands of dollars for something you don't even know will work out.

Note: We'll be looking at n8n's cloud plan, meaning hosted by n8n themselves. The same will go for Make and Zapier's paid plans.

With paid, the tricky part is matching or tasks available between each platform. The minimum for a Pro plan on n8n is 50k workflow executions per month. Thankfully, Zapier also has 50k tasks available per month on their dropdown, but at a much higher price. Make doesn't operate per task, but per module. So looking at a basic 3 step module of "Get Data, Use AI, Send Data" (a lot of automations need 2 to 3 steps), we can say 150k credits per month is pretty equal to the other 2.

Price wise, you're going to be spending $116 per month on Make. $144 for n8n. $433.5 per month on Zapier.

Looking at matching workflows and tasks.

For example, if you're looking at spending the total amount of free to create an automation, is it better to do 100 tasks with Zapier, or 1,000 operations with Make.

What if you don't need 50,000 workflow executions per month? There's a cheaper plan right?

Yes. Starting off with n8n, they do have a starter package of $24 per month, with 2.5k workflow executions. 2.5k to 50k, between the Starter plan and the Pro plan.

For the average person, 2.5k workflow executions is more than enough per month. Lets say you are running 5 n8n automations a day. 150 per month, still you have 2,350 automation runs per month left over. In fact, if you're running daily, you need to run 83 times per day to hit that cap.

2,000 tasks per month for Zapier, 2.5k tasks per month for n8n, 2.5k tasks (4 steps per task) for Make

Zapier shows the price between 2,000 tasks and 5,000 tasks. For both, it's still more expensive than n8n. At 2,000 tasks per month, that's $73.50. 5,000 tasks per month? $133.50.

For Make, at the minimum you are paying for 10,000 credits at $10.59 per month. If you're doing the 2,500 tasks per month, at 83 tasks per day, with each task taking 3 credits, you're going to be using 7,470 credits. But lets say we're being fancy and we're doing 4 steps per automation. We can match the 2.5k tasks of n8n, and Zapier. That's still... $10.59 per month.

But what if it's 8 steps per task? That would be 2,500 tasks on Make, with 20,000 credits. $18.82 per month.

So at this point, we can push away Zapier as a choice from a pure cost and task perspective. Matching tasks, between Zapier and n8n, n8n is better. Between Make and Zapier, which offers clients the same thing, Make is so much cheaper. But maybe it shines in features.

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Thoughts: Zapier has lead the industry for a very long time when it comes to automation. That said, it feels like they are leveraging their own history as a "come to us" reason. Which then leads to competitors offering better prices for similar things.

Quick breakdown of tasks

Actually, lets look at the tasks themselves. On n8n, from a collection of 2,053 automation workflows, 35% had 5 or less nodes. 45% had between 6 to 15 nodes, with the remaining 20% more than 16 nodes.

  • If you're in the 35% group, using an AI automation tool will be cheaper.
  • If you're in the 45% group, if you're doing 8 and below steps or nodes, Make is cheaper. 9 and above, n8n is cheaper.
  • And if you're doing more than 16 nodes/modules/steps, n8n is cheaper.

What about the unlimited steps? Zapier touts in the free plan "Unlimited Zaps". According to support though, 100 steps is the limit for Zapier per task. N8n and Make are both the ones with no hard limit for steps within a task, but the difference between Make and n8n is you're paying for each step in Make versus the complete scenario like n8n.

Again, if you're doing 8 or below steps, Make is better here. If 9 or above, n8n is better.

How about features?

Maybe you're man drive isn't the cost, but features. Lets compare between Make, Zapier, and n8n for the important stuff. We'll be looking at the Pro and below accounts.

Number of Teammates

  • Zapier: 1 seat per account, Pro and Free.
  • Make: Unlimited.
  • n8n: Unlimited

Winner: Make & n8n

Number of Steps

  • Zapier: 100, unless free account, then 2.
  • Make: Unlimited.
  • n8n: Unlimited

If you need more than 8 steps, n8n is the best here. 8 or less, Make or n8n.

Number of Apps

  • Zapier: Pro account, unlimited.
    Free account: Limited
  • Make: Unlimited.
  • n8n: Unlimited

Right out of the bat, Make and n8n are the winners here. Zapier's apps are gated.

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For all, you can create your own with a HTTP request. Zapier requires a paid account, Make and n8n do not.

Number of Active Workflows

  • Zapier: Unlimited, but you will get throttled at certain points
  • Make: Unlimited, free is limited to 2
  • n8n: Unlimited, but only 5 can run at the same time on Starter and 20 on Pro.

Winner: Make, as it doesn't have a limit on the number of workflows that can be operated at the same time for paid plans.

Access to AI Agents

  • Zapier: Yes - addon. Free tier gives 10 actions per agent run.
    Paid tier at $50, 40 actions per agent per run
  • Make: Yes for Core, included in subscription. No for Free
  • n8n: It's all AI Agents honestly

Winner: n8n here. But since Make operates with credits, the fact that it's included in the price you're already paying unlike Zapier makes it a close second.

Support

  • Zapier: Pro - has email and live chat (live chat only for 2,000 tasks+)
    Free tier has nothing.
  • Make: Free - Support available for 90 days after signup.
    Core tier - medium priority customer support
  • n8n: No email support with Starter and Pro paid plans

All platforms have a forum though. But the winner is Make. It's surprising that n8n doesn't have email support, given the price you're paying honestly.

Honestly, if you can, do both Make and n8n.

Both have their strengths. If you need simple structured outputs that need less steps, Make is your best bet. If you want to do more complex flows that need 9 or more steps, n8n is the better choice for your buck.

If you're interested in getting started with Make or n8n, we have tutorials here.