Zapier, Make and n8n all connect your apps and automate repetitive work. In 2026 they also all sell AI agents and AI steps, which makes the marketing harder to tell apart. Underneath, they still differ in three ways that matter: how they charge, how much logic they handle, and where your data lives. This is how we choose between them for client workflows.
Comparison at a glance
| Criteria | Zapier | Make | n8n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | Easiest | Visual, moderate | Technical |
| Integrations (2026) | 9,000+ apps | 1,800+ apps | 400+ built-in nodes plus HTTP and code |
| Entry paid plan | $19.99/mo billed yearly | $9/mo billed yearly | €20/mo billed yearly (Cloud) |
| Billing unit | Task (each action) | Credit (each module action) | Execution (each workflow run) |
| Cost at high volume | Highest | Low | Lowest, especially self-hosted |
| Complex logic | Paths, filters, code steps | Routers, iterators, aggregators | Full code, branching, sub-workflows |
| Self-hosting | No | No | Yes (Docker, Kubernetes) |
| AI features | AI actions, agents, Copilot | AI modules | AI Agent node, LangChain, MCP |
Prices are from each vendor’s pricing page or 2026 pricing breakdowns in October 2026.
Pricing in 2026, explained
Zapier has a free plan with 100 tasks per month and two-step Zaps. Professional starts at $19.99 per month billed yearly for 750 tasks and adds multi-step Zaps, premium apps, webhooks and AI fields. Team starts at $69 per month with shared workspaces and SSO. Every successful action counts as a task, and unused tasks expire each month.
Make gives 1,000 credits a month free. Paid plans start at $9 per month (Core), $16 (Pro) and $29 (Teams) billed yearly for 10,000 credits. Each module action uses a credit, including reading, transforming, aggregating and iterating, so a loop over 50 records uses 50 credits. Some AI modules use credits at different rates.
n8n Cloud starts at €20 per month billed yearly for 2,500 workflow executions and unlimited active workflows, and Pro is €50 per month for 10,000 executions. Business, at €667 per month, is self-hosted with SSO, Git version control and queue mode. The self-hosted Community Edition is free with no execution limits; you pay only for your server.
What a real workflow costs
Take a common workflow: a website form submission is enriched, created in the CRM, posted to Slack and logged in a spreadsheet. That is five steps. At 2,000 leads a month:
| Platform | Usage per month | What you pay for |
|---|---|---|
| Zapier | ~10,000 tasks | A higher Professional tier |
| Make | ~10,000 to 12,000 credits | Core or Pro at the 10,000-credit tier plus a small top-up |
| n8n Cloud | 2,000 executions | Starter (2,500 executions) |
| n8n self-hosted | 2,000 executions | A small server, typically $10 to $40/month |
The more steps a workflow has, the bigger n8n’s pricing advantage gets, because it charges per run, not per step.
When to choose Zapier
Choose Zapier for simple, linear workflows that non-technical teammates will build and maintain themselves. Its app library is the largest by a wide margin, setup takes minutes, and Zapier Tables, Forms and Copilot cover a lot of lightweight internal tooling. Costs rise quickly with task volume, so revisit the choice once workflows get long or busy.
When to choose Make
Make suits multi-step workflows with branching, loops and data transformation. Its visual canvas makes complex flows easier to understand and debug, and it is much cheaper than Zapier for the same volume. Watch iterators and polling triggers: they are where credit usage surprises people.
When to choose n8n
n8n is best for high-volume, complex or privacy-sensitive automations. It can be self-hosted so data stays on your infrastructure, supports custom JavaScript and Python, and has the strongest AI agent tooling of the three, with an AI Agent node, LangChain integration and MCP support. It needs more technical skill to build, host and monitor well.
AI agents in 2026
All three platforms now let you add AI steps that classify, summarize, extract or draft content. The practical differences:
- Zapier focuses on AI for non-technical users: AI fields, AI-powered field mapping and agents that act across connected apps.
- Make offers AI modules inside scenarios, plus connections to any model with an API. External model costs are billed by the provider.
- n8n treats AI as a first-class building block: agents with tools, memory and evaluations, and the option to run everything on your own servers.
Whatever the tool, keep a human approval step for anything that sends messages to customers, changes billing or deletes data.
Switching platforms later
Plenty of teams start on Zapier and move to Make or n8n when the monthly bill climbs. Workflows do not export between platforms, so a move means rebuilding them. To keep it painless:
- Keep an inventory of every workflow, its trigger, owner and the apps it touches
- Use webhooks as triggers where you can, so changing platforms only means changing one URL
- Store business logic such as lead scoring rules in a shared place, not hidden inside individual steps
- Run old and new workflows in parallel for a week and compare the outputs before switching off the old one
Common workflows we build
- Website form to CRM with enrichment, lead scoring and Slack alerts
- New customer onboarding across billing, email and project tools
- Weekly reporting pulled from analytics, ads and the CRM
- AI triage of support tickets with human approval
- Webflow CMS updates from Airtable, Notion or a product database
- Invoice and document processing with AI extraction
How to choose
- Who will maintain it? Non-technical team: Zapier. Ops or growth team comfortable with logic: Make. Developers: n8n.
- How many steps and runs? Long workflows at volume favor n8n, then Make.
- Where must data live? If it must stay on your infrastructure, n8n self-hosted is the only option of the three.
- Which apps do you need? Check that every app has a native integration, or that its API is easy to call with HTTP.
“The right tool is the one your team can still debug at 6pm on a Friday. Start there, then optimize for cost.”
Sources
- Zapier pricing, October 2026
- Make pricing breakdown 2026, Jet Admin, September 2026, and Make pricing
- n8n pricing, October 2026
- Zapier vs Make vs n8n comparison, Automation Atlas, March 2026
- Zapier pricing 2026 breakdown, Toolradar