n8n vs Zapier vs Make: Which Automation Tool Fits Your Team
You have three browser tabs open: Zapier, Make, and n8n. A workflow that felt fine six months ago now eats most of your Zapier task quota by the third week of the month, and you are trying to work out whether Make is cheaper, whether n8n is worth self-hosting, or whether you are about to trade one headache for a different one.
The three tools solve the same surface problem, connecting apps so data moves without you copy-pasting it, but they meter the work differently, they break at different points, and only one of them you can run on your own server. Which one wins comes down to how each meters your work and where each one breaks. The more interesting question, though, is why the tool turns out to be the smaller decision of the two.
The quick verdict
If you run one or two simple, low-volume handoffs and you never want to think about hosting, Zapier is the fastest to stand up. If your workflows have real branching and you are watching cost per run, Make gives you more logic for less money. If you are technical, run high volume, or care about data staying on your own infrastructure, n8n is the one built for that.
But once a workflow has more than a handful of steps, error handling that actually catches failures, and someone who has to own it when it breaks at 2am, the tool stops being the hard part. That is the point where a growing team is usually better served by having the workflow designed and built for them than by babysitting a canvas between meetings. That is the work bottta does.
How the three price the same work
The single biggest difference between these tools is not the sticker price. It is what one "unit" of your automation costs, because each vendor counts a different thing.
| Tool | Entry paid plan | Free tier | Billing unit | |---|---|---|---| | Zapier | $19.99/mo (Professional, billed annually), 750 tasks | 100 tasks/mo | Task (one per successful step) | | Make | $9/mo (Core), 10,000 operations | 1,000 operations/mo | Operation (one per module action) | | n8n | $20/mo (Starter, billed annually), 2,500 executions | Self-hosted Community Edition, no execution cap | Execution (one per whole workflow run) |
Those numbers come straight from each vendor's pricing page: Zapier, Make, and n8n. The units matter more than the dollar figures, so here is what they mean in practice.
Zapier counts a task every time a step successfully does a unit of work. A workflow that closes a deal, creates a Stripe invoice, tags a HubSpot contact, and posts to Slack burns four tasks each time it runs. Zapier does note that triggers, polling, and its built-in Filter and Formatter steps do not consume tasks.
Make counts an operation for each module action in a scenario, so that same four-action workflow costs roughly four operations per run. You get far more of them per dollar: the $9 Core plan includes 10,000 operations, versus 750 tasks on Zapier's $19.99 plan.
n8n counts an execution, which is one run of the entire workflow no matter how many steps it has, per n8n's own definition. That four-step workflow is one execution. A 40-step workflow is still one execution. For anything with many steps or high volume, that difference compounds fast.
Where Zapier wins
Zapier's advantage is breadth and speed to first result. It connects to more apps than the other two, and for a simple two-step or three-step automation you can have it live in an afternoon without touching anything technical.
It fits a specific situation well: a low-volume handoff where each step counts, you have no engineer, and you would rather pay for someone else to run the infrastructure than think about it. A form submission that creates a CRM record and sends a welcome email is a Zapier job.
The wall shows up in two places. Task-based pricing punishes multi-step workflows, because every step is a meter tick, so a busy workflow with many actions gets expensive quickly. And its branching, handled through a feature called Paths, is more limited than Make's visual routing once your logic gets genuinely complex.
Where Make wins
Make gives you the most logic per dollar of the three cloud options. Its visual builder is designed around branching and parallel paths, so workflows with real conditional routing, "if the invoice is over $5K, route to finance for approval, otherwise auto-send," are more natural to build than in Zapier.
Combine that with operation-based pricing and the 10,000 operations on the $9 Core plan, and Make is usually the value pick for a team whose workflows have grown past the trivial but who still want a fully hosted tool with no servers to manage.
The trade-offs are real. The visual canvas gets dense and hard to read as scenarios grow, its app catalog is smaller than Zapier's, and the operation counting can still surprise you when a scenario loops over many records. It rewards someone willing to learn its model, which is not every ops lead's idea of a good week.
Where n8n wins
n8n is the one you can self-host. Its Community Edition is free to run on your own server under a fair-code license, with the source available on GitHub, and its cloud plans start at $20/month for 2,500 executions. Zapier and Make are cloud-only.
Two things make n8n the pick when it is the pick. First, execution-based pricing means a workflow's step count does not run up the meter, so heavy multi-step automations that would be costly on Zapier stay cheap. Second, self-hosting keeps your data on infrastructure you control, which matters when you are moving customer records or anything with a compliance requirement attached. It also has a proper Code node for custom logic, so it behaves more like a real workflow engine than a connector.
The cost is capability. Self-hosting means someone owns a server, updates, monitoring, and the fix when a workflow silently stops firing. n8n rewards a technical team and punishes one that does not have that time. For a five-person ops team with no engineer to spare, "free to self-host" is rarely actually free once you price the babysitting.
How to decide
Match the tool to your actual situation rather than the feature chart:
- One or two simple handoffs, no technical help, low volume. Zapier. Stand it up and move on.
- Workflows with real branching, cost-conscious, still want zero servers. Make. You get the most logic per dollar.
- High volume, technical team, or data that must stay on your own infrastructure. n8n, self-hosted.
- The workflow is business-critical, has many steps, and needs to not break. This is where the tool choice stops mattering as much as who designs, builds, and owns it.
That last case is the common one for a growing team, and it is the one the comparison articles skip. A brittle Zap nobody owns, a Make scenario only one person understands, or a self-hosted n8n instance running on someone's forgotten server all fail the same way: quietly, at the worst time, with no monitoring to catch it.
Where the tool stops being the problem
The hard part of automation is almost never picking Zapier over Make. It is mapping the process correctly, handling the edge cases (the customer name with a comma that breaks the CSV, the API that rate-limits at 200 records), adding error handling that actually alerts someone, and keeping the whole thing running as your stack changes underneath it.
This is what bottta is built for. We are an automation studio: we design the workflow, build it on whichever tool actually fits (often n8n or Make, sometimes a custom build when no off-the-shelf tool is honest for the job), wire up the integrations, and monitor it so a silent failure becomes a message to us, not a deal you lost.
Two ways to work with us. The $3K/month retainer covers flexible hours across up to three active workflows at a time, with ongoing monitoring, fixes, and a weekly call, which fits a team whose automation needs keep evolving. The $4K project is fixed scope and fixed price with integrations included and 30 days of post-launch support, for a defined build like a lead-to-CRM pipeline or a billing sync. No free tier, because this is built and owned work, not a button you press.
If you would rather learn the landscape first, our rundown of workflow automation tools for lean teams covers the wider field, the no-code platform comparison goes deeper on the DIY end, and build vs buy vs hire lays out what each path actually costs. If n8n is your likely pick, its workflow templates and the head-to-head with Zapier go deeper.
Frequently asked questions
Is n8n really free?
The self-hosted Community Edition is free to run under n8n's fair-code license, with source on GitHub. It is not free of effort. You provide the server, the updates, and the monitoring. n8n's hosted cloud plans start at $20/month for 2,500 executions if you would rather not run the infrastructure yourself.
Is Make cheaper than Zapier?
For multi-step workflows, usually yes. Make's Core plan is $9/month for 10,000 operations, while Zapier's Professional plan is $19.99/month for 750 tasks. Because both count per action, Make gives you far more runs per dollar. Zapier's edge is a larger app catalog and faster setup for simple automations, not price.
Which one should a non-technical team pick?
Zapier for simple, low-volume handoffs, or Make if you are willing to learn its canvas and want more logic for less money. Skip self-hosted n8n unless you have someone who will own the server. For anything business-critical, the more reliable answer is to have it built and monitored for you rather than maintained between meetings.
Can I switch tools later?
Yes, but a workflow is not portable between them. Rebuilding a complex Zapier setup in Make or n8n means re-mapping every step, re-authenticating every app, and re-testing every edge case. Choosing based on where your volume and logic are heading, not just today's needs, saves that second rebuild. This is also why having the design owned by someone who plans for scale pays off.
When does it make sense to move off Zapier?
When task costs climb faster than the value the workflow returns, when your logic outgrows Paths, or when a workflow becomes important enough that a silent failure costs you real money. At that point the question shifts from "which tool" to "who makes this reliable," and that is worth a short conversation before you rebuild the same fragile thing on a cheaper platform.