Zapier vs Make vs n8n: Which Automation Tool Should You Use?

Zapier, Make and n8n cover the same fundamental need, automating work between the apps a business already uses. They differ in who they assume is building, how much complexity they can express, and, most consequentially, what they count when they bill you.

That last one is where most comparisons go wrong, so start there.

Quick Summary

Zapier: easiest to start, widest integration library at more than 9,000 apps, most expensive at volume, cloud only, bills per task.

Make: strong middle option, 3,500-plus apps, much cheaper than Zapier, a canvas built for branching, cloud only, bills per credit.

n8n: highest ceiling, self-hostable with no licence fee, code and AI agents native, 500-plus integrations plus HTTP for anything else, bills per execution.

The Units Are Not Comparable

Before any price makes sense, three different meters:

• A Zapier task is one successful action. The trigger is free, every action bills, and Paths and Filters are steps too.
• A Make credit is one module run. Routers, filters and error handlers are free, so branching costs nothing. Make renamed this unit from “operations” to “credits” in August 2025, and its help centre confirms the pricing stayed the same, with one operation equalling one credit for standard modules.
• An n8n execution is one whole workflow run, however many nodes it contains. A six-node workflow and a sixty-node workflow both cost one execution, and sub-workflow runs do not bill separately.

Put a real automation through all three. A quote request arrives, the workflow checks the CRM, branches on whether the contact exists, creates or updates the record, writes a row to a sheet, drafts a reply, sends it and posts to Slack. Six actions plus a branch, firing 1,000 times a month:

	Zapier	Make	n8n
Billed per run	7 tasks	6 credits	1 execution
Billed per month	7,000	6,000	1,000

That is why a plan offering 750 tasks, a plan offering 10,000 credits and a plan offering 2,500 executions cannot be ranked by the number on the box.

Pricing in 2026

Zapier and Make bill in US dollars, n8n in euros. AUD figures are indicative, converted at US$1 = A$1.437 and EUR1 = A$1.6171, the rates on 16 October 2026.

	Price (billed annually)	Included volume	Unit
Zapier Free	US$0	100 tasks/mo, two-step Zaps only	task
Zapier Professional	from US$19.99/mo (~A$29)	750 tasks/mo, slider to 2 million	task
Zapier Team	from US$69/mo (~A$99)	2,000 tasks/mo, 25 users	task
Make Free	US$0	1,000 credits/mo	credit
Make Core	US$9/mo (~A$13)	10,000 credits/mo	credit
Make Pro	US$16/mo (~A$23)	10,000 credits/mo	credit
Make Teams	US$29/mo (~A$42)	10,000 credits/mo	credit
n8n Cloud Starter	EUR20/mo (~A$32)	2,500 executions/mo	execution
n8n Cloud Pro	EUR50/mo (~A$81)	10,000 executions/mo	execution
n8n self-hosted	A$9 to A$34/mo (server)	unlimited	none

Four things the plan names hide:

There is no Zapier “Starter” plan. The lineup is Free, Professional, Team and Enterprise. Professional runs on a task slider, so the plan name sets the features and the entry volume rather than the price. Common rungs billed annually are about US$49 at 2,000 tasks (~A$70), about US$89 at 5,000 (~A$128) and about US$129 at 10,000 (~A$185).

Make’s paid plans all start at 10,000 credits. Core, Pro and Teams differ on features, not volume, and volume scales from a slider. Comparison tables that list Pro as “40,000 operations” and Teams as “150,000” are describing a structure that no longer exists.

n8n Cloud has no free tier. There is a trial capped at 1,000 executions, then Starter at EUR20 a month billed annually. Our n8n pricing guide covers what does and does not count as an execution, and the costs that sit outside the plan price.

Users are unlimited on n8n and not on the others. A sole trader and a forty-person business pay the same EUR20 on Starter, because only executions scale the price. On Zapier, more than one person sharing connections means Team, which starts at more than three times the Professional entry price.

The cost difference at volume is the clearest single reason businesses move off Zapier. At the worked example above, Zapier is about A$185 a month, Make is A$13, and self-hosted n8n is A$17 that would not change if the workflow fired 100,000 times.

What Each One Can Express

Zapier handles linear workflows well, and paid plans add filters, Paths and multi-step Zaps, so “Zapier cannot branch” has not been true for years. What is still true is that a long Zap with several paths is hard to read, and every step inside it is a recurring cost. Code by Zapier runs JavaScript or Python at one task per run.

Make handles branching and routing properly. The canvas makes data flow visible, and because routers, filters and error handlers are free, there is no cost pressure against building the logic correctly. Iterators and aggregators make array handling and data reshaping straightforward. The Make Code app runs JavaScript or Python on any paid plan, billed at two credits per second.

n8n has the highest ceiling. Multi-branch routing, loops, error paths, parallel execution and sub-workflows all stay legible on the canvas as they grow, and factoring a big workflow into smaller ones costs nothing because sub-workflow runs are not separate executions. Code nodes are a native part of the canvas rather than a special step, and on a self-hosted instance you can install your own npm packages.

Integrations

	Zapier	Make	n8n
Native integrations	9,000+ apps	3,500+ apps	500+ nodes
HTTP / custom API	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mainstream business stack	Yes	Yes	Yes
Long-tail and niche tools	Most likely	Often	HTTP fallback

The counts move around and the old figures are badly out of date: Zapier was 6,000 apps a couple of years ago, Make was around 1,000, and n8n was 400. n8n now counts more than 500 native integrations, with its directory listing more than 2,300 once community nodes are included, and the generic HTTP node talks to anything with a REST API.

For the stack an Australian small business actually runs on, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Xero, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Stripe, Shopify, Airtable and Notion, all three have you covered. Zapier’s breadth only decides things in one specific case: a system you cannot work without that has a maintained Zapier integration and no usable public API. Search all three directories for your real stack before you commit, not after.

AI and Agents

All three now do AI properly, which is a change from a year ago. The difference that matters is what each run costs.

• n8n has native nodes for OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, an AI Agent node with memory and tool use, and an MCP Client Tool node so an agent can call tools on an external server. The whole run is one execution, and the model calls are billed by the provider directly.
• Make has AI Agents with visible reasoning and tool use across its app library, plus an MCP server that turns your scenarios into tools an assistant like Claude or ChatGPT can call. AI modules using Make’s automatic provider connections charge variable credits because token usage is factored in. Bring your own API key and the module is one credit.
• Zapier has AI by Zapier, AI fields, Agents and MCP support. AI steps carry a task multiplier by model tier: Standard counts as 1 task, Advanced as 3, Premium as 5, with new AI steps on paid plans defaulting to Premium. Tool calls multiply at the same rate, so one Premium step making three tool calls is 20 tasks.

Run an AI agent that reasons once and calls three tools, 1,000 times a month. On Zapier that is 20,000 tasks before any of the ordinary actions around it. On n8n it is 1,000 executions. For agent work, this is the whole argument, and it is an argument about invoices rather than features.

Self-Hosting and Data Control

Zapier and Make are cloud only. Your workflow data passes through their infrastructure. For most businesses that is genuinely fine.

n8n can be self-hosted, so workflows and the data moving through them stay on infrastructure you control. For a business handling financial records, health information or legal documents under a client contract that specifies where data may live, this is often the deciding factor rather than a preference.

Be clear-eyed about what self-hosting costs, though. The server is the small number. You own the version upgrades, the database backups, the certificate renewals and the 2am restart when a queue jams on a workflow the business now depends on. If nobody is going to own that, n8n Cloud at EUR20 or EUR50 a month is the cheaper answer in the only accounting that matters. Worth knowing too: SSO, log streaming and external secrets are licensed features rather than Community Edition ones.

Who Should Use Each

Choose Zapier if:

• You are starting out and want the simplest possible onboarding
• You use a niche tool only Zapier integrates with
• Your volume is low enough that the free tier or the entry rung covers it
• Nobody will manage a server or learn a canvas under any circumstances

Choose Make if:

• You want more than a linear builder without taking on infrastructure
• Your workflows branch, loop or transform data, which Make does not charge extra to do
• You are past a free tier and want the lower bill
• Your volume is moderate and your stack is mainstream

Choose n8n if:

• You are building AI-powered automations or agent workflows
• Your workflows perform several actions per run, where per-action billing compounds
• Data residency or self-hosting is a requirement rather than a preference
• Several people need to build without paying per seat
• You need code-level control for logic a visual builder cannot express
• You expect volume to grow and do not want the bill to grow with it

The path most businesses actually take: prove the automation on a free tier, because month one is about finding out whether it is worth having at all. Then move the high-value, high-volume ones once the pattern is proven and the meter starts to sting.

For the two head-to-head versions of this decision, n8n vs Zapier works through tasks against executions in detail, and Zapier vs Make covers the hosted-only choice. If none of the three is quite right, Zapier alternatives takes in Power Automate and the flat-fee options as well.

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WhatWill AI is an n8n automation agency building workflow automation for Australian businesses. Book a call. We will tell you what is worth automating and what to build it on, including when the answer is to stay on the tool you already have.