·June 4, 2026·Updated October 23, 2026 8 min read

n8n vs Zapier vs Make: What Automation Really Costs at Scale

n8n vs Zapier vs Make pricing compared with real math: how executions, tasks and credits add up at scale, what self-hosting n8n costs, and when to switch.

At scale, n8n is usually the cheapest of the three, because it bills per workflow execution no matter how many steps the workflow has. Zapier bills per action step (tasks) and Make bills per module action (credits), so their costs grow with every step you add. In our worked example below, a 9-step lead workflow running 20,000 times a month costs about $120/month on n8n Cloud, $237–349 on Make and $769–999 on Zapier (annual billing, at the time of writing). Zapier and Make still make sense for small volumes, non-technical owners and the long tail of niche apps.

How each vendor counts your usage

Before comparing prices, look at the billing unit. It decides how the bill behaves when your workflows get longer or busier.

n8n: executions. One execution is one run of the whole workflow, from trigger to last node. The number of steps and the amount of data don't change the count.
Zapier: tasks. Every successful action step counts as a task. The trigger is free, and so are built-in tools like Filter, Paths, Formatter and Delay. Failed actions don't count. AI steps and Code steps can cost more than one task.
Make: credits. Since August 27, credits replaced operations. Most module actions cost 1 credit, including reading data from an app or webhook, so the trigger counts too. Routers and error handler modules are free. Some AI features consume more than 1 credit.

The practical consequence: on Zapier and Make, a loop that processes 50 line items multiplies the bill by 50. On n8n, it is still one execution.

Worked example: one lead workflow at two volumes

Take a typical sales-ops workflow: a website form fires a webhook, then 8 actions run. Enrich the lead via API, search the CRM, create or update the contact, create a deal, add a row to Google Sheets, post to Slack, send a confirmation email, create a follow-up task. No filters, no AI steps.

Zapier: 8 action steps × runs (trigger is free). 5,000 runs = 40,000 tasks; 20,000 runs = 160,000 tasks.
Make: 9 modules × runs (the webhook counts). 5,000 runs = 45,000 credits; 20,000 runs = 180,000 credits.
n8n: 1 execution per run. 5,000 runs = 5,000 executions; 20,000 runs = 20,000 executions.

Now map those numbers to the smallest plan tier that covers them, using official US prices at the time of writing (per month, billed annually; monthly billing in brackets):

Plan	5,000 runs/month	20,000 runs/month
n8n Cloud Pro	10K executions: $50 ($60)	50K executions: $120 ($144)
Make Core	80K credits: $72 ($97)	300K credits: $237 ($321)
Make Pro	80K credits: $118 ($161)	300K credits: $349 ($474)
Zapier Pro	50K tasks: $289 ($433.50)	200K tasks: $769 ($1,149)
Zapier Team	50K tasks: $399 ($598.50)	200K tasks: $999 ($1,499)

A few notes on the math. On Make, 45,000 credits is just over the 40K tier ($38 Core annual), so you can also stay on 40K and buy extra credit packs; the pack price is set by your subscription. On Zapier, pay-per-task overage on annual plans is billed at 1.25× the base rate, and usage pauses at 3× your plan. The gap widens with every extra step: add two more actions and Zapier and Make go up by about 25%, while n8n stays the same.

Plan features matter too. n8n Cloud includes unlimited users and workflows on every plan, while Zapier Pro is a single-user plan and shared work needs Team (up to 25 users).

Self-hosting n8n: what it really costs

The n8n Community Edition is free to self-host. It is distributed under n8n's Sustainable Use License, which allows use for your own internal business purposes and for non-commercial or personal use. You can't resell n8n as a hosted service or white-label it for customers. Some features (files marked ".ee") need a paid enterprise license key.

"Free" refers to the license, not the total cost. A realistic production setup includes:

A cloud VM or container service, a Postgres database and off-server backups.
HTTPS, a domain, secrets handling and access control on the editor.
Regular version updates. n8n ships often, and some updates change node behavior.
Monitoring and someone who responds when the server or a queue gets stuck.

Hosting for a small team is usually modest. The real cost is engineering time for updates, incidents and backups. If nobody on the team owns that work, n8n Cloud is often cheaper overall than a self-hosted instance that nobody maintains.

For larger teams, n8n's Business plan is self-hosted only: $800/month billed annually ($960 monthly) for 40,000 executions. It adds SSO/LDAP, Git-based version control, multiple environments and more shared projects. Executions over the quota keep running and are billed later in buckets. Companies under 20 employees can apply for a startup discount of 50% off Business.

AI agents, app catalog and error handling

AI and agents. All three now offer AI steps and agents, but they bill differently. n8n includes agent, MCP and AI nodes on every plan, and an agent run is still one execution (LLM token costs are separate). Zapier sells Agents as an add-on billed in "activities" separate from tasks, and AI steps draw extra tasks. Make's AI features draw extra credits. For multi-step agents that call many tools, n8n's execution model is the most predictable. We cover this in more detail on our AI agents page.

App catalog. Zapier lists 10,000+ apps, Make 3,500+ and n8n 2,000+. For mainstream SaaS (HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Google Workspace, Stripe) all three are fine. For niche vertical tools, Zapier is most likely to have a ready connector. In n8n and Make, any app with a REST API can be reached via an HTTP request, but someone has to read the API docs.

Error handling and retries.

n8n: per-node "retry on fail", error workflows that fire on any failure, and full execution logs you can re-run.
Make: dedicated error handler routes (Resume, Rollback, Break, Commit, Ignore) that don't cost credits, plus storage of incomplete executions for later retry.
Zapier: autoreplay retries a failed step up to 5 times over several hours, and custom error handlers run an alternative path. Both are available on all plans.

Team features, security and compliance

For ops leads, governance matters as much as price:

Zapier publishes SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 reports (SOC 2 under NDA). The Team plan adds shared workspaces and SAML SSO; Enterprise adds SCIM.
Make states it has completed SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 audits and runs an ISO 27001-certified security program. Teams adds team roles and shared templates; advanced security features are on Enterprise.
n8n aligns its program to SOC 2 with annual independent audits. The SOC 2 report is available to enterprise customers and a SOC 3 report is public. n8n Cloud data is hosted in the EU, which matters for some US buyers. Self-hosting keeps data in your own infrastructure, but then compliance of that setup is your responsibility.

If your security team needs SSO, audit logs and log streaming, budget for n8n Business or Enterprise, Zapier Team or Enterprise, or Make Enterprise. These features are not in entry plans.

When Zapier or Make is still the right choice

n8n is not always the answer. A common mistake we see is moving low-volume automations to a self-hosted server that then goes unmaintained.

Stay on Zapier if volume is low (a few thousand tasks a month), owners are non-technical marketers, or you depend on niche apps only Zapier connects to.
Choose Make if you want visual branching and data mapping at a lower price than Zapier, with moderate volume and short scenarios.
Choose n8n when workflows are long or loop over items, volume grows month to month, you run AI agents, or you need self-hosting for data control.

How to choose, and how to migrate safely

A practical decision rule: multiply steps per run by runs per month. If that number is under roughly 10,000 and the team is non-technical, stay where you are. If it is in the tens of thousands, or your workflows have loops and AI steps, price n8n Cloud. If you have an engineer who will own a server and you need data control, self-host n8n.

When migrating, in our projects we usually follow these steps:

Export a usage report and rank workflows by tasks or credits. Usually a handful of workflows drive most of the bill; migrate those first.
Rebuild instead of copying step by step. Zapier and Make workarounds (extra filters, formatter chains) often collapse into one Code or Set node in n8n.
Run old and new versions in parallel on a test copy, compare outputs, then switch the webhook URL or trigger.
Recreate credentials, error notifications and retries before switching off the old platform.

If you'd rather not do it in-house, our team handles Zapier and Make migration and n8n setup and hosting, from audit to cutover.

FAQ

Questions & answers

For multi-step workflows at volume, usually yes, because n8n counts one execution per run while Zapier counts every action step as a task. For a few simple two-step Zaps a month, the difference is small, and Zapier's ease of use may be worth more than the saving.

The Community Edition license is free for internal business use, so you pay for infrastructure and the time to run it. Hosting for a small team is usually modest; updates, backups and incident response are the larger cost. Features like SSO and Git version control need the paid Business license ($800/month billed annually at the time of writing).

At the same volume, Make is typically several times cheaper than Zapier. At the time of writing, 10,000 Make credits start at $12/month on Core (annual), while 10,000 Zapier tasks cost $129/month on Pro (annual). Remember that Make also counts the trigger module, so a workflow uses one more credit per run than tasks on Zapier.

The Sustainable Use License allows use for your own internal business purposes. Offering n8n itself as a hosted or white-labeled service to customers is not allowed without a separate agreement with n8n. If you plan an embedded or resale scenario, check the license terms with n8n directly.

It depends on the number and complexity of workflows. Most teams start with the few workflows that drive most of the task bill, run them in parallel with the old versions, and switch over once outputs match. Credentials, error alerts and retries should be set up before the old platform is turned off.

Services