Make vs n8n vs Zapier in 2026: which to choose for your business

For most small and mid-sized businesses, Make is the default pick. Zapier makes sense when you run a handful of simple automations and your time costs more than the plan. n8n wins when you run thousands of operations a day or handle sensitive data, and have someone technical (or an agency) to look after it.

The choice shapes your operational costs and flexibility for years. In 2026 three names dominate the market: Zapier (the oldest, priciest and simplest), Make (formerly Integromat, the European middle ground) and n8n (open source, cheapest at scale). All three solve the same problem, but for very different kinds of company.

Zapier: the most expensive, the easiest to run

Zapier is the safe choice: it's everywhere, it's expensive, and it works. The interface is simpler than the competition's, the documentation is huge, and it connects to more than 9,000 apps.

• Pros: the easiest start, an enormous integration catalog, a great community and templates for everything.
• Cons: pricing scales steeply with task count. Professional starts at $19.99/mo billed annually ($29.99 monthly) for 750 tasks; the 2,000-task tier is $49/mo, and Team starts at $69/mo for 2,000 tasks (both billed annually). Each successful app action is a task (Filter, Formatter and Paths are free; AI steps can cost more), so a flow with six standard app actions on 500 leads a month burns 3,000 tasks, four times the entry tier.
• The free plan runs two-step Zaps only. Multi-step Zaps, Filters and Paths start on Professional. Loops and advanced data transforms are awkward.

Make: mid-priced, European

Make is a Czech platform (formerly Integromat) and visually the most interesting of the three: you build scenarios like mind maps. The free plan gives 1,000 credits a month and 2 active scenarios, which is realistically enough for a small business's first automations. Our WhatsApp qualification bot tutorial runs on Make end to end.

• Pros: a lot of capability for the price. Core costs $9/mo billed annually ($10.59 monthly) for 10,000 credits, where one credit is roughly one module action. Data transforms, loops, routers and iterators all come built in.
• Runs on AWS in an EU or US region you choose per organization, so the EU option settles most GDPR questions.
• Cons: a steeper learning curve than Zapier. Beginners get lost in routers and filters.
• Fewer "click-install" integrations than Zapier, but the HTTP module talks to any API.

n8n: open source, cheapest at scale

n8n changes the math for companies running thousands of operations a day. Self-hosted, the Community Edition is free and has no execution fees: you pay only for a VPS of about €6/mo (excl. VAT). n8n Cloud starts at €20/mo billed annually (€24 monthly) for 2,500 executions.

• Pros: cost stays roughly flat whatever the volume. You keep full control of your data, which is critical in regulated industries such as medicine, law and finance. You can write custom nodes in JS or Python. Its AI integrations (LangChain, OpenAI, Anthropic) are more mature than the competition's (we compared Claude vs GPT inside n8n on real tasks).
• Cons: if you self-host, updates, backups and monitoring are on you. There are fewer ready-made integrations, but the HTTP module and community nodes cover most cases.

Real-world cost: 1,000 leads/month

Workflow: lead from Meta Ads → company data enrichment → AI scoring → CRM write → Slack alert → SMS to the lead → follow-up email. That's a trigger plus six app actions, on 1,000 leads a month.

• Zapier: at least 6,000 tasks (the AI step can cost more than one). That needs the 10,000-task tier: $129/mo billed annually.
• Make: about 7,000 credits, because Make counts the trigger too. Core covers it: $9/mo billed annually for 10,000 credits.
• n8n Cloud: 1,000 executions, one per lead however many steps the flow has. Starter covers it: €20/mo billed annually for 2,500.
• n8n self-hosted: no execution fees. You pay for the server: about €6/mo excl. VAT for a small VPS (Hetzner's CX23 list price, IPv4 included).

Same outcome, four bills: $129 a month on Zapier, $9 on Make, €20 on n8n Cloud (all three billed annually), or about €6 for a self-hosted n8n server. Prices as listed on 12 October 2026 by Zapier, Make, n8n and Hetzner; the side-by-side tables are in our n8n vs Zapier comparison.

Which one to pick

• Zapier: you're a solo founder with 5–10 simple automations, and an hour of your time costs more than the plan. Pick it and move on.
• Make: you have 10–50 automations and a budget under $100/mo, and you want non-trivial flows without learning DevOps. The default pick for most SMBs.
• n8n: you run thousands of operations a day, handle sensitive data (GDPR) or need custom integrations with local systems, and you have someone technical on the team or an agency that handles it.

Not sure which to pick for your business?

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