The sticker prices — Zapier from ~$20/mo, Make from ~$9/mo, n8n free to self-host — matter less than the unit each one bills on, because that's what actually determines your cost at volume.
- Zapier bills per task — every individual action in a workflow. A 5-step Zap that runs 1,000 times costs 5,000 tasks.
- Make bills per operation — every module execution in a scenario. Same idea as Zapier's tasks, but Make gives you roughly 10x more of them per dollar.
- n8n bills per execution — the entire workflow counts as one unit regardless of how many steps it has.
| Entry paid | Included | Model | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Make | ~$9/mo (Core) | 10,000 operations | per operation |
| Zapier | ~$20/mo (annual) | 750 tasks | per task |
| n8n | free (self-hosted) or Cloud from ~$20/mo | per execution on Cloud; unlimited self-hosted | per execution |
At low volume the difference is small. At scale it's enormous: for a 10-step workflow running 10,000 times a month, n8n can cut costs 80–90% versus Zapier, because Zapier charges you for 100,000 tasks and n8n charges you for 10,000 executions. Make lands in between — its per-operation model is about 10x more efficient per dollar than Zapier's.
What you give up going down that list is integration breadth and simplicity. Zapier connects to 9,000+ apps and is the easiest to set up for a non-technical person. Make trades some of that ease for a visual builder that's genuinely better at data transformation. n8n trades polish for control and the ability to self-host — a $5–20 VPS running n8n Community Edition eliminates per-execution pricing entirely.
Occasional automations, non-technical team: Zapier, and don't overthink it. Heavy volume or complex data work: Make. Very high volume, or you're comfortable running a server: self-hosted n8n, and the savings pay for the setup time quickly.