Zapier vs Make vs n8n Pricing at Scale, 2026

A Las Vegas law firm routing web intakes, or a dealership pushing internet leads into its CRM, eventually outgrows a free automation tier and asks one question: at what volume does this get expensive? On Zapier vs Make vs n8n pricing at scale in 2026, the short answer is this. Zapier gets cheaper per task as you climb, from about 2.7 cents at 750 tasks to about 0.17 cents at 2 million. n8n charges per whole workflow run no matter how many steps it has. Make charges one credit per module at a rate set by the tier you pick.

What changed: Make renamed its billing unit from operations to credits in 2026, and we pulled all three vendors' live pricing pages on September 25, 2026. The finding that matters more than any sticker price is that the three companies count different things, so the cheapest platform changes when your step count changes.

One workflow costs 5 tasks, 6 credits or 1 execution

Start with the unit, because it decides everything downstream. Zapier's pricing page, as pulled in September 2026, sells plans in tasks, and Zapier counts a task each time a Zap completes an action step. The trigger that starts the Zap does not count as a task.

n8n's pricing page bills by workflow execution rather than by step, and describes its Pro tier as "10K workflow executions with unlimited steps." Make's pricing page now bills in credits, and every module call costs one credit regardless of plan tier.

Take one intake workflow as our worked example. A web form fires, then five actions run: create the contact, email the client, alert the attorney in Slack, book a consult slot, and log a spreadsheet row. On Zapier that is 5 tasks. On Make it is 6 credits, because the trigger is itself a module call under the one credit per module rule as we read it. On n8n it is 1 execution.

That ratio is why sticker prices mislead. A plan that looks far cheaper per unit can cost the same once you multiply by the units your workflow burns. Before you compare any price, count runs per month and steps per run for the workflows you actually have.

Only Zapier Professional gets cheaper per unit as you climb

Here is every tier in the facts we pulled, reduced to price per unit. Zapier and n8n prices are billed annually; Zapier's 750 task entry is 29.99 dollars if billed monthly. Make prices are the approximate monthly figures on its page. n8n quotes euros, and we leave them in euros rather than guess an exchange rate.

Three things stand out. First, Zapier Professional is the only plan here that rewards volume inside one product. 19.99 dollars over 750 tasks is about 2.7 cents, 49 dollars over 2,000 is 2.45 cents, and 3,389 dollars over 2 million is about 0.17 cents, roughly a 16 times drop from the smallest tier to the largest.

Second, Zapier Team costs more per task, not less. At 2,000 tasks, Team is 69 dollars against Professional's 49, a 20 dollar monthly premium, or 240 dollars a year, for up to 25 users and shared workflow access. You are paying for collaboration, not capacity.

Third, n8n's top listed tier costs more per run. Pro works out to half a euro cent per execution, while the self hosted Business tier is about 1.67 euro cents, more than three times Pro's rate. Business is a features purchase. Make works the same way in a different shape: moving from Core at about 12 dollars to Pro at about 21 or Teams at about 38 buys features, and every module call still costs one credit on every tier.

A law firm at 300 intakes a month pays 12 to 49 dollars

Assume a small personal injury firm gets 300 web intakes a month and runs the five action workflow above on each one. That is 1,500 Zapier tasks, 1,800 Make credits, and 300 n8n executions.

Price each against the table. Zapier's 750 task tier is too small, so the next tier in our extract, 2,000 tasks, applies at 49 dollars a month, or 588 dollars a year. Make's Free plan tops out at 1,000 credits, so the firm lands on Core at about 12 dollars a month, about 144 dollars a year. n8n Starter at 20 euros a month covers 2,500 executions; the firm uses 12 percent of it and pays 240 euros a year.

The free tiers do not stretch far. Zapier's 100 free tasks cover 20 intakes at five tasks each. Make's 1,000 free credits cover 166 intakes at six credits each. Neither covers a firm doing a few hundred intakes a month.

Now the objection a skeptical owner should raise: is saving about 444 dollars a year, the gap between Zapier's 588 and Make's 144, worth a migration? Assume the firm has three workflows, each takes four hours to rebuild and test, and the owner values that time at 75 dollars an hour. That is 900 dollars of migration cost, about two years of savings to earn back.

At this size, stay on the platform your staff already knows and spend the effort on what the workflow does. Cutting a manual step out of intake usually saves more staff time than a platform switch saves in fees. Our page on back office automation covers where those manual steps tend to hide.

A dealer at 4,000 leads a month is where the units split apart

Assume a dealership receives 4,000 internet leads a month from its website and third party lead sources, and each lead runs eight actions: dedupe against the CRM, create or update the record, assign a salesperson, text the shopper, email the shopper, alert the desk manager, log a row, and schedule a follow up task. That is 32,000 Zapier tasks, 36,000 Make credits (eight actions plus the trigger), and 4,000 n8n executions.

n8n is the simplest: 4,000 executions fit inside Pro's 10,000 at 50 euros a month, using 40 percent of the allowance. For Make, assume the Core rate of about 0.12 cents per credit holds as credits are added, which is what a tier set price with one credit per module call implies. Then 36,000 credits comes to about 43 dollars a month. Treat that as our estimate and check the credit selector on Make's page for the exact package.

Zapier's exact price at 32,000 tasks sits on the Professional slider between the tiers in our extract, so we bound it instead of guessing. At the 2,000 task rate of 2.45 cents, 32,000 tasks would cost 784 dollars a month. At the 2 million task rate of about 0.17 cents, it would cost about 54 dollars. Because Zapier's per task cost only falls as volume climbs, the real figure lands between those two numbers, and the slider shows it exactly.

Now lengthen the workflow. The dealer adds a credit application check, a trade in estimate request, and six more steps, sixteen actions in all. Zapier goes to 64,000 tasks and Make to 68,000 credits, about 82 dollars at the same assumed Core rate. n8n stays at 4,000 executions and 50 euros, because it bills the run, not the steps. That is the volume flip in one line: the more steps each lead touches, the further an execution billed platform pulls ahead.

The flip runs the other way too. If this dealer grew past 10,000 runs a month, n8n's Pro allowance is gone, and the next tier in our extract is Business at 667 euros for about 40,000 executions. Unless n8n's page offers an option in between that our extract does not show, the monthly bill jumps more than thirteen times while Zapier's per task price keeps sliding down.

Four conditions flip which platform is cheapest

Step count is the first. A one action workflow costs one Zapier task, two Make credits and one n8n execution per run, so billing by execution loses its edge. Long, multi action workflows are where n8n's model pays.

Headcount is the second. Zapier charges the Team premium for shared access, while n8n includes unlimited users, workflows and steps on every cloud tier. If several people need to build or edit automations, price that in before you compare anything else.

Spikes are the third. Zapier bills annual self serve overage at 1.25 times the base rate. A firm on the 2,000 task tier that overruns by 1,000 tasks in a heavy month would pay roughly 3.06 cents for each extra task, about 31 dollars, if overage is priced off that tier's effective rate of 2.45 cents, which is our reading. If spikes happen most months, run the numbers on sizing the tier to your peak instead of paying the markup.

Run volume near a tier edge is the fourth. n8n is cheapest per run in the middle of its range and has the cliff described above, while Zapier keeps getting cheaper per unit the higher you go. A business expecting to scale from thousands to tens of thousands of runs should price the tier it will need in a year, not the one it needs today.

Where these numbers will not hold

This comparison stops at the published rate card. Enterprise contracts are negotiated and do not appear on any of the three pages, so a large group may pay less than anything shown here. Zapier Team's higher tiers and the credit volumes behind Make's Pro and Teams prices are not in the facts we pulled, so we did not price them.

Self hosting is the biggest hidden cost. n8n's Business figure is for a self hosted tier, which means someone on your side runs, patches and backs up the server. None of that labor is in the 667 euros, so price it in before counting any savings.

Currency and timing matter as well. n8n quotes euros and the others quote dollars, so convert at the day's rate before settling a close call. Make changed its unit this year, and every figure here is as of September 25, 2026.

Finally, if a workflow calls an AI model or a paid data service, those per call charges are billed by that provider and sit outside every number in this post. If your automations are heading that way, our AI integration page covers how to scope that cost separately.

Questions owners ask

Is n8n cheaper than Zapier for a small business?

It depends on steps per run. n8n bills each workflow execution once no matter how many steps it contains, while Zapier bills every action step as a task. For a five step intake flow at a few hundred runs a month, both platforms are small monthly bills, and Make Core came out lowest in our worked example. The gap widens in n8n's favor as workflows get longer.

When should I switch from Zapier Professional to Team?

Switch when more than one person needs to build or edit shared workflows, not to save money. At the same 2,000 task volume, Team costs more per task than Professional because it adds up to 25 users and shared workflow access. If one person owns every Zap, Professional stays the cheaper plan at the volumes we compared.

Does Make charge for every step in a scenario?

Yes. Under Make's 2026 credit pricing, every module call costs one credit regardless of plan tier, and we count the trigger module as well. A scenario with a trigger and eight action modules uses nine credits per run. Moving to a higher tier changes features and what you pay for credits, not how many credits each run consumes.

What to do this week

1. Count runs and steps. Open your current platform's usage history for the last 30 days and write down, for each workflow, how many times it ran and how many actions each run performs. That pair of numbers is all this comparison needs.
2. Convert to each unit and price it. Multiply runs by actions for Zapier tasks, runs by actions plus one for Make credits, and take runs alone for n8n executions. Enter each total on the vendor's own slider rather than relying on our extract.
3. Price the move before you make it. Multiply rebuild hours per workflow by what your time is worth and compare the total with the annual savings. Our rule of thumb: if payback runs past a year, stay put and trim steps instead.

If you want a second pair of eyes on those numbers, the free 15-minute audit on our business automation page walks through them with you.