Zapier vs Make vs n8n for small business: pricing, limits, and which one to pick.

Zapier vs Make vs n8n: the short answer

Zapier is the simplest starting point for straightforward, low-step workflows. Its free plan supports two-step Zaps (a trigger plus one action) at no cost, and its Professional plan starts from $19.99/mo billed annually for 750 tasks a month. Make trades some of that simplicity for a visual scenario builder and a lower paid entry price: Core runs $12/mo for 10,000 credits. n8n is the pick for workflows with many steps or for teams that want to self-host: its execution-based pricing means a fifty-step workflow and a two-step workflow cost the same, and its Sustainable Use License lets a small business self-host the free Community Edition for internal operations.

There's no single best automation tool for small business, because the three platforms don't meter usage the same way. A workflow that's inexpensive on one can be costly on another. The right tool depends on how many steps your workflows have, whether you need multiple users on a low-cost plan, and whether you're comfortable maintaining a self-hosted system.

Entry-level pricing at a glance

These three meters aren't interchangeable, which is why the table above shouldn't be read as "n8n costs the least" or "Make costs the least." A workflow with many steps costs more on Zapier or Make and the same on n8n, while a workflow with one step run very often can favor Make's high credit count or Zapier's free tier.

How each tool actually meters usage

This is the part that trips up most small businesses comparing these tools by price alone. Zapier counts a task each time it successfully completes a unit of work; failed actions don't count, and neither do triggers or built-in tools like Formatter and Filter. A Zap with several free utility steps and one real action might only use one task per run.

Make counts differently. Its pricing FAQ states plainly that credits are now the billing unit, and each module action in a scenario, such as adding a Google Sheet row or fetching Gmail data, consumes a credit. Reads, searches, creates, updates, and iterations all count; only error handlers and routers are free. A scenario with ten modules processing a hundred rows can burn through credits fast, even though the workflow itself looks simple on the canvas.

n8n counts an execution as a single run of the entire workflow, regardless of step count or data volume. A fifty-step workflow costs one execution, the same as a two-step workflow. For workflows with many steps, this is the most forgiving meter of the three. For simple, low-step workflows run at very high volume, it may not be the most economical option, since you're still capped by executions per month rather than by individual actions.

The practical takeaway: don't compare list prices directly. Estimate how many steps your real workflows will have and map that onto each vendor's meter before you commit to a plan. If you want a broader primer on what automation platforms are good for before picking one, see our guide to AI automation for small business.

Pricing tiers side by side

Zapier's free plan gives you 100 tasks/month, limited to two-step Zaps, plus unlimited basic Tables and Forms. Professional starts from $19.99/mo billed annually ($29.99 billed monthly) at 750 tasks/month and scales by tier up to 2,000,000 tasks/month; it adds multi-step Zaps, premium apps, and webhooks. Team runs from $69/mo billed annually ($103.50 billed monthly) at the 2,000-tasks tier, supports up to 25 users, shared workflows, SAML SSO, and priority support. Enterprise is custom-priced with annual task limits.

Make's free plan includes 1,000 credits/month, capped at two active scenarios, a 15-minute minimum interval between runs, and a 5 MB max file size. At the default 10,000-credits level, Core is $12/mo, Pro is $21/mo, and Teams is $38/mo on monthly billing; Make advertises annual billing savings of 15% or more without publishing exact annual dollar figures. Enterprise is custom.

n8n's Cloud Starter runs €20/mo billed annually, as displayed, for 2,500 executions/month, unlimited steps per execution, 5 concurrent executions, unlimited users, and 2,300 AI credits/month. Cloud Pro is €50/mo billed annually for 10,000 executions/month, 20 concurrent executions, 3 shared projects, and up to 13,700 AI credits/month. Business runs €667/mo for 40,000 executions/month with a self-hosted option, and Enterprise is custom with 200+ concurrency, hosted or self-hosted. n8n's pricing page served these figures in euros at time of check; a US visitor may see different currency figures, so confirm the number your own session shows before budgeting.

One detail worth flagging on its own: Zapier's free plan restricts you to two-step Zaps, which is a common reason small businesses upgrade to Professional once a workflow needs a third action. n8n's Cloud Starter, by contrast, includes unlimited users on its entry-level tier, while Zapier reserves multi-user collaboration for Team and above.

App coverage and AI features

Zapier's app directory claims 10,020+ apps you can connect. Its Agents product is pitched around equipping an agent with company knowledge, built with the help of Zapier Copilot, to work across 9,000+ apps and ingest FAQs, documents, and public links for grounded answers. Agents and Chatbots are metered separately from your task plan: Agents has a free tier of 400 activities/month with paid plans from roughly $33.33/mo billed annually, and Chatbots has a free 2-chatbot tier with paid tiers roughly $13.33 to $66.67/mo billed annually.

Make's integrations page is headlined 3,000+ Integration Apps, with a directory listing showing 3,554 results in All Apps at time of check. Make bundles its AI stack into every plan rather than metering it separately: Maia (its AI assistant), AI applications, an MCP server, an AI Content Extractor, AI Web Search in beta, Make AI Agents in beta, and the Make AI Toolkit.

n8n's integrations directory listed 2,097 integrations at time of check, though its GitHub README describes itself more conservatively as offering 400+ integrations in one place and 1,500+ elsewhere, noting the larger directory figure includes community and credential integrations. Where n8n differentiates itself is orchestration: it positions itself around blending 500+ integrations, AI agents, human approval steps, and custom code, with model flexibility across providers like Gemini, Claude, Groq, and Mistral rather than a single proprietary model. It also lets you inspect every execution to see the exact prompt sent, the model's response, and what happened next, which matters if you need to audit AI decisions later.

Self-hosting and licensing: n8n's different deal

n8n is the only one of the three with a meaningful free self-hosting path. Its Sustainable Use License grants the free right to use, modify, create derivative works from, and redistribute the software, limited to your own internal business purposes or non-commercial or personal use. That means a small business can run n8n's Community Edition on its own server at no license cost for its own operations.

The restriction shows up if you try to turn that into a product: distribution has to stay free of charge for non-commercial purposes, and you cannot white-label n8n or charge people money to access an instance you host for them. n8n calls this model fair-code rather than open source, because the license restricts commercial use in a way that OSI-approved open-source licenses don't allow. The Sustainable Use License covers n8n's main GitHub repository except files with .ee. in their names, which fall under a separate Enterprise License.

For a business weighing this option, the trade is time for money. Self-hosting removes the monthly subscription but adds server maintenance, updates, and troubleshooting to your own plate, or to whoever you hire to manage it. If you'd rather have someone else own that maintenance while still getting a workflow built to your process, that's the kind of work covered under Workflow Automation.

When each tool fits, and when none of them do

Zapier fits a business with a handful of simple, low-step workflows and no in-house technical staff who wants something running the same day. Make fits a business that wants to see the whole data flow visually and is comfortable with per-module credit metering, especially if scenarios stay moderate in step count. n8n fits a business with long, multi-step workflows, a need for unlimited users on a low-cost plan, or a preference for self-hosting and auditable AI behavior over a fully managed service.

It's also worth saying plainly: sometimes none of these three is the right answer. If a task happens twice a month and takes five minutes by hand, the setup and maintenance cost of any automation platform can exceed the time it saves. If your existing CRM, invoicing tool, or helpdesk already has native integrations that cover the handoff you're trying to build, adding a separate automation layer is often unnecessary overhead. If subscription pricing alone isn't giving you the full cost picture for a project like this, our guide on how much AI automation actually costs walks through the pieces beyond the monthly plan.