n8n vs Make vs Zapier: Which Should You Choose?

All three tools do the same job under three different economies: n8n bills per workflow run, Make and Zapier bill per step. Choose n8n if your workflows run past five or six steps or your data must stay on your own infrastructure; Make for short, low-volume workflows; Zapier for the widest app coverage and the fastest start.

At a glance

n8n

You pay per run, and the number of steps in a workflow does not change the price. It can run on your own servers, and every plan includes unlimited users. The cost: someone has to operate that server, and it has the smallest catalogue of ready integrations of the three.

Make

You spend a credit for every module action. Its visual editor is the clearest of the three and it is the cheapest option for short workflows. The cost: there is no self-hosting option, and scenarios stop when credits run out.

Zapier

You spend a task for every action step. With over 9,000 apps its coverage is far ahead, and you can ship your first automation the same day. The cost: data is processed in the United States, and its contract prohibits processing sensitive data.

Side-by-side comparison

Criterion	n8n	Make	Zapier
Billing unit	Execution: one full run of the workflow. Step count is irrelevant.	Credit: one per module action. Router and error-handler modules are not counted.	Task: each successful action step. Triggers, Filter, and Formatter are not counted.
Does step count raise the bill	No. A 3-step and a 40-step workflow are both one execution.	Yes, linearly.	Yes, linearly.
Published entry price	Starter $20/mo: 2,500 executions. Pro $50/mo: 10,000 executions. (Billed annually)	Core $12/mo: 10,000 credits. Pro $21/mo, Teams $38/mo at the same credit tier.	Professional from $19.99/mo, Team from $69/mo. Price rises with the task tier you pick.
Free tier	Community Edition: free and unmetered on your own server.	1,000 credits/month, 2 active scenarios, 15-minute minimum interval.	100 tasks/month, two-step Zaps only, 15-minute polling.
Run it on your own servers	Yes. SSO, Git version control, and environment separation come with Business ($800/mo).	No.	No.
Where data is processed	Cloud: EU, Frankfurt. Self-hosted: wherever you deploy it.	AWS, EU or North America region.	United States. The DPA names Zapier Inc., San Francisco, as data importer.
Sensitive data (health, biometric, criminal records)	No contractual restriction. Self-hosted, the data never leaves your infrastructure.	No prohibition in the DPA; standard controller-processor terms apply.	Explicitly prohibited: the service is not designed for it and you agree not to submit it.
Ready integrations	2,012 integrations. Anything missing is covered by writing a custom node.	3,000+ apps.	9,000+ apps. The widest coverage of the three.
Users	Unlimited on every plan, including the $20/mo Starter.	Teams and team roles from the Teams plan onward.	One seat on Free and Professional. 25 users from Team (from $69/mo).
Writing code	JavaScript and Python steps on every plan; bash and custom nodes when self-hosted.	Make Code App runs JavaScript or Python; 2 credits per second of execution time.	Code by Zapier; 30 seconds of runtime included per step on Professional and Team.
Licence	Sustainable Use License (fair-code). Source-available, commercial resale restricted.	Closed-source SaaS.	Closed-source SaaS.
What happens at quota	Workflows keep running; on Business, overage is invoiced.	Scenarios stop until you buy extra credits or move up a tier.	Continues at a higher per-task rate if pay-per-task is on; otherwise Zaps pause.
Fastest trigger interval	No platform limit; you set the schedule.	1 minute on paid plans, 15 minutes on free.	2 minutes on Professional, 1 minute on Team and Enterprise.

The same workflow, priced three ways

The billing-unit difference stays abstract until you price the same workflow three ways. Each scenario below is a single workflow running 1,000 times a month; the only variable is how many steps it contains.

Workflow	n8n	Make	Zapier
3-step workflow, 1,000 runs/month	1,000 executions	~3,000 credits	~3,000 tasks
12-step order workflow, 1,000 runs/month	1,000 executions	~12,000 credits	~12,000 tasks
40-step cross-department workflow, 1,000 runs/month	1,000 executions	~40,000 credits	~40,000 tasks

The n8n column never moves: execution count is independent of how many steps the workflow contains. The Make and Zapier columns grow linearly with step count.
Make does not count router or error-handler modules, and Zapier does not count the trigger or Filter/Formatter steps, so real consumption lands slightly below these figures.
The reverse holds too, and it favours Make: on a 3-step workflow, Make Core gives you 10,000 credits for $12/month — roughly 3,300 runs — against 2,500 runs for $20/month on n8n Starter. For short workflows Make is both cheaper and roomier.
The crossover sits at roughly five to six steps. Below it Make wins; above it n8n pulls ahead, and the gap widens with every step you add.
12,000 credits and 12,000 tasks both exceed the tier the entry prices above refer to. Make and Zapier price in volume tiers, so use the tier selector on their own pricing pages for what this scenario costs today.

Which one, and when

Choose n8n when

Data has to stay on your own infrastructure: healthcare, finance, public sector, or anywhere GDPR obligations dominate the decision.
Your workflows are long. Past five or six steps per run, per-step billing starts working against you.
Volume is high or unpredictable; a fixed execution quota is easier to manage than a step bill that moves with your traffic.
Someone on the team writes JavaScript or Python, or you need a custom node for a system nobody has integrated yet.
Several people will touch the automations: n8n includes unlimited users on every plan.
You are building AI agents or a RAG system; n8n's agent and vector-store nodes are built for exactly this.

Choose Make when

An operations team with no developer will build the workflows themselves; Make's visual editor is the most readable of the three.
Workflows are short (two to four steps) and volume is low. In that band Make is the cheapest of the three.
You do not want to operate a server, and keeping data in the EU region is sufficient for your obligations.
The workflow diagram itself is part of how the team communicates; Make's visualisation serves that best.

Choose Zapier when

The app you need to connect is niche and the other two do not have it. With 9,000+ integrations, that risk is lowest here.
You need to start and finish today, and a two-step workflow solves your problem.
One person will build and own the automation, so Professional's single seat is not a constraint.
You want to start small inside your own department without waiting on an enterprise IT process.

Reconsider all three when

You will process health data, biometric data, or criminal records: Zapier's own contract rules this out, and the work belongs on a self-hosted deployment or in purpose-built software.
The automation will become part of your product and be sold to your customers: n8n's licence does not permit white-label resale, and Make's and Zapier's per-step pricing compounds badly in that model.

Frequently Asked Questions