If you sell automations to small businesses, you'll probably use all three eventually. Clients often already have one, and that usually decides it. When the choice is yours, the biggest differences are how each one counts usage and who pays for it. We have no affiliate relationship with any of them. Links go to each tool's own site.
Short answer
- Make: the best value for multi-step client scenarios with branching and data transformation. It's visual and cheap per operation, and the default we'd pick for a new automation freelancer.
- Zapier: the easiest for clients to understand and maintain themselves, with the largest app catalog. It's the most expensive per task, so it fits simple, high-value automations or clients already on Zapier.
- n8n: best when data must stay on the client's own server, or when workflows run thousands of times a month. The self-hosted Community Edition is free; you pay for a server and maintenance.
Prices compared (checked 17 Oct 2026)
| Make | Zapier | n8n | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 1,000 credits/mo | 100 tasks/mo, two-step Zaps | Community Edition free if self-hosted; Cloud has a 14-day trial |
| Entry paid plan | Core: $10.59/mo, or $9/mo billed yearly (10,000 credits) | Professional: $29.99/mo, or $19.99/mo billed yearly (750 tasks) | Cloud Starter: €20/mo billed yearly (2,500 executions) |
| Next plan | Pro: $18.82/mo, or $16 billed yearly; Teams $34.12, or $29 billed yearly | Team: $103.50/mo, or $69 billed yearly (2,000 tasks, 25 users) | Cloud Pro: €50/mo billed yearly (10,000 executions) |
| Billing unit | Credit: most actions cost 1; some AI actions cost more | Task: each successful action step | Execution: one full workflow run, however many steps |
| When you run out | Buy extra credits or auto-top-up | Pay-per-task up to 3× your plan limit, then Zaps stop | Upgrade, or self-host for unlimited runs |
Why the billing unit matters
Take a typical small-business automation: a new web lead is enriched, added to a CRM, a Slack alert is sent and a follow-up email is drafted. That's about 5 actions, at 300 leads a month.
- Make: about 5 credits × 300 = 1,500 credits, comfortably inside Core's 10,000 ($9–$10.59/mo).
- Zapier: about 4 action tasks × 300 = 1,200 tasks. That's above Professional's 750-task tier, so you'd need the 1,500-task tier, which is about $39/mo billed yearly according to third-party price trackers.
- n8n Cloud: 300 executions, inside Starter's 2,500 (about €20/mo). Self-hosted, it costs only the server, often $5–$10/mo on a small VPS.
For workflows with many steps, n8n's per-execution pricing is the cheapest by a wide margin. For low-volume, few-step automations, all three cost under $30 a month and the choice should come down to who maintains it.
Who should pay
Have the client own the account and pay for it, with you invited as a user or admin. It keeps their data in their name, makes handover clean, and avoids you carrying usage costs when a workflow loops. Our automation agency research note covers pricing retainers around this.
Things that are easy to miss
- Errors still count as usage. A broken filter that triggers on every row can eat a month's credits or tasks in an hour. Set usage alerts. Make warns at 75% and 90%.
- Premium apps. Some enterprise connectors cost extra or need higher plans on Make and Zapier.
- Self-hosting is a maintenance job. n8n Community Edition means you're responsible for updates, backups and security. Charge for it, or use n8n Cloud.
- Annual billing saves 15–33%, but only commit once a client's volume is stable.
How we compared
We read each vendor's pricing page and help-center articles on 17 Oct 2026. The worked example uses list prices; where a vendor only shows a price on an interactive slider, we note that it comes from third-party trackers. No vendor paid for placement or reviewed this page.
Sources: Make pricing, Zapier pricing, Zapier pay-per-task billing, n8n pricing, n8n hosting options, Zapier task-tier prices (SaaS Switcher).