Zapier vs Make vs n8n: The True Cost at 1,000 Runs a Month

At 1,000 simple runs a month, the result is clear. Make costs $0 on its free plan, n8n costs €20 a month on cloud or €0 self-hosted, and Zapier costs $39 a month billed annually.

The gap is not about features. All three connect your apps, move data between them, and run the small automations a solo business depends on: a new lead saved to a sheet, an invoice copied to your books, a form answer sent to your inbox. The gap is the billing unit. Each platform counts a different thing, so the same workflow produces three very different totals at the end of the month.

That matters as your workflows grow. A one-step automation and a four-step automation look similar in a builder. On two of these platforms they cost four times as much to run. On the third, they cost exactly the same.

Three platforms, three different meters

Start with your own usage. How many times does a workflow run in a month, and how many billable steps does each run contain? Those two numbers decide your bill below.

Zapier bills per task

Zapier bills per task. A task is a successful billable action step, so a workflow that runs once and performs three actions uses three tasks. Some parts of a run are free: triggers do not count, and neither do filters, paths, or Zapier’s built-in tools. You pay for the action steps that succeed, and only for those.

The free plan includes 100 tasks a month, which is enough to test an idea and little more. Professional starts at $19.99 a month billed annually and buys 750 tasks. At 1,000 tasks, the checked scenario on our listing lands at $39 a month billed annually. Monthly billing costs more: $29.99 a month at the 750-task level, before you have added a single extra task. Team starts at $69 a month billed annually for 2,000 tasks.

The trap is multiplication. Every action step you add to a Zap raises the cost of every run, forever. A tidy three-step workflow is not one unit of usage. It is three, each time it fires, all month.

Make bills per operation

Make bills per operation, which it calls a credit. Every module action in a scenario counts, so the meter is closer to Zapier’s than to n8n’s. The difference is the price of each unit and how many units the starter tiers include. Operations are cheap, and the allowances are generous.

The free plan includes 1,000 credits a month. That means 1,000 single-module runs cost $0. Core costs $9 a month billed annually and includes 10,000 credits, or $10.59 a month on monthly billing. A four-module workflow run 1,000 times uses about 4,000 credits, which still sits comfortably inside Core at $9 a month.

The trap here is quieter. Routers count, and multi-step scenarios often generate more operations than the tidy diagram in your head suggests. A branch that looks like one step can add operations on every run. Make remains the cheapest hosted option in most small-business scenarios, but you still need to count operations, not just runs, before you trust a tier to hold.

n8n bills per execution

n8n bills per execution, and an execution is one whole workflow run, whatever the run contains. Two steps or twenty steps, the count is one. There are two honest exceptions: sub-workflow executions count separately, because each sub-workflow is its own run. Error-workflow retries do not consume executions, so a flaky run does not quietly tax you for failing.

Cloud Starter costs €20 a month billed annually and includes 2,500 executions, or €24 a month on monthly billing. Cloud Pro costs €50 a month billed annually and includes 10,000 executions. If you self-host, the Community Edition carries a €0 licence at any volume. You pay only for a small server, roughly €5–10 a month, and nothing per run at all.

The trap is not price. It is complexity. Step count is free on n8n, but the work of designing, debugging, and maintaining a more technical builder moves to you. For a non-technical user, that learning curve is the real cost, and it is paid in your hours rather than on a card. Price that time honestly before you call self-hosting free.

The true cost at 1,000 runs a month

Read the one-step column first. At 1,000 runs with a single billable step each, Make is free, n8n cloud is a flat €20, and Zapier is already at $39. Nothing in that column is about power or polish. It is the same modest automation, priced by three different meters.

Now read across to the four-step column, because real workflows grow steps. A lead arrives, you check it, save it, and send a notification: four actions is normal, not elaborate. Make moves from $0 to $9. Zapier leaves the $39 tier entirely, and the next published step on the ladder is Team at $69 a month billed annually for 2,000 tasks. n8n does not move at all, in either the cloud row or the self-hosted row. That single contrast is the whole article: step-based meters punish thorough workflows, and the execution meter ignores them.

And at 10,000 runs a month

Growth does not close the gap. It widens it. At 10,000 tasks, meaning 10,000 one-action runs, Zapier costs about $129 a month billed annually. Add steps and the figure climbs fast: a three-step workflow run 10,000 times is 30,000 tasks, which lands materially higher than the one-action price. Success, on a per-task meter, is a bill that scales with both your volume and your workflow design.

Make stays in a different range across the same span. At 10,000 runs with one operation each, 10,000 credits is still the $9 Core tier. At about 40,000 credits, which is what a four-step workflow run 10,000 times produces, the published volume ladder puts you at roughly the $29 a month level. Four times the steps, and the bill is still a fraction of the per-task equivalent.

n8n barely changes the conversation at all. Cloud Pro is €50 a month billed annually for 10,000 executions, flat, however many steps each execution contains. Self-hosted stays at a €0 licence plus the same small server. The gap compounds because two platforms charge you again for every step of every run, and one charges you once per run and stops counting.

Who should pick which

Price is only one input. Your skills, your time, and the shape of your workflows decide the rest. The picks below assume a solo founder running ordinary operations work, the kind collected in our operations and workflows guide. If you are comparing Zapier with a single rival rather than all three, the Zapier alternatives page lays those pairs out.

Pick Zapier if ease matters most

• You are non-technical and want the gentlest builder of the three.
• You value its 8,000+ integrations and want a familiar app to simply be there.
• Your workflows are short, and your run volume is modest and predictable.

Zapier is a reasonable buy when your time is worth more than the premium. Just pay that premium knowingly. Check your step count before you commit, because the same ease that makes a five-step Zap simple to build makes it five times as expensive to run as the one-step version.

Pick Make if value matters most

• You want the lowest hosted price at small and medium volumes.
• You like a visual canvas and can accept a small learning curve to use it well.
• You are willing to count router operations when you design a scenario.

For most solo founders, Make is the sensible default. The free plan covers a real first automation, Core at $9 covers far more than most one-person businesses will run, and the ceiling at higher volumes stays low. Your only homework is operational honesty: design the scenario, then count what it actually consumes.

Pick n8n if volume or complexity matters most

• You are technical, or you have technical help you trust.
• Your workflows are complex, branching, or heavy with AI steps.
• You want a cost that depends on runs, not on how thorough each run is.

n8n rewards founders who can handle its steeper start. In return you get volume-independent step costs on cloud, and a genuinely €0 licence if you self-host. Budget for the learning curve as part of the price, and the maths at every volume in this article favours it.

One related option sits outside this comparison. If your flows need language-model steps inside them rather than simple app-to-app moves, Gumloop is the AI-native route: Pro is $37 a month and includes 20,000 credits, with overage at $0.005 per credit. Only consider it when the AI step is the point of the workflow, not as a substitute for a cheaper general automator.

So the short version holds at every volume we checked. Make is cheapest to start, n8n is cheapest to scale steps on, and Zapier is the premium you pay for ease and reach. The wrong answer is choosing by feature list alone, then discovering the meter in a later bill.

Count your runs. Count your steps. Pick the meter that treats your kind of workflow kindly, and the platform choice usually makes itself.