n8n vs Zapier vs Make: Which to Use, and When to Write Code

For a simple link between two popular apps, any of the three tools will do the job, and the cheapest plan that covers your volume is the right one. In the n8n vs Zapier comparison, with Make alongside, the main difference is what each tool counts. Zapier counts tasks, Make counts credits and n8n counts whole workflow runs. In the worked example below, one five-step workflow that runs 2,000 times a month comes to 8,000 tasks, 10,000 credits or 2,000 executions.

This guide is for a UK business owner or operations lead choosing between them. It covers how each tool works, what the plans cost, which Zapier alternatives are worth a look and where your data is stored. It then looks at the AI features, who looks after the automations once they run, and when custom code is the better route. We work with n8n and Make as part of our AI and process automation work, so where one of them does the job at lower cost than a build, we will say so.

Key takeaways

• Zapier counts tasks, Make counts credits and n8n counts whole workflow runs, so one workflow can land in very different price tiers on each.
• Data location differs. Zapier hosts data in the US with no EU-only option, Make lets you pick a US or EU data zone, and n8n’s hosted plans store data in Frankfurt or you can self-host.
• If your business already runs on Microsoft 365, Power Automate may cover simple flows with licences you already hold, within limits.
• Custom code starts to win with high volume, complex logic or approvals, a long audit trail, data that must stay out of third-party tools, or a system without a usable connector.
• With us, an integration audit and plan starts from £4,000 and an integration build from £10,000, and we say so when n8n or Make is the cheaper answer.

How do Zapier, Make and n8n work?

All three watch for an event in one app and then run steps in others. They differ in how you build those steps and how much technical comfort they assume.

Zapier builds a Zap, which starts with a trigger and then runs actions. Its pricing page describes workflows with multiple steps and logic branches, and lists multi-step Zaps and webhooks from the Professional plan. The Free plan is limited to two-step Zaps. Zapier says it connects to 9,000+ apps.

Make builds scenarios in a visual, drag-and-drop builder, with routers and filters to branch the flow. Its paid plans add a code module for custom JavaScript or Python, charged at 2 credits for each second the code runs.

n8n builds workflows from nodes in an editor and treats code as an ordinary step. Its cloud plans include code steps in JavaScript or Python and custom API requests. Running bash scripts and custom nodes are listed as self-hosted options only.

Tool	What it counts	Suits
Zapier	Tasks	Quick links, no coding
Make	Credits	Visual, branching flows
n8n	Workflow executions	Technical owners, self-hosting

If nobody on your team writes code, Zapier or Make is the easier start. If someone does, n8n gives them more room to work.

n8n vs Zapier vs Make: how do the prices compare?

Each entry plan looks cheap, but the headline numbers cannot be compared until you know what each tool counts. At the time of writing (November 2026), the vendors’ own pages show the plans below. Zapier and Make showed US dollars to us, n8n showed pounds, and Microsoft lists pounds excluding VAT. We have not converted anything, so check the pricing pages for Zapier, Make, n8n and Power Automate before you budget.

Tool and plan	Entry price shown	Billing basis
Zapier Professional, 750 tasks	$19.99 a month	Yearly; $29.99 monthly
Make Core, 10,000 credits	$11 a month	Annual; $16 monthly
n8n Starter, 2,500 executions	£20 a month	Annual; £24 monthly
Power Automate Premium	£11.50 per user a month	Paid yearly, excl. VAT

Zapier’s page also has a currency selector. Its GBP option showed £15.30 a month for the same plan on yearly billing, with a note that the final price may vary with the exchange rate. Zapier’s Free plan includes 100 tasks a month and Make’s Free plan 1,000 credits a month. n8n offers a free trial on its hosted plans.

What each tool counts matters more than the headline price.

Zapier counts tasks. A task is used when a Zap successfully completes an action. Triggers, checking for new data, failed actions and the built-in Filter, Formatter and Path steps do not count. Zapier adds that the AI model tier, code runtime and connector type change how many tasks an action uses.

Make counts credits. Each action a module performs uses credits, usually one, and reading data in a trigger counts too. Routers and error handlers are free. If you run out, scenarios stop until you add credits, and incoming webhooks queue up to your allowance.

n8n counts executions. In n8n’s words, “An execution is a single run of your entire workflow.” The number of steps and the volume of data do not change the count.

As an illustration, take a workflow with one trigger and four actions that runs 2,000 times a month. Assume each Zapier action uses one task, each Make module uses one credit and no step is a free built-in tool.

• Zapier counts 4 × 2,000 = 8,000 tasks, which needs the 10,000-task Professional tier at $129 a month on yearly billing or $193.50 monthly.
• Make counts 5 × 2,000 = 10,000 credits, which is exactly the 10,000-credit Core tier with no headroom, at $11 a month annually or $16 monthly.
• n8n counts 2,000 executions, inside the 2,500 on Starter at £20 a month billed annually or £24 monthly.

The currencies differ and we have not converted them. Extra steps push Zapier and Make up their tiers and leave n8n’s count unchanged, so work out your own step count and monthly runs before you compare.

Is n8n free to use?

The self-hosted Community Edition has no licence fee, and n8n’s pricing page says it is available on GitHub. You still pay for a server and for someone to run it. The n8n licence FAQ says the Community licence is free, applies to the self-hosted version only and covers workflows that only you or people in your organisation create or modify.

n8n’s licence page calls it a fair-code licence and describes the product as source-available. The licence FAQ lists hosting n8n as a service, so that clients can build their own workflows, among the things the licence does not allow. The Business plan, £569 a month billed annually, is self-hosted only according to n8n’s pricing FAQ.

Which Zapier alternatives are worth a look?

Make and n8n are the closest like-for-like alternatives, and Power Automate is the natural one if your business already runs on Microsoft 365. Which fits depends on who builds the workflows and where the data may live.

• Make suits flows with branches and loops that you want to see on a canvas. Its Core plan lists unlimited active scenarios, scheduling down to the minute and access to the Make API, while the Free plan runs scenarios no more often than every 15 minutes.
• n8n suits a team with a technical owner, workflows with many steps, or a need to choose where data lives. Its hosted plans store data in the EU, and the Community Edition runs on your own server.
• Power Automate suits a business that already runs on Microsoft 365. Microsoft’s licensing FAQ says select Office 365 licences include limited Power Automate use rights, with standard connectors only. Power Automate Premium, £11.50 per user a month paid yearly excluding VAT, is the licence for premium connectors and for building desktop flows.

Zapier is still a sensible pick when the link is simple, both apps have connectors and nobody wants to run anything. Other tools sit in the same category, and the same three questions apply to them: what is counted, where the data lives and who looks after it.

Where is your data stored?

Each vendor states this differently, and it matters most when the workflow carries customer or employee data. The table summarises what each one says on its own pages.

Tool	What the vendor states	EU choice
Zapier	Hosted on AWS in the US	Not supported
Make	Data zone set per organisation	EU1 or EU2 zones
n8n hosted	Frankfurt, Germany	Or self-host

Zapier’s data privacy page says it hosts data on AWS servers in the United States and does not support storing data only within the EU. It also says Zapier has certified compliance with the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, the UK Extension and the Swiss-US framework.

Make lets an organisation choose a data zone of US1, US2, EU1 or EU2. Its help page on AI providers and data zones warns that an EU zone does not automatically mean every request is processed in the EU. A few features and models always route to the US, some route to the UK, and bringing your own AI provider removes Make’s EU guarantee.

n8n says its hosted plans store data within the EU, on servers in Frankfurt, Germany. For self-hosted n8n, the data is wherever you decide to host it.

Where personal data leaves the UK, UK GDPR sets rules. The ICO’s guide to international transfers says the regulation contains rules about transfers of personal information to separate organisations located outside the UK. Check each vendor’s data processing terms with whoever handles data protection in your business. This is general information, not legal advice. We have not checked where Power Automate stores data for this guide.

What do the AI features add?

All three now include AI steps and ways for AI assistants to act on your apps, so the useful question is how each one meters and controls them.

• Zapier lists AI fields on Professional and Zapier MCP, which lets AI assistants take action across your apps. AI steps, code and its SDK follow the same task-based pricing as everything else.
• Make offers Maia, which builds automations through conversation, plus Make AI Agents, which its page marks as beta, and an MCP server that connects your AI to Make scenarios. Some advanced AI features use more than one credit.
• n8n includes an AI Agent node, an MCP server trigger and an MCP client on its cloud plans, along with human approval for tool calls.

A model that drafts or classifies inside a workflow is a low-risk use. An agent that changes records in live systems needs an approval step and a log of what it did, whichever tool runs it. If the protocol is new to you, our plain guide to what an MCP server is explains it, and our AI agents automation service covers agents that need more than a platform provides.

Who looks after the automations once they run?

Someone has to own every workflow after launch, and the tool you choose changes what that costs in attention.

• Alerts and history. Zapier lists custom error notifications and Zap version control on its paid plans. n8n lists error workflows and automatic retries on each cloud plan. Make has error handler modules for the same job.
• Limits. Make scenarios stop when credits run out until you add more. Past your limit, Zapier can switch you to pay-per-task billing at a higher per-task rate, so check whether that is on in your account. n8n’s cloud overage fees are listed as capped on Starter and Pro.
• The server. Self-hosting n8n means you also run its updates, backups and security.
• Ownership. Create each account under a company address rather than a person’s, and name an owner for every workflow so a leaver does not take the knowledge with them.
• Licence. The n8n licence FAQ allows building automations for clients on your own instance as long as the clients cannot create or edit them. If your team will edit the workflows, have them built on an instance you own.

When does custom code beat all three?

Custom code wins when the workaround costs more than the build. That usually comes down to five things.

• Volume. Metered pricing climbs with usage, and the worked example above already needed Zapier’s 10,000-task tier for one workflow. A custom build has no per-run meter. You pay for hosting, plus support from £400 a month, so compare the two at your real volume.
• Logic and approvals. For energy broker SBU we built a headless automation layer across Salesforce, an LLM and the client’s email. An 85% confidence threshold decides what runs automatically and what waits for a person.
• Audit trails. n8n’s cloud plans list audit logging as an Enterprise feature, and execution log retention is 7 days on Starter and 30 days on Pro. If you must show who did what months later, a build can write every run to your own storage.
• Data and run time. Where data must not pass through a third party, self-hosted n8n or custom code in your own cloud keeps it with you. n8n’s Starter plan caps one execution at 5 minutes and Pro at 40 minutes, which matters for long jobs.
• Missing connectors. All three can call an API, but a system with no usable API, or one that gates access by plan, needs a custom integration. Our API integration guide covers the routes and the pitfalls.

If your process is simple and the systems already connect, none of this applies. n8n or Make does the job at lower cost, and we will say so.

When a build is the better route, an integration audit and plan is fixed-scope work from £4,000 that ends in a costed, sequenced plan, with no obligation to build. The integration build starts from £10,000, includes monitoring and automatic retries for failures, and you can cancel within the first 21 days for a full refund. All code and IP are yours once the work is delivered and paid for, and support starts from £400 a month. A first AI agent doing one scoped job starts from £5,000.

A sensible next step

Pick the one workflow that costs you the most time, write down its steps and how often it runs, and price it on each tool using the method above. If it is a simple link at modest volume, start on the free plan of Zapier or Make, or on an n8n trial. Our guide to where automation pays off helps you choose which process to start with.

If the workflow touches several systems or customer data, our AI and process automation service is the place to start. For a costed plan across your systems, an integration audit and plan from £4,000 comes first.