n8n vs Zapier vs Make, scored for a growing business

How do n8n, Zapier and Make compare at a glance?

Who builds and maintains the automations decides it. Zapier suits non-technical teams, Make suits an ops person who wants more control without code, and n8n suits anyone with a developer, even a part-time one. Here's how they score on the things that matter once automations are running real parts of the business.

Choose Zapier if the people building automations aren't technical

Zapier is the right pick when sales, ops or admin staff will build their own automations and volumes are modest. A Zap is a simple list of steps, each one asks plain questions, and most people have something working in ten minutes. Its copilot will even draft a Zap from a description.

It also has the biggest catalogue by a wide margin, in the thousands, and many integrations are maintained by the app vendors themselves. If you depend on a niche industry tool, check Zapier first. Don't choose on the count alone, though. Most businesses lean on a dozen core apps that all three support, and what catches people out is a missing action, an integration that can create a record but not update one. Check the exact triggers and actions you need.

The cost is the catch. Zapier charges roughly one task for each action step that completes. The trigger is free and some built-in utility steps don't count, but a Zap with five actions costs about five tasks every time it fires, and that's the usual reason people go looking for a Zapier alternative. Code by Zapier runs JavaScript or Python, with tight time and memory limits, and anything with real branching gets clumsy quickly.

On data, Zapier is cloud only and processes data mainly in the US, so a UK business relies on the international transfer safeguards in its terms.

Choose Make if you've outgrown Zapier's prices but not its comfort

Make is the gentlest step up from Zapier: usually cheaper for the same workload, and much better at loops, branches and reshaping data, without asking anyone to write code. It suits an ops person who's comfortable with logic but isn't a developer.

A scenario is drawn as a map of connected modules, which makes routers, filters and error routes easy to see. Its catalogue is smaller than Zapier's but often goes deeper into each app's API, and the HTTP module, iterators, aggregators and built-in functions cover most data shaping. The learning curve is understanding how bundles of data move between modules. Until that clicks, things run five times when you expected once.

Make switched from operations to credits in 2025. For ordinary apps it's one credit per module run, the trigger module counts too, and its own AI features can cost more per run. An iterator over 20 order lines runs every module after it 20 times, and you pay for each.

Make is cloud only too, but you pick a hosting region, including the EU, when you create your organisation. It also has AI Agents and AI modules for summarising, classifying and drafting.

Choose n8n if anyone on the team can read JSON

n8n is the one we'd pick for most growing businesses with any technical help: it's cheapest at volume, it handles real code, and it's the only one of the three you can run on your own servers. You pay for that in ease of use. Expect to read JSON, write expressions and configure HTTP requests within the first hour.

• Pricing that ignores workflow length. One execution is one run of the whole workflow, whether it has three nodes or thirty. n8n Cloud plans include a monthly allowance, and the self-hosted Community Edition has no execution limit; you pay for the server instead.

• Ways around missing integrations. It has the fewest native integrations, but an HTTP Request node talks to almost any API, a Code node runs JavaScript or Python, sub-workflows can be called like functions, and community nodes fill gaps.

• Private systems. Self-hosted, it can reach a database or internal service that never touches the public internet, which neither of the others can.

• Agents. Its AI Agent node handles memory, vector stores and tool calling, and any other node or workflow can become a tool. Self-hosted, it can call an open model on your own hardware.

• Data residency. When a contract or regulator wants data kept in the UK or on your own infrastructure, self-hosting is the straightforward answer. n8n Cloud is hosted in the EU at the time of writing.

Agents are where the pricing gap matters most. An agent calls the model and its tools several times per run, so on per-step billing one agent run can burn through many tasks or credits before you've paid the model provider anything. All three let you plug in your own OpenAI or Anthropic key, but only n8n counts the whole run once.

Self-hosting isn't free, just differently priced: someone has to patch it, back it up and notice when it stops. Plenty of teams end up running two tools, keeping Zapier for quick team automations and moving the high-volume, business-critical ones to n8n, where they're cheaper and easier to version.

When none of the three is the answer

When the automation has turned into the product, or into a system the business can't run a day without. These tools are excellent glue, but they weren't built to be the core of something customers log into and pay for. The signs:

• Customers trigger workflows themselves through forms, portals or a dashboard bolted onto webhooks.

• A workflow has grown to a hundred nodes, only one person understands it, and changes go live without tests or review.

• A Stripe webhook arrives twice and the workflow books the same appointment twice, because there's nowhere sensible to make it idempotent.

• You need proper user accounts, roles, billing or an audit trail.

Whichever tool you're on, GDPR doesn't change the answer here: every automation that touches personal data belongs in your record of processing, and the vendor belongs on your processor list. Read the current DPA and sub-processor list yourself rather than trusting a comparison post, this one included.

Our guide on when to turn your automations into a SaaS product covers that call in more depth. At Scryptic, full builds that turn proven automations into a production app start from £10,000, depending on complexity.