The most important thing about workflow automation pricing is the one detail almost no comparison mentions: these platforms do not bill on the same unit. Zapier charges per task, meaning every action step that runs. Make charges per credit, meaning every module execution. n8n charges per execution, meaning one complete workflow run regardless of how many steps it contains.
On a ten-step workflow, that is a tenfold difference in what the same work costs. A tool with a higher sticker price can be dramatically cheaper in practice, and the free tiers differ by a factor of ten as well. This guide compares six platforms grouped by billing unit, then runs the actual maths on a realistic workflow. Where a vendor does not publish pricing, that is stated rather than estimated.
Six billing models
Per task. Zapier counts each action step that successfully runs. Triggers and built-in tools such as Filter, Paths and Formatter are free, but every app action consumes a task. Long workflows multiply the bill.
Per credit. Make counts each module run. Note that Make replaced the term operations with credits on 27 August 2025, converting existing balances 1:1. The important wrinkle is that AI-powered modules can consume more than one credit per run, so AI-heavy scenarios cost more than the old flat model implied.
Per execution. n8n counts one complete workflow run as one execution, whatever its step count. This is the structural reason it undercuts the other two on multi-step work.
Per user. Power Automate licenses people rather than volume, which suits teams running many automations and penalises organisations where everyone needs a licence.
Enterprise contract. Workato publishes no public pricing and quotes per organisation.
Agent-based. Lindy sells AI agents that handle tasks end to end rather than connectors you wire together, which is a different purchase from the five above.
What free actually means here
Three of these have free tiers, and they are not comparable.
Zapier free is a demo. 100 tasks per month, 5 Zaps, single-step only, and 15-minute polling. Single-step alone rules out most real automations. It exists to let you learn the editor, and it is good at that, but budgeting around it is a mistake.
Make free is genuinely usable. 1,000 credits per month, multi-step scenarios, unlimited active scenarios, with a 15-minute minimum run interval. That is roughly ten times more capacity than Zapier free, and it supports the branching logic Zapier free does not.
n8n self-hosted is unlimited. The Community Edition has no execution caps, no user limits and no workflow caps. The cost is a server and the engineering time to run it.
Power Automate is a fourth case: some basic automation is already bundled with Microsoft 365, covering standard Microsoft connectors only. Workato and Lindy do not offer free tiers.
Per task: Zapier
Zapier connects roughly 8,000 apps, more than anything else here, and has the most beginner-friendly editor in the category. If your stack includes an unusual tool, Zapier probably reaches it.
Professional is $19.99 per month billed annually, or $29.99 monthly, for 750 tasks. Team is $69 annually for 2,000 tasks and 3 users. Enterprise is quoted. Two details matter more than the headline: overages bill at 1.25 times your plan base task rate, and task pricing is not linear as you scale, with high-volume tiers rising steeply.
The practical maths: a 5-step Zap firing 150 times a month consumes 750 tasks, which is the entire Professional allowance. For low-volume, high-value automations Zapier is genuinely cheap. For high-volume multi-step work it is the most expensive option on this page.
Per credit: Make
Make is the middle path: a visual canvas that a non-engineer can read, with real branching, loops and error handling, at meaningfully lower cost than Zapier for the same workload.
The free tier gives 1,000 credits. Core is around $12 per month for 10,000 credits with unlimited active scenarios and API access; Pro is around $21 for the same credit allowance with priority execution, custom variables and log search. Because Make bills only for modules that actually execute rather than filter-rejected paths, workflows with heavy branching cost proportionally less than the same logic on Zapier.
The trade-off is the learning curve. The canvas asks you to own more mapping and debugging than Zapier does.
Per execution, self-hostable: n8n
n8n is the cost-efficiency choice and the only platform here you can run entirely on your own infrastructure.
Cloud tiers are priced in euros, since n8n is Berlin-based: roughly €24 Starter, €60 Pro and €800 Business, with Enterprise quoted. Annual billing saves about 17%. In April 2026 n8n removed active-workflow limits across every plan, so all Cloud tiers now include unlimited active workflows and unlimited users, and executions are the only lever on your bill.
The self-hosted Community Edition is free with unlimited executions. You supply a server, a database and some ongoing maintenance. The honest condition attached is not whether you have an engineer, but whether you have a few hours of one every month for as long as the workflows keep running.
Per user: Microsoft Power Automate
Power Automate is the default where an organisation already runs Microsoft 365, and its licensing is the most confusing here.
Some automation is bundled with Microsoft 365, but that tier covers standard Microsoft connectors only. The moment a flow touches a premium connector such as SQL, HTTP, Salesforce, Dataverse or a custom connector, you need a paid licence. Premium is $15 per user per month billed annually, or around $20 monthly, and adds 600-plus premium connectors, attended desktop RPA, Dataverse access and AI Builder credits. Unattended RPA is licensed separately at around $150 per bot per month, with a hosted variant near $215.
Two cost layers sit outside those figures. AI Builder includes an allowance per Premium user with additional capacity sold at around $500 per million credits per month, and Process Mining is licensed separately. One reported packaging change worth confirming before you budget: the AI Builder credits currently bundled with Premium are said to be moving out of that bundle in late 2026.
The baseline is not zero. It is whatever you already pay Microsoft, plus whichever of these layers your flows actually touch.
Enterprise contract: Workato
Workato targets mid-to-large organisations connecting many SaaS and internal systems, with enterprise governance, ERP and CRM orchestration and security compliance as the selling points.
Workato publishes no public pricing. Every deal is quoted, and this guide will not repeat a figure it cannot source. What is consistent across coverage is that it sits well above the self-serve platforms and is not intended for small businesses. If you are evaluating it, the numbers to pin down in writing are the recipe or connection allowance and what happens when you exceed it.
Agent-based: Lindy
Lindy is a different proposition from the connector platforms. Rather than wiring triggers to actions, you configure AI agents that handle a job end to end: managing an inbox, scheduling meetings, handling support conversations or making calls.
That suits work where the decision-making is the hard part rather than the plumbing. It suits high-volume deterministic integration considerably less well, where a connector platform is cheaper and more predictable.
Lindy operates a credit-based model with published tiers, but current figures vary enough between sources that this guide does not quote one. Check its own pricing page, and pay attention to how credits are consumed per agent action rather than to the monthly headline.
What a 5-step workflow actually costs
Assume a workflow with five action steps. Here is how each platform counts it.
| Platform | Unit consumed per run | 100 runs/mo | 1,000 runs/mo | 10,000 runs/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier | 5 tasks | 500 tasks | 5,000 tasks | 50,000 tasks |
| Make | 5 credits | 500 credits, free tier covers it | 5,000 credits | 50,000 credits |
| n8n | 1 execution | 100 executions | 1,000 executions | 10,000 executions |
Read the last column carefully. The same work registers as 50,000 billable units on Zapier, 50,000 on Make and 10,000 on n8n. Zapier Professional at $19.99 includes 750 tasks, so 1,000 runs of this workflow already exceeds it several times over. Make free covers the 100-run case outright, and its Core tier at around $12 for 10,000 credits covers 1,000 runs. Self-hosted n8n covers all three columns for the cost of a small server.
The general rule: the more steps in your workflow, the more per-execution billing wins. The fewer steps and the lower the volume, the more Zapier’s convenience is worth paying for.
Self-hosting, data residency and compliance
This is the axis where the platforms genuinely diverge, and it rarely appears in comparisons.
Zapier is cloud-only, with data processed on its servers. Make is cloud-only. Power Automate runs in Microsoft’s cloud with Entra ID authentication and enterprise controls. Workato is a managed enterprise platform.
Self-hosted n8n is the only option here where workflow data, credentials and execution history never leave your own infrastructure. For organisations with strict data residency requirements, HIPAA obligations or GDPR constraints that rule out third-party processing, that is not a preference but a requirement, and it narrows this field to one.
If compliance is driving the decision, confirm the specific obligations with your own advisers rather than relying on a vendor feature list, including this one.
How to choose
Non-technical team, short workflows, low volume: Zapier. The app coverage and editor justify the per-task premium at small scale.
Operations team owns automation and nobody writes code: Make. Real branching on a readable canvas, billed per module, at roughly a third to a half of Zapier’s cost for the same workload.
An engineer owns automation: n8n. Execution billing, self-hosting and custom code make it the most capable and the cheapest at volume, provided someone maintains it.
You already run Microsoft 365: check what your existing licence covers before buying anything, then budget for Premium if your flows touch premium connectors.
Large organisation with complex system orchestration: Workato, accepting a quoted contract.
The hard part is judgement, not plumbing: an agent platform rather than a connector platform.
Before committing, count the steps in your most-used workflow and multiply by your expected monthly runs. That single calculation will separate these platforms faster than any feature list. Our guide to AI productivity tools covers the wider stack these plug into.
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Frequently asked questions
Why is n8n so much cheaper than Zapier?
Because it bills per workflow execution rather than per step. A ten-step workflow costs ten tasks on Zapier and one execution on n8n. The gap widens with workflow length, not with volume alone.
Which free plan is actually usable?
Make, with 1,000 credits per month, multi-step scenarios and unlimited active scenarios. Zapier free is limited to 100 tasks, 5 Zaps and single-step automations, which rules out most real workflows. Self-hosted n8n is unlimited but requires you to run a server.
Is Power Automate free with Microsoft 365?
Partly. Basic cloud flows using standard Microsoft connectors are bundled. Premium connectors, desktop RPA and AI Builder require the Premium licence at $15 per user per month billed annually, and unattended RPA is licensed separately per bot.
What happens if I exceed my task limit?
Zapier bills overages at 1.25 times your plan base task rate, which can raise a bill without warning, so usage alerts are worth setting. Check the specific overage behaviour on whichever platform you choose, as they differ.
Which platform can keep data on my own servers?
Self-hosted n8n is the only option here where workflow data, credentials and execution history stay entirely within your own infrastructure. The others are cloud-only or managed services.
Conclusion
Choose on billing unit and workflow shape rather than on sticker price. Short workflows at low volume favour Zapier, where the app coverage and ease of use are worth the per-task premium. Branching logic owned by a non-technical operations team favours Make. Long workflows at volume favour n8n, decisively, and self-hosting is the only route here that keeps data on your own infrastructure. Microsoft shops should audit what their existing licence already covers before buying anything at all.
The calculation that matters takes a minute: steps per workflow, multiplied by runs per month, applied to each billing model. Do that before comparing features, because on a ten-step workflow at volume the answer differs by an order of magnitude.
