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.
Billing units are different, so compare the cost of the same workload rather than the number of units alone. Ten tasks and one execution do not necessarily have a ten-to-one price ratio. This guide separates plan allowances, billable actions and whole-workflow runs, then shows how to build a comparable estimate.
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, and defines it plainly: “each module action in your scenario, like adding a Google Sheet row or fetching Gmail account data, counts as one credit”. The wrinkle is that AI-powered modules can consume more than one credit per run, so AI-heavy scenarios cost more than a flat per-module reading implies.
Per execution. n8n counts one complete workflow run as one execution, whatever its step count. This changes the unit count for a multi-step workflow; the total price still depends on the plan, volume, hosting and AI-provider charges.
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. Zapier gives it 100 tasks a month and “two-step Zap workflows”, with unlimited Zaps, Tables and Forms. Two steps is enough to learn the editor and not much else: the moment a workflow needs a third action, you are on a paid plan.
Make free is the more usable of the two. Make gives “up to 1,000 credits/mo” with multi-step scenarios and a 15-minute minimum interval, which is ten times Zapier’s task allowance and supports the branching logic two-step Zaps cannot. The catch is a cap of 2 active scenarios and a 5-minute maximum execution time, so it is generous on volume and tight on breadth.
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.
Zapier’s published entry prices need a billing-term and task-tier check before use. For overage, its current billing guidance says the exact rate depends on plan and billing cycle and appears in the account’s billing settings. Use that account-specific rate in a forecast and check whether pay-per-task is enabled. Do not assume one multiplier applies to every account.
For an example containing five billable actions per run, 150 successful runs consume 750 tasks. A trigger is not an additional billable action in this example. If a step is exempt, branches skip steps, or an AI feature has a different usage charge, adjust the calculation. This unit count does not establish which platform has the lowest total price.
Per credit: Make
Make provides a visual canvas with branching, loops and error handling. Compare the price of your actual workload with Zapier after accounting for executed modules, billable actions and any additional AI charges.
The free tier gives up to 1,000 credits and 2 active scenarios. Core is $12 a month for 10,000 credits, and lifts active scenarios to unlimited with a 1-minute minimum interval. Pro is $21 for the same 10,000 credits, adding priority execution, custom variables and full-text log search. Teams is $38, again on 10,000 credits, adding roles and shared templates. Enterprise is custom and is where overage protection appears.
At the quoted 10,000-credit level, the Core, Pro and Teams examples differ in scheduling, collaboration and diagnostics. For branching workflows, count the steps that actually execute under each vendor’s billing rules; branching alone does not establish which platform costs less.
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 offers a self-hosted workflow runtime as well as hosted plans. Connections to external services can still send data outside that runtime.
The n8n pricing page lists hosted Starter at €20 per month billed annually for 2,500 executions and hosted Pro at €50 for 10,000. Business, listed at €667 for 40,000 executions, is self-hosted. Enterprise is custom-priced and offers hosted or self-hosted deployment. These figures were rechecked on 21 September 2026.
The quoted plans include unlimited users and workflows according to the linked pricing information. Execution allowances are one part of the subscription comparison. External API charges, hosting and maintenance may add costs, especially when self-hosting.
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. Microsoft’s pricing page publishes four lines, all on yearly billing: Power Automate Premium at $15.00 per user per month, which covers standard, premium and custom connectors plus attended desktop flows; Power Automate Process at $150.00 per bot per month for unattended automation; Power Automate Hosted Process at $215.00 per bot per month, which adds a Microsoft-managed virtual machine; and the Process Mining add-on at $5,000.00 per tenant per month, available to Premium customers only. A 30-day free trial is offered.
Read the second and third lines against the first. A single unattended bot costs ten times a user licence, and a hosted one fourteen times. If your automation runs without a person watching it, Power Automate stops being a per-user product and becomes a per-bot one.
AI Builder credit pricing does not appear on that page, so no AI Builder figure is quoted here. The baseline is not zero either: it is whatever you already pay Microsoft, plus whichever of these lines 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 |
In this simplified example, 10,000 completed runs consume 50,000 task-like units under a five-action meter or 10,000 whole-workflow executions. Apply the selected plan’s allowance and billing term to those counts. The table excludes extra trigger or polling modules, retries and separately billed AI requests; adjust it to your actual workflow before estimating cost. A free plan also needs to support the required steps and features. Self-hosting adds infrastructure and maintenance costs even when the software has no execution cap.
Longer workflows increase the number of action-based units relative to whole-workflow executions. Whether that lowers the total price depends on plan allowances, rates, additional services and operating costs; neither billing model is a universal winner.
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-hosting gives you control of the workflow runtime and its stored execution history. It does not prevent data leaving your server: calls to a hosted language model, CRM, email service or other external API still send data to that provider. Map the complete data flow, hosting location, backups and each integration’s terms before making a data-residency decision.
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, with 10,000 credits from $12 a month.
An engineer owns automation: evaluate n8n’s execution model and self-hosting option against infrastructure, monitoring, backup and maintenance time. The software allowance is only part of total cost.
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.
A comparable workflow budget
Illustrative workload: 1,000 completed runs each month, with five chargeable actions per run and one external AI request. That produces 5,000 task-like units under a five-action meter, or 1,000 whole-workflow executions under an execution meter. It also produces 1,000 AI requests that may be billed separately by the model provider.
Apply each vendor’s actual plan allowance to those counts. If you self-host, add hosting and maintenance: for example, a hypothetical $15 server plus two hours valued at $30/hour is $75 before AI fees. These illustrative costs are assumptions, not n8n prices or measured operating costs. Replace them with your own estimates. The result shows why counting units alone cannot establish the cheaper platform.
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Frequently asked questions
How does n8n’s billing differ from Zapier’s?
Execution-based plans count complete workflow runs, while task-based plans count qualifying actions. That can favor longer workflows, but compare the actual plan price, included allowance and any additional AI or infrastructure costs before concluding that one is cheaper.
Which free plan is actually usable?
Make, with up to 1,000 credits a month and multi-step scenarios, though it caps you at 2 active scenarios. Zapier free gives 100 tasks and two-step Zaps, which rules out anything longer. 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 and custom connectors and attended desktop flows require the Premium licence at $15.00 per user per month paid yearly, and unattended automation is a separate line at $150.00 per bot per month, or $215.00 hosted.
What happens if I exceed my task limit?
Check the selected plan’s overage behavior before enabling production workflows. Zapier documents an account-specific pay-per-task rate and a maximum usage limit; the exact rate is visible in billing settings. Set alerts and decide whether a hard stop or overage is appropriate. Confirm equivalent limits with every other shortlisted provider.
Which platform can keep data on my own servers?
Self-hosted n8n lets you host the workflow runtime yourself. External integrations can still transmit data off-server, so inspect each node and provider separately. Hosting choice alone does not establish compliance or end-to-end data residency.
Conclusion
Start with required integrations and who will maintain the workflow. Then compare a common workload against each plan’s limits. Short workflows, branching workflows and self-hosted workflows can produce different results; none has a universal winner based only on its billing unit.
Use this budget equation: subscription + billable overage + external API charges + hosting + maintenance. Record the currency and annual commitment separately. This makes an apparently cheap execution allowance comparable with a managed service that includes more of the operating work.
Correction, 30 September 2026: We removed blanket cost-superiority claims and an unqualified entry-price comparison. The worked example counts billing units; it does not establish a universal price winner, and self-hosting and external AI costs must be included.
