Zapier vs Make vs n8n for Small Business

Three Platforms, Three Different Meters

The pricing pages look comparable until you notice each vendor bills a different unit. Zapier counts tasks — one per successful action step, with the trigger itself free. Make counts credits — roughly one per module that runs, including the trigger module's polling checks. n8n counts workflow executions — one per run, no matter how many steps the run contains. Same automation, three different odometers. This is why people pick the wrong plan: they compare the sticker, not the meter. (All figures checked 2026-11-02 on each vendor's pricing page.)

A Worked Month, Same Automation on All Three

Take a real small-business flow: new form lead → enrich the contact → draft a reply → send it → log to a sheet. Five steps, one trigger, 800 runs a month (about 27 a day). Here's the honest math (checked 2026-11-02):

• Zapier: the trigger is free, so roughly 4 billable steps per run × 800 runs ≈ 3,200 tasks. That's over four times the Professional plan's 750 tasks — you're pushed toward Team-tier pricing or pay-per-task billing, which charges a higher rate per task than the base plan. (Modelled — your step count is what matters, not the run count.)
• Make: five modules ≈ 5 credits per run → 4,000 credits, plus the polling checks the trigger makes even when nothing new arrives — a 15-minute poll burns about 2,880 more credits a month. Roughly 6,900 credits total sits inside the Core plan's 10,000 (checked 2026-11-02). This is why Make usually wins the mid-volume tier.
• n8n cloud: 800 executions — a third of the Starter plan's 2,500 (checked 2026-11-02). Step count is irrelevant to the bill, which is why complex flows price best here.
• n8n self-hosted Community Edition: 800 executions cost $0 in licence fees — you pay for the VPS (a few dollars a month) and your own maintenance time (checked 2026-11-02).

The trap rows run the other direction, too. A five-minute schedule trigger alone fires ~8,600 executions a month — that single workflow would exceed n8n's Starter quota while barely registering on the other meters. And Make's polling means an idle scenario still spends credits every interval. Pick the meter that matches your flow's shape: many steps, few runs favors n8n; few steps, many runs favors Make's credit pool; one or two dead-simple links favor Zapier's flat predictability.

The Privacy Question the Pricing Page Won't Answer

Every one of these platforms is a middleman that sees your data — that's what "the apps talk to each other" means mechanically. The differences are in who else sees it and where it lives:

• Zapier and Make are cloud relays. Your customer records, invoices, and message contents pass through their servers and sit in their run logs so you can debug. Both publish data-privacy and retention terms; both let you limit how long task history is kept. If your data can't leave a jurisdiction or a compliance boundary applies, read those terms first — the run log is the part people forget.
• n8n cloud is the same shape — hosted, logged, on someone else's infrastructure — with an EU hosting option.
• n8n self-hosted is the different answer. The workflow engine, the credentials, and every payload stay on a server you control; nothing routes through n8n's cloud at all. For a business handling medical, legal, or financial client data, self-hosting is the only configuration in this comparison where the automation vendor never touches the payload. The tradeoff is real: you own patching, backups, and 3 a.m. failures.
• Credentials are concentrated either way. Every platform stores the API keys and OAuth tokens that let it act as you. Cloud or self-hosted, treat that store like the key ring it is — turn on two-factor, scope tokens to the minimum permission, and rotate them when a contractor finishes.

Each vendor's full posture — price, permission, gate, meter, exit — is on its wall page: Zapier, Make, n8n.

Lock-In: What You Can and Can't Take With You

• Zapier: Zaps don't export to another platform. Leaving means rebuilding — take screenshots of each Zap's steps before you cancel.
• Make: scenarios export as blueprint files, but only Make can read them and the credentials inside don't travel. Same rebuild story, friendlier documentation.
• n8n: workflows export as JSON — genuinely portable between n8n instances, which matters if you move from cloud to self-hosted. It still isn't a format Zapier or Make can run.

The deeper lock-in on all three isn't the file format — it's that the automation quietly becomes load-bearing. The honest hedge is boring: keep a written record of what each flow does and why, so a rebuild is a translation exercise rather than archaeology.

The Bottom Line

For a first, simple automation, Make's free tier gives you the most room and the credit model stays cheap at small-business volumes (checked 2026-11-02). Zapier earns its premium when the apps you already pay for only connect there, or when the person building it needs the gentlest possible editor. n8n — cloud for per-run pricing on complex flows, self-hosted for privacy or volume — is the answer when the meter on the other two starts punishing you. And before any of them: check whether the tool you already own does the job natively, because a setting you already pay for beats a subscription you don't need yet.