Verdict first: for an Indian small business that runs more than a few hundred automations a month and has anyone slightly technical on the team, n8n is the cheapest and most flexible of the three, especially self-hosted. Zapier is the right choice when nobody technical exists and the volume is low, because its 9,000-plus app library and polish are worth the task-based bill. Make sits between them: a visual builder with per-step credits that is cheap at low volume and expensive on long scenarios. The rest of this post shows the arithmetic that leads there, with October 2026 prices from each vendor's own page, the cost of running n8n on a small server, and how each tool handles AI agents.
n8n vs Zapier vs Make at a glance
| What matters | n8n | Zapier | Make |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | One execution per workflow run, any number of steps | One task per successful action | One credit per module action |
| Free tier | ✅ Self-hosted Community edition, no cap; cloud trial of 1,000 executions | 🟡 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps | 🟡 1,000 credits a month, 2 active scenarios |
| Entry paid plan | Starter 20 EUR a month annual, 2,500 executions | Pro from $19.99 a month annual, 750 tasks | Core about $9 a month annual at 10,000 credits [third-party] |
| Self-hosting | ✅ Docker on any VPS | ❌ | ❌ |
| AI agents | ✅ Native AI Agent node, your choice of model | 🟡 Zapier Agents, separate activity meter | ✅ Make AI Agents on all plans |
| Open source | 🟡 Fair-code, source available with limits | ❌ | ❌ |
| Currency shown | EUR | USD | USD |
n8n is fair-code, not open source in the strict sense
n8n describes itself as a fair-code licensed workflow automation tool that combines AI features with business process automation, per its docs. The Sustainable Use License lets you use or modify the software for your own internal business purposes, and files marked with ".ee." need an Enterprise licence. For a company automating its own operations that changes nothing. For an agency that wants to resell hosted n8n, it does. The repository had over 200,000 GitHub stars when we checked and claims more than 1,500 integrations.
Is n8n free?
Yes, if you host it. The Community edition runs without a licence key, and the hosting docs recommend Docker Compose on a VPS. n8n Cloud is paid after a 1,000-execution trial: Starter at 20 EUR a month billed annually for 2,500 executions and 5 concurrent runs, Pro at 50 EUR for 10,000 executions, Business at 667 EUR for 40,000, per n8n's pricing. The page serves EUR; USD and INR are not shown.
Zapier and Make in one paragraph each
Zapier is the incumbent: the largest app library, the most polished editor, and a price list that scales with tasks: Free at 100 tasks a month with two-step Zaps and 15-minute polling; Pro from $19.99 a month annual ($29.99 monthly) for 750 tasks; Team from $69 annual for 2,000 tasks with one-minute polling; 10,000 tasks on Pro is $129 annual. Overage is billed at 2.5x the base rate on monthly plans and 1.25x on annual, and usage pauses at three times the subscription. Make is the visual one: a canvas of modules where, per its pricing page, most actions consume one credit, routers are free, Free gives 1,000 credits a month with a 15-minute minimum interval, and a Start-up discount of 50 percent exists for companies under 20 employees. Make's plan prices load dynamically; a third-party summary from September 2026 put Core at about $9 a month annual for 10,000 credits, which we could not confirm on the page itself.
Pricing compared: executions vs tasks vs credits
The three billing units in plain words
An n8n execution is a single run of your entire workflow, however many nodes it has. A Zapier task is counted whenever Zapier successfully completes a unit of work: triggers, polling, filters, paths and Formatter steps are free, every action app step is not, and some AI actions cost more than one. A Make credit is spent by most module actions, with routers and some error handlers free. Same workflow, three very different bills.
Worked example: one ten-step lead workflow
Take a workflow we build often: a website form fires a webhook, the lead is scored by a model, written to Google Sheets, created in the CRM, assigned, a WhatsApp template goes out, a Slack alert posts, and a follow-up is scheduled. Call it ten steps with eight billable actions.
| Monthly runs | n8n | Zapier | Make |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 1,000 executions: Starter, 20 EUR | About 8,000 tasks: the 10,000-task Pro tier, $129 annual | About 10,000 credits: Core tier, about $9 annual [third-party] |
| 10,000 | 10,000 executions: Pro, 50 EUR | About 80,000 tasks: the 100,000-task Pro tier, $489 annual | About 100,000 credits: a higher Core or Pro tier, price not published |
| Any volume, self-hosted | VPS only, about 6 EUR | Not available | Not available |
The arithmetic is the whole comparison. Per-step billing punishes exactly the workflows that are worth automating. Per-run billing does not care how clever the workflow is. Zapier's tiers above are from its pricing page on 16 October 2026; the Make figure is from a third-party summary because Make's page would not render prices for us, so check it before you decide.
Not sure what your workflows would cost on each tool?
Describe the three automations you run or want to run. We will send a free side-by-side estimate on n8n, Zapier and Make, with the plan to pick.
Self-hosting n8n on a small VPS
What the server costs
A small n8n instance needs two vCPUs and a few gigabytes of RAM. Hetzner's June 2026 price list, per its docs, puts the CX23 (2 vCPU, 4 GB, 40 GB NVMe) at 5.49 EUR a month plus 0.50 EUR for an IPv4 address, with locations in Germany, Finland, the USA and Singapore but not India. DigitalOcean's smallest Basic Droplet is $4 a month and the company has a Bangalore datacentre, per its pricing, which matters if your data should stay in India. Either way, the whole automation server costs less than one month of a Zapier Pro plan, and the same box can run a Postgres database for the agent memory and a small status page beside n8n without upgrading. The start command from the repository is a single Docker line.
The hidden cost: who fixes it at 2 am
Self-hosting is cheap in rupees and expensive in attention. Someone has to apply updates, back up the database, rotate credentials and notice when a webhook stops firing. For a business with no technical person, that someone is a retainer, and the retainer costs more than Zapier. That is the honest case for Zapier, and it is why our recommendation below depends on who is on your team, not only on volume.
AI agents in each tool, and which one we recommend
How each tool does agents
n8n has a native AI Agent node that needs at least one tool sub-node and a chat model, with Anthropic, OpenAI and Google Gemini sub-nodes documented, per the docs; the agent runs wherever n8n runs, including your own server. Zapier Agents are a separate product on a separate meter: 400 activities a month free, Pro at about $33.33 a month annual for 1,500, where an activity is any billable action an agent takes, per Zapier's agents pricing. Make AI Agents are available on all plans with a step-by-step reasoning panel and manual approvals, per Make. Only n8n lets you choose the model and keep the agent on your infrastructure. Our n8n use cases post shows twelve agent and workflow builds with the exact nodes.
Our recommendation by volume and by team
- Under 500 runs a month, nobody technical: Zapier Free or Pro. The polish is worth it and the bill stays small.
- 500 to 5,000 runs, a part-time technical person: n8n Cloud Starter or Pro. Per-run billing wins once workflows have more than three steps.
- Over 5,000 runs, or any AI agent in the loop: self-hosted n8n on a VPS with a maintenance arrangement. Model tokens become the real cost, not the platform.
- Visual builders with short scenarios and low volume: Make, especially on the start-up discount.
When Zapier still wins outright: a rare app that only Zapier integrates, a team that will never open a terminal, or a workflow so short that tasks and executions are the same number. We say which tool fits in every automation quote, and our AI automation services guide explains what the build and the retainer include.
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Frequently asked questions
Is n8n free?
Yes for self-hosting. The Community edition runs without a licence key under the Sustainable Use License, which permits internal business use, so you pay only for a server such as a 5.49 EUR Hetzner CX23 or a $4 DigitalOcean Droplet. n8n Cloud is paid after a 1,000-execution trial, from 20 EUR a month billed annually.
Is n8n open source?
Not by the strict definition. n8n is fair-code: the source is public and free to use internally, but the Sustainable Use License forbids commercial redistribution, and enterprise files marked ".ee." need a paid licence. For a business running its own automations this changes nothing; for an agency reselling hosted n8n it does.
What is the difference between an execution, a task and a credit?
n8n counts one execution per workflow run regardless of steps. Zapier counts one task per successfully completed action, with triggers, filters and formatters free. Make counts one credit per module action. A ten-step workflow run 1,000 times is 1,000 n8n executions, roughly 8,000 Zapier tasks and roughly 10,000 Make credits.
Which is cheapest at 10,000 runs a month?
n8n Pro covers 10,000 executions at 50 EUR a month annual. Zapier's 10,000-task Pro tier is $129 a month annual, and a multi-step Zap burns several tasks per run, so the real tier is higher. Make's per-credit model also multiplies by step count, so its headline price only holds for short scenarios. Self-hosted n8n stays at the server price whatever the volume, which is why high-volume teams end up there.
Can all three build AI agents?
Yes. n8n has a native AI Agent node with Anthropic, OpenAI and Gemini chat-model sub-nodes. Zapier Agents are a separate product billed in activities, with 400 free a month. Make AI Agents are available on all plans with a reasoning panel and approvals. Only n8n lets the agent run on your own server with the model you choose.
Pick the Tool, Then Build the Workflows.
We design, build and maintain automations on n8n, Zapier and Make for Indian businesses, and we tell you which one fits before you pay for any of them. Get a free automation plan.
