The Automation Platform Trap Nobody Warns You About
I've been watching small business owners make the same mistake for three years now. They sign up for Zapier because someone recommended it, build 15 workflows over six months, then realize their monthly bill is climbing toward $200—and they need features that require a different tool entirely.
Here's the part that hurts: migrating workflows between these platforms means rebuilding from scratch. There's no export button. No migration wizard. You're starting over. In a minute, I'll show you the actual cost differences that make this decision matter—and they're not what the pricing pages suggest.
The three dominant tools in this space—Zapier, Make, and n8n—each took a fundamentally different bet on what business owners actually need. Understanding those bets saves you from picking wrong.
What Are Zapier, Make, and n8n?
All three tools do the same basic thing: connect your business apps so data flows between them automatically. When a form submission hits your website, it can create a CRM contact, send a Slack message, and add a row to a spreadsheet—without you touching anything.
But the similarities end there. Zapier launched in 2011 and built the category on radical simplicity. Make (formerly Integromat) arrived in 2012 and was acquired by Celonis in 2020 for over $100 million—a bet on visual workflow power. n8n showed up in 2019 as the open-source alternative, just raised $180 million at a $2.5 billion valuation in October 2025 with NVIDIA backing, and reported 6x user growth and 10x revenue growth that same year.
That funding gap tells you something important about where the market is heading.
What's the Core Philosophy Difference Between These Tools?
This is where most comparison articles get it wrong. They list features. Features change quarterly. Philosophy doesn't.
- **Zapier prioritizes accessibility.** The entire experience is designed around a linear, step-by-step wizard. Pick a trigger, add actions, done. Your office manager can build a workflow in 20 minutes with zero training.
- **Make prioritizes visual power.** You see your entire workflow as a flowchart. Branches, loops, error handling—it's all visible. More learning curve, but you can build things Zapier literally cannot express.
- **n8n prioritizes developer control and data ownership.** You can self-host it, write custom code, and never send your data through someone else's servers. The tradeoff is that non-technical users will struggle.
The question isn't which tool is better. It's which philosophy matches your team.
How Do n8n vs Zapier vs Make Costs Actually Compare?
The pricing pages are designed to confuse you. Here's what actually matters.
Zapier charges per task—each step in your workflow counts. A five-step workflow that runs 1,000 times costs you 5,000 tasks. Their free tier gives you 100 tasks per month. That's 20 runs of a five-step workflow. For most businesses, you'll hit paid plans within a week.
Make charges per operation, similar concept, but starts at $9/month with 10,000 operations. For the same five-step workflow running 1,000 times, you're still under the base tier. Make also allows unlimited active workflows on paid plans—Zapier limits how many you can have running.
n8n flips the model entirely. Self-host it and you pay nothing regardless of how many workflows or executions you run. Their cloud version exists, but the real value proposition is ownership. For certain high-volume automations, n8n can be up to 1000x cheaper than alternatives.
Which Tool Handles Complex Workflows Best?
This is where Zapier's simplicity becomes a constraint. Its linear, step-by-step design works beautifully for straightforward automations—new email triggers Slack message triggers spreadsheet update. But complex branching logic and data transformations hit walls quickly.
Imagine you need: "If the deal value is over $10,000 AND the client is in California, route to the enterprise team, UNLESS it's a renewal, then route to account management, UNLESS the account is flagged, then route to legal." In Make, that's a visual flowchart you can build in 15 minutes. In Zapier, you're fighting the interface.
n8n goes even further—you can drop into JavaScript for logic that neither visual builder can express. But if your workflows don't need that complexity, you're paying a learning curve tax for power you won't use.
Does the Integration Count Actually Matter for Zapier vs Make?
Zapier has 8,000+ integrations. Make has 1,600+. n8n has 750+. Those numbers look decisive until you realize what they actually mean.
Most businesses use the same 20-30 apps: Google Workspace, Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, QuickBooks, Shopify, Stripe, the major email platforms. All three tools support these thoroughly. The integration gap only matters if you use niche industry software—and even then, all three support webhooks and API connections for custom integrations.
The more meaningful question: how deep is the integration? Zapier often supports more actions within each app because they've had 14 years to build them. Make's integrations sometimes expose more configuration options. n8n lets you write custom API calls if the native integration doesn't do what you need.
When Does Self-Hosting Actually Matter?
Neither Zapier nor Make offer self-hosting. They're fully cloud-based SaaS platforms. Your workflow data flows through their servers. For most small businesses, this is fine.
n8n's self-hosting becomes relevant in three scenarios:
- **Compliance requirements.** Healthcare, finance, or government contractors often can't have data touch third-party servers. Self-hosted n8n keeps everything on infrastructure you control.
- **Volume economics.** If you're running millions of workflow executions monthly, the per-task costs of Zapier and Make become serious. Self-hosted n8n is essentially free at any volume—you just pay for the server.
- **Customization needs.** n8n is open source. If you need to modify the software itself, add custom nodes, or integrate with internal systems, you can. Zapier and Make are black boxes.
If none of these apply to you, self-hosting is complexity you don't need.
The Part Most Comparison Articles Won't Tell You
Here's what I promised earlier—the real cost difference that matters.
Zapier's simplicity is a trap disguised as a feature. Because it's so easy to build workflows, non-technical team members will build them. Lots of them. Without coordination. You'll end up with 47 workflows, some redundant, some broken, nobody knows who owns them, and your bill is $300/month because every step counts.
Make's visual complexity actually creates a natural governance barrier. The learning curve means fewer people build workflows, which means more deliberate decisions about what gets automated. Your portfolio stays manageable.
n8n's technical requirements create the strongest barrier. Only technical staff will touch it. This is either a feature (centralized control) or a bug (bottleneck on the one person who knows how it works) depending on your team structure.
The tool you pick shapes your company's automation culture. Pick Zapier and everyone builds. Pick Make and power users build. Pick n8n and developers build. None of those are wrong—but you need to know which culture you want.
What Goes Wrong When You Pick the Wrong Tool?
The most common failure I see: a business picks Zapier because it's famous, builds 20+ workflows over six months, then needs something Zapier can't do. Maybe it's complex branching. Maybe it's cost at scale. Maybe it's a compliance requirement.
Now they face a choice: live with limitations forever, or rebuild everything from scratch in a different tool. Most live with the limitations. The ones who migrate budget 40-80 hours of work—not because the workflows are complicated, but because there's no migration path. Every trigger, every action, every field mapping gets rebuilt by hand.
How to Choose Between n8n, Zapier, and Make: The Decision Framework
After watching dozens of businesses make this choice, the decision comes down to three questions:
**Question 1: Who will build and maintain workflows?**
- Non-technical staff (office managers, sales ops) → **Zapier**
- Technical-curious staff (marketing ops, RevOps, analysts) → **Make**
- Developers or dedicated technical team → **n8n**
**Question 2: How complex are your workflow needs today and in 12 months?**
- Simple linear sequences (A triggers B triggers C) → **Zapier**
- Branching logic, loops, conditional routing → **Make**
- Custom code, external API calls, edge cases → **n8n**
**Question 3: What's your budget sensitivity at scale?**
- Cost is secondary to simplicity, workflows will stay under 50 → **Zapier**
- Cost matters, need dozens of workflows, want best value → **Make** ($9/month starting)
- High volume, need near-zero marginal cost, can self-host → **n8n** (free self-hosted)
If you answered differently across questions, default to the tool that matches your team's technical ability. You can work around cost and complexity constraints. You can't work around a tool your team can't use.
Your Monday Morning Action Plan
Don't pick a tool today. Run this evaluation first:
- **Audit your current manual processes** (30 minutes). List the 5 tasks you do most often that involve copying data between apps. Note how many steps each requires and how often you do it weekly.
- **Calculate your volume** (15 minutes). Multiply steps × weekly frequency × 4 for monthly volume. If you're under 500 operations/month, Zapier's free tier works. 500-10,000, Make's $9 tier covers you. Over 10,000, you need to price carefully.
- **Test your team's technical tolerance** (20 minutes). Have the person who'd maintain workflows try Make's template library. If they can modify a template successfully, Make is viable. If they struggle, stick with Zapier.
- **If you need n8n, validate first** (1 hour). Only if you have a developer: spin up n8n on a free cloud instance (Railway or Render offer free tiers). Build one simple workflow. If deployment or maintenance feels unsustainable, n8n isn't for you regardless of cost savings.
- **Start one workflow in your chosen tool** (2 hours). Don't migrate everything. Build one new automation. Live with it for two weeks before committing to more migration work.
- **Set a review date** (5 minutes). Calendar a 30-day check-in to evaluate: Is the tool meeting expectations? What workflows should be added next? Is cost tracking to projections?
What This Means for Your Automation Strategy
- **Zapier's 8,000+ integrations make it the safest starting choice** for non-technical teams, but its per-task pricing and linear workflow model create scaling constraints most businesses hit within 18 months.
- **Make's $9/month entry point and visual workflow builder offer the best value** for businesses with technical-curious staff who need branching logic—the learning curve is worth it for the cost savings.
- **n8n's self-hosted model is genuinely free with no execution limits**, but only makes sense if you have technical staff to maintain it and either high volume needs or compliance requirements.
- **Migration between platforms requires rebuilding from scratch**, so the decision you make now has 2-3 year consequences—optimize for where you're heading, not just where you are.
- **The tool you pick shapes who can automate in your company**, which is a governance decision as much as a technology decision.
If you're planning to add AI automation to your workflows, the platform choice matters even more. I covered the strategic implications of AI operations for efficiency in a separate deep-dive—worth reading before you commit to a platform.
Frequently Asked Questions About n8n vs Zapier vs Make
Can I start with Zapier and migrate to Make or n8n later?
You can, but there's no migration path. Every workflow gets rebuilt from scratch. Budget 2-4 hours per workflow for simple automations, more for complex ones. If you anticipate needing Make or n8n features within 12 months, start there instead.
Which tool is best for AI and LLM integrations?
n8n has the strongest AI/LLM support—it's a major focus of their development given their NVIDIA backing and developer audience. Make has solid OpenAI and Anthropic integrations. Zapier has basic AI actions but lacks the depth for complex AI workflows.
What's the learning curve difference between these tools?
Zapier has a low learning curve—most people can build a workflow in 20 minutes. Make has a moderate learning curve—expect 2-4 hours to get comfortable with the visual builder. n8n has a moderate-to-high learning curve—developers adapt quickly, but non-technical users will struggle.
Which tool is most cost-effective for high-volume workflows?
n8n self-hosted wins decisively at scale—no per-execution charges. For cloud-only users, Make typically costs 50-70% less than Zapier for equivalent workflows due to its operation pricing model and unlimited active scenarios on paid plans.
Can non-technical users realistically use n8n?
Honestly, no. n8n's interface assumes comfort with concepts like JSON, webhooks, and API authentication. It's designed for developers and technical operations staff. If your team doesn't include someone who fits that description, stick with Zapier or Make.
