Zapier Alternatives: Make and n8n Tested on the Same Automation

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We built the same automation in Make, Zapier and n8n Cloud on November 11, 2026: the RSS feed of our YouTube channel, a filter that drops Shorts, then one row per video in each tool’s built-in table. Zapier counted 0 tasks, Make 5 credits for two runs, and n8n 0 production executions after about 20 minutes of empty polling. At 10,000 runs per month, these counting rules matter more than the list price: Zapier comes to $19.99, Make to $20 and n8n Cloud to €50.

Prices come from the pricing pages as listed on November 12, 2026. Activepieces, compared in the first version of this article, was not tested: its figures date from October 18, 2026. Our test measures what each tool counts, not its reliability over several weeks. How we test explains the approach, the same one as in our comparison of AI visibility tracking tools. Prices change: check them with the vendor before subscribing.

What is the best Zapier alternative?

The best Zapier alternative depends on what you automate: Make if rows go to external apps (about $20 a month for our 10,000 runs, versus $129 on Zapier), n8n for workflows with many steps or self-hosting, and Zapier itself if everything stays in its Tables, Forms and filters. Prices as listed on November 12, 2026.

• Everything stays inside Zapier (Tables, Forms, filters): Zapier Professional at $19.99 per month, since those steps don’t count. A Zap with more than two steps needs a paid plan.
• Writing many rows to external apps: Make, about $20 per month for our 10,000 runs, versus $129 on Zapier.
• Workflows with many steps: n8n, which counts one execution whatever the number of steps.
• Checking often a source that rarely changes: n8n or Zapier, which don’t count the empty check. Make does.
• Hosting it yourself: n8n Community Edition.
• Testing without a credit card: all three. Make has a $0 Free plan, Zapier a Free plan limited to two-step Zaps, and the Zapier Pro and n8n Cloud trials last 14 days.

What automation did we test?

A simple automation, identical in all three tools, with no third-party account to connect: watch the public RSS feed of our YouTube channel (3 videos at test time), drop links that contain youtube.com/shorts/, then write the title, link and publication date to the tool’s built-in table. All three accounts were created on November 11, 2026, and none asked for a credit card.

Make and Zapier are configured by clicking. n8n asks you to write expressions ({{ $json.title }}, {{ $json.link }}, {{ $json.isoDate }}), closer to code. We don’t publish build times: our recordings measure agents, with their scripted clicks and network drops, not a person at a screen.

How many units did our test use?

On the same automation, Make used 5 credits, Zapier 0 tasks and n8n 0 production executions. The gap doesn’t come from the automation, which is identical. It comes from what each tool counts.

• Make: 5 credits. The first run took 4 (1 to read the RSS feed, 3 to write the 3 videos), the second, with no new video, took 1. The dashboard then showed “Credits left 995 / 1000”. The filter cost nothing. The 3 rows took 653 bytes in the data store, about 218 bytes per row.
• Zapier: 0 tasks. After the test and publishing the Zap, the counter showed “Plan tasks 0 / 1,000”. Zapier’s help page on task usage excludes triggers, Filter and Paths steps, tests, and Zapier Tables and Zapier Forms steps.
• n8n Cloud: 0 executions. After publishing and about 20 minutes of polling every minute with no new video, the counter showed “Prod. executions 0”. Executions started by hand from the editor are not counted there.

Zapier’s zero comes with a condition. On publishing, Zapier warned: “This Zap uses Multi-step Zaps which you have access to for a limited time during your free trial. Upgrade your plan to Pro or higher to ensure this Zap continues running when your trial ends in 13 days.” Our Zap has three steps (trigger, filter, Tables) and the Free plan is limited to two-step Zaps: you need Professional. And if the row went to an external app such as Google Sheets instead of Zapier Tables, each row would cost 1 task.

How much do 10,000 runs per month cost?

For 10,000 new rows per month, our automation would cost $19.99 per month on Zapier, $20 on Make and €50 on n8n Cloud, on annual billing. Writing to Google Sheets, Zapier would rise to $129. That’s a calculation from our measurements and the November 12, 2026 price grids, not an invoice.

Make’s figure adds 10,000 writes to the feed checks: at the default 15-minute interval, 96 per day, about 2,880 over 30 days. Total: about 12,900 credits, above the 10,000 tier, hence the 20,000 tier (Core $20, Pro $36, Teams $66). Writing to Google Sheets doesn’t change Make’s count: its FAQ lists writing a row to a Google Sheet as a 1-credit action. On n8n, Starter’s 2,500 executions aren’t enough: you need Pro.

The tables fill up too. Zapier Professional allows 100,000 Tables records per account, so 10 months at this rate. Make’s 20,000-credit tier gives 20 MB of storage, for about 2.2 MB of rows per month.

Per unit, the gap looks wider: 10,000 Make Core credits cost $11 per month, 10,000 n8n Pro executions €50 and 10,000 Zapier Professional tasks $129. But one unit isn’t worth another. On the first read of our feed, Make counted 4 credits and Zapier 0 tasks.

Zapier: why 0 tasks, and when does that change?

Zapier bills per task: one successful action, one task. What doesn’t count matters as much as what does. The trigger, filters, tests and Zapier Tables or Forms steps are free, and the pricing page says so: “Zapier never charges you a task to check for new data”. So our Zap ran at 0 tasks.

The Free plan gives 100 tasks per month, two-step Zaps only and 2,500 Tables records per account (100,000 on Professional). Professional starts at $19.99 per month for 750 tasks on annual billing ($29.99 on monthly billing) and costs $129 for 10,000 tasks ($193.50 on monthly billing). Team starts at $69 and costs $169 at 10,000 tasks. At the plan limit, Zapier switches to per-task billing unless you turn it off. We didn’t recheck the tiers in between on November 12: they’re on the slider of the pricing page.

One caveat: the same help page says that from December 1, 2026, “Next Gen Zaps” will use at least 1 task per completed run. The rules above are those of classic Zaps, and we didn’t check which type of Zap our trial created. Zapier lists 9,000+ apps: if your automation lives in Tables, Forms and filters, it costs little. Once it writes to an external app, every row counts.

Make: one credit per check, even an empty one

Make counts one credit per action, including the RSS read that finds nothing: we measured it, 1 credit for a run with no new video. The filter costs nothing. That credit per check weighs on the 10,000-run calculation, and even more on the free plan.

The Free plan gives 1,000 credits per month, 2 active scenarios and 1 MB of storage, with no credit card. At the default 15-minute interval, our scenario would run 96 checks per day: the Free plan would last about ten days, even without a new video. For 10,000 credits per month, Core costs $11, Pro $20 and Teams $36 on annual billing ($16, $28 and $51 on monthly billing). For 20,000 credits: Core $20, Pro $36, Teams $66.

The router and error handlers use no credits. Credits expire at the end of each period, and when none are left, scenarios stop until you buy bundles of 1,000 or 10,000 credits. Every 1,000 credits give 1 MB of storage. Companies with fewer than 20 employees can apply for the Start-up Plan, with 50% off Business. The pricing FAQ cites more than 1,000 apps.

Make is the only one of the three whose first test wrote every video in the feed: “Run once” wrote 3, while Zapier and n8n tested a single item. Field mapping is done by clicking on pills. The data store, on the other hand, asks you to create a data structure before the first write.

n8n Cloud: one execution per useful run

n8n counts one execution per complete workflow run, whatever the number of steps. Like Zapier, it doesn’t charge for an empty check: 0 production executions after about 20 minutes of polling every minute. For a source that rarely changes, that’s a clear edge over Make.

The n8n Cloud trial lasts 14 days, with no credit card: 1,000 executions, 5 concurrent executions, 180 seconds maximum per execution. After that, on annual billing, Starter costs €20 per month (2,500 executions, 1 shared project, 5 concurrent executions) and Pro €50 (10,000 executions, 3 shared projects, up to 50 concurrent executions). Business, at €667 for 40,000 executions, exists only as self-hosted. All plans include unlimited users and workflows.

The “Monthly” button on the pricing page didn’t respond on November 12: we don’t have the monthly price. The Community edition, which you host yourself, is available on GitHub. No license fee, but the server, updates and backups are on you.

What went wrong during the test?

One outage on YouTube’s side and two problems on ours, none on the tools’ side.

• The YouTube feed returned 404 for about 20 minutes. n8n showed “Request failed with status code 404”. At the same time, curl from our server also got 404 (6 tries), while another channel’s feed returned 200: the outage came from YouTube, not n8n. The playlist version of the feed URL returned 404 too.
• Our first n8n filter contained only “y”, an entry cut short by our agent: it dropped everything. Once fixed, it kept 1 item.
• Network errors (“ERR_NETWORK”, “Can’t connect to n8n”) came from our server, whose IPv6 reached neither Zapier nor Make. They say nothing about the tools.

What about Activepieces?

Activepieces was not tested, and its prices were not rechecked on November 12. On October 18, 2026, its pricing page listed a free plan with 1,000 credits per month, Plus at $20 per month (10,000 credits, monthly billing) and Team at $200 (50,000 credits). We don’t know whether it counts an empty check, so it stays out of the 10,000-run calculation.

Our pick: Make to get started

If you open only one, start with Make. In our test, it’s the only one whose free plan ran the full automation with no time-limited trial: 5 credits used out of 1,000, with no credit card. It’s also the cheapest of the three once rows go to an external app: about $20 per month for 10,000 runs, versus $129 on Zapier and €50 on n8n Cloud.

This pick has its limits. Make counts every check: at a 15-minute interval, the free plan lasts only about ten days. If everything stays in Zapier Tables, Zapier Professional costs about the same ($19.99). And for workflows with many steps, n8n counts a single execution where Make counts every action. Only Make pays us a commission: Zapier and n8n are compared without an affiliate link.

What we have not verified

• Reliability over several weeks: our test covers two runs on Make and about 20 minutes of polling on n8n.
• Build time for a person: our recordings measure agents.
• A real write to Google Sheets: the task per row on Zapier comes from its rules, not from our test.
• The type of our Zap (classic or Next Gen) and how the December 1, 2026 rules affect its counter.
• Zapier’s tiers in between and above 10,000 tasks, and n8n’s monthly price.
• Activepieces, compared from its October 18, 2026 page.
• The real number of apps: Zapier lists 9,000+, Make’s FAQ more than 1,000, and n8n’s pricing page gives no figure.
• The real cost of self-hosting n8n.