Zapier bills every step of every run and looks after everything else. n8n bills the run, however long it is, and hands you more of the work: a canvas that expects some technical comfort, and a server if you want the free version.
also searched as: n8n vs zapier · zapier vs n8n · n8n or zapier · zapier or n8n · n8n vs zapier pricing · n8n vs zapier vs make · n8n vs zapier reddit
Pick n8n if someone on your team is happy to own it, whether that means a server for the free Community Edition or just a canvas with code in it, and your workflows are long or run thousands of times a month.
Pick Zapier if the person building is not technical, the apps are mainstream SaaS, and the volume is low enough that paying per step costs less than an hour of anyone's time.
Pick neither if you want it hosted, nobody on the team writes code, and Zapier's per-task bill is the thing that hurt, because that is the gap Make is priced for, with 10,000 credits listed from $9 a month.
prices checked 2026-10-05 · by dan scutaru
| n8n | Zapier | |
|---|---|---|
| price | free tier · from €24/mo | free tier · from $29.99/mo |
| free tier | Self-hosted Community Edition only: no licence fee and no execution cap, on your own server, without SSO, projects, sharing or Git version control. n8n Cloud has a trial (1,000 executions), not a free plan. | 100 tasks per month, two-step Zaps only, no webhooks, premium apps or Paths. Zapier Agents adds 400 activities per month on its own free tier. |
| runs on | web, self-hosted | web |
| what you are billed for | an execution: one full workflow run, any number of steps | a task: each successful action step. Triggers, filters and paths do not count |
| 10,000 units a month | Pro, 10,000 executions: €60 billed monthly, €50 annually | Professional, 10,000 tasks: $193.50 billed monthly, $129 annually |
| when the allowance runs out | on Cloud, new executions fail with an error until the calendar month resets | runs are held, or pay-per-task billing carries on at a higher rate up to 3x your plan |
| self-hosting | yes. Community Edition, no execution cap, no licence fee | no, cloud only |
| integrations | 2,312 listed in n8n's own directory, plus any API through the HTTP node | 9,000+ apps |
Take one workflow: a trigger and four actions, running 2,000 times a month. Zapier bills each action and not the trigger, so that is 8,000 tasks. The 5,000 tier is too small, which puts you on Professional at 10,000 tasks: $193.50 billed monthly, $129 a month billed annually.
n8n bills the run. That is 2,000 executions, inside Cloud Starter's 2,500: €24 billed monthly, €20 annually. Note the currency. n8n charges in euros, and many comparisons print the same number with a dollar sign. Cut the workflow to one action and Zapier falls to 2,000 tasks, $73.50 a month. n8n's price does not move.
The Community Edition runs on your own server with no licence fee and no execution cap. It leaves out SSO, projects, workflow sharing and Git version control. Those start at Business, €800 a month for 40,000 executions.
What you pay instead is attention. One self-hoster on n8n's own forum, a year in, put it at a $6 VPS and "maybe 1-2hrs/month on server stuff". That is small if Docker, backups and updates are familiar, and open-ended if they are not. n8n Cloud removes the server. It does not remove the learning curve.
In n8n you assemble an agent: a model, instructions, tools, memory, MCP servers, and an approval step for anything sensitive. One turn counts as one execution, and the model bill is separate, either your own API key or prepaid Gateway credits on Cloud.
Zapier Agents are set up with Copilot and run on activities, an allowance separate from tasks: 400 a month free, 1,500 on Agents Pro at $400 a year. Zapier MCP is a third meter. Each tool call from your AI app uses two tasks. Before you build on Zapier, check which meter the idea lands on.
Make is hosted like Zapier and visual like n8n, with branching on a canvas and no server to run. It bills per step too, at a much lower rate: the Core plan lists 10,000 credits from $9 a month. Make counts the trigger, so the example above, five modules run 2,000 times, is 10,000 credits and lands exactly on that plan. Because the meter is per step, it gets expensive the same way Zapier does, only later.
For long workflows at volume, yes, because n8n charges once per run and Zapier charges per step. For a non-technical person connecting common apps a few hundred times a month, no. Zapier has about four times the integrations and nothing to maintain.
The self-hosted Community Edition is free, and you supply the server and the upkeep. n8n Cloud is not free. It has a trial with 1,000 executions, then Starter at €24 billed monthly. The full answer →
Yes, within limits: 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps only, with no webhooks, premium apps or Paths. Multi-step Zaps start on Professional, $29.99 billed monthly for 750 tasks. The full answer →
Not strictly. The code is public under n8n's Sustainable Use License, which the company calls fair-code. You can run and modify it for internal business or personal use. Commercial use beyond that is restricted, so read the licence before selling n8n hosting to clients.