If you are automating a small business, three names come up: Zapier, Make (formerly Integromat), and n8n. They solve the same broad problem: connect your tools so work happens without a human copying data between them, but they make very different trade-offs. This is a practical comparison from running all three in production, not a feature table.
The one-line summary
- Zapier: the fastest to start, the largest connector library, and the most expensive at volume.
- Make: more powerful visual workflows and better value than Zapier, with a steeper learning curve.
- n8n: the most control and the best economics at scale (because you can self-host it), at the cost of running it yourself.
Pricing is the decision most people get wrong
Zapier and Make bill by usage: tasks or operations. That is fine at low volume and brutal at high volume. An automation that fires ten times a day is cheap. The same automation firing ten thousand times a day on a per-task plan becomes a real line item, and you start rationing automations to control cost, which defeats the point.
n8n, self-hosted, flips this. It runs on a server you control, so the cost is roughly fixed whether it processes a thousand executions or a million. The crossover point varies, but once you are running serious volume, self-hosted n8n is usually dramatically cheaper. You trade a subscription for a small amount of infrastructure you look after.
Control and reach
Public automation SaaS can only connect to what its connectors support, and only in the ways those connectors allow. That covers the popular tools well and your internal systems not at all.
n8n's advantage is reach: it can run arbitrary code, call any API, and sit inside your own network to talk to internal databases and services that a public SaaS will never reach. If your automations need to touch a bespoke system, such as your operational database, a custom pricing engine, or an internal API, this is often the deciding factor.
Ease vs responsibility
The flip side of n8n's control is that you own it. Someone has to host it, keep it updated, monitor it, and back it up. Zapier and Make handle all of that for you: that is what you are paying for. For a team with no technical resource and a few simple automations, that convenience is worth the price.
How to choose
- Choose Zapier if you need something live today, your automations are simple, and volume is low. The connector library and polish are unmatched for getting started.
- Choose Make if you want more powerful workflows and better pricing than Zapier, and you are comfortable with a visual builder that rewards a bit of learning.
- Choose n8n if automation is central to how you operate, volumes are growing, you need to reach internal systems, or per-task pricing has started to hurt, and you have (or can hire) someone to run it.
A common, sensible path
Many businesses start on Zapier to prove the value quickly, then move the high-volume or internally-connected automations to self-hosted n8n once the per-task bill and the connector limits start to bite. The early SaaS spend is not wasted: it tells you exactly which automations are worth owning.
We run self-hosted n8n on our own infrastructure and build automation systems for clients on top of it. See how we approach business automation, or book a call to talk through what is worth automating in your operation and where it should run.