n8n vs Make vs Zapier: which automation tool fits your business?

You've got a form here, a CRM there and a spreadsheet somewhere else, and you're copying details between them by hand. Someone told you to "just use Zapier". Someone else swears by Make, and a developer friend keeps mentioning n8n. All three can do the job. The right one depends on how complex your automations are, how often they run, and how comfortable you are with a bit of code.

I use all three for clients, alongside plain code on Cloudflare, so this is the comparison I'd give you over coffee.

n8n vs Make vs Zapier at a glance

Pricing for all three changes often and is billed in US dollars, so check their current pricing pages before you commit. What matters more than today's price is the billing model, because it decides what happens to your bill as you grow.

Zapier: the easiest, and the priciest per task

Zapier is where most people start, and for good reason. You pick a trigger ("new form submission"), pick an action ("create contact"), map the fields, and you're done. Its app library is the largest of the three, so if a tool has any integration at all, it's probably on Zapier.

The catch is the billing. Each action step that runs usually counts as a task. A zap with five actions that runs 500 times a month can use around 2,500 tasks. Simple automations stay cheap. Long, busy ones get expensive quickly.

Two lessons I've learned the hard way:

• Zapier caches the last test output of each step. If you change the trigger's sample data, re-test every step from the top down, or later steps keep mapping old values.
• On any zap that creates records, set autoreplay to "never". Otherwise a failed run can replay later and create a duplicate contact or job.

Use Zapier when the job is simple, the apps are mainstream, and you want it working this afternoon.

Make: cheaper per operation, better at multi-step logic

Make (formerly Integromat) shows your automation as a flowchart of modules. That makes it much easier to build routers (if this, do that), loops over lists and proper error handling. For anything with branches, Make is usually clearer than Zapier, and per operation it generally works out cheaper.

It takes longer to learn, and it has its own traps:

• A module can't reference its own output. If you need a value it produces, use it in the next module.
• Anything outside an iterator's flow runs once, not once per item, so only the last item's data survives.
• If no router branch matches, the bundle simply stops. Nothing errors, so nothing tells you. Add a fallback branch.

Use Make when the process has several steps or decisions, you want to keep costs down, and you don't mind a learning curve.

n8n: self-hostable, code-friendly, cheapest at volume

n8n looks similar to Make, but it's built for people who don't mind getting technical. You can drop a Code node into any workflow and write JavaScript, call almost any API with its HTTP Request node, and run the whole thing on your own server.

Self-hosting is the big difference. The community edition is free to run under n8n's fair-code licence, so at high volume you're paying for a server instead of per task. Its cloud plans count whole workflow executions rather than individual steps, which also favours long workflows.

The trade-off is responsibility. A self-hosted n8n needs updates, backups and monitoring. If nobody in your business will do that, use n8n's cloud plan or pick Make.

Use n8n when you run a lot of automations, want control over where your data lives, or have someone technical on hand.

When a Cloudflare Worker beats all three

Sometimes the right answer is none of them. A Cloudflare Worker is a small piece of code that runs on Cloudflare's network when a request comes in or on a schedule. It's billed per request, with a free tier, rather than per step, so a process that runs thousands of times a day can cost very little.

I reach for a Worker when:

1. Volume is high, for example messages or webhooks arriving all day.
2. Something needs checking every few minutes, which eats tasks in no-code tools.
3. The logic is custom enough that a no-code flow turns into spaghetti.
4. The data should live in your own database, not scattered across tool histories.

The downside is that it's code, and someone has to write and maintain it. I cover this in more detail in Cloudflare Workers for small business automations.

How to choose: a quick checklist

1. List the automations you need and roughly how often each will run per month.
2. Count the steps in each. Many steps plus high volume points away from Zapier.
3. Check that your apps have connectors in the tool, or at least a usable API.
4. Decide who will fix it when it breaks. No technical person usually means Zapier or Make.
5. Price your real monthly usage on each vendor's current pricing page, not just the starter plan.
6. Wherever you build, keep API keys out of any blueprint or template you share.

If you already use GoHighLevel, try its built-in workflows first. An outside tool only makes sense when GoHighLevel can't do the job natively. I go deeper on that in GoHighLevel with Zapier or Make.

Where I can help

I build and fix automations in all three tools, and in code on Cloudflare when that's the better fit. A quick automation starts from R2,950, connecting GoHighLevel to Zapier, Make or n8n starts from R3,500, and larger custom work is R950/hour, always quoted in writing first. Platform subscriptions are billed to you by the platforms at cost. See CRM and automation for what's included, or tell me what you're trying to automate and I'll tell you which tool I'd use.