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n8n vs Make vs Zapier for AI agents
Three automation tools walk into a bar and each charges for the drinks in a different unit. I read the pricing pages so you don't have to, and I only kept the facts I could link to. Prices change, so every row says where it came from and when I looked.
| n8n | Make | Zapier | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you are billed for | One workflow execution, however many steps it has source | Credits; most module actions cost one credit source | Tasks: each successful action. Triggers and built-in tools are free source |
| Self-hosting | Yes. Community Edition is free to self-host; you pay for infrastructure source | No. Cloud only source | No. Cloud only source |
| Licence | Sustainable Use License: fair-code, not OSI open source. You may not host it as a service where clients build workflows source | Proprietary SaaS source | Proprietary SaaS source |
| Free tier (as listed on codetoolpilot.com) | No free cloud plan (trial); free self-hosted edition source | 1,000 credits a month source | 100 tasks a month source |
| AI building blocks (same source) | AI Agent node, MCP server trigger and client source | Make AI Agents (listed as open beta), MCP server source | AI by Zapier steps, Agents, Chatbots, MCP source |
How to read this
- Long, multi-step workflows at volume are where per-execution billing and per-action billing differ most; do the arithmetic on your own workflow shape, because the sources say the savings percentages floating around are not reliable.
- If your data cannot leave your own servers, n8n is the only one of the three that the sources list as self-hostable.
- If you just want hosted and simple, the other two are cloud-only and hosted for you.
What people actually did with them
n8n: 40 cases here
- Triage car repair requests and reply to customers
- Run a business assistant that resumes project work
- Generate a spoken daily news bulletin at home
- Draft appeals for denied insurance claims
Make: 10 cases here
- Build purchase orders and track payables nightly
- Generate invoices automatically from a template
- Power a restaurant customer service chatbot backend
- Write, design and post social content from a Google Sheet