n8n vs Zapier vs Make in 2026: Prices and When to Go Custom

Short answer: the subscriptions are the small number. n8n Cloud starts at €20 a month, Make Core at $12 a month and Zapier Professional from $19.99 a month, while a custom-built version of the same workflows costs $15,000 to $50,000 to build, $50,000 to $100,000 for larger scopes, and $5,000 to $10,000 a month to keep running and extending. So the real choice is not which tool is cheapest. It is what a failed or hand-patched workflow costs your 50-person operation each week, and who owns the fix. Every third-party price below was read from the vendor's own page on 9 October 2026.

For a range on your own project in about a minute, use the AI development cost calculator.

The routes and what each costs

The three tools meter differently, and that matters more than the headline price. n8n counts one execution per workflow run however many steps it has. Make and Zapier meter the steps (credits and tasks), so a five-step workflow run 10,000 times consumes a multiple of 10,000 against your plan. Use each vendor's plan selector for your real volume before comparing.

What a year actually costs

Take the subscription first. n8n Pro is €50 a month billed annually, so €600 a year for 10,000 runs of any length. Make Core is $12 a month, about $144 a year, for 10,000 credits. A $15,000 build equals roughly 25 years of n8n Pro. On subscriptions alone, a custom build never wins, and no honest comparison should pretend it does.

Now add the people, with the assumptions stated. Say three people in a 50-person operation each lose two hours a week to automations that failed, double-posted or need a manual patch. That is 6 hours a week, 312 hours a year, and at $30 an hour (the low end of the Upwork range) $9,360 a year. A $15,000 Starter build is paid back in about 19 months on that one line, before counting a lost order or a customer who got the wrong email. The decision is how often your workflows break and what a break costs, not the plan price.

What moves the number

These six items decide whether the tools are enough or the work needs to become software.

1. Volume and steps. Metering by task or credit multiplies with every step. Metering by run stays flat. Estimate runs a month times steps a run before you compare plans.
2. Failure cost. If a failed step can wait until someone notices, the tools fit. If it costs money, a customer or a compliance record, you need retries, alerts and an owner.
3. Shared records. Tools pass data through. Once several people need to see, search and edit the same records, the workflow needs its own data model.
4. AI steps. A model call inside a workflow needs testing against real samples, a fallback and a human check, not just a connection.
5. Hosting and security. Self-hosting n8n moves patching, backups and access control to you. Cloud plans move them to the vendor and cost per execution.
6. Who maintains it. Every workflow has an owner on the day it is built and often none a year later. Budget for the person, not only the licence.

Three quotes for the same brief

Write a one-page brief: the five workflows that matter most, the systems each touches, the monthly volume, what happens when a step fails, and who fixes it. Send the same page to three kinds of provider.

• A freelancer will quote the happy path, usually $500 to $8,000 for one or several workflows. Ask who monitors it, who fixes it when an app changes its API, and whether the account is yours.
• A no-code consultant will quote a build on one of the three tools plus a monthly fee. Ask what you own at the end and what the bill becomes at three times today's volume.
• A product team will quote a fixed scope with milestones, usually in the $15,000 to $50,000 band for a first production workflow. Ask for the exception register, test evidence on your own data and what you receive at handover.

A low quote that leaves out failure handling and monitoring is not cheaper. It moves that cost to you later.

What the Starter band buys at KUMO

KUMO's Starter build runs $15,000 to $50,000. For workflow automation that typically buys one production workflow set: your own data model for the records the workflows share, the integrations to your core systems, retries and an exception queue so a failed step reaches a named person, AI steps with confidence checks and a review screen, monitoring and alerts, a runbook, and a handover where you own the code and accounts from day one. KUMO often builds around n8n rather than against it; see how KUMO works with n8n. Delivery is usually 4 to 12 weeks depending on the number of systems.

Larger scopes with many teams, strict permissions or data migration sit in the $50,000 to $100,000 band. Once it is live and you want a team that owns, monitors and extends it, ongoing engineering is $5,000 to $10,000 per month.

KUMO's founders built Volopay's first production version as its founding engineers; the Volopay case study shows that work, and the AI workflow automation service page explains how the first milestone is scoped.

Costs after launch

Budget for these on top of the build or the subscription, whichever route you pick.

• Usage growth. Task and credit plans scale with volume. Set a usage alert and re-check the plan every quarter.
• Hosting. Self-hosted n8n needs a server, backups, updates and someone on call. Cloud plans fold this into the bill.
• Maintenance. Apps change their APIs and fields. Freelancers list ongoing support at $1,500 to $5,000 a month; a product team prices it inside the $5,000 to $10,000 monthly band.
• Review and exceptions. The time a person spends clearing failed or flagged runs is usually the largest recurring line.

How to get a real number this week

1. List your workflows and count monthly runs and steps for each.
2. Check the failures: how many broke last month, what each cost in hours, and who fixed it.
3. Write the one-page brief described above.
4. Collect three quotes against that page and ask each to list what is excluded.
5. Run the calculator at kumohq.co/ai-development-cost-calculator to sanity-check the range.
6. Book a scoping call. If you want a fixed number against a published band, book a free consultation call and bring the list.

For related reading, see what n8n is and how it works, the no-code automation tools guide and the workflow automation cost guide.

FAQ

Which is cheaper, n8n, Make or Zapier? At entry level the headline prices are n8n Cloud Starter €20 a month, Make Core $12 a month and Zapier Professional from $19.99 a month, but they meter differently: n8n per run, Make per credit, Zapier per task. Compare at your real runs a month times steps a run.

Is n8n really free? The Community Edition is a self-hosted version available on GitHub with no price listed, but you pay for the server, backups, updates and the time to run it. n8n Cloud starts at €20 a month billed annually.

What is the cheapest way to run 10,000 automations a month? On n8n Cloud, Pro at €50 a month billed annually covers 10K executions with unlimited steps. On Make, Core at $12 a month covers 10K credits, which a multi-step workflow uses faster than one per run. Zapier's price depends on the task tier you select.

n8n vs Make vs Zapier: which one should a 50-person company use? Zapier has the largest app library and the fastest setup, Make suits complex visual scenarios, and n8n suits teams that want self-hosting or per-run pricing. All three suit chains of existing tools at modest volume. Once failures cost money or several people share the records, the workflow becomes software.

When should we move from n8n to custom development? When the workflow needs its own data model, when a failed step costs money or a customer, when several people need to see and change the same records, or when an AI step must be tested and monitored. A $15,000 to $50,000 Starter build is the usual first step.

How much does it cost to have someone build the workflows? On Upwork, a single workflow runs $500 to $2,500, a multiapp integration $2,500 to $8,000 and an end-to-end system $10,000 to $40,000. A KUMO Starter build is $15,000 to $50,000 with monitoring and handover included.

Last verified 9 October 2026. Prices were read that day from n8n.io/pricing, make.com/en/pricing, zapier.com/pricing and upwork.com/hire/ai-workflow-specialists. Vendor prices are list prices in the currency shown on each page and can change; check the page before you buy.

In this series: Business automation: n8n, no-code and custom

• What Is n8n? Open-Source Workflow Automation Tool
• Best No-Code Automation Tools for Small Businesses in 2026, Priced
• 10 AI Automation Examples That Saved Companies $1M+ in 2025
• How to Automate Business Processes in 2026: A Practical Guide
• Workflow Automation Cost in 2026: $12 a Month to $15K to $50K
• n8n Consultant vs In-House Automation Engineer: Cost, Control, Risk

For the build itself, see how KUMO delivers this.