Zapier vs Make vs n8n: which one should your business actually use?

We build on all three. They are not interchangeable, and the right answer usually comes down to volume, how weird your logic is, and who maintains it after launch.

Updated August 2026
By Lee Sheedy, Founder & Director
For Australian business owners and operations managers
Read 10 minutes
Short answer

Zapier if you want the widest app support and the least fuss, and your volumes are modest. Make if your logic has branches, loops and error handling, and you want more workflow for the same money. n8n if you run high volume, need to self-host for data-control reasons, or want to avoid per-task pricing entirely. Most businesses start on Zapier and move when the bill or the logic outgrows it.

All three do the same fundamental thing: something happens in one system, and they make something happen in another. The differences show up once the workflow stops being a straight line, and once you are running it thousands of times a month.

01 What they have in common

Each connects to hundreds of applications, runs on a trigger, and can be built without writing code. Each will handle the common jobs — a form filling in, a customer being created, a record syncing — perfectly well. If your requirement is genuinely simple, any of the three will do it and the choice matters less than getting started.

02 Zapier

The largest app library by a wide margin, and the gentlest to learn. If you use a niche Australian tool, Zapier is the most likely of the three to already support it.

  • Best at: breadth of integrations, speed of setup, non-technical maintainers.
  • Weakest at: complex branching, and cost once task volume climbs.
  • Watch for: multi-step workflows consume a task per step, so a seven-step Zap running 500 times a month is 3,500 tasks, not 500.

03 Make

Visually a different proposition: you build on a canvas rather than in a list, which suits workflows that fork. Iterators, aggregators and proper error handlers are first-class, so logic that becomes awkward in Zapier stays readable in Make.

  • Best at: branching logic, loops, working through arrays, retry and error paths.
  • Weakest at: the learning curve, and a smaller app library than Zapier.
  • Watch for: the canvas is easy to sprawl. Undocumented Make scenarios get hard to inherit.

04 n8n

Source-available and self-hostable, which changes the economics and the data story. Run it on your own infrastructure and the per-task meter disappears; your cost becomes the server. For high-volume work that difference is not marginal.

  • Best at: volume, custom code inside a workflow, keeping data on infrastructure you control.
  • Weakest at: it expects more technical confidence, and self-hosting is a real responsibility.
  • Watch for: if you self-host, you own uptime, updates and backups. That is a genuine cost, just not a subscription.
The question people forget

Who maintains this in a year? A workflow is not finished when it runs; it is finished when someone other than the builder can fix it. If nobody in the business is technical, that argues for the simplest platform that will do the job, or for a support arrangement. It is the single most common reason automation quietly stops working.

05 The pricing model is the real difference

Zapier and Make both meter usage. Zapier counts tasks, roughly one per action step. Make counts operations similarly but tends to give you more of them for the same spend, which is why busy workflows often land there.

n8n self-hosted removes the meter. You pay for a server whether it runs ten workflows or ten thousand. Below a certain volume that is worse value than a subscription; above it, it is dramatically better. Work out your expected monthly run count before choosing, because this is the decision that shows up on next year's card statement.

06 How we choose

Three questions, in order.

  • Does the platform support your systems? If only one of them connects to a system you cannot replace, the decision is made.
  • How complicated is the logic? Straight lines suit Zapier. Branches, loops and retries suit Make.
  • What is the run volume? High and growing pushes towards n8n. Modest and stable does not.

There is no prize for picking the sophisticated option. Most businesses are well served by the simplest tool that covers the job, and the cost of over-engineering is paid every time something needs changing.

07 Switching later

Workflows do not port between platforms. Moving means rebuilding, so the cost of switching rises with every workflow you add. That is an argument for thinking about volume at the start, not for agonising over it: a handful of workflows is cheap to move, forty is not.

Next step

We build on all three and pick per project rather than by preference. If you want a straight answer for your systems and volumes, our free audit covers exactly that. See business automation, or read about systems integration if your problem is getting platforms talking at all.