For a medium‑sized business, n8n (especially self‑hosted) is usually best long‑term if you have technical people, while Make is often the best balance for mixed or non‑technical teams, and Zapier tends to be the most expensive and restrictive at scale. Zapier is excellent for quick wins and very simple setups, but its task‑based pricing and limited workflow flexibility often make it the weakest long‑term choice once volume and complexity grow. digidop
High‑level summary
For a growing, medium‑sized business that expects to automate more and more over time:
- Choose n8n if you have developers/DevOps, care about data control, and want the lowest long‑term total cost of ownership.
- Choose Make if you want powerful visual workflows and good pricing but prefer not to run your own infrastructure.
- Use Zapier sparingly for very simple, low‑volume automations or where its huge app catalog is a hard requirement.
Quick comparison table
| Criterion | Zapier | Make | n8n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Task‑based: each step/action is a task, including filters/formatters; complex flows become very expensive. neondigitalmedia | Operation/credit‑based: each module/action spends credits; cheaper than Zapier for most real‑world scenarios, but still consumption‑based. neondigitalmedia | Execution‑based: one workflow run = one execution, regardless of steps; shines for complex and AI‑heavy flows. neondigitalmedia |
| Typical cost (≈10k ops/month) | 10k tasks/month can easily push you into 200+ USD/month territory. neondigitalmedia | 10k operations/month is around 9–11 USD/month on entry plans. neondigitalmedia | Self‑host: software is free; a VPS for many SMB workloads is ≈20 USD/month. Cloud: ≈60 USD/month for 10k executions. neondigitalmedia |
| Self‑hosting | Not available, 100% SaaS. parseur | Not available, 100% SaaS. parseur | Fully supported; open‑source/fair‑code with Docker, Kubernetes, etc. summarizemeeting |
| Integrations | ≈6–8k+ apps, largest library on the market. neondigitalmedia | ≈1.5–2k integrations; fewer than Zapier but generally deeper connectors. neondigitalmedia | ≈1k native nodes, but can talk to any public API via HTTP/custom code. neondigitalmedia |
| Ease of use | Easiest: linear trigger‑action model, templates, very low learning curve for business users. neondigitalmedia | Visual canvas with branches, routers, error routes; more powerful, moderate learning curve. neondigitalmedia | Node‑based, closer to dev tool; requires setup and at least some coding comfort. summarizemeeting |
| Ideal audience | Non‑technical teams with simple, low‑volume automations. parseur | Power users, operations/marketing teams, and SMBs needing complex flows without infra management. neondigitalmedia | Technical teams, data‑sensitive orgs, and high‑volume/AI‑heavy use cases. summarizemeeting |
Cost and scalability over the long term
Zapier counts every step as a task, including filters, formatters, and branches, so any non‑trivial workflow multiplies your task usage. That makes it very predictable but also very expensive once you hit thousands or tens of thousands of records per month; many reviews show Zapier becoming the costliest of the three at medium–high scale. lumberjack
Make’s operation‑based billing is significantly more forgiving. The free tier gives 1,000 operations, and around 9–10 USD/month buys you 10,000 operations, often 40–60% cheaper than a comparable Zapier workload. However, it is still consumption‑based: badly designed or very chatty workflows (especially with AI modules) can burn through credits faster than expected. neondigitalmedia
With n8n, self‑hosting removes per‑task licensing altogether: you pay for infrastructure only, and execution‑based counting (in cloud plans) means a 5‑step flow and a 200‑step AI agent can both cost “1 execution” if they run once. At medium and high complexity, this often translates into order‑of‑magnitude savings versus Zapier and clear savings versus Make, especially if you’re comfortable tuning your own server. xcloud
Technical flexibility, self‑hosting, and data control
Zapier and Make are pure SaaS: you get vendor‑managed security, uptime, and scaling, but your data must flow through their cloud and remain within their compliance boundaries. For many SMBs this is fine; for regulated industries, strict data‑residency requirements, or customers who require on‑prem options, this can be a blocker. summarizemeeting
n8n’s biggest differentiator is self‑hosting: you can run it on your own infrastructure (or a dedicated VPS), keep data within your own network/VPC, and control latency, retention, and throughput limits yourself. That makes it very attractive for medium‑sized companies that either already run containers/servers or are willing to invest in that capability, because you are no longer locked into a vendor’s rate limits and roadmaps. contabo
Integrations and UX
Zapier has the widest app catalog, so for very niche SaaS tools it often “just works” without custom HTTP work. Its linear trigger‑→‑action model and library of templates let marketing, sales, and ops teams build simple flows (like “when a new lead is created, send a Slack message and add to a sheet”) with almost no guidance. digidop
Make’s canvas‑style editor is much better for visually complex flows: you can see branches, error paths, and parallel routes on a single diagram, which is extremely useful for medium‑sized businesses with tangled processes. Connectors often expose deeper object fields than the Zapier equivalents, and built‑in transformers make it easy to massage data without code. lumberjack
n8n’s editor also uses a node‑based graph, but leans more toward a developer‑friendly tool: custom JavaScript, HTTP nodes, and advanced logic are standard, and you can extend it with your own nodes or packages. The trade‑off is that non‑technical users generally need some enablement; n8n is superb as a central automation “platform” owned by engineering, less so as a self‑service toy for every department. reddit
AI and advanced automation
Zapier focuses on making AI easy, not deep: natural‑language automation builders and simple ChatGPT/OpenAI steps that any user can drop into flows. This works well for simple classification or content‑generation tasks but offers limited control over advanced agent‑style patterns. parseur
Make gives you strong AI connectors (OpenAI and others) and lets you wire them into complex routes and transformations; however, AI modules consume operations, which can push bills up for heavy usage. thinkpeak
n8n currently leads on technical AI depth: LangChain nodes, support for multiple LLM providers, and the ability to compose RAG pipelines and agents directly in workflows. Combined with execution‑based pricing and self‑hosting, this makes n8n particularly attractive for medium‑sized companies planning to run serious AI workloads (document QA, routing, enrichment, ticket triage, etc.) through automation. blog.n8n
Practical guidance for medium‑sized businesses
-
If you have real dev/DevOps capacity and automation is strategic
Use n8n as your core automation layer, preferably self‑hosted. You get long‑term cost control, strong AI capabilities, and full data sovereignty, at the price of some infra and governance work. xcloud -
If your technical capacity is limited but business teams want complex workflows
Make is usually the sweet spot: far cheaper and more powerful than Zapier for medium‑complexity flows, but still SaaS and relatively easy to onboard power users onto. neondigitalmedia -
If you mainly need a few simple automations and ultra‑fast non‑technical adoption
Zapier can still be the right choice, especially in the early stage or for isolated use cases—just be aware that if volume and complexity grow, migration to Make or n8n is a likely future step. digidop
Given your background (strong engineering, comfortable with Docker and backends), for any company you build or advise, a hybrid of “n8n as the backbone + Make for certain visual/no‑code friendly flows” will almost always give the best long‑term mix of cost, control, and usability. summarizemeeting