n8n vs Zapier vs Make: Which Automation Tool Is Right for You?

Selecting the right platform for your workload is more than just picking the cheapest option. You also need to factor in your team’s technical, application, and data security capabilities, as well as your data security requirements. For technical teams running larger workloads, self-hosting n8n can provide more control over data, infrastructure, and long-term costs. The trade-off is that someone still needs to configure, secure, monitor, and maintain the server.n8n is being actively developed, which is both a blessing and a curse. You will get access to new features, but you will also need to upgrade frequently to receive the latest security patches, bug fixes, and new integration nodes.You will learn:Start managing your self-hosted n8n server with RunCloud.

• How n8n, Zapier, and Make calculate workflow usage
• What each platform may cost as your automation volume grows
• When self-hosted automation offers better control and more predictable costs
• What running n8n on your own server requires
• How RunCloud can reduce the server administration involved in hosting n8n

When calculating your hardware budget, keep in mind that n8n stores execution data by default. Every step of every workflow run writes data to your database. If you process thousands of executions daily, a standard 25 GB SSD can fill up within weeks, potentially freezing the server.

Comparing n8n vs. Zapier vs. Make

RunCloud helps remove much of that server management work.

Comparing Costs at Scale

For many organizations, the long-term financial math of self-hosted automation is highly compelling. However, the primary barrier to entry is what is often called the “sysadmin tax.” If your team lacks dedicated DevOps resources or deep Linux command-line expertise, the prospect of managing SSH keys, writing reverse proxy rules, and manually maintaining database performance can feel like a steep price to pay.

• Zapier bills by Tasks (every successful action step in a workflow consumes a task).
• Make bills by Credits (every module action, such as fetching data, routing, or updating a record, consumes one credit). For Make’s “Make Code App”, there is a resource cost of 2 credits per second of code execution.
• n8n bills by Executions (one complete workflow run from trigger to final step equals one execution, regardless of complexity).

To illustrate how these billing philosophies affect your budget, consider a common business scenario: processing 10,000 leads per month using a standard 7-step automation process.

The Scenario: 7-Step Lead Enrichment Workflow

1. Trigger: Webhook captures a new lead.
2. Action 1: Searches a CRM database to check for an existing record.
3. Action 2: Filters and routes the lead based on geographic location.
4. Action 3: Formats and cleans the name and email address.
5. Action 4: Updates the CRM contact record.
6. Action 5: Sends an internal Slack notification to the sales team.
7. Action 6: Sends an automated introductory email to the prospect.

The Monthly Cost Breakdown

• Zapier: Because Webhook triggers don’t consume tasks, the remaining 6 actions count as tasks. Running this 10,000 times a month consumes 60,000 tasks. To accommodate this volume on Zapier’s Professional plan, you must scale your task tier, which will result in an estimated subscription cost of $300-$400 per month.
• Make: Most actions consume 1 credit, while some advanced features use more credits. Running this 10,000 times will consume at least 70,000 credits, but it can vary widely and could easily reach 200,000. This could cost you $110 to $315 per month.
• n8n Cloud: Because n8n bills purely per workflow execution, running this 7-step pipeline 10,000 times consumes exactly 10,000 executions. This is included in the n8n Pro plan, which costs 50€ per month (billed annually).
• n8n Self-Hosted: Running this workflow incurs no software licensing fees and only the cost of your underlying server infrastructure (typically $10-$20 per month for a standard cloud VPS).

Zapier and Make may suit teams that want a fully hosted platform and do not expect workflow costs to rise sharply with usage.

Comparing Flexibility & Custom Code

Each platform uses a completely different mechanism to calculate your monthly usage invoice.

• n8n: Was built with a developer-first mindset. n8n natively integrates JavaScript and Python code blocks across all deployment tiers. These code blocks run directly within the execution path, allowing complex array transformations, data parsing, and custom cryptography without incurring additional billing penalties.
• Zapier: Scripting is limited to basic “Code by Zapier” blocks. These steps are subject to strict run-time limits and memory allocations, and they consume standard task quotas, making heavy data manipulation costly.
• Make: Make’s greatest strength is its highly visual drag-and-drop routing and filtering interface, which allows non-technical users to easily build logical branches. For advanced logic, Make provides a “Make Code App” functionality; however, this incurs a 2-credit cost per 1 second of code execution, so complex scripts can rapidly drain your monthly credit pool.

Comparing Data Sovereignty & Security

A process that captures a lead, checks a CRM, cleans the data, sends a notification, and updates another system may consume several billable tasks or credits every time it runs. Multiply that by thousands of executions, and a modest monthly subscription can quickly become a major operating cost.

• Zapier and Make: Both are primarily managed cloud platforms. Workflow data is processed through infrastructure controlled by the provider, although the available security, data residency, and enterprise controls vary by platform and plan. Organizations handling regulated or sensitive data should assess those controls against their own legal, contractual, and compliance requirements.
• n8n Self-Hosted: With n8n Community Edition, you can run the platform on infrastructure you control. This gives you greater control over workflow data, credentials, execution logs, storage locations, and retention policies. You remain responsible for securing the server and configuring the deployment to meet your compliance requirements.

The True Cost of Self-Hosting n8n

Since n8n relies on webhooks to trigger workflows, your instance must run over a secure HTTPS connection. With RunCloud, security configuration is automated, and you can deploy and renew free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates with a single click inside the dashboard.Automation platforms often look inexpensive until your workflows start running at scale.

Infrastructure and Server Costs

Choosing between n8n, Zapier, and Make requires analyzing three things: long-term pricing structures, processing flexibility, and data security. In this section, we will compare how these three platforms handle real-world operational demands.When evaluating your overall n8n pricing self-hosting cost, the time spent on server administration is often the most significant expense to include in your n8n pricing calculations. 

Note: Pricing checked in June 2026. Actual costs depend on the selected plan, billing cycle, workflow configuration, feature usage, overage charges, and applicable taxes. Check each provider’s current pricing before making a purchasing decision.Use the following framework to determine which option fits your business needs.

• Sufficient SSD block storage (an extra $5 to $10/month).
• Correctly configured execution pruning rules (e.g., setting n8n environment variables to delete execution data older than 7 days).

The appeal of self-hosted automation is undeniable, particularly given n8n’s self-hosted pricing. By choosing to host n8n on your own infrastructure, you can bypass the execution limits associated with SaaS cloud plans and maintain complete control over your data.

Additional Operational Overhead for Hosting n8n

You can connect a cloud server from providers such as DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, or Linode, then manage key server tasks through the RunCloud dashboard. This includes SSL certificates, firewall settings, backups, server monitoring, database management, and security updates.

1. Server Provisioning and Security Setup

However, understanding the total n8n pricing self-hosting cost is essential, as running your own automation stack is rarely a “zero-cost” endeavor. While the n8n Community Edition has no software license fee, your overall n8n pricing will still need to account for hardware, database management, and maintenance.

2. Configuring SSL Certificates

By the end, you should have a clearer view of whether Zapier, Make, n8n Cloud, or a self-hosted n8n deployment is the right fit for your workload, technical resources, and budget.

3. Managing Updates and Preventing Downtime

To run n8n reliably in production, you need to provision a VPS from a cloud infrastructure provider. While n8n can technically run on very minimal resources, a production environment, especially one running a separate PostgreSQL database for execution logs, requires adequate RAM and CPU to prevent bottlenecks during concurrent executions.To trigger webhooks and connect securely to external APIs, your n8n instance must run over HTTPS. This requires installing SSL certificates. While Let’s Encrypt certificates are free, configuring them to renew automatically without disrupting your reverse proxy configuration requires ongoing maintenance.

Managing Self-Hosted n8n Without the System Admin Headache

That makes the choice between n8n vs. Zapier and n8n vs. Make more than a question of which workflow builder has the easiest interface. You also need to compare how each platform charges for usage, how much control it gives your developers, and where your business data is processed.If your organization operates in highly regulated fields such as healthcare (HIPAA), finance (PCI-DSS), or legal services, where customer data is highly sensitive, how data is handled is just as important as the cost.

How RunCloud Simplifies Self-Hosted Server Management

To maintain system stability, self-hosted administrators must budget for either:

• Less Routine Command-Line Management: RunCloud provides a visual dashboard for many recurring server management tasks, including monitoring, database administration, SSL management, backups, and application configuration. Deploying and troubleshooting a self-hosted n8n instance may still require familiarity with Docker, NGINX, configuration files, or the command line. 
• Automated SSL and Core Security: Secure communication is mandatory for any automation workflow that relies on external webhooks. RunCloud automates the deployment and renewal of Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates with a single click. It also handles server-level firewall configuration and automatically applies security patches, keeping your environment protected against vulnerabilities.
• Centralized Multi-Server Control: If your team uses other self-hosted utilities alongside n8n, such as an independent PostgreSQL database server, a staging instance, or auxiliary microservices, you can manage and monitor them all from a single dashboard. This consolidated view gives you full visibility into your server’s resource usage (CPU, RAM, and disk storage) so you can scale your hardware as your workload grows.

Yes. The standard self-hosted version of n8n is source-available under a “fair-code” license (the n8n Community Edition) and can be downloaded from GitHub at no cost. The Community Edition does not charge per workflow execution. The number of workflows and executions your instance can handle depends on its infrastructure, configuration, workload, and external service limits. While the software license is free, you will still need to pay for the underlying virtual private server (VPS) on which the software runs.

Final Thoughts

Setting up a VPS is only the first step. To make n8n usable, you must secure the server. This might require configuring a firewall (such as UFW), setting up a reverse proxy (such as NGINX, Traefik, or Caddy) to direct traffic, and closing unnecessary open ports to prevent unauthorized access to your workflow canvas.For a reliable production environment, your self-hosting cost generally consists of two parts:
The Cloud VPS: A virtual server from providers like Vultr, DigitalOcean, or Hetzner typically costs to per month, depending on your memory and CPU requirements.
The Server Management Panel: Using a management platform like RunCloud to handle your server administration costs a predictable flat monthly fee.
Even when combining these two costs, the total monthly expense is usually a fraction of the price of mid-tier SaaS plans from Zapier or Make, especially if you are processing tens of thousands of executions.

When to Choose Zapier

This guide breaks down n8n pricing alongside the task-based pricing used by Zapier and the credit-based model used by Make. It also examines n8n self-hosted pricing, including the server, storage, maintenance, and management costs that are often missed when calculating the full n8n self-hosting cost.

• No Developer Overhead: You can build and deploy workflows without understanding APIs, JSON, or code.
• Massive Integration Library: Access to over 9,000 apps means even highly obscure third-party tools are likely supported natively.
• The Trade-off: As your workflow volume grows, the “per-task” billing model can quickly lead to high monthly expenses.

When to Choose Make

In addition to the above costs, you should also budget for hardware and storage to back up your data to a separate location or a storage device.

• Visual Logic Mapping: The circular “bubble” interface makes it easy to visualize complex, multi-route databases and workflows.
• Cost-Efficient SaaS: It is generally more affordable than Zapier for moderate volumes, though it is still subject to monthly “operation” quotas.
• The Trade-off: Like Zapier, you are entirely dependent on their cloud infrastructure, and you cannot keep sensitive operational data entirely inside your own network.

When to Choose n8n

Best for: Technical teams, SaaS startups, agencies processing high volumes of data, and privacy-conscious enterprises.

• Execution-Based & Self-Hosted Pricing: Paying per complete execution (on n8n Cloud) or self-hosting for $0 in licensing fees makes it the most scalable financial choice.
• Developer-First Flexibility: Native JavaScript/Python nodes, AI agent features, and custom HTTP request capabilities give developers granular control over data.
• Data Sovereignty: Running n8n on your own servers ensures sensitive customer data never leaves your infrastructure.

Run n8n on Your Own Server Without Managing Everything Manually 

This hybrid approach gives you the ultimate benefit of self-hosting: you can avoid cloud plan execution allowances and scale the deployment by adding appropriate server, database, and worker capacity. Your practical limits depend on the infrastructure, workflow design, external services, and n8n edition you use. Best for: visual builders who need advanced multi-branch logic and medium-scale automation without managing any software infrastructure.If an update fails due to a database conflict or an incompatible custom code block, your entire automation pipeline goes offline. Without deep Linux command-line expertise, troubleshooting these failures and restoring backups can result in hours of costly business downtime.If your workflow volume is low (under 2,500 executions per month), n8n’s Cloud Starter plan (20€/month) is highly convenient. However, if your business operations scale to tens of thousands of monthly executions, or if you need to run resource-heavy custom Python/JavaScript scripts, transitioning to a self-hosted server managed by RunCloud allows you to scale your execution volume without hitting subscription caps or facing unexpected price jumps.You retain the cost and control benefits of self-hosted automation without having to manage every part of the server through the command line.When workflows require custom business logic, the platforms differ in how they handle developer integrations.

Frequently Asked Questions