The economics of n8n for automation teams choosing Zapier or Make

n8n self-hosting costs approximately €5 to €20 per month on a VPS, while Zapier charges up to $299 for 20,000 tasks.

Execution versus task billing

Zapier counts every successful action step in a workflow as one task. A 20-step workflow requires 19 tasks beyond the initial trigger. For a small business running 10,000 tasks monthly, Zapier costs between $69 and $299. Make uses credits instead of tasks, having renamed its billing unit from "operations" to "credits" on August 27, 2025. A 10-step workflow running 1,000 times monthly costs roughly $16 to $29 on Make. n8n Cloud bills by executions, where one execution covers a full workflow run regardless of how many steps exist inside it. This makes n8n dramatically cheaper for complex automations.

I find the Zapier pricing model incredibly frustrating because it penalizes complexity. If you build a multi-step workflow with many branches, your bill climbs as fast as your logic grows. n8n handles these same workflows for the cost of a single execution. For a team processing 50,000 operations per month, the self-hosted n8n option costs 80% to 90% less than equivalent Zapier or Make plans. You pay only for the server and external API calls.

Technical requirements and data control

n8n provides a distinct advantage for regulated industries like healthcare or finance because users can self-host the software. This ensures data never leaves the local environment. Zapier remains cloud-only, meaning users must trust that Zapier stores execution logs and payload data on its own servers. n8n also supports AI agent loops where models use tools and iterate until a task completes, a capability Zapier’s linear trigger-action model cannot match.

Self-hosting requires a technical resource to manage Linux servers, backups, and updates. A developer can set up n8n using Docker in one to three hours. NameHero offers an AI Agent Hosting VPS plan starting at $6.49 a month on a three-year term, which includes n8n pre-installed. This plan provides 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, and 100 GB NVMe storage. HostGator also provides a self-managed VPS hosting plan for self-hosted n8n.

If your team lacks someone to handle server maintenance, will the savings from n8n justify the risk of downtime? I recommend n8n Cloud Pro at €50 per month for small teams that need 20 concurrent executions and 7 days of workflow history. This plan avoids the complexity of managing a VPS while providing better capacity than the €20 Starter plan. The Starter plan only allows 5 concurrent executions and provides just one day of workflow history. Use the 14-day trial to see if the interface suits your needs before committing to a subscription.