How we work out the monthly cost
Every recipe has a cost table. Here's where the numbers come from, so you can check them yourself.
- 01
Pick a typical volume
We pick a typical volume for one person or a small business (for example, 100 leads a month) and write it on the recipe.
- 02
Count what each tool bills for
Credits in Make (most steps use 1, and scheduled checks use 1 even when nothing is found), tasks in Zapier (each successful action step; triggers and built-in tools are free), and executions in n8n (one per full run).
- 03
Match the cheapest plan
We match that number to the cheapest plan on each vendor's official pricing page, in USD, and show both the monthly and the billed-yearly price.
Prices were last checked on 2026-10-17. Prices copied by hand from the official pricing pages on the date above. Vendors change prices often, so re-check before publishing. AI costs (OpenAI API) are billed by the AI provider and are listed separately.
Make
Billed in credits- Free: $0, 1,000 credits per month, 15-minute minimum interval between runs.
- At the lowest paid volume (10,000 credits per month): Core $16/mo billed monthly or $12/mo billed annually; Pro $28 or $21; Teams $51 or $38.
- Most module actions use 1 credit. A scheduled (polling) trigger uses 1 credit every time it checks, even when it finds nothing. Instant (webhook) triggers only use credits when data arrives.
n8n
Billed in executions- n8n Cloud Starter: $24/mo billed monthly or $20/mo billed annually, 2,500 workflow executions per month.
- n8n Cloud Pro: $60/mo billed monthly or $50/mo billed annually, 10,000 executions per month.
- One execution is one full run of a workflow, no matter how many steps it has.
- The Community Edition is free to self-host, but you pay for your own server and look after it yourself.
- No permanent free cloud plan. The free cloud trial includes 1,000 executions.
Zapier
Billed in tasks- Free: $0, 100 tasks per month, two-step Zaps only (one trigger, one action), checks for new data every 15 minutes.
- Professional: 750 tasks $29.99/mo billed monthly or $19.99/mo billed annually; 1,500 tasks $58.50 or $39; 2,000 tasks $73.50 or $49.
- Each successful action step is a task. Triggers and built-in tools like Filter, Formatter, and Digest do not count as tasks.
- Multi-step Zaps, filters, and webhooks need a paid plan.