TL;DR
- Zapier wins on integration breadth. 7,000+ apps, the lowest-friction setup, the best fit for non-technical operators. Pay for it: pricing scales aggressively past 100k tasks/month.
- Make (formerly Integromat) wins on visual logic. Best-in-class scenario builder, more powerful conditional logic than Zapier, materially cheaper at scale. Steeper learning curve than Zapier.
- n8n wins on control and cost. Open-source, self-hostable, no per-task pricing. The right answer for technical teams with infrastructure capacity, especially for compliance-sensitive B2B work.
- None of them is right when: the workflow is mission-critical with sub-second latency requirements, when you need a true durable execution engine (use Temporal), or when the “automation” is actually a custom application in disguise.
What does each tool actually do?
All three are workflow-automation platforms: connect a trigger from one app to actions in others, with logic in between. The category is sometimes called iPaaS (integration platform-as-a-service). Where they differ is the philosophy:
- Zapier — the easiest path from “I have an idea” to “it's running in production.” Linear flows, point-and-click setup, the largest catalog of pre-built integrations on the market.
- Make — visual scenario builder with branching logic, error handling, and data transformations as first-class concepts. Trades simplicity for power.
- n8n — open-source, code-friendly, self-hostable. Built for technical teams that want full control over execution, data residency, and cost.
For B2B teams in 2026, all three have added meaningful AI-agent capabilities (LLM nodes, tool-calling, vector-store integration). The differentiation has shifted from “which has the most integrations” to “which fits our team's technical posture and our customers' compliance demands.”
The honest comparison table
| Dimension | Zapier | Make | n8n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integrations | 7,000+ (largest) | 2,000+ | 500+ native, plus custom HTTP / code nodes |
| Setup time to first workflow | Minutes | ~30 min (visual builder) | Hours (self-host) / minutes (cloud) |
| Pricing model | Per task, tiered plans | Per operation, cheaper than Zapier | Free self-hosted; paid cloud per execution |
| Self-hosted | No | No | Yes (free, MIT-ish licence) |
| Visual logic / branching | Linear with paths add-on | Excellent native | Strong; supports both visual + code |
| AI-agent / LLM nodes | Yes (Zapier Agents) | Yes (AI module + Custom) | Yes (LangChain nodes, native LLM nodes) |
| Data residency / compliance | US/EU regions; SOC 2; HIPAA add-on | EU/US data centers; SOC 2; GDPR | Wherever you host it (best for compliance) |
| Best for | Non-technical teams; rapid iteration | Mid-market with logic complexity | Technical teams; compliance-bound work |
| Worst for | High-volume cost; complex branching | Pure non-technical solo users | Teams without DevOps capacity |
None of these tools is “the best.” They're optimized for different operating profiles. The wrong move is picking based on a comparison post (including this one) without first defining your team's actual constraints.
8 B2B use cases — which tool wins each
Real patterns we've shipped, with the tool we'd default to in each:
1. Lead routing from forms into the CRM → Zapier
Form submission triggers a Salesforce or HubSpot record creation, with conditional routing by segment. Standard, low-volume, non-technical operator owns it. Zapier's CRM integrations are deepest, the setup is fastest, and you don't need clever logic.
2. Multi-step lead enrichment with branching logic → Make
Lead arrives → enrich via Clearbit → route differently by company size → assign to AE by territory → create tasks in different systems. Make's visual scenario builder shines here; Zapier's Paths feature works but feels bolted-on.
3. Mission-critical, high-volume document processing → n8n
50,000+ documents/month flowing through extraction, classification, and warehouse loading. Per-task pricing on Zapier or Make would balloon to $5k+/month. Self-hosted n8n on a $40 VPS handles it.
4. Customer support ticket triage with AI → Make or n8n
Incoming Zendesk ticket → LLM classification → route to right queue → auto-draft response. Make has good native AI nodes; n8n's LangChain integration is more flexible if you need RAG against a knowledge base.
5. Internal slack notifications → Zapier
The category Zapier was born for. New Stripe charge above $X → Slack post in #revenue channel. Don't overthink it.
6. Two-way sync between two systems of record → Make or custom code
Two-way sync (Salesforce ↔ HubSpot, for example) is hard. Make handles it with proper conflict resolution; Zapier struggles past simple cases. For real two-way sync at scale, often the right answer is a purpose-built tool (Hightouch, Census) or custom code, not a workflow tool at all.
7. Compliance-bound healthcare or fintech workflow → n8n
HIPAA-aligned data flows or MAS-regulated processes need full data-residency control. Self-hosted n8n in your own VPC, with audit logging and encryption you control, is materially easier to defend than “Zapier has SOC 2” in a security review.
8. AI agents that take action across 10+ tools → depends
If the agent is non-deterministic and orchestration-heavy, you may have outgrown workflow tools entirely — consider an orchestration layer like LangGraph, Inngest, or Temporal. If the agent is “LLM call + a few tool calls,” any of the three works; pick on team capacity and compliance posture.
Pricing — the hidden costs nobody mentions
List pricing on the three websites is misleading because real B2B usage hits scaling cliffs that aren't obvious in the marketing pages. The cost patterns we see in practice:
- Zapier: first 100k tasks/month is reasonable. Past 250k tasks/month (Team / Company plans), pricing accelerates. We've watched B2B teams hit $4k–$6k/month for high-volume CRM-sync workflows that became hard to justify.
- Make: 30–50% cheaper than Zapier at the same volume in our benchmarks. The catch: each “operation” in Make is more granular than a Zapier task, so volume calculations need careful translation.
- n8n: self-hosted is functionally free at any volume (you pay for the server). Cloud n8n is the cheapest of the three at high volume but requires technical operator confidence. Free tier is more generous than Zapier's.
One additional hidden cost across all three: operator time spent debugging silent failures. Workflow tools don't crash loudly when an integration's API changes — they retry, hit rate limits, and quietly drop data. Plan for 4–8 hours/month of operator time on monitoring, regardless of which tool you pick.
When NONE of these is the right answer
Four scenarios where workflow tools are the wrong abstraction and you should reach for something else:
- Sub-second latency requirements. Workflow tools batch and queue. If your use case is real-time (under 500ms end-to-end), you want a custom application or a streaming engine.
- Durable execution with multi-day workflows. Visa applications, multi-step approvals, anything that lives for weeks with retries. Use Temporal or Restate, not a workflow tool.
- The “automation” is actually a custom app. If you're building 50+ workflows that share state, talk to each other, and have UI requirements, you've outgrown workflow tools. Build a real application.
- Regulated data flows you can't audit cleanly. If a workflow handles PHI, payment data, or PII and you can't produce an audit trail your compliance team approves of, the workflow tool isn't the right surface for that data.
How to actually decide between them
The decision tree we walk B2B clients through:
- Is the operator non-technical? Pick Zapier. The setup speed and integration breadth pay back the price premium.
- Are you running 100k+ tasks/month or want serious branching logic? Pick Make. The pricing and visual builder both win at that scale.
- Do you have DevOps capacity AND a compliance or cost-sensitivity reason to self-host? Pick n8n. Self-hosted gives you the control and the cost ceiling that Zapier and Make can't.
- Are you mixing all three of the above? Pick Zapier first to get something running, then migrate the high-volume or compliance-bound workflows to n8n later. The migration path is real and we've executed it for clients more than once.
The wrong move is picking the tool first and shaping your problem to fit. Define the problem; pick the tool that fits its constraints; revisit in a year as your constraints change.
Frequently asked questions
Is n8n actually free?
n8n is open-source under a fair-code licence (sustainable-use). For internal use inside your company, including commercial deployments, the self-hosted version is free of licensing fees. You pay for infrastructure (a VPS, container hosting, observability). The cloud version is paid; the self-hosted version is the “free” tier. Read the licence directly before assuming — it permits internal commercial use but restricts reselling n8n itself.
Which tool has the best AI agent / LLM support in 2026?
All three are credible. Zapier Agents is the most polished for non-technical operators; Make's AI modules integrate well with the visual builder; n8n's LangChain nodes are the most flexible if you're building RAG agents or multi-tool agents. Pick by team capacity, not by who has the shiniest demo.
Can I migrate from Zapier to n8n later?
Yes, and clients do. The migration is workflow-by-workflow rather than wholesale — you keep Zapier for the workflows where it makes sense (low-volume, non-technical owner) and migrate the high-volume or compliance-bound ones to n8n. Plan 1–2 weeks of operator time for a 30-workflow migration.
Is Zapier secure enough for HIPAA workflows?
Zapier offers SOC 2 Type II and a HIPAA-eligible plan with a BAA. For most healthcare-adjacent B2B workflows, that's sufficient. For workflows touching detailed PHI or regulated clinical data, we typically recommend self-hosted n8n in a HIPAA-aligned VPC instead — less because Zapier is unsafe and more because your auditor's review is easier when you control the infrastructure. More on healthcare AI.
How much does Make cost vs Zapier at 100,000 operations/month?
At roughly equivalent workloads, Make typically lands 30–50% under Zapier in our benchmarks. The catch is that “operations” (Make) and “tasks” (Zapier) aren't 1:1 — multi-step workflows count more operations in Make. Calculate against your actual workflow shape, not list price.
What happens when an API I'm integrated with changes?
Workflow tools handle minor API changes silently (auto-update connectors). Major breaking changes hit your workflows and don't always crash loudly — they retry, hit rate limits, or drop data. Build alerting on workflow failures regardless of which tool you pick.
Is Temporal a replacement for these tools?
No, different category. Temporal is a durable-execution engine for engineering teams building long-running, fault-tolerant workflows in code. It's far more powerful than Zapier / Make / n8n, but it requires application code, not point-and-click. For most B2B operations work, that's overkill. More on when to choose Temporal.
Should we just hire an automation agency to set this up?
Often yes, especially if the workflows touch CRM, billing, or compliance-bound data. The setup itself is rarely the hard part — the maintenance, observability, and migration paths are. We charge for the operating model, not the click-throughs.