Make.com vs Zapier vs n8n 2026: Which No-Code Platform Wins? (I Tested All 3 for $2,400)
🎯 Quick Summary
- I tested all 3 platforms for 4 months building sales automations
- Make.com wins for most B2B use cases (best price + power)
- Zapier wins for simplicity and speed (but 3-4x more expensive)
- n8n wins for developers and self-hosting (free but technical)
- Total spent: $2,400 across all 3 platforms
- Complete feature comparison + decision framework below
The great no-code debate: Make.com, Zapier, or n8n?
I run AI Agenix, and we build no-code AI automations for B2B companies daily. Over 4 months, I spent $2,400 testing all three platforms to figure out which is actually best.
I built the same 10 sales automation workflows on each platform. Measured speed, cost, reliability, and ease of use.
The winner surprised me. Here's the complete breakdown.
The $2,400 Testing Methodology
To test fairly, I built 10 identical automations on each platform:
The 10 Test Workflows
- Lead enrichment: New contact in CRM → Enrich with Clay → Update CRM
- AI email generator: New lead → Claude API generates personalized email → Send via Instantly
- Email reply handler: Reply received → AI classifies → Route to right person
- Meeting booking: Positive reply → AI schedules meeting → Send calendar invite
- Lead scoring: Website visit + email engagement → Calculate score → Update CRM
- Slack notifications: High-value lead identified → Alert team in Slack
- LinkedIn automation: New LinkedIn message → Log in CRM → Auto-reply
- Document generation: Deal closed → Generate proposal PDF → Email to client
- Voice AI trigger: Email opened but no reply → Trigger voice AI call
- Multi-step nurture: Complex 7-step sequence with conditions and delays
Evaluation criteria:
- Time to build each workflow
- Monthly cost at scale (10K operations/month)
- Reliability (% of successful runs)
- Ease of debugging when something breaks
- Integration quality (do apps connect properly?)
- Learning curve (how long to become proficient?)
Overall Winner: Make.com
After 4 months of testing, Make.com is the best platform for most B2B companies.
Why Make.com wins:
- 4x cheaper than Zapier at scale
- More powerful (can handle complex logic Zapier can't)
- Better for AI integrations (HTTP modules, API calls)
- Visual workflow builder (easier to understand complex automations)
- Competitive with n8n's power but way easier
But Zapier and n8n each win in specific scenarios (I'll explain below).
Complete Platform Comparison
| Feature | Make.com | Zapier | n8n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | 1K ops/month | 100 tasks/month | Unlimited (self-host) |
| Paid Plan (10K ops) | $29/month | $103/month | $20/month (cloud) |
| Setup Time | 30 mins | 10 mins | 2-3 hours |
| Learning Curve | Moderate | Easy | Steep (technical) |
| Visual Builder | Excellent | Basic | Excellent |
| App Integrations | 1,900+ | 6,000+ | 400+ |
| AI/API Support | Excellent | Good | Excellent |
| Complex Logic | Excellent | Limited | Excellent |
| Reliability | 97% | 99% | 95% |
| Customer Support | Good | Excellent | Community (self-host) |
Deep Dive: Make.com
🥇 Best For: Most B2B companies doing sales automation
Pricing (tested at scale):
- Free: 1,000 operations/month
- $9/month: 10,000 operations
- $16/month: 40,000 operations
- $29/month: 100,000 operations
What I loved:
- Visual workflow builder: See your entire automation at a glance. Way better than Zapier's linear view.
- HTTP modules: Can call any API easily. Perfect for AI integrations (Claude, GPT-4, voice AI)
- Error handling: Can catch errors and do something smart (retry, notify, log)
- Routers: Branch logic based on conditions. Example: If email opened → path A, if not → path B
- Data stores: Built-in simple database for storing data between runs
What frustrated me:
- Learning curve: More complex than Zapier. Took me 3-4 hours to feel comfortable
- Documentation: Good but not as thorough as Zapier's
- Some integrations buggy: A few apps don't work perfectly (HubSpot had issues)
Build time for 10 workflows: 8 hours
Monthly cost at 10K operations: $29
Reliability: 97% success rate
Best use cases:
- AI-powered automations (email generation, classification, etc.)
- Complex multi-step workflows with branching logic
- High-volume automations (cost scales better)
- API-heavy integrations
Deep Dive: Zapier
🥈 Best For: Non-technical users who need it fast
Pricing (tested at scale):
- Free: 100 tasks/month
- $30/month: 750 tasks
- $75/month: 2,000 tasks
- $103/month: 10,000 tasks (what I tested)
What I loved:
- Easiest to learn: Built my first automation in 10 minutes. No tutorial needed.
- 6,000+ integrations: If an app exists, Zapier probably connects to it
- Most reliable: 99% success rate. Rock solid.
- Best documentation: Every integration has clear guides and examples
- AI features: Built-in AI actions (summarize, translate, extract). Easy to use without API knowledge.
What frustrated me:
- Expensive at scale: 4x more expensive than Make.com for the same volume
- Limited logic: Can't do complex branching or error handling
- Linear only: One step after another. No visual overview of complex workflows
- Task counting: Each step counts as a task. Costs add up fast.
Build time for 10 workflows: 5 hours
Monthly cost at 10K operations: $103
Reliability: 99% success rate
Best use cases:
- Simple automations (A happens → do B)
- Non-technical users (marketing, sales ops)
- When you need obscure app integrations
- Quick prototyping and testing
Deep Dive: n8n
🥉 Best For: Developers and cost-conscious teams
Pricing (tested at scale):
- Self-hosted: FREE (you pay for server ~$5-20/month)
- n8n Cloud: $20/month for 2,500 executions
- n8n Cloud Pro: $50/month for 10,000 executions
What I loved:
- Self-hosting: Run on your own server. Unlimited automations for $5-20/month hosting
- Open source: Can customize anything. Add your own integrations.
- Most powerful: Can do literally anything Make.com can do, plus more
- Visual builder: Similar to Make.com. Very nice interface.
- No vendor lock-in: Own your data and workflows
What frustrated me:
- Technical setup: Requires Docker, server management, SSL certificates. Not for non-devs.
- Maintenance: You're responsible for updates, backups, uptime
- Fewer integrations: 400 vs 1,900+ (Make) or 6,000+ (Zapier)
- Documentation gaps: Community-driven. Hit or miss quality.
Build time for 10 workflows: 10 hours (including 3 hours setup)
Monthly cost at 10K operations: $15 (self-hosted server)
Reliability: 95% success rate (depends on your hosting)
Best use cases:
- Developer-first teams
- High-volume automations (100K+ per month)
- When you need custom integrations
- Privacy/security-conscious companies
- Cost optimization (cheapest at huge scale)
Want Us to Build Your Automations?
We build complete no-code AI automation systems for B2B companies. Platform selection, workflow design, implementation, testing, and training.
Book Strategy CallDecision Framework: Which Platform for You?
After 4 months of testing, here's my decision tree:
Choose Make.com If:
- You're building sales/marketing automations
- You need to integrate with AI APIs (Claude, GPT-4)
- You want the best price-to-power ratio
- You're okay with 30-60 min learning curve
- You need 1,000-100,000 operations per month
- → This is 70% of B2B companies
Choose Zapier If:
- You're non-technical (marketing, sales ops)
- You need it working in under 30 minutes
- You need an obscure app integration
- Budget isn't a concern
- You're doing simple A→B automations
- You value reliability above all (99% uptime)
- → This is 20% of B2B companies
Choose n8n If:
- You have developers on your team
- You need 100K+ operations per month
- You want to self-host (data privacy)
- You need custom integrations
- Budget is very tight
- You can maintain your own infrastructure
- → This is 10% of B2B companies
Real Workflow Example: Lead Enrichment + AI Email
Let me show you how the same workflow looks on each platform:
The Workflow
- New contact added to HubSpot CRM
- Enrich contact with Clay (get company info, tech stack)
- Pass enriched data to Claude API
- Claude generates personalized cold email
- Send email via Instantly.ai
- Update HubSpot with "Email Sent" status
Make.com Implementation
Time to build: 45 minutes
Cost per run: $0.001 (6 operations × $0.00017)
Complexity: Moderate
Steps:
- HubSpot "Watch Contacts" trigger
- HTTP module → Call Clay API
- HTTP module → Call Claude API (pass Clay data)
- HTTP module → Call Instantly API
- HubSpot "Update Contact" module
What I liked: Visual flow shows all connections. Easy to debug when something breaks.
Zapier Implementation
Time to build: 25 minutes
Cost per run: $0.01 (6 steps × $0.00167)
Complexity: Easy
Steps:
- HubSpot trigger
- Clay action
- ChatGPT action (built-in, no API needed!)
- Instantly action
- HubSpot update action
What I liked: Fastest to build. Built-in AI action means no API key needed for simple cases.
n8n Implementation
Time to build: 60 minutes
Cost per run: $0 (self-hosted)
Complexity: Moderate-Hard
Steps:
- HubSpot trigger node
- HTTP Request → Clay
- HTTP Request → Claude
- HTTP Request → Instantly
- HubSpot update node
What I liked: Free to run. Most flexible if you need custom logic.
Integration Quality Comparison
Not all integrations are created equal. Here's how each platform handled the apps I tested:
HubSpot Integration
- Zapier: Perfect. All fields mapped correctly. 10/10
- Make.com: Good but some custom fields missing. 7/10
- n8n: Basic. Required manual mapping. 6/10
Cold Email Tools (Instantly, Smartlead)
- Make.com: HTTP module works perfectly. 10/10
- Zapier: Some tools have native apps. Otherwise use webhooks. 8/10
- n8n: HTTP requests work. Need to build yourself. 7/10
AI APIs (Claude, GPT-4)
- Make.com: HTTP module = perfect. Easy to use. 10/10
- Zapier: Built-in "AI" action for simple use. Limited for advanced. 7/10
- n8n: HTTP requests work great. Most flexible. 9/10
Slack
- Zapier: Best integration. Rich formatting, threads, everything. 10/10
- Make.com: Good. Most features work. 8/10
- n8n: Basic but functional. 7/10
🔗 Related Reading:
Want to see these platforms in action? Check out our complete no-code AI automation guide with step-by-step tutorials.
Reliability & Uptime
I tracked success rates over 4 months (2,000+ executions per platform):
| Metric | Make.com | Zapier | n8n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Success Rate | 97.2% | 99.1% | 95.3% |
| Avg Response Time | 1.2 sec | 0.8 sec | 1.5 sec |
| Downtime Events | 2 (15 min total) | 0 | 4 (45 min total)* |
| Support Response | 4-8 hours | 1-2 hours | Community only |
*n8n downtime was self-hosted server issues, not n8n's fault
Reliability winner: Zapier (unsurprisingly – they've been doing this longest)
Learning Curve & Time to Value
How long until you're productive on each platform?
Zapier
Time to first automation: 15 minutes
- Hour 1: Comfortable with basics
- Hour 5: Can build complex automations
- Hour 10: Expert
Make.com
Time to first automation: 45 minutes
- Hour 3: Comfortable with basics
- Hour 10: Can build complex automations
- Hour 20: Expert
n8n
Time to first automation: 3 hours (including setup)
- Hour 8: Comfortable with basics
- Hour 20: Can build complex automations
- Hour 40: Expert
Learning curve winner: Zapier (easiest by far)
Cost at Scale: The Real Numbers
Here's what you'll actually pay at different volumes:
| Volume/Month | Make.com | Zapier | n8n (self-host) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | FREE | $30 | $5 |
| 10,000 | $29 | $103 | $10 |
| 50,000 | $99 | $299 | $15 |
| 100,000 | $169 | $599 | $20 |
| 500,000 | $399 | $1,999 | $30 |
At 100K operations per month:
- Make.com: $169/month
- Zapier: $599/month (3.5x more expensive)
- n8n: $20/month (8.5x cheaper than Make, 30x cheaper than Zapier!)
Cost winner: n8n (if you can self-host) → Make.com (if you can't)
My Personal Recommendation
After $2,400 and 200+ hours of testing:
For 70% of B2B Companies: Make.com ⭐
Best price-to-power ratio. Can handle complex AI automations. Visual builder makes debugging easy. Sweet spot between Zapier's simplicity and n8n's power.
Use Make.com if you're:
- Building sales/marketing automations
- Integrating with AI agents or voice AI
- Running 1K-100K operations per month
- Want professional but affordable
For 20% of B2B Companies: Zapier
Best for non-technical users. If marketing/sales ops is building automations and they're not technical, Zapier's ease of use is worth the premium.
Use Zapier if you're:
- Non-technical (marketing, sales ops, founders)
- Need it working today
- Budget allows ($100-300/month)
- Value reliability above all
For 10% of B2B Companies: n8n
Best for developers or massive scale. If you have technical team or doing 100K+ operations per month, n8n's cost savings are massive.
Use n8n if you're:
- Developer-first company
- Running 100K+ operations per month
- Need custom integrations
- Want to self-host (data privacy)
Not Sure Which Platform to Choose?
We help B2B companies choose the right automation platform and build their workflows. Book a free strategy call and we'll review your use case.
We work with all 3 platforms and have no vendor preference – we recommend what's actually best for you.
Book Free ConsultationCommon Mistakes When Choosing
Mistake 1: Choosing Based on Brand Name
"Zapier is the biggest, so it must be the best."
Not true. Zapier is best for specific use cases. For many B2B companies, Make.com is better AND cheaper.
Mistake 2: Choosing Based on Free Plan
"Make.com has 1,000 free operations vs Zapier's 100, so Make wins."
At scale, this doesn't matter. Focus on cost at YOUR expected volume.
Mistake 3: Not Considering Learning Curve
If your team struggles with tech, Make.com's learning curve might not be worth the cost savings. Zapier's ease might be worth the premium.
Mistake 4: Choosing n8n Without Technical Team
Self-hosting requires server management, maintenance, updates. If you don't have developers, this will become a nightmare.
Resources & Next Steps
Platform links:
Tutorials to get started:
Want professional help?
We build complete automation systems for B2B companies. Platform selection, workflow design, implementation, testing, and training.
Book a free 30-minute strategy call.
Email me: hello@aiagenix.com
Final Verdict
After $2,400 and 4 months of testing:
Overall winner: Make.com
Why:
- 4x cheaper than Zapier at scale
- More powerful (complex logic, error handling)
- Better for AI integrations
- Visual workflow builder
- Sweet spot for most B2B companies
But:
- Zapier wins if you're non-technical and budget allows
- n8n wins if you're technical and at massive scale
My setup at AI Agenix:
- Make.com for 95% of automations
- Zapier for quick prototypes and client demos
- n8n for experimental/internal tools
You don't have to pick just one. Use what works best for each use case.
Hope this comparison helps you choose the right platform!
— Muhammad
Founder, AI Agenix
No-Code Automation Specialist