SFDIFY
Zapier pricing starts with a Free plan at $0 that includes 100 tasks per month and two-step Zaps, then Professional "Starting from $19.99 /month" with yearly billing ($29.99 when paid monthly) and Team from $69 a month yearly ($103.50 monthly) [1]. What really sets your bill is the task tier: each successful action in a Zap uses a task, so busy multi-step workflows push you up the ladder fast [1]. If your workflows run many steps per trigger, Make's credit pricing or n8n's per-execution pricing can work out cheaper [2, 3].
The price on Zapier's pricing page is a starting point, not a forecast of what you will pay. This guide walks through the current plans, what actually drives the bill, which tier fits which kind of team, and when Make, n8n, Microsoft Power Automate or Lindy is the better buy.
How we chose
We compared Zapier's current plans against four tools a small-business buyer is likely to shortlist: Make, n8n, Microsoft Power Automate and Lindy. Every price, limit and feature below comes from each vendor's own pricing page or homepage, checked on 2026-11-14 and cited inline. We did not run hands-on tests. Prices change often, so confirm the number on the vendor page before you buy. Two of these products (Zapier and Lindy) pay us a commission if you sign up through our links; that does not change the order or what we say about their weaknesses.
Zapier pricing and alternatives at a glance
| Product | Best for | Starting price | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier | Non-technical teams that want the widest app catalog | Free; Professional from $19.99/mo billed yearly [1] | "9,000+ apps"; billed per task [1] |
| Make | Multi-step workflows on a budget | Free; Core $12/mo billed yearly at 10,000 credits [2] | Most actions use 1 credit; routers are free [2] |
| n8n | Technical teams and self-hosting | Starter 20€/mo billed annually [3] | Billed per full workflow execution [3] |
| Microsoft Power Automate | Companies already on Microsoft 365 | Premium $15 per user/month, paid yearly [4] | Includes attended desktop (RPA) flows [4] |
| Lindy | AI-assistant work rather than classic Zaps | $29.99/mo per active user for 3,000 credits [5] | $50 in free credits to start [5] |
Zapier — the default, priced by the task
Zapier sells one platform that bundles Zap workflows, Tables, Forms and Zapier MCP, and every paid plan draws from a single task allowance [1]. The plan name decides features and seats; the task tier decides most of the price.
Verified features: The Free plan includes "Unlimited Zaps, Tables, and Forms" but only two-step Zaps; Professional adds multi-step Zaps, "Unlimited premium apps" and webhooks [1]. Zapier says it connects to "9,000+ apps" [1].
Pricing: Free is $0 a month with 100 tasks [1]. Professional is listed "Starting from $19.99 /month" with the "Pay yearly (Save 33%)" option and $29.99 a month on monthly billing; Team starts at $69 a month yearly or $103.50 monthly and includes 25 users; Enterprise is "Contact for pricing" [1]. The tier matters a lot: with monthly billing and 2,000 tasks per month selected, Professional shows $73.50 a month [1]. A new account gets "a free 14-day trial of the Zapier Professional plan" with no credit card required [1].
What actually drives the bill: Zapier counts a task each time a Zap "successfully moves data or completes an action," and "Each successful action in a Zap counts as a separate task" [1]. Triggers and polling do not use tasks, and built-in tools such as Filter, Formatter and Paths by Zapier, plus Tables and Forms, do not count either [1]. AI steps cost more: "AI model tier, code runtime, and connector type each affect how many tasks an action uses" [1]. If you hit your limit, Zapier can switch you to pay-per-task billing, which "is charged at a higher per-task rate than your base subscription tasks"; with that turned off, Zaps pause until the next usage period [1].
Strengths: The app catalog is the biggest of the tools here, the free built-in logic steps (filters, formatting, paths) keep simple branching cheap, and the 14-day Professional trial lets you size your task usage before paying [1].
Limitations: Free and Professional are "for one user," so any shared workspace means Team, which starts at more than three times the Professional entry price [1]. Per-action billing gets expensive for long workflows, because a ten-action Zap uses ten tasks every run [1]. AI agents are a separate product: Agents Pro is $33.33 a month billed annually for 1,500 activities [1].
Best fit: Solo operators and small teams who want the widest app coverage with the least setup, and whose workflows are short or run a few thousand times a month at most.
Make — more steps for the money
Make is a visual workflow builder that bills in credits, and its homepage notes "No time limit on free plan" and no credit card to start [6].
Verified features: Make lists "3,500+ apps," unlimited users on every plan, and a Free plan with 1,000 credits a month, a 15-minute minimum interval between runs and a cap of 2 active scenarios [2].
Pricing: At 10,000 credits a month, Core is $12 a month on annual billing or $16 monthly, Pro is $21 or $28, and Teams is $38 or $51; Enterprise is custom [2]. "Most actions consume 1 credit," and Router and error-handler modules use none [2].
Strengths: Pricing is shown per 1,000 credits ($1.20 on Core with annual billing), which makes costs easy to estimate, and unlimited users come standard rather than requiring a team plan [2].
Limitations: Credits are spent on more than just "write" actions; reading, searching and transforming data each count [2]. When you run out, "Your scenarios won't continue to run, until credits are added again" [2]. The app catalog is smaller than Zapier's.
Best fit: Ops-minded teams building longer, branching workflows who are comfortable with a more technical visual editor.
n8n — pay per run, or host it yourself
n8n is a workflow and AI-agent platform you can use hosted or deploy yourself "on-prem or with Docker," with the source code on GitHub [7].
Verified features: All plans include "unlimited users and workflows and every integration" [3], and you can connect to any API via HTTP [7].
Pricing: Starter is 20€ a month billed annually for 2.5K workflow executions, and Pro is 50€ a month billed annually for 10K executions; Business is 667€ a month billed annually and is self-hosted only [3].
Strengths: "An execution is a single run of your entire workflow. It doesn't matter how many steps are in the workflow," which makes long workflows far more predictable to price than per-task billing [3].
Limitations: The builder is more developer-oriented, prices are in euros, and the jump from Pro to Business is steep [3]. Self-hosting saves on subscription cost but shifts server upkeep to you.
Best fit: Technical founders and teams with a developer on hand, especially those running complex or high-volume workflows.
Microsoft Power Automate — if you already live in Microsoft 365
Microsoft Power Automate is Microsoft's workflow and robotic process automation tool, with "more than 1,000 API connectors" and native experiences in Microsoft 365 apps like Teams, Excel and SharePoint [8].
Verified features: Premium includes cloud flows, desktop flows in attended mode and process mining for individual users [4].
Pricing: Premium is $15.00 per user per month, paid yearly; Process is $150.00 per bot per month for unattended automation [4]. The pricing page offers a 30-day free trial to "Experiment with UI-based cloud flows and standard connectors" [4].
Strengths: Per-user pricing instead of per-task pricing, plus robotic process automation to "automate legacy systems" through their user interface [4, 8].
Limitations: Costs scale with headcount and unattended bots are priced separately [4]. Teams outside the Microsoft stack get less out of it.
Best fit: Companies standardized on Microsoft 365 that want approvals, Excel and SharePoint automations, and some desktop RPA.
Lindy — an AI assistant, not a Zap replacement
Lindy describes itself as "the AI employee that plugs into your tools," working in Slack, email, text and your calendar with "3,000+ integrations + MCP" [9]. It competes more with Zapier Agents than with Zap workflows.
Verified features: Built-in skills, scheduled routines, meeting notes and inbox management are listed as included [5].
Pricing: You start with "$50 in free credits," which last 7 days; after that, "Every active user in your workspace is billed, from $29.99 a month for 3,000 credits each," and top-ups cost $10 per 1,000 credits [5].
Strengths: Credits pool across the team, and "If the pool runs low, Lindy pauses and tells you," so there is no surprise overage bill [5].
Limitations: Every active user is a paid seat, so cost grows with headcount, and bigger jobs use more credits, which makes monthly cost harder to predict [5]. It is a poor fit for high-volume, fixed-rule data syncs where a plain Zap is cheaper and more predictable.
Best fit: Small teams that want an AI assistant to handle inbox, follow-up and reporting work rather than build rule-based workflows.
How to choose an automation plan without overpaying
Start by counting actions, not workflows. Pick your three busiest automations, count the action steps in each, and multiply by how often they run each month. On Zapier that number is your task need, minus any free Filter, Formatter or Paths steps [1]. On n8n it collapses to the number of runs [3]. On Make, count every module that reads, writes or transforms data [2].
Then match the pricing model to your shape of work:
- Short workflows, many apps, little technical help: Zapier Professional, sized to your real task count.
- Long or branching workflows on a tight budget: Make Core or Pro.
- High volume, a developer on staff, or data that must stay in-house: n8n, hosted or self-hosted.
- Microsoft 365 shop with approvals and desktop apps: Power Automate Premium.
- Judgment-heavy work like inbox triage and follow-ups: Lindy or Zapier Agents.
If your stack is outgrowing any of these, our guide to 7 business process automations worth the engineering cost covers when a custom build pays off, and automation consultant vs. DIY tools helps you decide when to bring in help.
FAQ
How much does Zapier cost per month?
Zapier's Free plan is $0 with 100 tasks a month. Professional starts at $19.99 a month on yearly billing or $29.99 on monthly billing, and Team starts at $69 a month yearly or $103.50 monthly; Enterprise is quoted by sales [1]. Higher task tiers cost more, for example $73.50 a month for Professional at 2,000 tasks on monthly billing [1].
Is the Zapier free plan enough for a small business?
Only for light use. The free plan covers 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps, and it is for one user [1]. Any workflow with more than one action, or a shared workspace, needs a paid plan.
What happens when you exceed Zapier task limits?
Zapier emails you near and at your limit. With pay-per-task billing on, Zaps keep running at a higher per-task rate; with it off, they pause until your next usage period [1].
Is Make cheaper than Zapier?
On list price at entry level, usually yes: Make Core is $12 a month on annual billing for 10,000 credits, while Zapier Professional starts at $19.99 a month on yearly billing [2, 1]. The real comparison depends on how many credits or tasks your workflows consume per run.
Is n8n cheaper than Zapier for complex workflows?
Often, because n8n bills per execution: "An execution is a single run of your entire workflow," no matter how many steps it has [3]. Zapier counts each successful action as a separate task, so a long workflow costs more per run on Zapier [1].
Our recommendation
Start on Zapier's 14-day Professional trial if your team is non-technical and needs broad app coverage, and watch your task count before committing to a tier [1]. If your workflows are long or high-volume, price the same work on Make or n8n before you renew, because per-task billing is where Zapier gets expensive. For automations that touch your CRM or sales process deeply, our GTM engineering team can help you decide what belongs in a no-code tool and what should be built.
Sources
- Plans & Pricing | Zapier — checked 2026-11-14
- Pricing & Subscription Packages | Make — checked 2026-11-14
- n8n Plans and Pricing — checked 2026-11-14
- Power Automate Pricing | Microsoft Power Platform — checked 2026-11-14
- Pricing - Lindy — checked 2026-11-14
- AI Workflow Automation Software & Tools | Make — checked 2026-11-14
- AI Workflow Automation Platform - n8n — checked 2026-11-14
- Power Automate: Business Process Workflow Automation | Microsoft Power Platform — checked 2026-11-14
- Lindy: Hire an AI Employee That Gets Work Done — checked 2026-11-14
