Make vs n8n: the no-code builder or the self-hostable one?
Two ways to automate your stack once you've outgrown (or priced out of) Zapier: one is a polished, visual no-code builder, the other is an open, developer-friendly tool you can run on your own server. The catch is that they bill on completely different meters — and that meter, not the sticker price, is what actually decides what you pay. So we lined up both vendors' current pricing pages in July 2026 and worked the math.
The short version
For most lean, non-technical teams: Make. It's the more polished visual builder, has the bigger app library, and is genuinely no-code — a solo consultant or a small agency can wire up a real automation in an afternoon without a developer. It also starts cheap, at roughly $12/month for the Core plan, and the free tier is enough to prove out a couple of automations first.
Choose n8n instead if you have someone technical, or you want to self-host for full data control (the Community Edition is free and open-source), or you run high-volume, many-step workflows where n8n's per-execution billing is dramatically cheaper than Make's per-operation billing. n8n also gives you unlimited users on every paid plan, which matters once more than one or two people touch the automations.
Pricing, side by side
These two don't price the same way, so read the meter column before the money column. Make counts operations (its newer plans call them "credits") — every single step a scenario runs consumes one. n8n counts executions — one full workflow run is one execution no matter how many steps are inside it.
| Make (per operation) | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1,000 operations/mo, 2 active scenarios, 15-min minimum interval |
| Core | ~$12/mo (about $10.20 billed annually) | 10,000 operations/mo, unlimited scenarios, 1-min interval |
| Pro | ~$21/mo | 10,000 operations/mo + priority execution, custom variables, full-text log search |
| Teams | ~$38/mo | 10,000 operations/mo + team roles and shared scenario templates |
| n8n (per execution) | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Community (self-hosted) | Free | Open-source, run it on your own server — unlimited executions, unlimited workflows, you just pay for the hosting |
| Starter (Cloud) | ~€20/mo (billed annually) | 2,500 executions/mo, 5 concurrent, unlimited users |
| Pro (Cloud) | ~€50/mo (billed annually) | 10,000 executions/mo, 20 concurrent, unlimited users |
| Business (Cloud) | ~€667/mo (billed annually) | 40,000 executions/mo, 30 concurrent, 6 shared projects |
Make is quoted in USD and n8n Cloud in EUR on their own pages, which are close enough (roughly $1 ≈ €0.92) that the currency isn't what makes or breaks the decision — the meter is.
The meter that decides the bill: operations vs executions
This is the single most important thing on the page. Say you build an automation with ten steps and it runs 1,000 times a month. In Make that's 10 steps × 1,000 runs = 10,000 operations — you've used up the entire Core plan on one workflow. In n8n that same automation is 1,000 executions, comfortably inside the €20 Starter tier, with room for more. The more steps your workflows have and the more often they fire, the more sharply n8n's per-execution model pulls ahead on cost.
The flip side: if your automations are simple (a handful of steps) and low-frequency — which describes a lot of agency and consultant work, like "new form submission → add to CRM → send a Slack ping" a few dozen times a day — Make's free and Core tiers are perfectly cheap, and you get the nicer builder for it. Do the arithmetic on your real workflows (steps × runs) before you assume either one is "cheaper."
Where Make wins
Make is the more finished product for people who don't write code. The visual canvas is genuinely pleasant, the app library is enormous (well over a thousand integrations), and the learning curve is gentle enough that a non-technical operator can build and maintain their own automations without needing a developer on call. It's fully hosted, so there's nothing to run, patch, or keep online — you log in and build. For the site's core audience — lean agencies, consultants, small B2B teams without an engineer — that "just works, no ops burden" quality is usually worth more than squeezing the last euro out of the bill.
Where n8n genuinely wins
n8n is built for people who are comfortable getting technical. It's fair-code and open-source, you can drop into JavaScript or Python nodes when the visual approach runs out of road, and it treats automations more like software you own than a service you rent. Three things make it the better call for the right team: the per-execution pricing (a big saving on multi-step, high-volume flows), unlimited users on every paid tier (Make gates team features behind its Teams plan), and — the big one — self-hosting.
Self-hosting: n8n's trump card (and its catch)
Because the Community Edition is free and open-source, a technical team can run n8n on its own infrastructure at no license cost and with no execution cap — you pay only for the server it runs on. For anyone with strict data-residency or privacy requirements, that means your automation data never leaves your own environment, which is a genuinely strong position. The catch is that self-hosting is real work: you're responsible for hosting, updates, backups and uptime, and features like SSO and advanced permissions sit on the paid Enterprise tier. If nobody on the team wants to own a server, self-hosting's advantage evaporates and you're really comparing n8n Cloud against Make — at which point Make's easier builder often wins back the non-technical user.
GDPR & EU notes
Both are comfortable choices for EU teams. n8n is a Berlin-based company, and self-hosting lets you keep automation data entirely within your own EU infrastructure — about as clean a data-residency story as you can get. Make (formerly Integromat) has European roots and offers EU data hosting on its hosted plans. If EU data residency is a hard requirement and you have the technical capacity, self-hosted n8n is the strongest answer; if you'd rather it be handled for you, Make's hosted EU option covers it.
Who should pick which
Pick Make if: you don't have a developer, you want the smoothest no-code builder and the biggest app library, your workflows are simple-to-moderate and not enormous in volume, and you'd rather never think about hosting. This is most lean agencies and solo consultants.
Pick n8n if: you have someone technical, you want to self-host for cost or data control, you run high-volume multi-step workflows where per-execution billing saves real money, or you need many users touching automations without paying per seat.
Frequently asked questions
Is n8n really free? The self-hosted Community Edition is free and open-source — you only pay for your own server. n8n Cloud (the hosted version, so you don't run anything) is paid, starting around €20/month billed annually.
Why is Make sometimes more expensive than it looks? Because it bills per operation — each step in a scenario counts. A workflow with many steps, run frequently, burns through operations fast. Count steps × runs, not just workflows.
Which is easier for a non-technical person? Make. The builder is more polished and the no-code experience is smoother. n8n is very capable but assumes more comfort with technical concepts and, if self-hosted, with running your own service.
Can I move between them later? There's no one-click migration — automations are rebuilt, not exported and imported. It's rarely a huge job for a handful of workflows, but it's friction, so try to pick the right meter for your usage up front.
Bottom line
A lean, non-technical team that wants to automate its stack today, with the nicest builder and nothing to host: Make — start on the free tier, move to Core (~$12/mo) when you outgrow it, and take it from there. A technical team that wants to self-host for cost or data control, or that runs high-volume multi-step workflows where per-execution billing wins, or that needs unlimited users: n8n. The deciding question isn't the sticker price — it's whether you're paying per step (Make) or per run (n8n), and who's going to own the setup.