Make vs Zapier 2026
Short answer: pick Zapier if you want the easiest on-ramp and the biggest app catalogue, pick Make if you want visual depth and a bill that does not explode at volume. Make scores 4.2/5 in our hands-on tests, Zapier 3.8/5, and the gap is almost entirely about money.
The detail nobody updated: Make renamed “operations” to “credits” on 19 January 2026, and a polling trigger now burns 1 credit on every check even when it finds nothing. A 1-minute polling scenario eats 43,200 credits a month, more than 4x the Core allocation. Zapier never charges for an empty poll. That one asymmetry, plus Zapier's per-step task counting, decides most of this match.
Visual canvas, 3,000+ apps, 5 to 9x cheaper at volume. Watch the polling credits.
Try Make for free →Read the full Make review →Live in 3 minutes, 9,000+ apps, but each step is a task and the bill climbs fast.
Read the full Zapier review →Who wins for you
Zapier is live in 3 minutes, Copilot builds the Zap from a plain sentence, and 9,000+ apps mean no learning curve. Worth the premium at low volume.
Read the full Zapier review →Make's routers, iterators and error handlers build logic Zapier cannot, and credits run 3 to 5x cheaper once scenarios get long.
Try Make for free →A 5-step workflow at 2,000 runs costs about $9 on Make Core versus $60 to 80+ on Zapier. At higher volume the gap only widens.
Try Make for free →Zapier's 9,000+ catalogue covers enterprise ERP, Copilot lets anyone build, and SOC 2 plus ISO 27001 are in place.
Read the full Zapier review →Make vs Zapier at a glance
Every cell below is grounded in each tool's official pricing and docs as of June 2026, plus our two hands-on reviews. The billing units differ, so read the first two rows before anything else.
| Make | Zapier | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billing unitTwo different models, neither is simpler in practice | 1 credit per module run; AI modules cost a variable 1.1 to 2.5+ credits | 1 task per successful action step; the trigger is excluded | — |
| Entry paid plan (annual) | Core ~$9/mo, 10,000 credits, unlimited scenarios | Professional ~$20/mo, 750 tasks, multi-step Zaps | Make |
| Free tierMake's free plan runs multi-step; Zapier's does not | 1,000 credits/mo, full visual builder, 2 active scenarios | 100 tasks/mo, 5 Zaps, 2-step workflows only | Make |
| Native integrations | ~3,000 apps plus a universal HTTP module | ~9,000 apps including SAP, NetSuite, Workday, ServiceNow | Zapier |
| Workflow topology | Visual canvas: routers, iterators, aggregators, error handlers, parallel branches | Linear steps; Paths (if/then) on Professional and above | Make |
| Polling trigger costMake's biggest hidden cost (see pricing section) | 1 credit per check, even when no new data is found | 0 tasks on an empty poll; only firing actions count | Zapier |
| AI agents (2026) | Make AI Agents next-gen, Feb 2026: canvas-native, Reasoning Panel, 3,000+ tools | AI Agents GA May 2025; Copilot GA Sep 2025; MCP launch Dec 2025 | — |
| Code support | Make Code app (2 credits/sec); built-in functions, no full IDE | Code by Zapier (JavaScript/Python) and Formatter steps | — |
| GDPR / security | SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3, GDPR; ISO 27001 on Enterprise; AWS VPC | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR; DPA available; TLS encryption | — |
| Live chat support | Teams and Enterprise plans only | Team and Enterprise plans only | — |
| Reliability | Strong; runaway scenarios can burn quota fast | 99.9%+ uptime; rarely breaks in production | Zapier |
| Ideal user | Agencies, power users, cost-sensitive teams at volume | Non-technical teams, enterprise app coverage, mission-critical uptime | — |
Prices checked June 2026 on make.com/en/pricing and zapier.com/pricing. Make is on credits since 19 January 2026; most comparison articles still say “operations.”
Criterion by criterion, head to head
The same five criteria we scored on each tool's review page. The overall winner does not win every round.
01 Round 1: getting the first automation live.
Zapier takes this 4.7 to 3.8, and it is not close. We had a Google Sheets to Slack Zap running in under 3 minutes: pick a trigger, authorise the apps, map a field, done. OAuth is fully abstracted, and the template library clones a working flow in a couple of clicks. Since Copilot went GA in September 2025, you can describe the automation in plain English and Zapier assembles the Zap, field mapping included. One reviewer summed it up: a new hire can build a Zapier automation in their first few weeks.
Make is visually powerful but steeper. The left-to-right canvas got a Slack-to-Airtable scenario going in about 10 minutes in our tests, but the deeper tools (routers, iterators, aggregators) need an understanding of arrays and JSON, and we spent a good 2 hours getting comfortable. The payoff is real: Make's execution log shows data moving module by module, which makes debugging faster once you know the tool. Easiest day one is Zapier by a wide margin.
Choose Make if you will outgrow linear flows and want visual debugging later.
Choose Zapier if you want a working automation this afternoon with zero learning curve.
02 Round 2: where the bill actually lands.
Make wins this one decisively, 4.0 to 2.4, and the reason is structural. Make Core is about $9 a month for 10,000 credits, and credits never expire. Zapier Professional is around $20 a month for only 750 tasks, and the catch is brutal: every action step in a multi-step Zap counts as a separate task. A 5-step Zap run 150 times a month already burns 600 tasks, almost the whole Professional allocation.
Do the math the dossier supports. A 5-step lead-routing workflow at 2,000 runs a month needs 10,000 credits on Make, exactly the Core base near $9. The same workflow on Zapier is 8,000 tasks (4 actions, trigger excluded), far past the 750-task tier, landing somewhere around $60 to 80+ a month once you size up. That is roughly a 7 to 9x difference at the same volume. The honest Make caveat: a polling trigger burns 1 credit per check even when empty, so an unwatched 1-minute scenario can eat 43,200 credits a month before a single action runs. Use webhooks and the math stays in Make's favour.
Choose Make if you automate more than a handful of workflows, or run anything at volume.
Choose Zapier only if volume is genuinely low and you value the simplest possible UX.
03 Round 3: raw power and AI depth.
Make edges this 4.5 to 4.3, because it builds logic Zapier simply cannot. Routers handle conditional branching, iterators loop through arrays element by element, aggregators combine multi-source data, and error handlers catch failures and trigger fallbacks. The HTTP module hits any REST endpoint, and data stores cache information across runs. We ran scenarios with 15+ modules and multiple routers without a hitch.
Zapier is no lightweight: Paths give if/then branching, Tables provide a lightweight database, Interfaces build simple front-ends, and AI Workflows generate automations from a sentence. Its 2026 AI story is strong too, with AI Agents GA since May 2025, Copilot since September 2025, and an MCP server launched December 2025 that connects Claude or ChatGPT straight to its app ecosystem. But the ceilings are real: no native loops without workarounds, limited programmatic error handling, and version control only arrived with the December 2025 Agents. Make answers with its own next-gen AI Agents from February 2026, canvas-native with a Reasoning Panel that shows the agent's decision logic. For deep branching and transparent agents, Make. For breadth of building blocks, Zapier is close behind.
Choose Make if you need branching logic, loops, data transformation or agent transparency.
Choose Zapier if Paths and Tables cover your logic and you want LLMs wired in via MCP.
04 Round 4: who answers when it breaks.
Make edges this 4.0 to 3.6, mostly on day-to-day responsiveness. Make answers email in 12 to 24 hours on average (our own three tickets came back in 6 to 24 hours), backs it with 500+ knowledge base articles, decent video tutorials and a 45,000-member forum where employees post official answers. Zapier offers email only on Free and Professional with 24 to 48 hour windows, plus Zapier University and thorough docs, and a couple of our tickets came back with generic troubleshooting that missed the actual problem.
Neither is flawless when things go truly wrong, and we will not pretend otherwise about the tool we would push. Make's harshest community reviews are about support: one user locked out after an account compromise, another whose startup quota burned in two days with no real help. Zapier's quiet advantage is reliability, a 99.9%+ uptime record means the platform rarely needs help in the first place, which partly offsets the thinner support tiers. Live chat is gated to the top plans on both sides. Edge to Make on channels and speed, with Zapier Enterprise matching or beating Make Enterprise on dedicated support.
Choose Make if you want faster email, an active forum and chat on higher tiers.
Choose Zapier if rock-solid uptime matters more to you than fast human support.
05 Round 5: catalogue size vs the universal module.
Zapier wins this 4.9 to 4.5 on sheer breadth. Its roughly 9,000 native apps cover virtually every business tool, including enterprise systems Make often lacks: SAP, Workday, NetSuite, ServiceNow, Dynamics 365. New triggers and actions land within weeks of an app shipping features, and in eight months of production use we hit only 2 to 3 broken integrations. If your stack has a niche or enterprise app, Zapier almost certainly has a polished connector waiting.
Make answers with about 3,000 pre-built apps and, crucially, the HTTP module: paste in any REST API and you have a working integration in roughly 45 minutes, with custom headers, auth, JSON parsing and pagination. We have wired obscure internal tools this way when no native connector existed. The trade-offs cut both ways: some of Make's niche connectors expose only part of the underlying API, while a few of Zapier's enterprise apps are gated behind Team and above. Breadth out of the box goes to Zapier; build-anything flexibility goes to Make.
Choose Make if you live in custom or internal APIs and want the HTTP module as a safety net.
Choose Zapier if you need niche or enterprise ERP apps ready to connect today.
The real cost, plan by plan
Two billing models that do not map onto each other. We list the plans, then run the exact cost example the dossier supports, with the assumptions stated.
| Make | Zapier | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| FreeMake's free tier runs multi-step; Zapier's caps you at 2 steps | $0: 1,000 credits/mo, 2 scenarios, 15-min interval, full builder | $0: 100 tasks/mo, 5 Zaps, 2-step only, 15-min polling | Make |
| Entry plan | Core ~$9/mo annual: 10,000 credits, unlimited scenarios, 1-min interval | Professional ~$20/mo annual: 750 tasks, multi-step, Paths, 2-min polling | Make |
| Mid planDifferent scope; Zapier Team adds seats and SSO add-on | Pro ~$16/mo: 10,000 base credits, priority execution, up to 8M credits available | Team ~$69/mo: 2,000 tasks, 25 users, shared workspaces, 1-min polling | Make |
| Team plan | Teams ~$29/mo: team roles, shared templates, scenario locking | Team ~$69/mo (or ~$103.50/mo monthly): 2,000 tasks | Make |
| Enterprise | Custom: isolated AWS, ISO 27001, 99.5% SLA, 24/7 support, SSO | Custom: advanced admin, dedicated support, custom retention | — |
| Billing unit cost | 1 credit per standard module; AI modules variable; Make Code 2 credits/sec | 1 task per action step; filters, paths and formatters no longer count since Apr 2024 | — |
| Overage | Extra credits unified at 25% above plan rate since 6 Nov 2025 | Auto pay-per-task $0.04 to $0.09/task; Zaps stop above a 3x cap | Make |
| 5 steps × 2,000 runs/moTrigger plus 4 actions; 1 trigger credit on Make, trigger free on Zapier | 10,000 credits, exactly the Core base, ~$9/mo | 8,000 tasks, far past 750; size-up lands ~$60 to 80+/mo | Make |
| Polling trigger, 1-min intervalMake's hidden cost; mitigate with webhook triggers | 43,200 credits/mo on the trigger alone, over 4x the Core plan | 0 tasks until data is found and an action fires | Zapier |
Prices checked June 2026. Make's 6 November 2025 changes capped Core at 300,000 credits/mo, expanded Pro to 8M, and unified extra credits at 25%. Zapier task-tier pricing above 750 requires the on-site slider, so the upper-bound estimate is a sizing range, not a fixed quote.
Pick by scenario
Choose Make if…
- You build automations past 5 to 7 steps, with conditional branching, loops or data transformation that Zapier cannot model
- Your monthly volume tops ~500 runs, where the credit model is 5 to 10x cheaper than tasks
- Your team can invest a 2 to 3 hour learning curve in a visual canvas
- You need to connect internal tools or custom APIs with no pre-built connector, via the HTTP module
- You want AI agents with a Reasoning Panel and canvas-native debugging (Feb 2026 release)
Choose Zapier if…
- You need plug-and-play simplicity for non-technical users, with the first automation live in under 3 minutes
- Your workflow needs a niche or enterprise app like SAP, NetSuite or Workday in the 9,000+ catalogue
- Your volume is low (under ~500 runs/month of simple 2 to 3 step Zaps) and the UX premium is worth it
- You want the Copilot natural-language builder or the MCP server to wire Claude or ChatGPT into your apps
- Uptime is mission-critical and Zapier's 99.9%+ record plus enterprise SLAs justify the premium
Frequently asked questions
Make vs Zapier: which is cheaper in 2026?
Make is significantly cheaper for any meaningful automation volume. Make Core is about $9 a month for 10,000 credits, while Zapier Professional is around $20 a month for only 750 tasks, and each action step in a multi-step Zap counts as a separate task. A 5-step workflow run 2,000 times a month sits exactly inside Make Core near $9, but on Zapier it is 8,000 tasks, far past the 750-task tier, landing somewhere around $60 to 80+ once you size the plan up. That is roughly a 7 to 9x difference at the same volume. Zapier only competes on price at genuinely low volume.Is Make free?
Yes. Make's free plan gives 1,000 credits a month with no credit card, the full visual builder, all 3,000+ integrations and up to 2 active scenarios, with a 15-minute minimum polling interval. The important difference from Zapier is that Make's free tier runs full multi-step scenarios, while Zapier's free plan caps you at 2-step Zaps. For testing or a light personal automation, Make's free plan is genuinely usable and more generous than Zapier's 100 tasks.Is Zapier free?
Yes, but the free plan is severely limited: 100 tasks a month, a maximum of 5 Zaps, 2-step workflows only and 15-minute polling. A single 3-step Zap is not even possible on the free tier, and a basic 2-step Zap running a couple of times a day exhausts the limit in well under three weeks. Multi-step automation, which is the whole point of the platform, requires Professional at around $20 a month on annual billing. The free plan works for trying Zapier, not for running a business on it.Make vs Zapier vs n8n: which should I choose?
Choose Zapier for the simplest setup and the widest app catalogue with zero technical work. Choose Make for visual complex workflows at 5 to 10x lower cost than Zapier, accepting a moderate learning curve. Choose n8n if you are technical, want self-hosted unlimited automations and prioritise data control, since it is free to self-host but needs server management. In short, Zapier is the easiest, Make sits in the middle on power and price, and n8n is the cheapest and most powerful at scale for technical teams. This page compares the two cloud no-code options head to head.How do I migrate from Zapier to Make?
There is no one-click Zapier importer, so you rebuild each Zap as a Make scenario by hand: find the same trigger app, pick the equivalent Make module, then map the fields. Simple 2 to 3 step Zaps migrate in about 15 to 30 minutes each. Complex Zaps using Paths often go faster than expected, because Make's routers replace Paths and are more flexible. Start with your highest-volume Zaps, since those see the biggest cost savings immediately on Make's credit pricing. Test each scenario with the Run once button before switching off the original Zap.What is the cheapest automation tool for high-volume workflows over 10,000 runs a month?
Self-hosted n8n is the cheapest overall, since you pay only server cost (roughly $10 to 20 a month) for unlimited runs. Among cloud no-code tools, Make wins clearly: 10,000 credits a month is about $9 on Core, with higher-credit tiers scaling from there and an option up to 8 million credits a month on Pro. Zapier at 10,000 action-task executions a month runs into the hundreds of dollars. For a managed cloud platform, Make is the high-volume value pick; if you can self-host, n8n is cheaper still on total cost.Is Make good for non-technical users?
Make is accessible but not as plug-and-play as Zapier. Expect 2 to 3 hours to feel comfortable with the visual canvas, and a little more for advanced features like routers, iterators and aggregators that rely on array and JSON concepts. Make Academy provides structured courses. If you have zero technical background and need results today, start with Zapier. If you can invest a few hours upfront, Make's visual logic is learnable, and the much lower price quickly pays that time back for anything beyond a handful of simple flows.Does Make charge for polling triggers even when there is no new data?
Yes, and it is one of Make's most significant hidden costs. Every polling check consumes 1 credit whether or not new data is found. At a 15-minute interval that is 2,880 credits a month on the trigger alone; at a 1-minute interval on Core it is 43,200 credits a month, more than four times the Core plan's 10,000-credit allocation, before any action runs. The fix is to use webhook-based triggers wherever the source app supports them, since they fire only on real events and cost 1 credit per actual event. Zapier, by contrast, does not count an empty poll as a task.What is Make's credits model and how is it different from operations?
Make renamed its billing unit from operations to credits on 19 January 2026. For standard modules such as Gmail, HTTP or Airtable the cost is unchanged: one module run equals one credit. The new element is AI: Make's built-in AI modules now charge a variable amount based on token consumption, for example one credit per roughly 3,500 tokens on a medium model, so a 14,000-token document summary costs about 4 credits. Using your own OpenAI or Claude API key instead costs just 1 credit per call in Make, with tokens billed by the provider, which is far more predictable. Make Code runs at 2 credits per second of execution.Zapier for small business: is it worth it in 2026?
For a very small business running 3 to 5 simple automations with fewer than about 500 action-step executions a month, Zapier Professional at around $20 a month on annual billing is defensible, especially if you need Zapier's app-catalogue breadth or have non-technical staff who want the simplest possible interface. Beyond that, Make's $9 Core plan delivers better return. The tipping point is roughly when your Zaps average 5 or more steps or you run more than about 150 workflow cycles a month: past that, Make becomes the cheaper and more capable choice.
Test both, then decide
Both have a free tier, so the fastest way to know is to rebuild one real workflow on each and watch the credit and task counters.
Best for visual complex workflows, volume pricing and AI agents with a Reasoning Panel. Permanent free plan, 1,000 credits a month.
Try Make for free →Read the full Make review →Best for non-technical teams, the widest app catalogue and mission-critical uptime. Free tier exists, but multi-step needs Professional.
Read the full Zapier review →Affiliate disclosure: the Make link is an affiliate link, so if you sign up through it you support our independent hands-on tests at no extra cost to you. The Zapier link is not an affiliate link. We score both tools the same way and disclose the weak spots on each, including Make's polling-credit cost.
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