Zapier vs Make

If your automations are short and linear (when this happens in one app, do that in another) and the people who build them have no technical background, choose Zapier. It is the easiest tool to learn, it connects to more than 9,000 apps, and logic steps such as filters and formatting do not count against your plan.

If your scenarios branch, loop over lists, reshape data or run thousands of times a month, choose Make. Its visual canvas shows the whole flow at once, its price per action is much lower, every plan includes unlimited users, and you can host your data in a European zone.

Both are cloud services you rent, with nothing to install. The deciding questions are how complex your automations will get and how often they will run.

Zapier is the platform that made no-code automation mainstream. You build a Zap: a trigger in one app, then one or more actions in others. The editor is a vertical list of steps, easy to follow even for someone who has never automated anything, and Paths add branches when you need them. Its catalogue of more than 9,000 apps is the largest on the market, which means the tool you use almost certainly has a Zapier integration.

Around the Zap, Zapier now offers Tables to store data, Forms to collect it, Canvas to map processes, Copilot to build Zaps from a description, Agents and Chatbots for AI, and Zapier MCP so that AI assistants can act in your apps. Zapier runs only in its own cloud, on AWS in the United States. You pay for a monthly volume of tasks: each successful action uses at least one.

Make, formerly Integromat and now part of Celonis, is a visual automation platform. You build a scenario by placing modules on a canvas and linking them: a trigger, then the steps that read, transform and send data between your tools. Routers split a flow into branches, filters decide what continues, iterators and aggregators handle lists, and error handlers decide what happens when a step fails. The whole logic stays visible on one screen.

Make connects to more than 3,500 apps and runs in its own cloud, in American or European data zones. Since August 2025 it bills in credits rather than operations: most module actions use one credit, and some AI features use more. Make also offers AI agents, the Maia assistant to build scenarios by conversation, an MCP server and Make Grid to map all your automations. Its strengths are the price per action and how readable a complex scenario stays.

The criteria we look at on every automation project. The last column says which tool has the edge, from the official documentation and our experience on client work.

Both tools charge per step, but they do not count the same steps. Zapier counts tasks: each action that completes successfully uses at least one task. Triggers and polling are free, and so are Zapier’s built-in tools such as Filter, Formatter, Paths, Delay, Looping, Tables and Forms. AI steps, code steps and MCP calls draw from the same pool, and some use more than one task. From December 1, 2026, Zapier also bills Next Gen Zaps, its new kind of Zap, at the same rate per action, with at least one task per completed run.

Make counts credits: every module action uses credits, including the trigger and built-in tools that transform, aggregate or iterate data; most actions use one credit, and some AI features use more. Routers and error handlers are free. So Make usually counts more steps than Zapier for the same scenario, but each credit costs a fraction of a Zapier task. Make’s paid plans also include unlimited users, where Zapier’s Professional plan has one.

The prices below come from the official pricing pages in November 2026, billed annually unless stated. Both tools change their grids often: we reread them before every estimate.

Take a typical lead workflow: a form submission triggers it, then five actions follow (enrich the contact, create it in the CRM, create a deal, notify sales in Slack, add a row to a reporting sheet). It runs 10,000 times a month.

On Zapier, the trigger is free and the five actions use 50,000 tasks a month. That sits between the 10,000-task tier ($129 a month on Professional, billed annually) and the 100,000-task tier ($489 a month).

On Make, the trigger counts too: six modules use about 60,000 credits a month. Make’s tiers jump from 40,000 to 80,000 credits, and the 80,000-credit Core tier costs $55 a month billed annually ($91 on Pro). For the same workflow, Make costs several times less.

The gap is smaller for short automations. A handful of two-step Zaps that run a few hundred times a month fit in Zapier’s entry plan, and the time a non-technical team saves can be worth more than the difference. If volumes keep growing beyond that, n8n, which bills per full run rather than per step, becomes the next question.

This is where the two tools feel most different. Zapier’s editor is a list of steps that you read from top to bottom. For a trigger and two or three actions, nothing is clearer: you pick an app, an event, map a few fields, test, and the Zap is live. Copilot can draft a Zap from a sentence, and thousands of templates cover common needs. When the logic grows, Paths and Looping add branches and loops, but a long Zap becomes a long scroll, and it gets harder to see how the pieces fit together.

Make’s canvas shows the scenario as a diagram. Each module is a bubble, routers split the flow into visible branches, and when the scenario runs you see the data pass through each module, with the number of items processed. Iterators and aggregators make it natural to process every line of an order, every row of a sheet or every file in a folder. The first hour is a little harder than on Zapier, but most business users get there, and complex scenarios stay readable for someone who did not build them.

Our experience: Zapier is easier to start, Make is easier to grow. Teams who outgrow Zapier’s editor rarely miss it once they have seen a complex flow on Make’s canvas.

Zapier’s catalogue is its clearest advantage: more than 9,000 apps, against more than 3,500 for Make. For mainstream tools (CRMs, email, spreadsheets, forms, payment, project management) both have what you need. The difference shows with niche SaaS products, regional tools and recent startups, which often publish a Zapier integration first and sometimes only.

Make compensates in two ways. Its integrations usually expose many actions per app, and its HTTP module and custom apps reach any API with a public documentation. For custom logic, Make’s Code app runs JavaScript or Python on paid plans, billed at 2 credits per second of execution; Zapier offers code steps that draw from your task pool. Neither replaces a real development environment, but both handle the small transformations most automations need.

In practice: check first that every tool in your stack has a native integration on the platform you choose. If one is missing on Make but present on Zapier, weigh whether an HTTP call is acceptable for your team.

Both platforms now sell themselves as AI orchestration tools, and their offers are closer than their histories. Zapier puts AI steps inside Zaps to classify, summarise or draft text; Copilot builds Zaps from a description; Zapier Agents, a separate product with its own plans, lets you describe an AI teammate that browses the web, reads connected data and takes actions in your apps (400 activities a month free, 1,500 on Agents Pro for $33.33 a month billed annually); Chatbots answer from your content; and Zapier MCP lets assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT act across Zapier’s catalogue, with calls drawn from your task pool.

Make includes its AI features on every plan, Free included. Make AI Agents, still labelled beta, can run on Make’s own AI provider or on your own model key. Maia builds and debugs scenarios through conversation, the AI Content Extractor pulls structured data from files, and Make’s MCP server lets your AI assistant trigger scenarios. AI actions use credits, sometimes more than one per action.

For AI steps inside business automations, both are good, and the choice follows the rest of the comparison. For agents that reason over several steps on internal data, with your own model or self-hosting, we usually build on n8n or in code.

Neither tool can be self-hosted: both are cloud services. The difference is where that cloud is. Zapier’s data privacy page states that it hosts data on AWS servers in the United States and does not offer EU-only storage. European customers rely on its Data Processing Addendum and its certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework; Zapier also holds SOC 2 Type 2 and SOC 3 reports.

Make lets each organisation run in a data zone: two in the United States and two in the European Union. Choosing an EU zone keeps scenario data in Europe, which simplifies the conversation with a data protection officer. One caveat from Make’s own documentation: some AI features send requests to the United States whatever zone you selected, so check which modules a sensitive scenario uses.

For most marketing and sales flows, both frameworks are acceptable. When data is sensitive (health, finance, HR) or a client requires that it never leaves its infrastructure, neither is the right answer: that is the case for a self-hosted n8n.

Scheduling first. On Zapier, polling triggers check for new data every 15 minutes on Free, every 2 minutes on Professional and every minute on Team and Enterprise; instant triggers based on webhooks fire right away. On Make, scheduled scenarios run every 15 minutes at best on Free and down to every minute on paid plans. Make’s Free plan allows two active scenarios, where Zapier’s Free plan allows unlimited Zaps but only two steps each.

Teams next. Every Make plan includes unlimited users, and Teams adds team roles and shared scenario templates. Zapier’s Professional plan has one user; Team allows 25, with shared Zaps, shared app connections and SAML SSO, and Enterprise is unlimited.

Monitoring last. Make keeps detailed execution logs for 7 days on Free, 30 days on Core, Pro and Teams, and 60 days on Enterprise, with full-text search from Pro, and Make Grid draws a map of all your scenarios, apps and agents. Zapier keeps Zap history, version control and custom error notifications on paid plans. On both, we add an owner, readable logs and an alert on failure before we hand anything over.

The same question gets a different answer depending on who asks. Here is how we usually answer it.

We build most client automations on Make or n8n, and we keep Zapier when a client already runs on it or when it is the only platform with the integration they need. What we would choose on typical projects, and why.

Teams usually move when the Zapier bill grows faster than the business, or when Zaps get too long to follow. There is no import button: Zaps are rebuilt as Make scenarios, not converted. It is often an opportunity, because several related Zaps become one scenario with a router. We plan a migration like a small project.

Our notes from the projects we run or take over on each platform. The full details are in our Zapier and Make reviews.

Pick Zapier if a non-technical team needs short automations between popular apps, if one of your tools only integrates with Zapier, or if the simplest possible editor matters more than the price per action. Pick Make if your scenarios have branches, loops and data to reshape, if volumes are growing, if several people need access, or if you want your data in a European zone.

Both are mature products, and neither is the wrong choice for a first automation. Over time, most of the teams we work with end up on Make for its value and readability, or on n8n when they need self-hosting, code or high volumes. Read our Make vs n8n and Zapier vs n8n comparisons for those cases.

Prices, limits and features were checked on these official pages in November 2026. Both vendors change their offers often: check the current figures before you commit.