Zapier alternatives that cost less

There are four routes out of a Zapier bill, and which one is right depends entirely on why you are leaving. Cost, complexity, and "I want it to think for itself" are three different problems with three different answers — and for one of them the honest answer is to stay where you are.

I use n8n, Make and Zapier myself. None of those three pay me anything. Two tools further down do, and they are marked.

Why are you actually leaving?

Worth answering before comparing anything, because it changes the whole recommendation.

That last row is real and it is the most common case. Three simple automations are often thirty lines of code that runs for free — and if you have a coding agent, writing them is an afternoon. The subscription is buying convenience, not capability.

What does self-hosted n8n actually save?

Money, and it costs time instead.

n8n is open source. Run it on your own machine or a small server and the software is free; the hosted version is around €20 a month. That is the real trade, and people misrepresent it in both directions.

It is genuinely free if you already run a server, you are comfortable with updates and backups, and an automation being down for an evening is annoying rather than expensive.

It is not free if none of that is true. An evening of setup, plus the evenings when something needs attention, is not zero — and if your automation sends customer emails, "down for an evening" has a cost you did not plan for.

The version people forget: you can self-host and still be wrong about the saving, because the thing you actually wanted was for it to keep working without you.

When is Make the better move?

When your automations have branches.

Make prices by operation and draws the whole flow as a map you can see. That suits work where something splits — if this, then that, otherwise the other — and where you want to look at the shape of it rather than read a list.

Zapier is simpler for linear work and has the larger library of connections, which matters more than people expect: the cheapest automation platform is worthless if it does not talk to the one app you need.

So the honest test is not price. Check that your specific apps are supported first, then compare cost at your actual monthly volume, then decide. Doing it in the other order is how people move twice.

What about agent platforms?

Different category, and the marketing blurs it deliberately.

Creao and MuleRun are agents: you describe an outcome and they work out the steps, rather than you drawing the steps. Both pay me a commission and I have not used either in production — they are on the list because the category is worth knowing about, not because I can vouch for them.

The distinction that matters is not "AI or not". It is deterministic or not:

• Deterministic automation does the same thing every time. This is what you want for invoicing, delivery, anything with money in it. Boring is the feature.
• An agent decides. That is useful for messy input — sorting, summarising, drafting, anything where the right answer varies — and a liability where the answer must not vary.

The rule I would apply: use an agent where checking the result takes seconds. If verifying its work takes longer than doing the job, you have bought a second job.

Creao publishes a discount code (AFF20) and both have free tiers, which is the right way to find out whether the category fits you before any of this matters.

What does each actually cost?

Prices checked 23 September 2026. Check before you buy — these move.

Note what that column says. The three I actually use and recommend first are the three that earn me nothing, which is the only useful evidence that a list like this is honest.

There is a fuller side-by-side of all five in which automation tool.

When should you just stay on Zapier?

Three situations, and none of them is about loyalty:

1. Your bill is under about €20 a month. The saving is smaller than the weekend you will spend migrating, and you will spend a weekend.
2. The automations touch money or customers. Migration is where things break quietly — a webhook that silently stops, a field that maps to the wrong place. Do it when the stakes are low, not when the automation is load-bearing.
3. It works and you have stopped thinking about it. That is what you were paying for. Reclaiming €20 a month by re-introducing a thing you have to think about is a bad trade.

The honest version of this whole page: most people who feel they are overpaying for automation have two or three automations and a subscription they forgot about. Cancelling is the answer more often than switching.

What I would actually do

If you are technical and the bill annoys you: self-host n8n, move one automation, and live with it for a month before moving the rest. If it turns out you dislike maintaining it, you have learned that for the price of one evening rather than all of them.

If you are not technical: check whether your apps are supported on Make, compare at your real volume, and move only if the difference is worth a weekend.

If what you actually want is for something to handle messy work that changes every time — that is not an automation problem, that is an agent, and the free tiers will tell you within an hour whether it fits.