Which Zapier alternative lets a UK small business automate for less?
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Quick summary
For most UK small businesses that need more than a two-step Zap, start with Make. Stay on Zapier when the Zaps already work, or when two steps and 100 tasks a month are the whole job.
Best for most UK small businesses connecting several apps: Make. Make’s comparison page lists a Free plan at $0 with 1,000 credits a month, and says that plan is not time-limited. The same page lists Core at $9 a month, starting at 10,000 credits. Make’s pricing FAQ says the Free plan is 1,000 credits a month. We earn from Make. The head-to-head with Zapier is the Make and Zapier comparison.
Stay on Zapier when the workflows are already built, or when one trigger and one action is enough. Zapier’s pricing page lists Free at $0 with 100 tasks a month, and Professional at $19.99 a month billed annually or $29.99 billed monthly (750 tasks). The same page says there is a 14-day free trial of Professional, with no credit card required. We do not earn from Zapier.
Best when the business already pays for Microsoft 365 and the flow stays on standard connectors: Power Automate. Microsoft’s licensing FAQ lists Office 365 Business Basic, Business Standard and Business Premium among the licences that include Power Automate, for standard connectors. Premium is £11.50 per user a month, paid yearly, and the UK page says the price does not include VAT. We do not earn from Microsoft. The connector detail is the Make and Power Automate comparison.
n8n, Pabbly Connect and Activepieces suit a narrower reader: someone who will run the software on their own server, someone chasing a low dollar price for a large number of action steps, or someone who wants one credit per whole run. IFTTT suits two simple connections. None of those four is the default for a typical UK small business. The wider list of tools is the AI automation tools guide.
| When | Named in the article |
|---|---|
| You need more than two steps, across apps such as a form, a sheet and email, and nobody is going to host the software | Make |
| The Zaps are already built, or the job is one trigger, one action and under 100 tasks a month | Stay on Zapier |
| You already pay for Microsoft 365 Business and the flow uses standard connectors | Power Automate |
| You will install and look after the software on your own server | n8n Community edition |
| You want a large monthly allowance of action steps at a published dollar price, and you will tolerate a rougher builder | Pabbly Connect |
| You want one credit for a whole run, an EU cloud, or your own server, and you can accept a newer product | Activepieces |
| You only need two simple connections, and a business workflow builder is more than the job | IFTTT’s free plan, or Zapier’s free plan |
| The job is email, a page and a funnel, inside one login | Systeme.io |
| The job is the newsletter | beehiiv |
Zapier’s free plan stops a lot of UK sole traders. It allows two-step workflows and 100 tasks a month. A form that writes a row and sends an email is already three steps, so it needs a paid Zapier plan. The alternatives below are the ones a small business actually meets: Make, n8n, Power Automate, Pabbly Connect and Activepieces, plus IFTTT for a much smaller job. Prices are in the currency each vendor publishes. Make, Zapier, Pabbly, Activepieces and IFTTT show dollars. n8n shows euros. Microsoft’s UK page shows pounds and says the price does not include VAT. A UK card issuer may add a conversion charge on a dollar or euro bill. This article does not turn those prices into pounds. Checked 24 October 2026.
What public reviews say
These are Capterra scores, read on 24 October 2026. They are other people’s reviews. Occono has not collected them, and they will move. Trustpilot and G2 were not readable for this article, so no score from either site is given. n8n and Activepieces have no score below, because no review page for them could be read.
| Source | Zapier | Make | Power Automate | Pabbly Connect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capterra, read 24 October 2026 | 4.7 out of 5, 3,083 reviews. The page says it was last updated on 29 September 2026. The rating filter lists 2,213 at 5 stars, 742 at 4, 98 at 3, 17 at 2 and 13 at 1. Value for money is 4.3 from 2,352 reviews. Capterra says 86% of reviewers are small businesses. Capterra lists a starting price of $29.99 a month. Zapier’s pricing page lists Professional at $19.99 a month billed annually or $29.99 billed monthly (750 tasks). Capterra’s $29.99 matches the monthly price. | 4.8 out of 5, 409 reviews. The page says it was last updated on 23 October 2026. The rating filter lists 334 at 5 stars, 62 at 4, 9 at 3, 2 at 2 and 2 at 1. Value for money is 4.7 from 358 reviews. Customer service is 4.5 from 325. Capterra says 91% of reviewers are small businesses. Capterra lists Core at $10.59 a month, Pro at $18.82 and Teams at $34.12. Those are Capterra’s figures, and they are not the same as the Make page used below. | 4.4 out of 5, 239 reviews. The page says it was last updated on 19 October 2026. The rating filter lists 134 at 5 stars, 82 at 4, 15 at 3, 5 at 2 and 3 at 1. Value for money is 4.3 from 182 reviews. Customer service is 3.8 from 177. Capterra lists a starting price of $15 per user a month. That is Capterra’s figure. Microsoft’s UK page shows £11.50. | 4.5 out of 5, 86 reviews. The page says it was last updated on 21 October 2026. The rating filter lists 58 at 5 stars, 19 at 4, 5 at 3, 1 at 2 and 3 at 1. Value for money is 4.6 from 80 reviews. Customer service is 4.2 from 76. Capterra says 94% of reviewers are small businesses. Capterra lists a starting price of $16 a month and says a free trial is available. The vendor pricing file below does not name a trial length. |
On Capterra, Make is 4.8 from 409 reviews and Zapier is 4.7 from 3,083. The gap is small. Zapier’s sample is much larger. Pabbly’s 4.5 is from 86 reviews, and its value-for-money score, 4.6 from 80, is higher than Zapier’s 4.3. Power Automate’s customer-service score, 3.8 from 177, is the lowest customer-service score in this table. The reviews below were picked because they describe price, a small business, or a job that leaves Microsoft’s apps.
“The pricing gets expensive pretty quickly and it makes starting with automation more expensive than it needs to be.”
Milly B., Founder, 1 employee, on Capterra’s Zapier page, in the “Costly for advanced usage” summary. The page says that summary is based on 50% negative reviews out of 516. Link to the Zapier page the line was read on. Checked 24 October 2026.
“You can connect your favorite apps together via Zapier's workflow builder, and then let that workflow automatically run for you every day.”
Jordan W., Co-Founder, 2–10 employees, on the same Zapier page, in the “Seamless cross-app automation” summary. The page says that summary is 96% positive reviews out of 273.
“J’utilise la version gratuite de Make et ça simplifie mon quotidien de graphiste freelance.”
Mael T., freelance graphic designer, Capterra, 2 September 2026, written in French. In English: “I use the free version of Make and it simplifies my day-to-day as a freelance graphic designer.” That translation is Occono’s. Overall rating 5.0. The same review says a former Zapier user will find Make a little complicated. Link to the Make page the review was read on.
“It's a mixed bag. It takes a lot of work to set up the processes, but if there were a simpler and better solution, I'd switch.”
Matyas Z., listed as a CEO in IT services, Capterra, 4 August 2026, on the same Make page. Overall rating 3.0, likelihood to recommend 2 out of 10. Make replied on 11 August 2026.
“It works well with Microsoft tools like Outlook, Teams, Excel, and SharePoint, and it is great for approvals, notifications, reminders, and moving information between systems.”
Daniel R., Director of Franchise Operations in retail, Capterra, 8 July 2026. Overall rating 5.0, likelihood to recommend 10 out of 10. The same review says troubleshooting can take time when a flow breaks or when permissions, triggers or licensing get involved. Link to the Power Automate page the review was read on.
“It's more effectively for standard business process automation, but starts to fall apart a bit as workflows start to branch out or touch on solutions outside of 365.”
connor Q., Capterra, 21 April 2026, on the same Power Automate page. Overall rating 4.0. The wording is the reviewer’s. The same review says some scenarios can be limited by connectors or licences.
“Overall, Pabbly Connect is a great alternative to Zapier because I can automate hundreds of tasks for a fraction of the price.”
Josh L., Creative Director in marketing and advertising, Capterra, 30 May 2024. Overall rating 4.0, likelihood to recommend 9 out of 10. The same review says Pabbly can be a little more difficult to set up than Zapier, and that the interface is less intuitive. Link to the Pabbly page the review was read on.
“Usability had been a issue as sometimes it gets difficult to understand the way it works and a little more easier dashboard will be better.”
Bhaswarjyoti B., CMO, Capterra, 6 August 2026, on the same Pabbly page. Overall rating 5.0, likelihood to recommend 8 out of 10. The wording is the reviewer’s. The same review also says the product has been fast and cheap for automation workflows.
What you actually get
Checked 24 October 2026. A row is blank of any number this article could not read on the vendor’s own pages. Capterra’s prices, in the table above, are kept separate from these.
| Free | Trial | Entry paid price | What a unit of work is | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier | Free, $0. The pricing page says Zaps, Tables and Forms are included, with 100 tasks a month. Zapier’s help article, updated 21 August 2026, says the free plan is one user, two-step workflows (one trigger and one action), a 15-minute polling interval, and 100 tasks a month shared by workflows and MCP actions. The same article says you can create as many workflows as you want. Capterra’s Zapier page says free accounts include five Zaps. That does not match Zapier’s help article. This article uses Zapier’s own limit. | Zapier’s pricing page says there is a 14-day free trial of Professional, with no credit card required. Zapier’s help article says a new account gets a 14-day trial of premium features. | Zapier’s pricing page lists Professional at $19.99 a month billed annually or $29.99 billed monthly (750 tasks). The pricing article says Professional includes multi-step workflows and premium apps, and that Filters, Paths and Formatter do not count as tasks. Team starts from $69 a month on the pricing page. The pricing article says that $69 is billed annually after a 14-day trial. Make’s comparison page lists Zapier Professional at $49 a month. That is Make’s figure, not Zapier’s. | Tasks. Zapier’s pricing article says a task is an action a Zap successfully completes. On the free plan, two steps only. Extra tasks on paid plans are described in Zapier’s pay-per-task help: paid plans can keep running past the allowance, up to three times the plan’s task limit, and the rate is shown in billing settings. This article did not read a per-task price. |
| Make | Free, $0, 1,000 credits a month. Make’s comparison page says the Free plan is not time-limited. Make’s pricing FAQ says the Free plan’s 1,000 credits also give 1 MB of data storage and one data store. The plan cards on the pricing page did not load, so other Free-plan limits are not listed here. | No paid-plan trial is described on the Make pages read for this article. The Free plan is the way to try it. | Core, $9 a month, starting at 10,000 credits, on Make’s comparison page. Pro is $16 and Team is $29, also from 10,000 credits. That page does not say whether those prices are monthly or yearly billing. Make’s pricing FAQ says annual payment in advance is cheaper than monthly. Make’s extra-credits help uses a $9 plan with 10,000 credits as its worked example. Capterra’s $10.59 for Core is a different figure. | Credits. Make’s pricing FAQ says most module actions use 1 credit. Reading, searching, creating, updating and deleting data count. Router and error-handler modules do not. Some AI features may use more. Scenarios stop when credits run out. Extra credits on Core, Pro and Teams can be bought in bundles of 1,000 or 10,000, at 25% more than the plan rate, according to the extra-credits help. |
| n8n | Self-hosted Community edition. n8n’s docs say it is free, with almost the complete feature set, and that you can stay on it. There is also a free Registered Community edition, unlocked with an email address. This article did not see a lasting free cloud plan on the pricing cards. The page data includes a cloud plan labelled Free at €0, described as running first workflows in the cloud. No execution allowance for that plan was on a card this article could read, so none is stated. | The pricing page says “Start free trial” and “No credit card required” on the Starter and Pro cards. Its FAQ says a cloud trial includes Pro-level features with limits of 1,000 executions, 5 concurrent executions, a 180-second timeout and 1 team project, and that Admin Roles, the project Editor role, Named Versions, Workflow Diffs and the public API are not included. A credit card is required only for the Business trial, which the same FAQ says lasts 14 days. n8n’s trial docs say a new cloud trial is 14 days of Pro features, with a limit of 1,000 executions and the computing power of the Starter plan. The same page says that if you do not upgrade, the trial expires and n8n deletes the instance, and that you have 90 days after it ends to download workflows. No charge is made if you do not upgrade. | Starter, €20 a month, billed annually, for 2,500 workflow executions with unlimited steps, on the pricing card. The same page’s plan data lists a monthly price of €24 for that 2,500-execution tier. Pro, €50 a month, billed annually, for 10,000 executions on the card as loaded. The plan data lists €60 a month for that 10,000-execution tier. Business, €667 a month, billed annually, marked “Self-hosted only”, with the card showing 40,000 workflow executions as loaded. Prices are in euros. The page did not say whether VAT is included. | Workflow executions, regardless of how many steps the workflow has. The pricing page says that in the introduction. One hundred runs of a long workflow are 100 executions. On Make, the same job is charged per step. |
| Power Automate | Two routes, from Microsoft’s licensing FAQ, dated 22 September 2026, and the UK pricing page. The FAQ lists Office 365 Business Basic, Business Standard and Business Premium among the licences that include Power Automate, for personal productivity, and says those users can use standard connectors. The FAQ’s example is 6,000 actions a day for an Office user. Premium connectors need a Premium licence. The UK pricing page also has a free trial, below. This article did not re-read the separate “Power Automate Free” licence page. | The UK pricing page says: “Start automating for free with a 30-day trial.” It describes experimenting with cloud flows and standard connectors. A longer Microsoft page, linked from the Make and Power Automate comparison, described a different trial length on 23 October 2026. This article did not re-read that page. | Power Automate Premium, £11.50 per user a month, paid yearly. The UK page says the price does not include VAT, and that prices shown are for marketing purposes and the actual price is at checkout. Process is £115.30 per bot a month, and Hosted Process is £165.30 per bot a month, both paid yearly, both excluding VAT. Twelve months of Premium at the page price is £138 per user before VAT. That total is Occono’s arithmetic. If the business is not VAT registered, adding UK VAT at 20% makes £13.80 a month, or £165.60 a year, again Occono’s arithmetic from the page price. | Actions per day. The FAQ says limits are per user and do not pool across the business. Its SharePoint example is 600 actions a minute, separate from the daily limit. The Make and Power Automate comparison goes through which connectors were marked Premium on 23 October 2026. This page does not repeat that connector list, because those connector pages were not re-read today. |
| Pabbly Connect | Free, $0 or ₹0, 100 tasks a month, on Pabbly’s pricing file. The public connect page says “Start for free and get 100 tasks” and “no credit card required”. | No trial length is stated on the pricing file or the connect page text read for this article. Capterra says a free trial is available. That is Capterra’s label. The free plan is what the vendor pages describe. | Standard, 10,000 tasks a month. Pabbly’s pricing file lists yearly billing at $16 a month (₹1,301), two-yearly at $15 (₹1,219) and three-yearly at $14 (₹1,138). It lists a normal price of $19 a month (₹1,581). Unlimited is $69 a month on yearly billing in the same file. The public connect page, fetched the same day, showed a Standard card at ₹1,138 a month against a struck-through ₹1,799, and did not show a dollar price in the text read. ₹1,138 matches the file’s three-yearly rupee price. ₹1,799 does not match the file’s normal price of ₹1,581. Read the checkout. Prices are in dollars and rupees, not pounds. | Action steps. The pricing file says each action step is one task, and that triggers do not count. It says internal operations do not count, and it names Filter, Router, Formatter, Iterator, Delay and Code. Pabbly’s help page, updated 24 October 2026, lists free tasks as every trigger (including webhooks, email parser and schedule) plus Number Formatter, Iterator, Text Formatter, Data Transformer, Router, Filter, Date/Time Formatter, JSON Extractor and Array Functions. Delay and Code are in the pricing file’s rule and were not in that help-page list. |
| Activepieces | Free, $0. The pricing page says “Free forever, no card” and “1,000 credits a month”, with unlimited flows and up to 5 users. The FAQ says there is no time limit, and that you get a fresh 1,000 credits every month. The same FAQ says runs past the quota wait until credits refresh the next day. The comparison table says the Free plan’s credit reset is daily, and that going over “waits for tomorrow”. The page states both a monthly pool and a next-day wait. This article does not decide which one the product enforces. Check it in the account before you rely on 1,000 credits lasting the month. | No separate trial length is described. The FAQ says the free plan has no card and no time limit. | Plus, $20 a month flat, on the monthly prices. The comparison table, labelled “Billed monthly”, gives Plus 10,000 credits a month and Team 50,000. Team is $200 a month. Overage on Plus and Team is $0.007 a credit. The page has an annual toggle labelled “Save 2 months”. The dollar figures in this row are the monthly ones. An annual dollar price was not in the text read, so none is stated. Ultimate is custom. Prices are in dollars. | Credits, and the FAQ says a run is one credit however many steps it has. AI steps are the exception: a fast model is 2 credits, a smart model is 10, and a frontier model is 20. On Plus and above, your own AI keys drop every AI step to 1 credit and the model bill moves to your provider. Hosting on the table is “Cloud or on-prem” for Free, Plus and Team. The FAQ says data can live in Activepieces’ EU cloud in Frankfurt, another region, or your own servers, and that the SOC 2 programme is in progress, so Activepieces is not claiming a certification it does not hold. |
| IFTTT | $0.00, shown as “forever”, with 2 Applets, standard speeds and unlimited Applet runs, on the plans page. The plans page does not, in the text read, say how many steps a free Applet can have. A direct request to IFTTT’s help article on plans was refused, so this article does not take a step limit from that article. | The Pro and Pro+ cards say “Try it free”. The plans page text that loaded does not state the trial length, so none is given. | Pro, $2.99 a month, with $35.88 billed annually, and 20 Applets, multi-action Applets and webhooks. Pro+, $8.99 a month, with $107.88 billed annually, and unlimited Applets. The plans page shows dollar prices. It is a small-connection product. It is a poor fit for a multi-app business workflow. | Applets, not tasks. The free plan’s limit is the number of Applets (2), and the plans page says Applet runs are unlimited. |
Professional at $19.99 a month billed annually or $29.99 billed monthly (750 tasks), the free plan’s 100 tasks, a 14-day free trial of Professional with no credit card required, and 9,000+ apps: Zapier’s pricing page. The $69 Team price billed annually, and the note that Filters, Paths and Formatter do not count as tasks: Zapier’s pricing article. Free-plan rules (two-step Zaps and 15-minute polling): Zapier help, updated 21 August 2026. Pay-per-task cap: Zapier’s pay-per-task help. Make credits and the Free plan’s 1,000: the FAQ on make.com/en/pricing, whose plan cards did not load. Make’s Free, Core, Pro and Team prices: Make vs Zapier, on make.com. The $9 and 10,000-credit example: Make’s extra-credits help. n8n prices: n8n.io/pricing. n8n Community edition: Choose how to use n8n. The 14-day cloud trial, the 1,000-execution cap and deletion of the instance: Try free then choose a plan. Power Automate pounds and the 30-day trial: Power Automate pricing, Microsoft UK. Included Microsoft 365 licences and the 6,000-a-day example: Power Automate licensing FAQ, dated 22 September 2026. Pabbly dollar prices: Pabbly’s pricing file. The rupee card: pabbly.com/connect. Free internal tasks: Pabbly’s help page, updated 24 October 2026. Activepieces: activepieces.com/pricing. IFTTT: ifttt.com/plans. All checked 24 October 2026.
The offer
Zapier. Free is $0, 100 tasks a month, two steps. Zapier’s pricing page says there is a 14-day free trial of Professional, with no credit card required. Zapier’s pricing page lists Professional at $19.99 a month billed annually or $29.99 billed monthly (750 tasks). Capterra’s $29.99 matches the monthly price. Zapier’s pricing article says extra completed tasks are billed per task. Make’s comparison page lists Zapier Professional at $49. That is Make’s figure, not Zapier’s. Use Zapier’s own page at checkout.
Make. Free is $0, 1,000 credits a month, and Make’s comparison page says it is not time-limited. Core is $9 a month from 10,000 credits on that page, Pro $16, Team $29. The page does not say which billing period those dollar prices use, and the plan cards did not load, so this article does not turn $9 into a yearly total. There is no separate paid trial on the pages read. Make’s free plan is the trial. We earn from Make.
n8n. The cloud entry price on the card is Starter at €20 a month, billed annually, for 2,500 executions, with a free trial and no card required to start. The page data also lists €24 a month if you pay monthly for that tier. n8n’s trial docs say the cloud trial lasts 14 days and, if you do not upgrade, n8n deletes the instance. Self-hosting the Community edition is free, on n8n’s docs, and you pay for the computer it runs on. Business at €667 a month, billed annually, is the self-hosted paid card, and it is far past what a sole trader needs. The n8n and Make comparison is the longer piece on that choice. We do not earn from n8n.
Power Automate. If the business already has Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium, Microsoft’s FAQ lists those licences as including Power Automate for standard connectors, with a 6,000-action-a-day example for an Office user. The UK page offers a 30-day trial. Premium is £11.50 per user a month, paid yearly, before VAT. We do not earn from Microsoft.
Pabbly Connect. Free is 100 tasks a month, with no card, on the connect page. Standard is $16 a month on yearly billing for 10,000 tasks, in Pabbly’s pricing file, or $14 a month on three-yearly billing. The connect page’s displayed rupee price did not match that file’s “normal” price, so confirm the currency and the term at checkout. Triggers and the internal steps named above do not use a task. We do not earn from Pabbly.
Activepieces. Free is $0, described as 1,000 credits a month with no card and no time limit, with the daily-reset wording noted above. Plus is $20 a month on the monthly table, for 10,000 credits, then $0.007 a credit. A run is one credit however many steps it has, unless the step is AI. The EU cloud is in Frankfurt. We do not earn from Activepieces.
IFTTT. Free is $0 with 2 Applets and unlimited runs. Pro is $2.99 a month, or $35.88 billed annually, for 20 Applets. Useful when the job is two devices or two apps. A poor buy when the job is a business process with branches. We do not earn from IFTTT.
A worked example, Occono’s own arithmetic, from the rules above. A website enquiry is added to a sheet and an email is sent. That is a trigger and two actions. On Zapier’s free plan the workflow is limited to one action, so this job needs Professional. If each successful action is a task, 100 enquiries are about 200 tasks, inside the 750 on the $19.99 annual Professional tier. On Make, if each of the three modules uses 1 credit, 100 enquiries are about 300 credits, inside the Free plan’s 1,000. Make’s FAQ also counts a scheduled check that reads data, so a quiet week can still use credits. On n8n, 100 enquiries are 100 executions, inside the Starter tier’s 2,500, and also inside the cloud trial’s 1,000. On Activepieces, if a run is one credit, 100 enquiries are 100 credits. On Pabbly, if the trigger is free and each action is one task, 100 enquiries are about 200 tasks, which is over the free 100 and inside the Standard 10,000. The arithmetic changes as soon as a workflow adds a branch, a lookup or an AI step. Count the real steps on one live week before you pay.
Which one fits you?
Milly B.’s line is the case for leaving Zapier once the bill climbs. Jordan W.’s line is the case for staying when a Zap already runs every day. Mael T.’s September 2026 review is a freelancer on Make’s free plan. Matyas Z.’s August 2026 review is the warning that Make takes work to set up. Daniel R. and connor Q. are the Microsoft case, including the point where a flow leaves Microsoft 365. Josh L. and Bhaswarjyoti B. are the Pabbly case: cheaper, and harder to learn.
A UK sole trader, a handful of jobs a month. A form on the website, a row in a sheet, and a short email. That is three steps. Zapier’s free plan stops at two, so the next Zapier step is Professional from $19.99 a month on yearly billing, with 750 tasks. Make’s free plan, 1,000 credits and no time limit, covers a few hundred of those runs if each run is a handful of credits. Watch the first month, because a schedule that reads the sheet also uses credits. The quote follow-up guide is a worked system in that shape. Stay on Zapier’s free plan only if you can do the job in one trigger and one action, and you stay under 100 tasks.
A small agency that already lives in Zapier. Rebuilding every Zap is the expensive part, and it is unpaid time. If the Zaps run and the Professional or Team bill is still tolerable, stay. Jordan W.’s review is that ordinary case. Move a new workflow to Make when it would have been a multi-step Zap and you want to see the credit cost on the free plan before you commit. The Make and Zapier comparison is the page for that bill. Pabbly is the one to trial beside it if the agency’s complaint is the task price and someone on the team will learn a different builder. Josh L.’s review is that trade, and Bhaswarjyoti B.’s review is the usability cost.
An office that already pays for Microsoft 365. Leave requests, approvals and a row in Excel are Daniel R.’s review. If the licence is Business Basic, Standard or Premium, Microsoft’s FAQ lists Power Automate as included for standard connectors. Paying for Make, Zapier or Pabbly on top is a second bill for work the Microsoft licence already covers. connor Q.’s review is the moment to leave: the flow needs an app outside Microsoft 365, and the connector is premium. Premium is £11.50 per user a month, paid yearly, before VAT. From that point, Make’s free plan is the cheaper experiment. The connector marks are in the Make and Power Automate comparison, checked the day before this page.
A privacy-minded owner who is comfortable with a server. n8n’s Community edition is free to self-host, on n8n’s docs, and the data stays on a machine you control. You also own the updates, the backups and the downtime. n8n Cloud Starter at €20 a month, billed annually, is the hosted version, and it costs more than Make’s Core at $9 before you count the exchange rate. Activepieces’ pricing page says you can use its cloud, including an EU region in Frankfurt, or your own servers, and that a run is one credit however many steps it has. The same page says its SOC 2 programme is in progress and that it will not claim a certificate it does not hold. Activepieces has no public rating in this article. Pick n8n if you already know you will self-host. Pick Activepieces if the one-credit-per-run rule and the Frankfurt option are the point, and you have checked the free-plan reset in an account. The n8n and Make comparison covers the hosted-versus-self-hosted choice in more detail.
A coach or trainer who needs a page, email and a follow-up, and does not need to connect a pile of other apps. A connector tool is the wrong first product. Systeme.io’s help article on workflows, last updated 12 October 2026, describes workflows inside the product: a trigger such as a funnel form or a sale, then an email, a tag, a delay, a yes/no decision, course access, or a row in a Google Sheet. That is the automation, without Zapier. Systeme.io is the product. This page does not restate its prices. The Systeme.io guide is the page for the plan limits. We earn from Systeme.io.
Someone whose product is the newsletter. beehiiv’s help article on automations, updated 1 October 2026, says automations are on paid plans. Its table lists Lite at up to 10 live automations, and Pro and Enterprise as unlimited, with click-triggered automations and A/B testing on those two. The same article says the feature is available on beehiiv’s free trial. beehiiv’s automations features page, read the same day, says email automations are on the Scale plan and above, and that the free Launch plan does not include them, while every account can send a one-email welcome. The two pages do not use the same plan names. This article does not decide which names are current, and it does not state a beehiiv price. beehiiv is the newsletter tool. The beehiiv and Kit comparison, checked 22 October 2026, has the prices from that day. We earn from beehiiv.
Where staying on Zapier is the better choice
Stay when a two-step Zap and 100 tasks a month cover the work. Stay when the account is already full of Zaps that run, and the cost of rebuilding them is larger than the subscription. Zapier’s pricing page lists Professional at $19.99 a month billed annually or $29.99 billed monthly (750 tasks). Capterra’s 4.7 from 3,083 reviews is the largest sample on this page. Milly B.’s line is the reason people start this search. It is a reason to price the next workflow, and a weak reason to migrate ten workflows that already work. Make’s comparison page claims 3,500+ apps for Make and 8,000+ for Zapier. Zapier’s pricing page says 9,000+ apps. Capterra’s Zapier page says 9,000+. If a particular app is the reason you chose Zapier, test that app on the alternative before you cancel.
Where Make is the better buy
Make is the better buy for most UK small businesses that have outgrown a two-step Zap and do not already have the job inside Microsoft 365. The free plan is 1,000 credits a month and, on Make’s comparison page, it is not time-limited. Core starts at $9 a month for 10,000 credits on that page, against Zapier Professional from $19.99 a month for 750 tasks on Zapier’s own article. Capterra’s 4.8 from 409 reviews is a shade above Zapier’s 4.7, on a much smaller sample, and 91% of those Make reviews are from small businesses. Mael T.’s review is the free plan doing a freelancer’s job. Matyas Z.’s review is the setup cost. There is no Trustpilot score on this page, because Trustpilot did not return one on 24 October 2026. Read the three-star and one-star reviews on Capterra before you move a process you cannot afford to break. The Make and Zapier comparison has the two-tool version of this decision.
n8n is the better buy when you will self-host, or when each run has so many steps that Make’s per-step credits cost more than €20 a month. Pabbly is the better buy when you want 10,000 action steps at the $16 yearly rate in Pabbly’s pricing file, and you have time to learn the builder. Activepieces is the better buy when a whole run should cost one credit and you want the Frankfurt region or your own server. Power Automate is the better buy when Microsoft 365 already includes the flow. IFTTT is the better buy when two Applets are the entire requirement.
Price one workflow you already do by hand every week. Count its steps, then put that count against the unit each tool charges for. The step count is the bill.
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