Zapier is the automation tool most people start with, and it is easy to see why. It connects to almost everything and the editor is simple. The catch is the meter. The free plan gives you 100 tasks a month and only two-step Zaps. The Professional plan starts at $19.99 a month billed annually, or $29.99 month to month, for 750 tasks. Every action step that runs counts as a task, so a Zap with five action steps that runs 150 times uses the whole allowance.
Make is the obvious first alternative. In August 2025 it switched its billing from operations to credits. The free plan includes 1,000 credits a month, and the Core plan starts around $9 a month billed annually with 10,000 credits. The visual editor is more complex than Zapier's, with branching and loops laid out on a canvas, but for the same budget you get far more runs.
n8n is the choice if you are willing to host something. The self-hosted Community Edition is free with unlimited executions, and a small cloud server that will run it costs a few dollars a month. There is also n8n Cloud, which starts at about 20 euros a month billed annually for 2,500 executions. The key difference is how it counts: n8n bills per workflow run, not per step, so a long workflow costs the same as a short one.
Pipedream is aimed at developers. You can drop into JavaScript or Python at any step, and billing is based on compute time in credits rather than on steps. The free tier is small and meant for testing. Workday agreed to acquire Pipedream in November 2025, so if you are choosing a platform for years rather than months, keep an eye on what the new owner does with it.
Self-hosting is not free in every sense. You are responsible for updates, backups and security, and when a workflow silently stops at 2 a.m., nobody else is watching it. For a business that relies on a handful of automations to take payments or answer leads, that support burden is worth something.
The short version: if your Zapier bill is climbing because of multi-step Zaps, move to Make first, since it is the easiest switch and the cheapest paid plan here. If you are comfortable running a server, self-hosted n8n removes the meter almost completely. Choose Pipedream only if you would rather write code than drag boxes.
