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Make vs Zapier: which is cheaper for your workflow? Credits vs tasks by runs and steps (checked November 2026)
Make and Zapier both bill by usage, but they count different things. Zapier counts tasks: one for each action step that runs successfully. The trigger that starts a Zap is free, and so are built-in steps such as Filter, Formatter and Looping. Make counts credits: one for each module that runs, the trigger included, and for a polling trigger one for every check, even a check that finds nothing. And the two price each unit very differently. So which one costs less depends on how many times your workflow runs, how many steps it has, and how it starts. This page works through grids of all three from the published plan prices, then covers what a month over the limit costs on each. To include n8n, see n8n vs Make vs Zapier pricing.
The short answer
- Zapier counts fewer units; Make charges far less per unit. A run with an instant trigger and 5 actions is 5 Zapier tasks and 6 Make credits. But 1,000 Make credits cost $0.90 on Core's 10,000-credit size, while 1,000 Zapier tasks cost $26.65 on Professional's 750-task tier and still $1.69 on its 2-million-task tier.
- Wherever Make's price is published, Make costs less. 1,000 runs with 5 actions are 5,000 Zapier tasks (Professional 5K, $89.00) or 6,000 Make credits (Core, $9).
- Above 10,000 credits, Make's prices aren't in its page text, so our grid shows the break-even instead. With an instant trigger, Make costs less as long as it charges under $2.73 to $12.60 per 1,000 credits at that size; Core's rate at 10,000 credits is $0.90.
- Polling is where Zapier can cost less. Zapier never charges for checking a trigger; Make charges 1 credit per check. Checking every 2 minutes, as Zapier Professional does, is 21,600 Make credits a month before any action runs.
- Free plans: Zapier Free has 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps (a trigger and one action). Make Free has 1,000 credits a month and 2 active scenarios.
- Over the limit: Zapier keeps running on pay-per-task at about a quarter more per task (3.34¢ on Professional 750). Make stops until you add extra credits, at 25% more ($1.125 per 1,000 on Core's 10,000 size).
How each one counts
| What happens | Zapier | Make |
|---|---|---|
| One run: instant trigger or webhook, then 5 action steps | 5 tasks | 6 credits: 1 for the trigger, 1 per action |
| A polling trigger checks and finds nothing | Not counted | 1 credit |
| A search step | 1 task, or 0 if it finds nothing and is set to stop | 1 credit per run, however many results it returns |
| One run handles 50 items with 1 action each | 50 tasks (the Looping step is free) | 50 credits, plus 1 for an Iterator if the items arrive as one array |
| Filters and branches | Filter and Paths: 0 | Filters and routers: 0 |
| Formatting text, numbers and dates | Formatter steps: 0 | Make Functions modules, and functions written in a module's fields: 0 |
| Combining many items into one | Digest steps: 0 | An Aggregator: 1 credit per aggregation |
| Error handling | A step that errors: 0; steps in an error handler path: 1 each | Error handler modules: 0 |
| Replaying a past run | Every successful step counts again | Uses credits like a standard run |
From Zapier's How is task usage measured page and Make's How features use credits, Make Functions and Scenario run replay pages.
The free lists aren't the same length:
- Zapier: every trigger, Filter and Paths steps (and the steps they stop), Formatter, Delay, Looping, Digest, Storage, Zapier Manager, Zapier Tables and Zapier Forms steps, steps that error or halt, and tests in the Zap editor.
- Make: error handler modules, routers and filters, the Scenarios modules that call or start other scenarios, and Make Functions modules, which Make describes as "visual wrappers for standard IML logic, which is already free to use within mapping fields". Everything else uses credits, Make's own built-in tools included: "All other apps consume credits based on a fixed rate of 1 credit per operation."
What one unit costs
A task and a credit aren't the same unit, but both are what you pay for. What 1,000 of each cost at the sizes with a published price, billed annually:
| Plan size | Price a month | Per 1,000 units | Per 1,000 units over the limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Make Core, 10,000 credits | $9.00 | $0.90 | $1.125 |
| Make Pro, 10,000 credits | $16.00 | $1.60 | $2.00 |
| Make Teams, 10,000 credits | $29.00 | $2.90 | $3.625 |
| Zapier Professional, 750 tasks | $19.99 | $26.65 | $33.40 |
| Zapier Professional, 10K tasks | $129.00 | $12.90 | $16.20 |
| Zapier Professional, 100K tasks | $489.00 | $4.89 | $6.20 |
| Zapier Professional, 2M tasks | $3,389.00 | $1.69 | $2.20 |
| Zapier Team, 2K tasks | $69.00 | $34.50 | $43.20 |
How to read it:
- Make's cheapest paid size costs less per unit than Zapier's biggest. Core and Pro at 10,000 credits are $0.90 and $1.60 per 1,000; Zapier's largest self-serve tier, 2 million tasks a month, is $1.69 per 1,000.
- The gap in price is far bigger than the gap in counting. With an instant trigger, Make counts 1 more unit per run than Zapier, which at most doubles the count (for a one-action workflow). At the entry sizes, a Zapier task costs about 30 times as much as a Make credit ($26.65 against $0.90 per 1,000).
- The last column is what more units cost once a month's are used up: Zapier's pay-per-task rate for that tier, and Make's extra credits at the plan's price per credit plus 25%. More on both below.
- Other Make sizes: Make sets the size with a slider, and the prices of the other sizes weren't in the page's text. Its Extra credits page says "Higher-tier plans have lower per-credit costs".
Grid 1: instant trigger or webhook
Each run handles one new item and starts from an instant trigger or a webhook: on Zapier, 1 task per action; on Make, 1 credit for the trigger plus 1 per action. One user and one active workflow, prices per month billed annually.
- Each cell: Zapier's price · Make's price. Zapier's is the cheapest tier that holds runs × actions tasks (Free only for one action and up to 100 tasks). Make's is Free (up to 1,000 credits) or the 10,000-credit size on Core ($9).
- "under $X": Make needs more than 10,000 credits, and that size's price isn't in its page text. The cell shows the break-even instead: the most Make could charge per 1,000 credits at that size and still cost less than Zapier in the same cell (Zapier's price ÷ Make's credits in thousands).
| Runs a month | 1 action (Zapier · Make) | 3 actions | 5 actions | 10 actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | Free · Free | $19.99 · Free | $19.99 · Free | $39.00 · $9.00 |
| 500 | $19.99 · Free | $39.00 · $9.00 | $89.00 · $9.00 | $89.00 · $9.00 |
| 1,000 | $39.00 · $9.00 | $89.00 · $9.00 | $89.00 · $9.00 | $129.00 · under $11.73 |
| 2,500 | $89.00 · $9.00 | $129.00 · $9.00 | $189.00 · under $12.60 | $289.00 · under $10.51 |
| 5,000 | $89.00 · $9.00 | $189.00 · under $9.45 | $289.00 · under $9.63 | $289.00 · under $5.25 |
| 10,000 | $129.00 · under $6.45 | $289.00 · under $7.23 | $289.00 · under $4.82 | $489.00 · under $4.45 |
| 50,000 | $289.00 · under $2.89 | $769.00 · under $3.85 | $1,069.00 · under $3.56 | $1,499.00 · under $2.73 |
How to read it:
- Every cell with a published Make price is Make's, apart from the top-left, where both are free: $9 or Free against Zapier's $19.99 to $129.00.
- The break-evens are high. Where Make's price isn't published, it costs less as long as it charges under $2.73 to $12.60 per 1,000 credits at that size, against $0.90 on Core, $1.60 on Pro and $2.90 on Teams at 10,000 credits. Only two cells come in under Teams' rate: 50,000 runs with 1 action and with 10.
- Zapier's price climbs with every step; Make's stays at $9 up to 10,000 credits. At 1,000 runs a month, Zapier goes from $39.00 with 1 action to $129.00 with 10.
- Billed monthly, Zapier's prices are 1.5 times as much (Professional 750 is $29.99). Make's monthly-billing prices weren't in its page text.
Free steps on both sides
Take a workflow that tidies up a lead form and passes it on: two formatting steps clean the name and phone number, a filter drops test entries, then it creates a contact in a CRM and posts in Slack. That is 5 steps after the trigger. Built with each product's free steps:
- Zapier: the 2 Formatter steps and the Filter are free, so 2 tasks a run.
- Make: the webhook trigger is 1 credit; the clean-up is free in Make Functions modules or in the CRM module's fields, and the filter sits on the link between modules, so 3 credits a run.
Built so that every step counts (an app or code step for each clean-up, say), it is 5 tasks or 6 credits. Each cell is tasks or credits a month · the price, billed annually. "under $X" is the break-even, as in grid 1, against the Zapier version built the same way: "every step counts" against "every step counts", "free modules" against "3 free steps".
| Runs a month | Zapier, every step counts | Zapier, 3 free steps | Make, every step counts | Make, free modules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 500 · Professional 750, $19.99 | 200 · Professional 750, $19.99 | 600 · Free | 300 · Free |
| 500 | 2,500 · Professional 5K, $89.00 | 1,000 · Professional 1.5K, $39.00 | 3,000 · $9.00 | 1,500 · $9.00 |
| 1,000 | 5,000 · Professional 5K, $89.00 | 2,000 · Professional 2K, $49.00 | 6,000 · $9.00 | 3,000 · $9.00 |
| 2,500 | 12,500 · Professional 20K, $189.00 | 5,000 · Professional 5K, $89.00 | 15,000 · under $12.60 | 7,500 · $9.00 |
| 5,000 | 25,000 · Professional 50K, $289.00 | 10,000 · Professional 10K, $129.00 | 30,000 · under $9.63 | 15,000 · under $8.60 |
| 10,000 | 50,000 · Professional 50K, $289.00 | 20,000 · Professional 20K, $189.00 | 60,000 · under $4.82 | 30,000 · under $6.30 |
How to read it:
- On Zapier, free steps move the bill down a tier or two. At 1,000 runs, $89.00 becomes $49.00.
- On Make, they matter once a month passes 10,000 credits. Below that, both versions are $9. At 2,500 runs, the free modules keep the month at 7,500 credits ($9) instead of 15,000.
- Even Make's worst case beats Zapier's best where Make's price is published: at 1,000 runs, 6,000 credits with every step counted cost $9, against $49.00 for 2,000 tasks with every free step used.
Polling: where Zapier can cost less
A polling trigger asks an app for new data on a schedule. Zapier never uses a task for that, and checks every 15 minutes on Free, 2 minutes on Professional and 1 minute on Team. Make uses 1 credit for every check, whatever it finds: in a 30-day month that is 2,880 credits at every 15 minutes, 8,640 at every 5, 21,600 at every 2 and 43,200 at every minute (1 minute is Make's shortest on paid plans, 15 on Free). Each active scenario checks on its own.
Each Make cell adds the month's checks to 1 credit per action for each item (one check's credit covers all the items it finds), with "under $X" as in grid 1, against the Zapier column.
| Runs × actions | Zapier (checks every 2 minutes, free) | Make, every 15 minutes | Make, every 5 minutes | Make, every 2 minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 × 3 | 300 · Professional 750, $19.99 | 3,180 · $9.00 | 8,940 · $9.00 | 21,900 · under $0.91 |
| 300 × 3 | 900 · Professional 1.5K, $39.00 | 3,780 · $9.00 | 9,540 · $9.00 | 22,500 · under $1.73 |
| 500 × 5 | 2,500 · Professional 5K, $89.00 | 5,380 · $9.00 | 11,140 · under $7.99 | 24,100 · under $3.69 |
| 1,000 × 5 | 5,000 · Professional 5K, $89.00 | 7,880 · $9.00 | 13,640 · under $6.52 | 26,600 · under $3.35 |
| 2,500 × 5 | 12,500 · Professional 20K, $189.00 | 15,380 · under $12.29 | 21,140 · under $8.94 | 34,100 · under $5.54 |
| 10,000 × 5 | 50,000 · Professional 50K, $289.00 | 52,880 · under $5.47 | 58,640 · under $4.93 | 71,600 · under $4.04 |
How to read it:
- Checking every 15 or 5 minutes, Make still costs less wherever its price is published, and every break-even is $4.93 or more, above Teams' $2.90. But its data is less fresh than Zapier Professional's.
- At the same 2 minutes, few runs can flip the answer. 100 runs of 3 actions are 21,900 Make credits, almost all of them checks. Make costs less only if it charges under $0.91 per 1,000 credits at that size: about Core's $0.90 at 10,000 credits, and well under Pro's $1.60. That corner, a few runs a month with checks every couple of minutes, is where Zapier can be the cheaper of the two.
- As runs grow, the checks matter less: at 10,000 runs of 5 actions, the break-even at 2 minutes is still $4.04.
- The smallest case: 100 runs a month of a trigger and one action fit Zapier Free (100 tasks, two-step Zaps, checks every 15 minutes) at $0. On Make, polling every 15 minutes needs 2,980 credits, more than Make Free's 1,000, so $9 on Core.
- On Make, use an instant trigger or a webhook where the app has one. Then there are no checks to pay for, and grid 1 applies.
Over the limit: pay-per-task and extra credits
What happens when a month's units run out:
- Zapier: with pay-per-task on (the default for accounts that joined after January 2024), Zaps keep running and each extra task is billed at a higher rate than the plan's tasks, up to 3 times the plan's task limit in all. Then Zaps stop until the next usage period. With pay-per-task off, runs are held at the limit, and you can replay them once you have tasks again.
- Make: scenarios stop until credits are added. You can buy extra credits by hand, in units of 1,000, or turn on auto-purchasing, which buys 10,000 at a time when the plan's credits run out, up to the number of credits in your plan per cycle (once on a 10,000-credit plan, 8 times on 80,000). Both ways cost 25% more than the plan's credits. On annual Core, extra credits expire at the monthly reset.
Worked example: a month that runs over
A workflow with an instant trigger and 4 actions usually runs 1,000 times a month: 4,000 Zapier tasks (Professional 5K, $89.00) or 5,000 Make credits (Core, $9). One month it runs 2,500 times:
- Zapier: 10,000 tasks, 5,000 over the tier. At Professional 5K's pay-per-task rate of 2.23¢, the extra is $111.50, so the month costs $200.50, more than Professional 10K ($129.00) would have. The cap is 15,000 tasks, so the Zaps keep running.
- Make: 12,500 credits, 2,500 over. Bought by hand, 3 units of 1,000 cost 3 × $1.125 = $3.375, so the month comes to $12.38. With auto-purchasing, Make buys 10,000 credits at once for $11.25, so the month comes to $20.25. That is the most auto-purchasing can buy in a cycle on a 10,000-credit plan.
Make's Extra credits page recommends moving to a bigger plan if you buy extra credits regularly; Zapier's pay-per-task table in Zapier tasks explained shows when the next tier costs less than paying per task.
Limits that aren't about price
From the two pricing pages and help centers:
| Limit | Zapier | Make |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps (a trigger and one action), unlimited Zaps, 1 user | 1,000 credits a month, 2 active scenarios |
| Shortest polling interval | 15 minutes on Free, 2 on Professional, 1 on Team and Enterprise | 15 minutes on Free, 1 minute on paid plans |
| Users | 1 on Free and Professional, 25 on Team, unlimited on Enterprise | See Make's pricing page |
| At the monthly limit | Pay-per-task up to 3 times the plan's tasks, or runs held | Scenarios stop until credits are added; extra credits cost 25% more |
| Bursts | Free and trial plans: a polling Zap is held if it makes more than 200 requests in 10 minutes. Any plan: 100 or more new items in one poll are held until you confirm them (flood protection) | Runs share a parallel capacity per organization. When it is full, instant scenarios without a webhook response queue their data; responsive webhooks and subscenarios get an HTTP 429 reply, and the data isn't processed unless the caller retries |
Zapier lists multi-step Zaps, unlimited premium apps and webhooks among Professional's key features; on Free, a Zap is a trigger and one action.
AI steps
- Zapier: an AI by Zapier step uses 1, 3 or 5 tasks a run by model tier (Standard, Advanced, Premium), plus the same again for each tool call, or 1 with your own AI provider's API key. New steps on paid plans start on Premium: 5 tasks a run until you pick a lower tier. At Professional 750's price per task, that is about 13¢ a run.
- Make: an AI module uses 1 credit per operation. On Make's own AI Provider it also uses credits for the tokens, at a rate that depends on the model; with your own API key it is 1 credit per operation and the AI provider bills you for the tokens.
Rates and worked examples are in Make credits explained and Zapier tasks explained.
Which one to choose
These follow from the grids above:
- On price, Make wins almost everywhere the two are compared at published prices: short or long workflows, a few runs or many, as long as the workflow starts from an instant trigger or a webhook, or polls every 5 minutes or less often.
- Zapier can cost less with few runs and frequent polling, because its checks are free, and for the smallest jobs that fit its Free plan (a trigger and one action, up to 100 tasks a month).
- Build each one to its rules. On Zapier, put filters before the actions and use Formatter, Digest and searches set to stop. On Make, start from instant triggers or webhooks, filter before the modules that count, and use Make Functions or functions in fields for formatting.
- Price is not the only thing. Check that each one connects the apps you use, with the triggers you need (an instant trigger on Make avoids paying for checks), and the limits above.
To put your own runs, actions and polling interval in, use the automation cost calculator; it shows Make, Zapier and n8n side by side. For n8n against Make, see n8n vs Make.
Check the current numbers
- Make pricing and Zapier pricing, and your billing settings for your own pay-per-task rate
- How each one counts in detail: Make credits explained and Zapier tasks explained
- What Make's Core, Pro and Teams add besides credits: Make plans compared
- With n8n as well: n8n vs Make vs Zapier pricing, n8n vs Make, n8n vs Zapier and the automation cost calculator
Sources
- Make pricing page (plans, comparison table, FAQ) — https://www.make.com/pricing, checked
- Zapier pricing page (plans, plan data, comparison table, FAQ) — https://zapier.com/pricing, checked
- Make Help Center: How features use credits — https://help.make.com/how-features-use-credits, checked
- Make Apps Documentation: Make Functions — https://apps.make.com/make-functions, checked
- Make Help Center: Scenario run replay — https://help.make.com/scenario-run-replay, checked
- Make Help Center: Extra credits — https://help.make.com/extra-credits, checked
- Make Help Center: Parallel Capacity — https://help.make.com/parallel-capacity, checked
- Make Help Center: Credits (AI Provider token rates) — https://help.make.com/credits, checked
- Zapier Help Center: How is task usage measured in Zapier? — https://help.zapier.com/hc/en-us/articles/8496196837261, checked
- Zapier Help Center: How pay-per-task billing works in Zapier — https://help.zapier.com/hc/en-us/articles/15279018245901, checked
- Zapier Help Center: Zap limits — https://help.zapier.com/hc/en-us/articles/8496181445261, checked
- Zapier Help Center: Loop your Zap actions — https://help.zapier.com/hc/en-us/articles/8496106701453, checked
- Zapier Help Center: AI by Zapier model tier pricing — https://help.zapier.com/hc/en-us/articles/46425475442829, checked