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Zapier vs Make: Pricing, Limits and Which to Pick in 2026

Zapier vs Make compared in depth: tasks vs credits, what each counts, schedules, branching, error handling and AI. Prices as of October 2026.

Mythex Team · 2026-10-22 · 8 min read

Pick Zapier if you want the fastest setup, the widest app catalogue (9,000+ apps) and simple step-by-step automations that anyone on the team can read. Pick Make if your workflows branch, loop or move a lot of data, and you want a lower price per run: as of October 2026, Make's Core plan is $9 a month billed annually for 10,000 credits, while 10,000 tasks on Zapier Professional is $129 a month billed annually. The catch is that a Zapier task and a Make credit are not the same unit, so the real gap depends on how your workflows are built.

If you're also weighing n8n, Power Automate or IFTTT, see our wider Zapier alternatives comparison. This guide goes deeper on just these two.

Zapier vs Make at a glance

All figures are from the vendors' own pricing pages as of October 2026: Zapier pricing and Make pricing.

How we compared

We read each vendor's pricing page, plan comparison table and pricing FAQ in October 2026 and compared what they state. We did not run a hands-on benchmark. Both products publish many price tiers; we quote the entry tier and the tier closest to 10,000 units so you can see the shape of the pricing. Zapier lists prices in US dollars; Make's prices were shown in US dollars for annual billing, and Make says monthly billing costs more. Anything we couldn't confirm on the vendors' own sites, such as data residency options, we left out.

Tasks vs credits: what actually counts

This is the part that decides your bill, and it's where most comparisons go wrong.

What Zapier counts

According to Zapier's pricing page, a task is used when Zapier successfully completes a unit of work:

• Each standard action step uses 1 task.
• Triggers don't count. Neither does polling for new data.
• Built-in tools don't count: Formatter, Paths, Filter, Delay, Looping, Sub-Zap, Digest, Storage, Tables and Forms.
• Failed actions don't count.
• Each Zapier MCP tool call uses 2 tasks, and AI by Zapier steps are priced by model tier.

What Make counts

According to Make's pricing FAQ, a credit is used every time a module performs an action. Most actions use 1 credit; some AI features that use Make's AI Provider can use more. Things that count include:

• Reading data from an app or webhook (so the trigger counts).
• Searching, creating, updating and deleting data.
• Transforming data with built-in tools, aggregating and iterating.

Things that don't count: routers and error handler modules.

A worked example

Say a workflow runs 1,000 times a month. It starts with a new form submission, formats the name, checks a condition, then creates a CRM contact and sends a Slack message.

• On Zapier: the trigger, formatter and filter are free. The two actions use 2 tasks per run, so 2,000 tasks a month. That's Zapier Professional's 2,000-task tier at $49/month billed yearly.
• On Make: the trigger, the formatting step and the two actions each use a credit (the filter sits on a route, which doesn't count). That's roughly 4,000 credits a month, inside Make Core's 10,000 credits at $9/month billed annually.

So Make uses more units for the same workflow, but each unit is far cheaper. For most workflows Make still comes out cheaper. The gap narrows for short Zaps that lean on Zapier's free built-in tools, and widens for long workflows with many actions.

Running out

• Zapier: with pay-per-task turned on, work continues and extra tasks cost 1.25x the base rate on annual plans or 2.5x on monthly plans, up to 3x your plan's tasks. With it off, Zaps stop at the limit.
• Make: scenarios stop until you add credits. Incoming webhooks queue up to your queue size, and polling scenarios pick up from their last successful run. You can buy extra credits in bundles or turn on auto-purchase on Core, Pro and Teams. Make says unused credits expire at the end of the term.

Building workflows: list vs canvas

Zapier shows a Zap as a vertical list: trigger, then step, then step. Branches are added with Paths, which split the Zap into separate routes. It's easy to read and hard to get lost in, which is why non-technical teams tend to adopt it quickly. Zapier also has Copilot, an AI helper that drafts Zaps from a description (with a daily message limit on Free).

Make shows a scenario as a canvas of connected bubbles. A router splits the flow into as many routes as you like, each with its own filter. Iterators and aggregators let you loop over a list (say, line items on an order) and combine the results. You can see data moving through each module when you test a run. That visibility is Make's biggest strength for complex logic, and also why it takes longer to learn.

Code steps

• Zapier: Code by Zapier includes 1 second of runtime per step on Free, 30 seconds on Professional and Team, and 2 minutes on Enterprise. Extra runtime is billed in 30-second blocks at 1 task each.
• Make: the Make Code app runs JavaScript or Python. It isn't on Free; on paid plans it costs 2 credits per second of execution time. Custom JavaScript functions are an Enterprise feature.

Schedules and speed

How often a workflow checks for new data matters for anything time-sensitive.

• Zapier polls every 15 minutes on Free, every 2 minutes on Professional and every minute on Team and Enterprise. Webhook-based triggers fire when the other app sends data.
• Make lets scheduled scenarios run every 15 minutes at most on Free, and down to every minute on any paid plan. Pro and above get priority execution during busy periods.

Make also sets a maximum run time per execution: 5 minutes on Free and 40 minutes on paid plans. Zapier doesn't state a comparable limit on its pricing page.

Error handling and debugging

Zapier offers Autoreplay (automatic retries) and customised error settings from Professional, plus flood protection that pauses a Zap when an unusual amount of data arrives. Version history is kept for 1 month on Professional, 6 months on Team and 1 year on Enterprise.

Make gives you error handler modules you place on the canvas: Resume (carry on with a fallback value), Ignore, Break (store the run as incomplete to retry later), Rollback and Commit. They don't use credits. Execution logs are kept for 7 days on Free, 30 days on paid plans and 60 days on Enterprise, with full-text log search from Pro.

If you need fine control over what happens when one step fails, Make's model is more flexible. If you want sensible retries without thinking about it, Zapier's Autoreplay is simpler.

AI features

Both have moved heavily into AI, and both list these features on their pricing pages as of October 2026:

• Zapier: Copilot for building Zaps, AI by Zapier steps (priced by model tier), Zapier Agents as an add-on (Free includes 400 agent activities a month; agent activities don't use your task pool), an MCP server, and Tables with AI fields on paid plans.
• Make: Maia, an assistant that builds scenarios through conversation, Make AI Agents (beta), an AI toolkit, AI content extraction, AI web search (beta) and an MCP server, all listed on every plan. You can use Make's AI Provider or your own model key.

Teams and collaboration

This is an underrated difference. Zapier Professional is a single seat; shared workspaces start on Team at $69/month billed yearly, which includes 25 seats. Make lists unlimited users on every plan, with team roles and shared scenario templates on Teams ($29/month billed annually at 10,000 credits). For a small team sharing automations, Make is much cheaper to put everyone on.

Who should pick which

Choose Zapier if:

• You need an app that only Zapier connects to. Check both catalogues before deciding.
• Your automations are mostly short: one trigger, one to three actions.
• People who aren't technical will build and maintain them.
• You want Zapier Tables and Forms as a light database and form layer next to your Zaps.

Choose Make if:

• Your workflows branch, loop over lists or transform data heavily.
• You run high volumes and price per run matters.
• Several people need access without paying per seat.
• You want detailed run logs and explicit error routes.

When neither is the right tool

Both tools are glue between apps. If one workflow has become the core of your business, for example taking an order, applying your own pricing rules, saving it and notifying staff, it can be cheaper and more reliable as a small app of its own. Mythex builds web apps by chatting with AI, with a database when the app needs one, and you can publish to a URL in one click. Your app can receive webhooks from Stripe or a form tool directly. The trade-off is real: you get no ready-made catalogue of connectors, and each integration is code calling that service's API. Keep Zapier or Make for the long tail of small automations, and consider building only the one or two that matter most. Our guide on replacing expensive SaaS with your own tool covers when that's worth it.

Verdict

Zapier is the easier tool with more apps, and its free built-in steps make short Zaps cheaper than they first look. Make is the better value for complex or high-volume workflows, gives every plan branching and unlimited users, and offers finer error handling. Before you choose, list your five busiest workflows, count the actions in each, and price them on both pages using the counting rules above.