n8n vs Make.com: Which Should Your Business Use?
Make bills per step, n8n per run, self-hosted n8n per nothing. Real 2026 prices, the worked example where Make honestly wins, and where the crossover comes.
Make.com is the friendliest way into serious automation, and at small scale it’s genuinely the cheapest cloud option. n8n is the more powerful tool and the one that stays cheap as you grow — if you’re willing to own more of it. That’s the comparison in two sentences; the rest is pricing arithmetic and the specific cases where each wins. Same disclosure as my n8n vs Zapier comparison: most of my client work runs on n8n, so read accordingly — and notice where I tell you to use Make.
How each one charges you
Prices checked August 2026; confirm on the vendors’ pricing pages.
- Make bills per credit — roughly one credit per module (step) that runs; Make renamed these from “operations” in 2026. The free plan includes 1,000 credits a month with two active scenarios; the Core plan is around $9–12 a month for 10,000 credits, with tiers climbing from there.
- n8n Cloud bills per execution — one workflow run counts once regardless of how many steps it has, and only successful runs count. The Starter plan is about €24 a month for 2,500 executions.
- Self-hosted n8n bills nothing — free software with unlimited runs on a server you pay for, typically $6–7 a month.
The same workflow, three bills
A five-step lead workflow running 1,000 times a month: on Make that’s 5,000 credits — comfortably inside the ~$9–12 Core plan. On n8n Cloud it’s 1,000 executions on the €24 Starter. Self-hosted, the $6 server. At this scale, Make wins the cloud price war — worth saying plainly, because n8n advocates usually don’t.
Now change one variable at a time. Grow the volume to 10,000 runs: Make needs 50,000 credits and several tier steps up, while n8n Cloud needs its €50 Pro plan and the self-hosted server doesn’t notice. Grow the workflow from five steps to ten — which is what happens to real workflows once error handling, logging and edge cases are added: Make’s bill doubles, and n8n’s doesn’t change at all. Per-step billing quietly punishes you for building workflows properly. That’s the structural difference that decides the long game.
Where Make genuinely wins
- The visual builder. Make’s canvas is the best-looking, most approachable flow editor in the category. Non-technical team members genuinely can build and read scenarios in it — that’s not marketing, it’s true.
- The free tier is a real trial. 1,000 credits and the full builder is enough to automate something genuinely useful and find out whether automation fits your business, for free.
- Cheap entry with no servers. At low volume with lean workflows, ~$9–12 a month beats n8n Cloud and spares you self-hosting entirely.
- A big app library with solid coverage of the marketing and sales tools smaller teams actually use.
Honest verdict: a marketing team automating a handful of lean scenarios, nobody technical on staff, volume in the low thousands — use Make and enjoy it.
Where n8n wins
- Complex logic without fighting the tool. Branches, loops, merges, and a code node for the step that needs real logic. Error handling is first-class — failed runs can trigger their own recovery workflows, which is how automations survive production — and on n8n those extra defensive steps are free, not billed per run.
- Any API, including your own. HTTP and webhook nodes talk to anything with an API — internal systems, niche tools, no waiting for a connector.
- Your data on your server. Self-hosted, every record stays on infrastructure you control — often the deciding factor for GDPR exposure or client confidentiality.
- AI-native workflows. OpenAI and Claude nodes are built in, so classification, drafting and summarising drop into a flow without duct tape.
- The cost curve, as above: flat where Make’s climbs with both volume and thoroughness.
The catch, each way
Make’s catch is the meter: you rent it forever, and per-credit billing makes teams design timid, under-engineered scenarios to keep the count down. n8n’s catch is ownership: self-hosting means updates, backups and monitoring, and an automation server nobody maintains is a liability. n8n Cloud splits the difference (managed, still per-run pricing), or you pay someone to be accountable for your instance — that’s the service I run, with a single workflow starting around $600 on infrastructure you own.
Side by side
| Make.com | n8n Cloud | n8n self-hosted | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Credit (per step run) | Execution (per run) | Flat server cost |
| Free option | 1,000 credits/mo, 2 scenarios | Trial | Free software, unlimited |
| 5-step workflow, 1,000 runs/mo | 5,000 credits — ~$9–12 plan | ~€24 plan | ~$6 server |
| Same workflow at 10 steps | Bill doubles | Unchanged | Unchanged |
| Custom / internal APIs | Via HTTP module | Native HTTP + webhook nodes, code node | |
| Data location | Make’s cloud | n8n’s cloud | Your server |
| Best for | Non-technical teams, lean scenarios, low volume | Growing volume, no server duties | Volume, control, complex systems |
Key takeaways
- Make bills per step, n8n per run, self-hosted n8n per nothing — at 1,000 monthly runs of a 5-step workflow that’s ~$9–12 vs ~€24 vs ~$6 (checked August 2026), and Make honestly wins that round.
- The crossover comes with growth: more volume or more steps per workflow both climb Make’s bill and leave n8n’s flat.
- Make is the right call for non-technical teams with lean, low-volume scenarios. n8n is the right call for complex logic, custom APIs, data control and scale.
- Per-step billing quietly discourages error handling — the part of automation you least want to skimp on.
Weighing the two for your own workflows? Book a free intro call and describe what you want automated and how often it runs — you’ll get a straight answer on which platform fits your numbers, including “use Make” when that’s the truth. And if Zapier is also on your shortlist, that comparison is here.
