TL;DR
n8n is the best Make alternative for anyone technical: the self-hosted
Community edition is free with unlimited executions, and Cloud Starter is €20/mo
billed annually for 2,500 executions. Zapier ($19.99/mo annual, 9,000+ apps)
remains the easiest for non-technical teams, Integrately is the cheapest hosted
seat at $19.99/mo for 2,000 tasks, Pipedream suits developers wiring AI agents,
Node-RED costs nothing but needs a server, and Tray and Workato are quote-only
enterprise buys. Make itself still prices at $9/mo annual for 10,000 credits — the
bar every alternative has to clear.
If you are hunting for Make alternatives in 2026, you are probably looking for one
of three things: a cheaper bill, a self-hosted option you actually own, or a simpler
builder for a team that will never open a scenario canvas. We priced six Make
alternatives against Make's own plans — n8n, Zapier, Tray and Workato, Pipedream,
Node-RED and Integrately — on entry price, billing unit, free tier and how hard they
are to leave.
The 6 Make alternatives we priced
First, where Make stands as of October 2026 (make.com/en/pricing): Free gives
1,000 credits a month and two active scenarios at a 15-minute minimum interval;
Core is $9/mo billed annually for 10,000 credits ($10.59 monthly); Pro is
$16/mo annual ($18.82 monthly); Teams is $29/mo annual ($34.12 monthly); Enterprise
is a quote. Every tier carries the same 10,000 credits at that slider position —
you pay up for speed, file size and collaboration, not volume — and one standard
module action costs one credit.
Pricing as of October 2026, from official pricing pages and vendor docs:
| Alternative | Entry price (Oct 2026) | Billing unit | Free tier | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| n8n | Cloud Starter €20/mo annual (€24 monthly), 2,500 executions | Workflow execution (whole run) | Yes — self-hosted Community edition, unlimited | Developers, self-hosters, full control |
| Integrately | Starter $19.99/mo annual ($29.99 monthly), 2,000 tasks | Task, including some filters | Yes — 100 tasks, 5 automations | One-click automations at the lowest hosted price |
| Zapier | Professional $19.99/mo annual ($29.99 monthly), 750 tasks | Completed action step | Yes — 100 tasks, 2-step Zaps | Breadth: 9,000+ apps, gentlest builder |
| Pipedream | Startup $99/mo annual ($150 monthly), 10,000 credits | Credit per 30 seconds of compute | Yes — free to build, no card | Code steps, AI agents, API glue |
| Node-RED | Free — Apache-2.0, run it yourself (server ~$5–25/mo) | n/a — no vendor meter | Yes — unlimited, you host it | IoT and hardware, zero licensing risk |
| Tray / Workato | Quote only — entry contracts commonly run ~$25k+/yr (Workato) | Custom | Trials via sales only | Enterprise governance and SSO |
| Make (baseline) | Core $9/mo annual, 10,000 credits | Module action | Yes — 1,000 credits, 2 scenarios | Visual, branching flows on a budget |
Two structural notes before the scores. The units are not comparable: one n8n
execution can be a 40-step workflow, one Make credit a single module action, one
Zapier task a single action step. And the enterprise row is not a price — Tray
publishes no numbers, while Workato's ~$25k+/yr comes from third-party trackers.
How we scored
Five dimensions, rated 1–5 as structured editorial judgment from published pricing,
docs, limits and hands-on category testing — not lab benchmarks:
- Ease — how fast a non-developer gets a workflow live.
- Value — what you get per dollar at entry, including hidden ops cost.
- Depth — branching, code, error handling, observability, AI steps.
- Free tier — usable beyond a weekend of testing.
- Control — self-hosting, export, and how easily you can leave.
Results
| Tool | Ease | Value | Depth | Free tier | Control | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| n8n | 2.8 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.5 |
| Node-RED | 2.0 | 4.0 | 4.4 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.1 |
| Make (baseline) | 4.2 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 4.0 | 2.5 | 4.0 |
| Pipedream | 3.2 | 3.8 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 3.0 | 3.8 |
| Zapier | 4.8 | 3.0 | 4.2 | 3.2 | 2.5 | 3.5 |
| Integrately | 4.6 | 4.4 | 3.0 | 3.4 | 2.0 | 3.5 |
| Tray / Workato | 3.0 | 1.5 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 3.5 | 2.8 |
n8n wins on strength of a genuinely free, unlimited self-host version and the
deepest execution model. Node-RED's value score already absorbs the server and
maintenance you take on, and its 5,000+ community nodes skew IoT rather than SaaS.
Make itself still beats every hosted rival on price per unit.
The case for each
n8n — best overall alternative
The Community edition is free and open source with unlimited executions; you pay
only for a $5–25/mo server. Cloud Starter is €20/mo billed annually (€24 monthly)
for 2,500 executions, Pro is €50/mo annual (€60 monthly) for 10,000, Business
€667/mo annual (self-hosted only), Enterprise custom. Weakness: the canvas assumes
a builder, not a marketer, and euro pricing catches US buyers off guard.
Zapier — best for non-technical teams
9,000+ apps, a linear editor, Copilot-assisted building, and billing that only
charges completed action steps — triggers, filters, Paths and failed steps are
free. Professional is $19.99/mo annual for 750 tasks ($29.99 monthly), Team is
$69/mo annual for 2,000 tasks with 25 seats and SAML SSO. Weakness: at 750 tasks
for $19.99 it is the most expensive unit in this table by a wide margin.
Integrately — cheapest hosted seat
Starter is $19.99/mo billed annually ($29.99 monthly) for 2,000 tasks — more
allowance than Make for more than twice the sticker, with the pitch of one-click
setup: 1,500+ apps and pre-built two-app automations. Professional is $39/mo
(10,000 tasks), Growth $99/mo (30,000, unlimited users), Business $239/mo (150,000).
Weakness: branching only arrives at Professional, there are no code steps, and
third-party audits note that filter and search steps also bill tasks.
Pipedream — best for AI agents and API work
Free lets you build with all 3,000+ connectors and no credit card; you pay when
integrations go to production. Startup is $99/mo billed annually ($150 monthly) for
10,000 usage credits, then $0.012 each, plus 100 external users before $2 per user.
Billing is one credit per 30 seconds of compute, so long steps matter more than
step count. Weakness: no self-hosting, and Workday has owned it since December 2025.
Node-RED — free forever, but you own the ops
Apache-2.0 licensed under the OpenJS Foundation, with 5,000+ community nodes and a
Raspberry Pi-friendly footprint. There is no company to change the pricing model
and no meter to model: you pay for whatever it runs on. Weakness: no official
hosted tier, no vendor support, no SaaS-app connector library, and every upgrade,
backup and outage is yours.
Tray / Workato — enterprise, quote-only
Tray (formerly Tray.io) publishes no prices: Pro, Team and Enterprise all route to
sales. Workato entry contracts land around $25k–45k a year per third-party
procurement trackers (not confirmed by Workato), with mid-market deals near $60k–100k.
You are buying governance, SSO and hundreds of enterprise connectors. Weakness: cost
and sales cycles rule both out for everyone else.
Free-tier reality check
- Node-RED: the only genuinely unlimited free option — costs server time and maintenance, not seats.
- n8n self-hosted: unlimited executions, no license fee; the cloud free path is a 14-day trial instead.
- Pipedream Free: everything in development, forever; pay only to go live.
- Make Free: 1,000 credits and two scenarios covers real light automations.
- Integrately Free: 100 tasks and single-step only — a demo, not a plan.
- Zapier Free: 100 tasks and two steps; fine for testing, not production.
The bottom line
The cheapest honest exit from Make is rarely a like-for-like swap: mirror your three
busiest scenarios in each candidate's free tier for a week and compare burn against
Make's $9 Core plan. If nobody on the team will ever call themselves technical,
Zapier at $19.99/mo annual is the convenience tax worth paying and Integrately is
the budget version of the same idea. If anyone can run a Docker container, n8n ends
the conversation on both price and control. Everything in this table was re-checked
against vendor pages in October 2026 — this category reprices often, so confirm
before you sign an annual contract.
Verdict: n8n for technical teams; Zapier for everyone else
Make is still the value benchmark for hosted visual automation at $9/mo annual for
10,000 credits, so leave it only for a reason: self-hosting and control (n8n, free
Community edition), app breadth and simplicity (Zapier Professional, $19.99/mo
annual), the cheapest hosted seat (Integrately at $19.99/mo annual for 2,000
tasks), or code-first AI agent work (Pipedream Startup, $99/mo annual). Node-RED
and the enterprise platforms are specialist answers, not general Make replacements.
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