Zapier vs Make pricing: what the same workflow costs on each

Zapier and Make both automate work between apps, but they bill in different units. Zapier counts tasks. Make counts credits. A plan that looks cheap on one site can cost more on the other once you count how many of those units your workflow uses. This guide compares the published prices as of 8 November 2026 and walks through three worked examples. It is based on the vendors' own documentation and pricing pages, not on our own use of either product, and both vendors write pages that favour their own product, so we show the numbers and the counting rules rather than their conclusions.

Quick comparison

Make's pricing-parameters help page lists higher figures ($12 for Core, $21 for Pro, $38 for Teams at the 10,000-credit tier), while Make's comparison page lists $9, $16 and $29. We could not reconcile the difference or confirm which billing period each applies to, so check Make's live pricing page and its billing toggle before comparing. Zapier's figures above are the annual-billing prices from its own pricing articles; we did not verify Zapier's month-to-month prices.

How Zapier counts usage

Zapier says a task is the work it performs in another app. According to Zapier, filters, formatting, paths, looping, error handling and triggers do not count toward your task total. That matters for multi-step workflows: only the steps that act in your apps count.

If you go over your allowance, Zapier's paid plans keep running and bill the extra tasks. Zapier says annual plans pay 1.25 times the normal per-task cost for extra tasks, monthly plans pay 2.5 times, and total usage is capped at three times the plan's task limit. On Professional, that cap is 2,250 tasks in a month (750 included plus up to 1,500 extra).

How Make counts usage

Make says each module action in a scenario, such as adding a row to a Google Sheet, typically counts as one credit. Some features use more. Make's own comparison page says modules that handle multiple data bundles or use its built-in AI tools may consume more than one credit, and a community announcement says built-in AI usage is priced by tokens. Code execution is billed at 2 credits per second. If you bring your own AI provider key on a Pro plan or higher, Make's community answer says the AI step costs one credit per run.

Make sells extra credits if you run out, and its 6 November 2025 announcement changed how extra credits are priced, so check the current extra-credit rate on Make's pricing page before relying on overage as a budget. The same announcement moved plan limits: Core now tops out at 300,000 credits a month, and larger tiers sit on Pro.

Three worked examples

These examples are our own arithmetic from the published numbers, not measured bills. They assume a workflow with a trigger and two actions in other apps. In Zapier that is 2 tasks per run. In Make we assume 3 credits per run, counting every module as one credit, which is the cautious case. Real usage varies with how many data bundles a module handles and whether you use AI modules.

200 runs a month

• Zapier: 400 tasks. This exceeds the Free plan's 100 tasks, and Zapier's Free plan is also limited to two-step workflows, so it would not cover a trigger plus two actions anyway. It fits inside Professional's 750, so about $19.99 per month on annual billing.
• Make: 600 credits. This fits inside the Free plan's 1,000, so $0. Make's Free plan also allows only two active scenarios and a minimum 15-minute interval between scheduled runs.

500 runs a month

• Zapier: 1,000 tasks. That is 250 over Professional's 750. Using Zapier's annual overage rule, the plan's normal task cost is about $0.0267 ($19.99 divided by 750), so each extra task is about $0.033, and 250 extra tasks come to roughly $8.33. Estimated total: about $28.32 per month. We calculated this ourselves from Zapier's stated multiplier, so confirm the exact charge in Zapier's calculator.
• Make: 1,500 credits. This is over the Free plan's 1,000, so the Core plan at $9 per month (annual billing) covers it with 10,000 credits.

3,000 runs a month

• Zapier: 6,000 tasks. Professional's 2,250 figure is only the cap on pay-per-task overage for the 750-task tier, not a limit on the plan, so you would choose a larger task tier. Zapier's pricing page has a task selector for this, and we did not verify the price of tiers above 750, so we cannot give a Zapier total.
• Make: 9,000 credits. This fits inside Core's 10,000, so $9 per month on annual billing.

The pattern is that Make's headline allowance is much larger per dollar. The caveat is that Make's count rises quickly if a workflow uses many modules, loops over many records or relies on built-in AI, and Zapier's count stays low if most of your steps are filters, formatting or paths.

Which should you choose

Choose by counting your own steps. List the apps a typical run touches. For Zapier, count only the actions in other apps. For Make, count every module that processes data, then multiply by monthly runs. If the result fits the Free plan on one tool, start there. If you need teams, shared folders and roles, compare Zapier Team ($69 for up to 25 users) with Make Teams (from $29, billing period unconfirmed), and read the plan feature lists, since the included usage differs.

Both vendors change plans and prices. Make updated its plans on 6 November 2025, and Zapier restructured its plans during 2024. Check the live pricing pages before you commit, and note that this article was last verified on 8 November 2026.