Make vs Zapier: is the app catalog worth the price?
Make gives you more automation per dollar: $9 a month buys 10,000 operations, while Zapier’s Professional plan starts at $19.99 and bills every step of every Zap as a task. Zapier’s case is the catalog and the polish: 7,000+ apps and the gentlest learning curve in the category.
Data checked:
TL;DR verdict
Make for value and complex flows: routers, iterators and 10,000 operations for $9. Zapier when your exact app pairing exists only in its catalog, or when non-technical staff must build automations unassisted.
| Make | Zapier | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid plan | $9/mo (Core) | From $19.99/mo (Professional) |
| What it includes | 10,000 credits (1 credit ≈ 1 module operation) | Task allowance by tier; every action step is one task |
| Free plan | 1,000 credits/mo, 2 active scenarios | 100 tasks/mo, two-step Zaps only |
| Multi-step and logic | Routers, iterators, aggregators on every paid plan | Multi-step from Professional up |
| App catalog | 2,000+ apps, plus an HTTP module for any API | 7,000+ apps, the largest catalog |
| Data location | EU (Czechia, Germany) | US-centric cloud |
| Learning curve | Visual canvas, moderate | Gentlest in the category |
| Strongest at | Complex scenarios per dollar | Instant setup and long-tail apps |
Sources: Make pricing · Zapier pricing · data checked: Jul 18, 2026
Which we'd pick, scenario by scenario
Marketing team automating forms, ads and email
Make. These flows are multi-step by nature, and multi-step is exactly where Zapier’s per-task billing compounds fastest.
Solo founder gluing two niche SaaS tools
Zapier. If both apps sit in the catalog, the Zap exists in ten minutes, and at low volume the price gap is a coffee a month.
EU company with GDPR-sensitive flows
Make. EU data centers by default settle the processor-location conversation before it starts.
Our take
Zapier’s price reputation is outdated in one direction and accurate in another. The entry point dropped: Professional now starts at $19.99, not the $49 people still quote. What has not changed is the meter. Every step in a Zap is a billed task, so a 6-step flow on 500 leads burns 3,000 tasks a month, while the same flow on Make burns 3,000 credits from a 10,000 pool that costs $9. Zapier prices tasks so volume punishes you; Make prices operations so complexity is nearly free. That sentence is most of the comparison, and it is why Make is our default for SMB automation work. The exception we respect is the long tail: when a client runs a vertical SaaS nobody else integrates, Zapier is often the only platform with a native connector, and a native connector beats a week of HTTP-module reverse engineering. Before deciding on catalog size alone, run the three-way numbers in Make vs n8n vs Zapier.