n8n vs Make for small automations
If you want to connect a form to a spreadsheet and send yourself an email, n8n and Make both do it. The difference that matters for small jobs is how each one counts what you use, so that's what this post covers. I'm working from the official pricing pages, not from running either in production.
How Make counts
The Make pricing page says billing is in credits, and most module actions use 1 credit: reading a record, writing a row, searching, transforming data. A single run of a scenario can use anywhere from two credits to thousands. The free plan has 1,000 credits a month. When credits run out, scenarios stop until you add more, and webhooks queue up in the meantime. Routers and error handler modules don't use credits.
How n8n counts
The n8n pricing page charges by execution, which is one full run of a workflow no matter how many steps it has. The hosted Starter plan is 20€ a month billed annually, with 5 concurrent executions and a 5-minute limit on how long one execution can run. There is also a free self-hosted Community Edition on GitHub.
What Zapier's comparison says
Zapier sells a competing product, so read its n8n vs Make article with that in mind. Its example: a 10-step automation that runs 1,000 times a month is 1,000 executions on n8n, while on Make a 10-step workflow that checks for data 1,000 times could use 10,000 or more credits. It also says self-hosting n8n means taking on "infrastructure, backups, monitoring, security, patching, updates," and that Make is easier for non-developers.
What people on Reddit say
In an October 2026 r/n8n thread, u/MrJordan23bulls described the billing difference: "n8n cloud bills per execution, one run of the whole workflow no matter how many nodes are in it. Make bills per operation, so every module that runs uses credits, and loops over a few hundred rows add up fast." In a May 2026 r/n8n thread, u/DistributionOk3689 wrote: "Was banging my head against the wall with make. Everything just worked when I switched to n8n." That's one person's experience, posted in the n8n subreddit.
Which one I'd pick for a small automation
For a two- or three-step automation that runs a few times a day, I'd start on Make's free plan. Short scenarios use few credits, and there's nothing to host. Paying for n8n, or self-hosting it, isn't worth it for one small workflow. Self-hosting means you're also the person who keeps the server running.
The math changes when a workflow has many steps or loops over a lot of rows. On Make every step costs credits, while n8n counts the whole run once, so long workflows are where n8n's model starts to look better. I'd estimate the steps per run and runs per month first, since both pages give you what you need for that.
Sources
- n8n pricing (fetched 2026-10-27)
- Make pricing (fetched 2026-10-27)
- Reddit r/n8n: which automation tool scales best (u/MrJordan23bulls) (fetched 2026-10-27)
- Reddit r/n8n: Make vs n8n for AI automation workflows (u/DistributionOk3689) (fetched 2026-10-27)
- Zapier: n8n vs. Make (fetched 2026-10-27)