Make.com vs Zapier Pricing in 2026: Which Gives You More Automations Per Dollar?

Make.com's paid plans start at $9/month versus Zapier's $19.99/month — but that headline number is completely misleading. The two platforms count usage in fundamentally different ways, which means the "cheaper" option depends entirely on how you build your workflows. This breakdown covers every current plan, the real billing difference, and which platform actually saves B2B teams more money in 2026.

Make.com vs Zapier Pricing at a Glance

Make.com is cheaper on paper — $9/month for 10,000 credits versus Zapier's $19.99/month for 750 tasks. But the comparison gets complicated fast because the two platforms measure usage in completely different ways. Here's the quick side-by-side before we get into what it actually means for your budget.

Make.com Pricing Plans in 2026: What You Actually Get

Make.com runs a credit-based model across four tiers. Starting in August 2025, Make rebranded its "operations" to "credits" — same thing, new name. For non-AI workflows, 1 credit equals 1 module execution. Here's exactly what each tier gets you.

Make.com Free Plan

The free plan gives you 1,000 credits per month, a maximum of 2 active scenarios, and a 15-minute minimum execution interval. It's fine for poking around the platform, but 1,000 credits disappears fast once you have any real workflow running. Not a practical option for production use.

Core, Pro, and Teams Plans

The Core plan at $9/month (billed annually) is where Make.com starts making sense. You get 10,000 credits per month and unlimited active scenarios. That's the baseline for actually running automations at any real volume.

The Pro plan at $16/month (billed annually) keeps you at 10,000 base credits but adds priority scenario execution, custom variables, and full-text log search. If you're building complex workflows and need to debug them properly, the full logs alone are worth the jump from Core.

The Teams plan at $29/month (billed annually) adds team roles, shared scenario libraries, and collaborative features. This tier makes sense for agencies or ops teams where multiple people are building and managing automations together.

Beyond the base credit allocations, Make.com lets you purchase additional credit packs on any paid plan — scaling up to 8 million+ credits per month for high-volume use cases. Annual plan subscribers also get credit rollover, which means unused credits carry forward instead of expiring at month's end. That's a real advantage if your usage fluctuates.

According to Make.com's pricing page, annual billing saves approximately 15% or more compared to monthly — less than Zapier's discount, but the base prices are already lower.

Zapier Pricing Plans in 2026: What You Actually Get

Zapier's task-based model is simpler to understand on the surface, but the free plan is genuinely restrictive and the paid tiers jump in price pretty quickly. Here's the current breakdown.

Zapier Free Plan

100 tasks per month and 2-step Zaps only (one trigger, one action). At 100 tasks, you're basically limited to testing. A single active Zap that fires a few times a day will burn through that in a week.

Professional and Team Plans

The Professional plan at $19.99/month (billed annually) gets you 750 tasks per month and unlocks multi-step Zaps, conditional logic, filters, and access to premium app integrations. This is where Zapier becomes genuinely useful.

The Team plan at approximately $103.50/month (billed annually) jumps significantly in both price and task volume — 2,000 tasks per month plus a shared workspace for team collaboration. The price gap between Professional and Team is steep.

One thing Zapier does well: they've bundled Tables, Forms, and Zapier MCP (their Model Context Protocol for AI integrations) into Free, Pro, and Team tiers at no extra cost as of 2026. Per Zapier's current pricing page, these are included in one unified plan rather than paid add-ons.

Annual billing saves 33% compared to monthly on Zapier — that's actually a bigger percentage discount than Make.com offers. Worth factoring in if you're committed to the platform.

Credits vs Tasks: The Billing Model Nobody Explains Clearly

This is the section that actually changes your decision. The raw price numbers mean nothing until you understand how each platform counts usage.

How Make.com Credits Work

Every single module execution uses one credit. That includes the trigger, every action, every filter, every router, every data transformer — and even failed module runs count. A scenario with one trigger and four actions uses 5 credits per execution.

The bigger issue is polling. Make.com's default trigger behavior checks connected apps on a schedule. If your scenario polls for new data every 5 minutes, that's:

• 12 polls per hour
• 288 credits per day
• ~8,640 credits per month — just from the trigger checking, regardless of whether anything actually fires

On the Core plan with 10,000 credits, that single polling scenario consumes over 86% of your monthly allowance before a single lead comes in. You can extend the interval to 15 or 30 minutes to reduce this, but it's a real design consideration that affects your actual cost.

How Zapier Tasks Work

Only completed actions count as tasks. Triggers are always free. Zapier's built-in logic tools — Filters, Paths (if/else branching), and Formatter — are also completely free and don't count toward your task total. You only pay when an actual action completes successfully.

So the same 5-step Zap (1 trigger + 1 filter + 3 actions) costs 3 tasks in Zapier versus 5 credits in Make.com. And if no new data comes in, Zapier charges you nothing for the trigger polling. That's a meaningful difference for workflows that fire infrequently.

The trade-off: Zapier tasks expire monthly with no rollover (on standard plans). If you have a slow month, those unused tasks disappear. Make.com's annual plan credit rollover is genuinely better on this front.

The Real Cost Difference

Per the analysis from Make.com's own comparison, Make works out to about $0.0009 per credit versus Zapier's roughly $0.027 per task — a roughly 30x difference on paper. But because Zapier doesn't charge for trigger polls or logic steps, the practical gap is much smaller in real-world workflows. For high-frequency polling scenarios specifically, Make's advantage shrinks considerably.

Make.com vs Zapier: Full Feature Comparison 2026

Which Platform Is Actually Cheaper for B2B Automation?

The honest answer depends on what you're building. There's no universal winner — but there are clear patterns based on workflow type.

Simple Linear Workflows (Form → CRM → Email Notification)

Zapier is more predictable and often cheaper here. When each workflow is just a few steps firing when something happens, Zapier's task pricing is clean and easy to forecast. Filters and formatting are free, so you're paying exactly for what fires. For teams that aren't technical and just need things to work fast, Zapier's setup time is also dramatically shorter.

Complex Multi-Step B2B Workflows

Make.com wins on power and, if you design workflows carefully, cost. Multi-branch routing, data transformation, iterating through arrays, conditional logic across multiple apps — Make handles all of this in a single scenario that would require multiple interconnected Zaps on Zapier. For anything involving AI reply classification or dynamic routing based on multiple data inputs, Make's scenario canvas is genuinely more capable.

High-Volume B2B Outbound Automation

If you're automating parts of your outbound stack — syncing lead data, routing replies, triggering sequences based on buying signals in B2B — the right platform depends on your trigger frequency. If you're using webhook-based triggers (which fire instantly when something happens rather than polling), Make.com's credit advantage is real. If you're relying on polling triggers checking for updates every few minutes, optimize those intervals or Zapier's free polling model starts looking attractive.

For teams building out a proper B2B outbound system with automation layers, it's also worth thinking about what tools you're connecting. Make.com's deeper per-app API coverage matters when you need granular control over actions — like specific CRM field updates or conditional webhook payloads — that Zapier's standard connectors don't expose.

One practical note: if you're just getting started with building a B2B lead list and want to automate data enrichment and routing, either platform works. The complexity of your downstream workflow is what tips the decision.

The Verdict: Make.com vs Zapier Pricing in 2026

Make.com is the better value for complex, high-volume, multi-step automation — provided you're comfortable with the visual builder and willing to design workflows that don't waste credits on unnecessary polling. The credit rollover on annual plans is a genuine bonus, and the depth of conditional logic beats Zapier for sophisticated use cases.

Zapier is the better choice for simplicity, integration breadth, and predictable billing. With 7,000+ app connections, it almost certainly connects to every tool in your stack. The free logic steps keep simple workflows cheap, and the learning curve is significantly lower. If your team needs to spin up automations fast without a technical setup, Zapier wins that category outright.

The practical guide:

• Pick Make.com if: you're building complex workflows with branching logic, data transformation, or high step counts — and you're comfortable designing around the credit model
• Pick Zapier if: you need the widest possible app coverage, your team isn't technical, or you want simple and predictable billing above all else
• Test both: both platforms offer free plans — try your actual use case before committing to annual billing on either

For teams running cold email automation, one thing worth noting: your automation layer is only as effective as your outreach infrastructure and offer. A perfectly automated sequence with weak cold email offer positioning or deliverability problems won't fix itself regardless of which automation tool you pick.

Make.com's paid plans start at $9/month versus Zapier's $19.99/month — but that headline number is completely misleading. The two platforms count usage in fundamentally different ways, which means the "cheaper" option depends entirely on how you build your workflows. This breakdown covers every current plan, the real billing difference, and which platform actually saves B2B teams more money in 2026.

Make.com vs Zapier Pricing at a Glance

Make.com is cheaper on paper — $9/month for 10,000 credits versus Zapier's $19.99/month for 750 tasks. But the comparison gets complicated fast because the two platforms measure usage in completely different ways. Here's the quick side-by-side before we get into what it actually means for your budget.

Make.com Pricing Plans in 2026: What You Actually Get

Make.com runs a credit-based model across four tiers. Starting in August 2025, Make rebranded its "operations" to "credits" — same thing, new name. For non-AI workflows, 1 credit equals 1 module execution. Here's exactly what each tier delivers.

Make.com Free Plan

You get 1,000 credits per month, a maximum of 2 active scenarios, and a 15-minute minimum execution interval. It's fine for exploring the platform's visual builder, but 1,000 credits disappears fast once you run any real workflow. Not a practical option for production use — treat it as a trial.

Core, Pro, and Teams Plans

The Core plan at $9/month (billed annually) is where Make.com starts making real sense. You get 10,000 credits per month and unlimited active scenarios. That's the starting point for running automations at any meaningful volume.

The Pro plan at $16/month (billed annually) keeps 10,000 base credits but adds priority scenario execution, custom variables, and full-text log search. If you're building complex workflows and need to debug them properly, the full execution logs alone justify the jump from Core.

The Teams plan at $29/month (billed annually) adds team roles, shared scenario libraries, and collaborative features. This tier is built for agencies or ops teams where multiple people are building and managing automations at once.

Beyond the base credit allocations, Make.com lets you purchase additional credit packs on any paid plan — scaling up to 8 million+ credits per month for high-volume use. Per Make.com's official pricing page, annual billing saves approximately 15% or more compared to monthly, and annual plan subscribers get credit rollover, meaning unused credits carry forward instead of expiring.

Zapier Pricing Plans in 2026: What You Actually Get

Zapier's task-based model is simpler to understand on the surface, but the free plan is genuinely restrictive and the paid tiers jump in price quickly. Here's the current breakdown.

Zapier Free Plan

100 tasks per month and 2-step Zaps only (one trigger, one action). At 100 tasks, you're limited to basic testing. A single active Zap firing a few times a day burns through that in under two weeks. It's barely useful for anything beyond proving a concept works.

Professional and Team Plans

The Professional plan at $19.99/month (billed annually) gives you 750 tasks per month and unlocks multi-step Zaps, conditional logic, filters, and access to premium app integrations. This is where Zapier becomes genuinely productive.

The Team plan at approximately $103.50/month (billed annually) jumps significantly in both price and task volume — 2,000 tasks per month plus a shared workspace for team collaboration. That's a steep jump from Professional, which is worth planning for if you're anywhere near the 750-task ceiling.

One notable 2026 change: per Zapier's current pricing page, Tables, Forms, and Zapier MCP (their Model Context Protocol layer for AI integrations) are now bundled into Free, Pro, and Team tiers at no extra cost — previously these were separate add-ons. Annual billing saves 33% compared to monthly, which is a bigger discount percentage than Make.com offers.

Credits vs Tasks: The Billing Model Nobody Explains Clearly

This is the section that actually changes your decision. Raw price numbers mean nothing until you understand how each platform counts usage — and the difference is significant enough to flip the cost comparison depending on your workflow design.

How Make.com Credits Work

Every single module execution costs one credit. That includes the trigger, every action, every filter, every router, every data transformer — and even failed module runs count against your total. A scenario with one trigger and four actions costs 5 credits per execution run.

The bigger issue is polling. Make.com's default trigger behavior checks connected apps on a scheduled interval. If your scenario polls for new data every 5 minutes, here's what that looks like:

• 12 polls per hour
• 288 credits per day
• ~8,640 credits per month — just from the trigger checking, regardless of whether any new data actually arrives

On the Core plan with 10,000 credits, that single polling scenario consumes over 86% of your monthly budget before a single lead comes through. You can extend the interval to 15 or 30 minutes to cut this down, but it's a real design constraint that affects your true running cost. Well-optimized Make.com workflows using webhook-based triggers (which fire instantly and cost zero credits when idle) sidestep this entirely.

How Zapier Tasks Work

Only completed actions count as tasks. Triggers are always free. Zapier's built-in logic tools — Filters, Paths (if/else branching), and Formatter — are completely free and never count toward your task total. You only pay when an actual action completes successfully.

So the same 5-step workflow (1 trigger + 1 filter + 3 actions) costs 3 tasks in Zapier versus 5 credits in Make.com. More importantly, if that trigger polls every few minutes and nothing comes in, Zapier charges you zero. That's a meaningful difference for workflows that fire infrequently or irregularly.

The main downside: Zapier tasks expire monthly on standard plans with no rollover. A slow month means those unused tasks are gone. Make.com's annual-plan credit rollover is better for businesses with variable usage patterns month to month.

What the Per-Unit Math Actually Means

According to analysis from Make.com's own platform comparison, Make works out to roughly $0.0009 per credit versus approximately $0.027 per task on Zapier's entry plan — about a 30x difference per unit on paper. In practice, because Zapier doesn't charge for trigger polling or logic steps, the real-world gap is much smaller for most workflows. For webhook-triggered, logic-heavy scenarios, Make's advantage is genuine and substantial. For polling-heavy or simple action-only workflows, the difference shrinks considerably.

Make.com vs Zapier: Full Feature Comparison 2026

Which Platform Is Actually Cheaper for B2B Automation?

The honest answer depends on what you're building. There's no universal winner — but there are clear patterns based on workflow type and technical requirements.

Simple Linear Workflows

For straightforward automations like form submission → add to CRM → send a notification email, Zapier is often more predictable and easier to cost. Filters and formatting are free, setup takes minutes, and billing is clean. If your team isn't particularly technical and needs things running fast, Zapier's advantage here is real.

Complex Multi-Step B2B Workflows

Make.com wins on power when workflows need real complexity. Multi-branch routing, data transformation, iterating through arrays, conditional logic across multiple apps — Make handles all of this in a single scenario that would require multiple interconnected Zaps in Zapier. For anything that involves AI reply classification or dynamic routing based on multiple data signals, Make's scenario canvas is meaningfully more capable.

High-Volume B2B Outbound Automation

If you're automating parts of your outbound stack — syncing lead data, routing replies, triggering sequences based on B2B buying signals — the right platform depends on your trigger architecture. Webhook-based triggers on Make.com (zero credits when idle) are highly efficient for outbound automation. Polling-based setups flip the math. For teams building a comprehensive B2B outbound system, the automation layer is one piece — and the platform decision should be driven by how your specific tools connect, not just sticker price.

If you're starting from scratch and need to build a B2B lead list and route it through enrichment and outreach sequences, either platform can handle the job. The complexity of your downstream workflow is what tips the decision.

One more thing worth flagging: your automation infrastructure is only as effective as what it's sending. The most well-designed Make.com scenario won't fix weak cold email offer positioning or deliverability issues upstream. The tool is the plumbing — the message and infrastructure are the water.

The Verdict: Make.com vs Zapier Pricing in 2026

Make.com is the better value for complex, high-volume, multi-step automation — provided you're comfortable with the visual builder and design workflows that don't burn credits on unnecessary polling. The credit rollover on annual plans is a genuine bonus, and the conditional logic depth beats Zapier for sophisticated use cases where you need data transformations and branching paths in a single scenario.

Zapier is the better choice for simplicity, integration breadth, and predictable billing. With 7,000+ app connections, it almost certainly supports every tool in your stack. Free logic steps keep simple automations cheap and easy to audit. If your team needs to spin up automations quickly without a steep learning curve, Zapier wins that category outright.

Who should use Make.com:

• Technical users comfortable with a visual canvas-style builder
• Teams running complex, high-step automations with lots of branching or data transformation
• Anyone willing to optimize workflow design to maximize credit efficiency
• Agencies building reusable scenario templates across multiple clients

Who should use Zapier:

• Less technical teams who need fast, reliable setup with minimal friction
• Operations that need the widest possible app integration coverage
• Anyone who prioritizes predictable, easy-to-audit billing over raw cost efficiency
• Teams running simple, linear automations that fire infrequently

Both platforms offer free plans — test your actual use case before committing to annual billing on either. The billing model difference alone is worth an hour of your time to map out against your real workflow before you lock in.

If you're pairing automation with outbound campaigns, it's also worth looking at how these tools connect with your email and LinkedIn multi-channel outreach setup. The automation layer should reinforce the outreach strategy, not work around it.