The Best Make Alternatives for Small Businesses in 2026

For reference, Make's free plan includes 1,000 credits a month, and its paid plans are listed from $9 a month for 10,000 credits. Tools differ in what a unit means, so compare your own workflows rather than headline prices.

Make's help center says most modules use one credit, trigger modules use one credit per run whether or not they return data, and action modules use one credit per input bundle processed. Routers, filters and error handlers use no credits, and Make Code uses 2 credits per second. Two things follow. A workflow that polls often has a baseline cost even when nothing happens, and a step that loops over many rows uses many credits.

Make's comparison page describes it as cloud-first at all subscription levels, and we found no self-hosted edition. Teams that need the software on their own servers must look elsewhere. Others simply want a simpler builder or tools designed around AI agents.

Make's strengths are real, including a free plan and a visual canvas, so this guide is for people who have a specific reason to move. If you are still deciding between Make and its biggest rivals, see zapier vs make.

Zapier bills one task per successful action step. Triggers are free, and so are Filter and Paths steps, Formatter, Delay, Looping, Digest and Storage steps. Steps that error out do not count. This is the opposite of Make's treatment of triggers, so a workflow with many triggers and few actions can be cheaper on Zapier, while a long action chain usually costs more tasks than it would use credits on Make.

Zapier lists 9,000+ apps against Make's own figure of 3,000 to 3,500. The free plan is limited to two-step Zaps and 100 tasks a month with 15-minute polling. On plans with pay-per-task billing enabled, Zapier bills extra tasks past your limit; otherwise runs are held until the cycle resets. If you are leaving Zapier in turn, see our zapier alternatives.

Both can be run on your own servers.

n8n. An execution is a single run of the entire workflow, however many steps it has. n8n's GitHub page says it is fair-code under the Sustainable Use License, which is source-available rather than a standard open source license. The free Community Edition leaves out custom variables, environments, external secrets, log streaming, projects, single sign-on (SSO), Git-based version control, and sharing of workflows and credentials. Cloud plans start at 20 euros a month on annual billing, with a no-card trial limited to 1,000 executions. Our make vs n8n page compares the two in detail.

Activepieces. Its GitHub page says the Community Edition is open source under the MIT license, and that enterprise features sit under a separate commercial license. AI steps cost 2 credits on a fast model, 10 on a smart one and 20 on a frontier model, falling to 1 if you bring your own AI key on Plus or above. Beyond the included 10,000 credits, Plus bills $0.007 per extra credit. Its pricing page says self-hosting is available on every plan.

Self-hosting also makes you responsible for uptime, updates and backups.

These tools are built around AI steps rather than fixed trigger-and-action flows.

Gumloop lists a Pro plan from $37 a month with 20,000 credits, an 8% orchestration fee, five concurrent workflow runs and a 14-day free trial. We found no free plan on its pricing page.

Lindy lists a free plan with $50 in credits that last 7 days, then Team at $29.99 a month for 3,000 credits, billed for every active user. Its page gives ranges of credits per task, from 2 to 250 for everyday asks up to 1,000 to 2,500 for big builds, so costs depend heavily on the work. Monthly credits do not carry over.

If you are choosing between agent tools and classic automation, our guide to AI workflows explains the difference, and best AI automation tools covers the wider field.

Pabbly Connect is the low-price option. The pricing page lists its prices in rupees, offers an Unlimited plan with no task cap, and its FAQ says triggers and internal steps such as filters, routers and formatters do not count as tasks. Because the page does not say which billing option the listed price assumes and shows an inconsistent comparison figure, confirm the actual price at checkout.

Microsoft Power Automate charges per user or per bot rather than per task: Premium is $15 per user per month paid yearly, and unattended bots start at $150 per bot per month. It includes desktop flows, which automate software that has no API. Microsoft notes that prices may differ by region and organization.

Workato does not publish prices. It lists editions and directs visitors to get a quote. It makes sense only when integrations are business-critical.

• You want the simplest builder and the largest catalog: Zapier.
• Your workflows are long, or you need self-hosting: n8n, or Activepieces if you want an MIT-licensed core.
• You want the lowest list price and can confirm the terms: Pabbly Connect.
• The point of the workflow is an AI agent: Gumloop or Lindy.
• Your company runs on Microsoft: Power Automate.
• You are an enterprise buyer: Workato.

Whichever you shortlist, count your real monthly runs and steps first, since each tool counts something different. For a ranked view of the category, see no code AI automation tools compared.

• Zapier's price per task tier, and whether its starting prices are annual or monthly.
• Which Pabbly Connect billing option the listed price assumes, since its pricing page does not say.
• Make's billing cycle for its $9, $16 and $29 listed prices.
• Exact integration counts. Make, n8n and Activepieces each publish more than one figure.
• Workato's prices, which are not published.

We read each vendor's official pricing page, help center or documentation, plus the n8n and Activepieces GitHub pages, on October 30, 2026. We did not test any of the products. We chose tools that cover the main reasons people leave Make: billing model, hosting, simplicity and AI agents. Prices change often, so confirm them on the vendor's site before you buy.