Zapier vs n8n
This pairing turns on one sentence in each vendor's docs. Zapier: "A task is counted whenever Zapier successfully completes a unit of work for you." n8n: "An execution is a single run of your entire workflow. It doesn't matter how many steps are in the workflow or how much data it processes, it's still a single execution." Everything else about the comparison follows from that difference, including the case where Zapier is the cheaper of the two.
Pick n8n if your automations regularly run past four or five steps, because you stop paying for length: 150 runs of a five-action-step workflow is 150 executions against the 2,500 in the €20 Starter plan, where Zapier charges 750 tasks and fills its entire $19.99 tier. Stay on Zapier if your Zaps are short, if you need a connector n8n has not built, or if nobody on the team wants to own a self-hosted install or evaluate a non-OSI licence. n8n is fair-code under the Sustainable Use License, not open source.
Side by side
Zapier vs n8n at a glance
| Zapier | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Each successful action step | One whole workflow execution |
| Free plan | ✓ 100 tasks/month | Self-hosted community edition |
| Entry paid tier | $19.99/mo annual, 750 tasks | €20/mo annual, 2,500 executions |
| 5 action steps × 150 runs/mo | ✗ 750 tasks: the whole plan | ✓ 150 executions: 6% of Starter |
| 2 action steps × 150 runs/mo | ✓ 300 tasks: 40% of the same plan | 150 executions, still €20 minimum |
| Next tier up | $49/mo annual, 2,000 tasks | €50/mo annual, 10,000 executions |
| Not billed | ✓ Triggers, polling, built-in data tools, failed actions | Steps, data volume, workflow length |
| Overage | 2.5× base rate monthly, 1.25× annual, stops at 3× | Not published as a per-unit rate |
| Concurrency cap | Not published as a plan limit | ✗ 5 on Starter, 20 on Pro, 200+ Enterprise |
| Self-hosting | ✗ None, hosted SaaS only | ✓ Yes, under the Sustainable Use License |
| Licence: OSI approved? | ✗ Proprietary SaaS | ✗ Sustainable Use License v1.0, fair-code |
| Best for | Short automations, the widest connector catalogue | Long, branching, technical workflows |
Sources: Zapier pricing · n8n pricing · n8n LICENSE.md. Compiled August 2026.
Where n8n wins
Workflow length stops appearing on the invoice
This is the whole argument. Take one automation with five action steps, fired 150 times a month. On Zapier that is 750 tasks, which is precisely the Professional 750 allowance, so a single automation consumes an entire $19.99 plan and the second one you build needs the next tier. On n8n it is 150 executions out of 2,500, so you could run that automation roughly sixteen times more often before the €20 Starter plan filled up. Add a sixth action step and the Zapier number becomes 900 tasks, over the limit; the n8n number stays 150.
Building defensively costs nothing
When steps are billable there is quiet pressure to compress: fewer branches, fewer lookups, fewer explicit error paths. n8n's meter is indifferent to what happens inside a run, so a workflow with a retry branch and three conditional paths costs the same as a straight line. That is a design freedom rather than a discount, and it is the reason technical teams tend to move once their automations stop being linear.
You can run it on your own infrastructure
n8n can be self-hosted, which removes the meter completely and keeps automation data inside your own network. Note what that does and does not buy you: it is a licence grant for internal use, not an open source project, and the operational load moves to you.
Where Zapier still wins
The connector catalogue. Zapier's library is the broadest in the category by a wide margin, and it is the actual product being sold. If the CRM, the billing system or the internal tool you need to reach exists as a Zapier integration and does not exist as an n8n node, no arithmetic on this page matters; you would be trading a pricing problem for a build problem.
The pricing model also wins outright on short automations, which is the shape most Zapier accounts actually have. A Zap with two action steps run 150 times a month is 300 tasks, comfortably inside the $19.99 tier, and Zapier bills nothing at all for triggers, polling, built-in data tools or failed actions, so filters and formatters are free. n8n charges €20 a month whether you use 150 executions or 2,500. Below roughly three action steps per run, the step meter is the cheaper meter. And on n8n Starter you also inherit a concurrency cap of 5, which Zapier does not publish as a plan limit.
Migrating Zapier to n8n
The path most teams take:
1. Inventory first. List every Zap, its trigger, its step count and the apps it touches. The step count tells you which ones actually justify the move, and the app list tells you which ones have no n8n node waiting for them.
2. Rebuild, do not import. Assume every workflow is recreated by hand and every credential reconnected. Start with the longest automation, since that is where the meter difference pays back fastest.
3. Run both for one cycle. Keep the Zap live and the n8n workflow writing to a test destination, then compare outputs for a full billing period. Budget for paying both vendors during the overlap.
4. What does not move. Zap run history, task usage records and any state Zapier held for you stay on Zapier. Export what you need for auditing before you cancel, because the account going away takes the history with it.
Common questions
FAQ: Zapier vs n8n
Is n8n cheaper than Zapier?
It depends entirely on how many steps your automations have, because the two products count different things. A five-action-step automation run 150 times a month is 750 Zapier tasks, the whole Professional 750 plan at $19.99 a month billed annually, and 150 n8n executions, 6 percent of the 2,500 included in the EUR 20 Starter plan. Invert the shape and Zapier wins: a two-action-step automation run 150 times is 300 tasks, well inside the same $19.99 tier, while n8n still costs EUR 20 whether you use 150 executions or 2,500. The rule of thumb is that n8n gets cheaper as workflows get longer.
Is n8n open source?
No, and it does not claim to be. n8n ships under the Sustainable Use License v1.0, which the project calls fair-code. The licence permits use or modification of the software only for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use, and permits redistribution only free of charge and non-commercially. Files with .ee. in the name require a separate Enterprise licence. For a company self-hosting n8n to run its own automations that is a workable grant, but it is not OSI-approved open source and it would not allow you to build a competing hosted product on it.
What limits does n8n put on plans other than executions?
Concurrency. n8n caps how many workflow executions can run at the same time by plan: 5 on Starter, 20 on Pro and 200 or more on Enterprise. That matters more than it sounds for burst workloads, because a webhook that fires 50 times in one second on a Starter plan is queueing, not failing, but it is also not running in parallel. Annual pricing is EUR 20 a month for 2,500 executions on Starter, EUR 50 for 10,000 on Pro and EUR 667 for 40,000 on Business.