Use Zapier when you want to connect common apps without running anything yourself and your volume is modest. Use n8n when your workflows have many steps, you want per-run rather than per-step billing, or you can self-host. Pay for a custom build only when the work needs judgment on messy documents against your own rules, your system has no ready-made connector, or the volume and stability make a one-time build cheaper than years of subscription. If a Zapier subscription would do the job, it's the cheaper answer, and a good partner will tell you so.
Prices below are as listed on each vendor's pricing page in October 2026.
How they compare
| Zapier | n8n | Custom build | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | Tasks: each successful action | Executions: one full workflow run, any number of steps | A fixed price for a defined scope, plus a flat monthly fee for support |
| Entry price | Free (100 tasks a month); Professional from $19.99 a month billed yearly | Cloud Starter $20 a month billed annually (2,500 executions); Community edition free to self-host | Quoted per project |
| Who runs it | Zapier, hosted | n8n cloud, or your own server | Whoever builds it, usually in your own cloud account |
| Users | Team plan shares Zaps and connections across up to 25 users | Unlimited users and workflows on every plan | As built |
| Connectors | Large app directory; premium apps need a paid plan | Every integration on every plan | Whatever your systems' APIs or exports allow |
| Who builds and fixes it | You | You, or someone you hire | The builder, under the support agreement |
How each one bills, and why it matters
Zapier counts tasks. A task is a successful action. Triggers, filters, formatting steps and delays don't count, and neither do failed steps. A five-step Zap that runs 200 times a month can still use a lot of tasks, because each successful action counts. When you hit your limit, Zapier either bills extra tasks (if you have turned on pay-per-task, up to three times your plan limit) or holds new runs until the cycle resets.
Polling speed is tied to the plan: every 15 minutes on Free, every 2 minutes on Professional and every minute on Team. Team starts at $69 a month billed yearly.
n8n counts executions. One execution is one full run of a workflow, however many steps it has, so long workflows are where it usually comes out ahead. Cloud Starter is $20 a month for 2,500 executions and Pro is $50 a month for 10,000, both billed annually. Going over doesn't stop your workflows, though overage charges may apply. The Business plan ($800 a month billed annually, 40,000 executions) is self-hosted only.
A custom build is priced once. At OpSpring, a build is a fixed price against a defined scope and support is a flat monthly fee, so cost doesn't climb with volume the way per-task billing does. We don't publish build prices, because they depend on your systems; our free AI audit is the route to a real number.
The n8n license, in plain terms
n8n's free Community edition is self-hosted under the Sustainable Use License, which n8n calls "fair-code": the source is available and free to use, with commercial limits. You can run it for your own business's internal workflows, and a consultant can charge you for building and maintaining them. You can't host n8n as a service for other people to build their own workflows, fork it into a competing product, or white-label it. Self-hosting also means you run the server, the updates and the backups.
Where each one breaks
- Zapier gets expensive when a workflow has many steps and runs often, because every successful action counts. It also struggles when the work is a judgment call on an unstructured document rather than moving a field from one app to another, though it now offers AI steps and agents of its own (agents are billed separately, in "activities").
- n8n asks more of you. Self-hosting is free in license terms but not in time, and someone has to own updates, monitoring and fixes.
- A custom build costs more up front and is only worth it on a process that's stable and frequent enough to pay back. Built on a process that changes every quarter, it's stale before it earns out.
When not to pay anyone
Skip the custom build, and sometimes the tools too, when the task happens a couple of times a month, the process keeps changing, the system has no way in, or nobody agrees what the process is. Our guide to what to automate first covers how to rank the candidates.
Key Takeaways
- Zapier bills per successful action, n8n per full workflow run; multi-step workflows usually favor n8n.
- n8n's Community edition is free to self-host for internal business use, but you run the server.
- A custom build is a fixed price plus flat support, worth it for judgment-heavy work, missing connectors, or high stable volume.
- If an off-the-shelf tool does the job, use it.