The three names you'll keep hearing
Zapier, Make, and n8n all do the same fundamental job — connect app A's trigger to app B's action — and all three will try to convince you the others are wrong. Here's the honest table. Facts verified July 2026; pricing moves fast, so glance at each tool's pricing page before paying.
| Tool | Free tier | Paid starts around | Feels like | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier | 100 tasks/mo, 2-step Zaps only, 15-min checking | ~$20/mo | A form: pick trigger, pick action, done | Beginners; the widest app catalog (thousands); "I just want it to work" |
| Make | 1,000 credits/mo, 2 active scenarios | ~$9/mo | A visual canvas of connected bubbles | Visual thinkers; more free headroom; multi-step logic on a budget |
| n8n | Free forever if you self-host it (technical) | ~$20/mo cloud | A developer tool that's proud of it | Technical users; high volume (a whole run counts as one execution) |
Three pricing gotchas worth knowing before they surprise you:
- Zapier counts every action as a "task." A 3-step Zap that runs 100 times = 200+ tasks. The free plan's 100 tasks and 2-step limit are genuinely tight — fine for learning, quickly outgrown.
- Make counts every module step as a "credit" (they renamed "operations" to credits in August 2025 — older tutorials say ops, same idea). A 10-step scenario that runs 100 times = 1,000 credits, your whole free month.
- n8n counts a whole run as one execution, no matter how many steps. That's why volume users end up there — and why everyone else finds it more tool than they need.
Start with Make's free plan if you want room to practice (1,000 credits beats 100 tasks), or Zapier's if you want the gentlest on-ramp and your apps are unusual. Ignore n8n unless you enjoy servers. You can switch later — the trigger/action thinking transfers completely; only the buttons move.
The free automations you already own
Here's what the automation-platform marketing won't tell you: if the automation lives inside one tool, that tool probably automates it natively — free. Before you build anything in Zapier or Make, check the house first:
- Your email marketing tool (MailerLite, ConvertKit, etc.) has automations built in — welcome sequences, tagging, date-triggered sends. That's why your welcome email needs zero external tools.
- Gmail filters label, archive, forward, and star on arrival. The humble filter is the most underrated automation on earth.
- Your shop (Etsy, Shopify, Stripe) already sends receipts, reminders, and review requests natively.
- Notion, Airtable, Trello all have button-and-rule automations inside the app now.
The rule: native first, platform second. Zapier and Make earn their keep for one thing — connecting across tools that don't know each other. Signup form → spreadsheet → Slack is a platform job. "Send a welcome email when someone subscribes" is not; your email tool does that alone.
A word about the AI helpers
Both big platforms now build workflows from plain English — Zapier's Copilot will draft a Zap from "when someone fills my form, add them to my sheet and email me." Use it; it's genuinely good at the boring setup. But it works a hundred times better when you know what a trigger and an action are — which after Lesson 1, you do. AI helpers assemble; you still architect.
- Create a free account on Make and on Zapier. (Both, yes — they're free, and feeling the difference beats reading about it.)
- In each, connect your two most-used tools (your email marketing tool, your spreadsheet, your shop — whatever your Lesson 1 list touches).
- For each of your three starred tasks from Lesson 1, note whether it's a native job (one tool can do it alone) or a platform job (crosses tools). Your first build in Lesson 3 will be a platform job.