n8n vs Make: what 2,500, 10,000 and 50,000 runs a month really cost
I moved the sliders and dropdowns on Make’s pricing page and n8n’s pricing page on Oct 22, 2026 and wrote down every tier. All prices here are what those pages showed in US dollars. The cost math is mine, and I show it so you can redo it with your own numbers.
Disclosure: there are no affiliate links on this page. We’ve applied to n8n’s affiliate program; if it’s approved I’ll add a marked link and update this note. Make no longer runs one. How we make money.
The short version
- The billing unit is the whole story. Make charges per credit, and most module actions use one. n8n Cloud charges per execution, one run of a whole workflow however many steps it has.
- For a 5-step workflow at 10,000 runs a month, Make Core is $97/mo and n8n Cloud Pro is $60/mo (monthly billing).
- At 50,000 runs the gap widens: Make Core $321/mo vs n8n Pro $144/mo. Self-hosted n8n is a ~$20/mo server either way.
- For short 1–2 step workflows at low volume, Make is the cheaper of the two hosted options. Its 10,000-credit Core tier is $16/mo.
Worked example: a 5-step workflow
Say a form submission triggers a workflow that looks up a contact, updates a CRM record, posts to Slack and adds a sheet row. That’s 1 trigger + 4 actions = 5 Make credits per run and 1 n8n execution. I priced Make at the smallest slider tier that covers the credits.
| Runs / month | Make credits needed | Make Core | Make Pro | n8n Cloud | n8n self-hosted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500 | 12,500 (20,000 tier) | $28 $21 annual | $51 $38 annual | $24 (Starter) $20 annual | ~$20 server |
| 10,000 | 50,000 (80,000 tier) | $97 $72 annual | $161 $118 annual | $60 (Pro 10k) $50 annual | ~$20 server |
| 50,000 | 250,000 (300,000 tier) | $321 $237 annual | $474 $349 annual | $144 (Pro 50k) $120 annual | ~$20 server |
Same thing with a 10-step workflow
Double the steps and Make’s bill roughly doubles, while n8n’s doesn’t move: the n8n Cloud prices are the same as the table above.
| Runs / month | Make credits needed | Make Core (monthly) | Make Pro (monthly) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500 | 25,000 (40,000 tier) | $51 | $94 |
| 10,000 | 100,000 (150,000 tier) | $175 | $271 |
| 50,000 | 500,000 (500,000 tier) | not offered at this tier | $724 |
Where Make still wins
I don’t want to oversell this. If most of your scenarios are a trigger and one or two actions, Make’s credits go a long way: 10,000 credits for $16/mo (or $12 annual) is 5,000 two-step runs, against $24/mo for n8n Starter’s 2,500 executions. Make’s Free plan also gives you 1,000 credits a month on its servers, and n8n has no free cloud plan. And Make is easier to pick up if nobody on your team wants to touch a server.
The steps that catch people out on Make are loops. Make counts each item an iterator or aggregator processes, so a run that touches 50 rows can use 50+ credits. If your workflows loop over lists, count credits from a real test run before you trust any estimate, including mine.
Make’s price tiers
Every tier I could pick on the slider up to 500,000 credits, in US$ per month. Annual = monthly-equivalent price, billed yearly.
| Credits / month | Core | Pro | Teams |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $16/ $12 annual | $28 / $21 annual | $51 / $38 annual |
| 20,000 | $28/ $21 annual | $51 / $38 annual | $94 / $69 annual |
| 40,000 | $51/ $38 annual | $94 / $69 annual | $175 / $129 annual |
| 80,000 | $97/ $72 annual | $161 / $118 annual | $305 / $225 annual |
| 150,000 | $175/ $129 annual | $271 / $199 annual | $515 / $379 annual |
| 300,000 | $321/ $237 annual | $474 / $349 annual | $900 / $663 annual |
| 500,000 | not offered | $724 / $533 annual | $1376 / $1013 annual |
Source: make.com/en/pricing, read in a browser on Oct 22, 2026. The slider goes up to 8 million credits; Core isn’t offered from 500,000 up. Free is $0 with 1,000 credits and a 15-minute minimum interval. Per Make’s help center, Core gives you credits monthly even on annual billing, while Pro and Teams on annual get the year’s credits as one pool. Some third-party reviews from September and early October 2026 quote lower prices (Core $10.59/mo at 10,000 credits). What I saw today was higher, so check at checkout.
n8n Cloud tiers
| Plan | Executions / month | Monthly billing | Annual billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 2,500 | $24/mo | $20/mo |
| Pro | 10,000 | $60/mo | $50/mo |
| Pro | 50,000 | $144/mo | $120/mo |
| Business (self-hosted license) | 40,000 | $960/mo | $800/mo |
Source: n8n.io/pricing, read in a US browser on Oct 22, 2026; it showed dollars and a “Save 17%” badge for annual. (Fetched from outside the US, the same page lists euros: €20 Starter, €50 Pro.) Pro also has a custom tier. n8n doesn’t list an overage price for Starter or Pro. Its FAQ says workflows keep running past quota but “overage charges may apply”. Every plan includes unlimited users and workflows.
Self-hosting n8n
This is the option Make simply doesn’t have. n8n’s Community edition is free under its Sustainable Use License for your own internal business use, and it has no execution quota. The limit is your server. A 2 vCPU / 4 GB box is $20/mo at Vultr or $24/mo at DigitalOcean (DigitalOcean pricing). You give up some features (shared credentials, environments, SSO, Git version control) and you take on updates and backups. I go through all of that in the n8n pricing guide.
My honest read: if you’re past about 10,000 runs a month of multi-step workflows and someone on the team is comfortable with Docker, self-hosted n8n is the cheapest option by a wide margin. If not, n8n Cloud beats Make on multi-step workflows, and Make beats both on short ones.
How to redo this for your own workflows
- For each workflow, count Make credits per run: the trigger plus each module action, and each item a loop processes. Routers and error handlers are free.
- Multiply by runs per month and add the workflows up. Pick the Make tier that covers the total.
- For n8n, the count is just total runs per month, whatever the step count.
FAQ
Is n8n cheaper than Make?
It depends on how many steps your workflows have. Make bills per credit (most module actions use 1), n8n Cloud bills per full workflow run. For a 5-step workflow at 10,000 runs a month, Make Core is $97/mo and n8n Cloud Pro is $60/mo on monthly billing (both pricing pages, checked Oct 22, 2026). For short 1–2 step workflows, Make usually comes out cheaper.
How does Make count credits?
Each module action in a scenario uses credits, most use 1. Reading, searching, creating, updating and deleting data all count, and so do iterating and aggregating rows. Router and error-handler modules don’t count. Credits expire at the end of the term.
Can I self-host Make?
No. Make is cloud only. n8n’s Community edition can be self-hosted with no license fee and no execution quota of its own; you pay for the server.
n8n on SelfHost Office
