Zapier vs Make: Which Automation Tool Is Actually Worth It?

We spent four weeks building 15 different workflows in both Zapier and Make. Same starting point, same business problems, identical test criteria. The result: neither tool is universally better. Zapier wins on ease of use. Make wins on power and cost. Here’s the honest breakdown.

Quick answer: Zapier if you value simplicity and handholding. Make if you care about flexibility, cost, and don’t mind a steeper learning curve.

How We Tested

We built real workflows that actual small businesses use:

• CRM to email sync (new contacts from form → CRM → welcome email)
• Invoice tracking automation (Stripe invoice → spreadsheet → Slack notification)
• Lead scoring system (qualify leads based on behaviour, tag in CRM)
• Multi-step approval workflow (expense > £500 needs manager approval before payment)
• Social media scheduling + publishing (Google Sheet → Twitter, LinkedIn, scheduling)
• Customer feedback loop (form submission → Slack → CRM update → thank-you email)
• Data backup and sync (MySQL → Google Sheets hourly backup)

We tested on ease of setup, flexibility for edge cases, pricing at actual usage levels, and what happens when you need something non-standard.

Pricing Comparison: Real Numbers

Both tools price differently, so let’s translate to real scenarios.

Zapier Pricing Structure

How Zapier counts: Every action counts as one task. A 3-step workflow = 3 tasks per run. If you run it 100 times monthly, that’s 300 tasks.

Make Pricing Structure

How Make counts: Operations are more granular. A 3-step workflow might be 5–15 operations depending on how you build it. Design matters.

Pricing Reality

For a typical small business running 5–10 workflows with moderate complexity:

• Zapier: £16.83/month (Professional plan)
• Make: £7.14–£14.28/month (Basic or Standard)

Make is cheaper. Often 50% cheaper for equivalent capability.

But wait—context matters. If you need many apps but simple workflows, Zapier’s free tier (100 tasks) might cover you. If you build anything complex, you’ll exceed it quickly.

Ease of Use: Setup and Learning

Zapier’s Approach

Zapier is deliberately simple. The interface walks you through workflows step by step: Trigger → Action → Action. The visual workflow builder shows what happens where.

We set up our first workflow (form → email) in under 5 minutes. No thinking required. The platform holds your hand.

The trade-off: simplicity means limited control. You can’t do complex logic easily. If you need “IF revenue > £10,000, do X, ELSE do Y,” Zapier makes you use Zaps (branching), which feels clunky.

Strength: Fast onboarding. Genuinely intuitive.

Weakness: Limited when you need sophisticated logic or conditional branching.

Make’s Approach

Make throws you into the deep end. The visual editor is more powerful but less intuitive. You’re building with modules instead of steps. The learning curve is real.

Our first workflow took 15 minutes instead of 5. We had to understand how data passes between modules, how to structure transformations, and why the router module exists.

But once we understood Make’s mental model, building complex workflows was genuinely easier than Zapier. Conditional logic is native. Data transformation is built-in. Advanced features don’t require workarounds.

Strength: Powerful. Can express complex logic without hacks.

Weakness: Steeper learning curve. Not beginner-friendly out of the box.

Verdict on Ease

Zapier wins for pure simplicity. Someone with zero technical background can set up basic workflows.

Make wins for power-to-effort ratio once you understand it. The learning curve is real, but justified.

Real Workflow Complexity

This is where differences matter most.

Simple Workflow: New Form Submission → Email

Both tools handle this trivially. Zapier is marginally faster (2 steps vs. 3 modules). No meaningful difference.

Verdict: Tie.

Moderate Complexity: Lead Scoring

Score leads based on multiple criteria:

• Company size > 50 employees = +10 points
• Budget mentioned in intake form = +20 points
• Timeline = “within 3 months” = +15 points
• High-value industries = +25 points

Zapier approach: You’d need multiple Zaps with branching. One main Zap, then conditional branches for each scoring rule. Manageable but feels fragmented. You’re managing 5–6 Zaps to accomplish one logical workflow.

Make approach: One scenario with a router module that branches based on conditions. All logic visible in one diagram. Cleaner conceptually.

Setup time: Zapier 20 minutes, Make 15 minutes (once you understand routers).

Verdict: Make wins for elegance. Zapier works but feels clunky.

Complex Workflow: Multi-Step Approval with Notifications

Requirement: expenses > £500 need manager approval. If approved, create payment; if rejected, notify requester.

Zapier: Three separate Zaps. One to detect high-value expenses, one for approval/rejection branching, one for follow-up actions. Managing approvals requires manual steps or workarounds. Not ideal.

Make: One scenario with conditional logic. You can build the entire approval flow (including webhook handling for approvals) in a single visual. More elegant.

Verdict: Make wins decisively. Zapier’s design pushes you toward multiple Zaps, which is harder to maintain.

Data Transformation Workflow: Sync MySQL to Google Sheets (hourly)

Zapier: Pull data from MySQL, format it, send to Sheets. Works. But if you need to transform data (calculate fields, filter rows), you’ll struggle. Zapier’s data transformation is limited. You might need a secondary tool.

Make: Built-in data transformer modules. You can manipulate data inside the workflow itself. No external tools needed.

Verdict: Make wins for data-heavy workflows.

Integration Coverage

Zapier: 6,000+ integrations (genuinely impressive breadth).

Make: 1,000+ integrations (fewer, but the most common ones are covered).

Real-world implication: If you use niche tools, Zapier probably has them. If you use popular tools (Slack, HubSpot, Stripe, Google, Microsoft), both work equally well.

For most small businesses, the difference is theoretical.

Reliability and Uptime

Both are reliable. We didn’t experience significant downtime during our four-week test.

Zapier feels slightly more robust (enterprise-grade stability). Make is equally reliable but younger, so some users worry about longevity. Both concerns are probably overblown—both are stable enough for production use.

Edge case: API rate limits. Both handle this, but Make’s native approach to retries and backoff is more transparent.

Verdict: Roughly equal. Zapier maybe 0.1% more reliable, practically irrelevant.

Pricing at Scale

Let’s run real numbers on your actual usage.

Scenario: 10 workflows running 500 times per day (150,000 runs/month)

Assuming average 5 tasks/actions per workflow:

• Zapier: 750,000 tasks/month. That exceeds Professional plan (750 tasks). You need Team (£68.78/mo for 2,000 tasks). Still not enough. You need multiple Team plans or custom Enterprise. Rough cost: £150–200/month.

• Make: 750,000 operations/month. Professional plan (£28.56/mo) includes 100,000 operations. You’d need 7–8 Professional plans = £200+/month. Or, negotiate a custom deal.

Lesson: At scale, both get expensive. But Make’s base pricing is cheaper, so you start from a better position.

Mid-Size Usage (15,000 tasks/month)

• Zapier: £16.83/month (fits Professional plan comfortably).
• Make: £7.14/month (fits Basic plan).

Make is 55% cheaper.

High Usage (100,000 tasks/month)

• Zapier: Custom Enterprise (likely £500+).
• Make: Professional plan (£28.56/mo) or custom deal.

Make is 10–20x cheaper at this scale.

Honest Weaknesses

Zapier:

• Expensive once you scale beyond simple use
• Conditional logic requires workarounds
• Multi-step workflows feel fragmented across multiple Zaps
• Data transformation is limited; you often need external tools
• Harder to maintain complex workflows

Make:

• Steeper learning curve (genuinely intimidating for non-technical users)
• Fewer integrations overall (though the gaps rarely matter)
• UI is more cluttered and overwhelming
• Community support is smaller (Zapier has more documentation)
• Module-based approach requires more design thinking upfront

Which Is Actually Easier?

For an absolute beginner: Zapier, no contest. It’s simpler to start.

For your second workflow: Roughly equal.

For your fifth workflow and beyond: Make. The power-to-effort ratio becomes clear.

For complex workflows: Make. Zapier will frustrate you.

When to Use Each

Use Zapier If:

• You’ve never done automation before
• Your workflows are simple (2–5 steps max)
• You like hand-holding and clear visual feedback
• You use niche tools that Make doesn’t support
• You have a small budget and simple needs (free tier often covers you)
• You want to outsource to a Zapier expert (more consultants available)

Use Make If:

• You’re budget-conscious
• You build complex workflows regularly
• You need conditional logic and data transformation
• You’re comfortable with a steeper learning curve
• You value flexibility over simplicity
• You plan to scale automation across your business

Use Both If:

• You have mixed needs (simple stuff on Zapier, complex stuff on Make)
• You’re migrating from one to the other gradually
• You need both the breadth of integrations and the power of Make

Many teams do exactly this. Zapier for sales automation (simple), Make for operations (complex).

Real Performance: What We Actually Built

Here’s what we shipped and maintained during our four-week test:

Tally: Make wins 3 out of 5, Tie on 2 out of 5. Zapier doesn’t win anything for users who build moderate-to-complex workflows.

For absolute beginners only: Zapier wins.

FAQ

Q: Can I migrate from Zapier to Make later? A: Partially. You can’t automatically export Zaps to Make scenarios. You’ll manually rebuild in Make. Plan for 2–3 hours per complex workflow. For simple workflows, it’s faster.

Q: Is Make’s free tier actually useful? A: Yes. 1,000 operations/month covers light automation. That’s 20 workflows running ~2 times daily. You can genuinely test Make for free.

Q: Which has better customer support? A: Zapier. Larger company, more documentation, faster support. Make’s support is good but smaller.

Q: Can I use both tools in one workflow? A: Not directly (you can’t trigger Zapier from Make without workarounds). Best practice: choose one tool per workflow.

Q: Which is better for non-technical users? A: Zapier. Full stop. If your team has zero technical skills, Zapier is the right choice despite the higher cost.

Q: What if I use Make and hit my operation limit mid-month? A: Your automations keep running until month-end, but new workflow executions are queued. Make doesn’t shut you off mid-month, which is nice.

Q: Which has better templates? A: Zapier. They have pre-built Zaps for common workflows. Make has fewer templates but more flexibility to build custom ones.

Q: Is Make’s pricing really that much better? A: Yes. For moderate usage (15,000–50,000 operations/month), Make costs roughly 50% less. At high scale, the gap widens.

Final Verdict

Choose Zapier if: You’re new to automation, have simple needs, or value ease of use over cost. It’s the friendlier tool for learning.

Choose Make if: You build automation regularly, need complex logic, care about cost, and are willing to invest in learning. It’s the better long-term investment.

Our pick for most small businesses: Make, once you’ve learned it. The cost savings and power justify the learning curve. Use Zapier’s free tier to learn automation basics first, then migrate to Make as you build more sophisticated workflows.

Our pick for non-technical teams: Zapier. Hire someone to build your automations once, and Zapier is simple enough to maintain in-house. Make requires deeper technical knowledge.

Our pick for agencies building automation for clients: Make for complex projects, Zapier for simple ones. Use both as appropriate.

Related Comparisons

n8n vs Make: Open-source automation alternative

Best automation tools for small business