Compare / n8n vs Zapier
n8n vs Zapier
Written by Wanna AI. Checked on 17 Oct 2026, refreshed every 30 days. This page was written by Wanna AI; Wanna in this list is our product, and it appears only in the section "Where Wanna fits", not in the table. Prices change; open each link before you decide.
Short answer. Both connect your apps with automations, and both bill by volume. Zapier is hosted by Zapier and meters tasks, with a free tier and a 14-day Professional trial. n8n meters workflow executions, has unlimited users and workflows on every paid tier, and can run on your own servers. Pick Zapier if you want to start free without running anything. Pick n8n if someone on your team will own the build and you want the option to self-host. We ran neither product.
How we compared
- Rows are the same for both products.
- Zapier: Zapier's pricing page, read on 17 Oct 2026. Prices are in US dollars.
- n8n: n8n's pricing page, read on 17 Oct 2026. Prices are in euros, as the page shows them.
- The units differ: n8n lists executions a month and Zapier lists tasks a month. We did not read either page's full definition, so we do not claim that one is cheaper.
- A figure we could not find on a page is printed as "not found".
Side by side
| n8n | Zapier | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | A canvas for workflows and AI agents, built step by step by your team | A hosted automation service: Zaps connect apps, with Tables, Forms, Copilot and Agents |
| Who it is for | A team with a technical person who will build and maintain workflows | Anyone who wants to automate without hosting anything |
| Free start | Free trial on Starter and Pro, no card: 1,000 executions, 5 concurrent executions, a 180-second timeout. Business has a 14-day trial and needs a card. The Community version can be self-hosted from GitHub; the page gives it no price or limits | Free forever, 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps only. Every new account gets a 14-day Professional trial, no card |
| Paid price and limits | Billed annually, shown by the month: Starter €20, 2,500 executions. Pro €50, 10,000 executions, 3 shared projects. Business €667, 40,000 executions, 6 shared projects. Enterprise: contact sales. The page offers monthly billing too, but we read only the annual prices | Professional from 19.99 a month billed annually (750 tasks), 29.99 billed monthly; 2,000 tasks is 49 billed annually or 73.50 monthly. Team from 69 billed annually (103.50 monthly), 2,000 tasks, 25 users. Enterprise: contact sales |
| What a unit of usage is | A workflow execution. Every tier lists unlimited users and unlimited workflows | A task. Free is 100 a month; paid tiers run from 750 up to 2M a month |
| Going over | On Business, extra buckets of 300,000 executions cost €4,000 and workflows keep running; overages are invoiced 45 days after they occur | Optional pay-per-task: extra tasks bill at an overage rate, 2.5 times the base rate on monthly billing and 1.25 times on annual. Usage stops at 3 times your task subscription. Pay-per-task on monthly billing costs about 3 times as much per extra task as on annual billing. With it off, usage stops at the limit |
| Hosting | Starter and Pro: n8n-hosted only. Business: self-hosted only (the hosted version is on a waitlist). Enterprise: either | Hosted by Zapier |
| Support | The forum on every tier. Email support and dedicated support with an SLA are Enterprise only | Email and live chat on Professional and above; priority support on Team |
| Honest minuses | You build and maintain it. The Business jump from €50 to €667 a month is large. Execution time is capped at 5 minutes on Starter and 40 on Pro. Pro allows 20 or 50 concurrent executions, depending on plan size | Cost grows with task volume. Free is two-step only. Monthly billing costs more than annual (29.99 against 19.99 at the entry tier). |
Criteria that decide it
- Who does the building? Both need someone to design the automation. In n8n that person also decides where it runs.
- Where must the data sit? n8n can run on your own servers. We found no self-hosting option on Zapier's pricing page.
- How predictable is a month? An n8n tier is a fixed execution allowance with unlimited users; Zapier's is a task allowance, and pay-per-task adds a rate on top of it.
- How big is the team? n8n lists unlimited users on every tier. Zapier Professional is one user and Team is 25.
- How fast must a trigger fire? Zapier lists polling at 15 minutes on Free, 2 on Professional and 1 on Team and Enterprise. We found no polling figure on n8n's pricing page.
Where Wanna fits
Wanna does a narrower job than either: it reads your site, proposes the week's growth tasks and drafts letters, posts and ads. Posts and ads always wait for your OK; letters go out only after you turn sending on (Trust). Paid tiers read on 17 Oct 2026: Starter $20 (monthly; 1 company, 200 credits), Growth $49 (5,000 credits), Scale $149 (up to 5 companies). Honest minuses: it is early, with 3 companies of people and 0 paying on the live page at 16:11 UTC on 17 Oct 2026, and it has no workflow builder and no app-to-app automation. See also Wanna vs n8n and Wanna vs Zapier. Other pages in this set: Lindy vs n8n and Zapier Agents vs n8n.
What neither replaces
Neither replaces a person who owns the process it automates and checks what reaches a customer. Neither replaces a developer for production code, or a security reviewer who checks which apps get access to your data. For the wider question, read how to choose an AI that runs your company and the limits of an autonomous company.
FAQ
Is n8n better than Zapier? It depends on who will build and where it must run. n8n suits a team with a technical person and a reason to self-host; Zapier suits a team that wants a free start with nothing to run. We do not rank them.
Is n8n free? n8n offers a free trial with no card on Starter and Pro, and a Community version you can self-host. Paid tiers start at €20 a month, billed annually.
Is Zapier free? Yes: 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps. Professional starts at 19.99 a month billed annually, and every new account gets a 14-day Professional trial with no card.
Is n8n cheaper than Zapier? We cannot say. n8n Starter is €20 for 2,500 executions and Zapier Professional is 19.99 for 750 tasks, both billed annually, but an execution and a task are different units. Count your own runs before you compare.
Can I self-host n8n? Yes. The Community version is on GitHub and the Business tier is self-hosted only. Starter and Pro run on n8n's servers. You own uptime and upgrades when you host it yourself.
What happens when I go over my limit? On Zapier, usage stops at the limit unless pay-per-task is on, and even then it stops at 3 times your task subscription. On n8n Business, workflows keep running and extra buckets of 300,000 executions cost €4,000.
Do either of them ask before they act? We found no approval step described on either pricing page, so assume any approval step has to be built into the workflow.
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