How we picked (and what we actually verified)

Baseline: our Zapier terms check captured the live Zapier pricing page in both billing states on 2026-09-15 (Free 100 tasks/two-step, Professional from $19.99/mo yearly). Each alternative below is compared on what its free plan verifiably includes on 2026-09-16 and — more importantly — what the meter counts. “100 free things” means four different amounts of automation across these four tools. Prices were captured from vendor pages; the one vendor whose page blocked our capture session is flagged rather than guessed.

Tool Free tier (checked 2026-09-16) Cheapest paid What the meter counts How we checked
Zapier 100 tasks/mo, 2-step Zaps only $19.99/mo yearly (Professional) Tasks = each step of a Zap Page captured 09-15, both states
Make 1,000 credits/mo, 2 active scenarios, 15-min interval $9/mo (Make Plan, 5k credits) Credits = each module action Cloud text capture 09-16 (page blocked local browser, Cloudflare)
Activepieces 100 credits/day, forever, no card, unlimited flows $20/mo flat (Plus) AI credits; overage waits for reset on free Page captured 09-16 (screenshot)
n8n No free cloud — Community Edition free self-hosted, unlimited executions €20/mo yearly (Starter, 2.5k executions) Whole workflow execution, any number of steps Page captured 09-16, both states

Quick takes

Make is the closest visual-builder sibling and has the cheapest paid entry on the list: $9/mo for 5,000 credits (vendor page, 2026-09-16). Read the fine print the way you read Zapier’s: a Make “credit” is one module action — a 6-module scenario consumes 6 credits per run, so 5,000 credits ≈ 833 six-step runs. Free gives 1,000 credits/month, only 2 active scenarios, and a 15-minute minimum run interval (paid drops it to 1 minute). Its pricing page served our automated browser a Cloudflare security check, so the free/paid numbers here come from a cloud text capture of the same page rather than our own screenshot — flagged in the table above.

Activepieces is the AI-first open-source entrant and the most generous hosted free tier in raw daily terms: 100 credits a day, free forever, no card, unlimited flows, with MCP/API access included on Free. The catch is the reset mechanic — Free overage waits for tomorrow rather than billing on, and credits are AI-oriented (the FAQ explicitly explains AI steps cost more than one credit). Plus is a flat $20/mo (10,000 credits, up to 5 users, $0.007 per credit after), Team $200/mo — seat-flat pricing, unlike Zapier’s per-tier task sliders. Self-hosting the open-source edition is free at any scale.

n8n is the structural alternative rather than the cheap one: there is no free cloud plan, but the self-hosted Community Edition runs unlimited workflows and executions on your own server for $0, and cloud paid plans charge per whole execution regardless of step count — a 20-step workflow is one execution on n8n but twenty tasks on Zapier (page wording: “Pay for full executions, not for each step”). Cloud starts at €20/mo yearly for 2,500 executions (euro is the page’s only currency in our capture — no USD switch found). Full math and the €4,000 self-hosted overage caveat: n8n pricing check and the direct head-to-head n8n vs Zapier.

When to stay on Zapier

  • You want the connector nobody can block. If your stack includes a long-tail SaaS that only ships a Zapier integration, the catalog moat is real — check the specific app before moving.
  • You only need a handful of two-step Zaps. The free plan genuinely covers “form → spreadsheet”-style automation forever; the 100-task wall bites when Zaps grow a third step, not before.
  • You refuse self-hosting and want a sub-€20 hosted plan. Then Make at $9 is the move, not n8n — n8n’s cloud starts at €20 and its free path requires running your own instance.

Verdict

  • Switch to Make if you want a visual builder like Zapier with the lowest paid entry ($9) and can live with step-equivalent metering (credits per module action).
  • Switch to Activepieces if your automation is AI-agent-centric and 100 free daily credits with no card fits the rhythm — or if flat $20 pricing beats Zapier’s task sliders for your team.
  • Switch to n8n if your workflows are long and multi-step (per-execution billing wins hard), or if you can self-host — in which case the Community Edition beats every free tier here with unlimited everything.
  • Stay on Zapier for the connector catalog and trivial two-step free Zaps.

Zapier column from our 2026-09-15 vendor capture; Activepieces and n8n pages captured 2026-09-16 (screenshots above); Make figures from a 2026-09-16 cloud text capture after the vendor page presented a Cloudflare security check to our local browser — treat a Make purchase decision as worth one manual refresh of make.com/pricing. See testing methodology.

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