Zapier alternatives: five tools, matched to why you're leaving

Why look for a Zapier alternative

It depends on what bothers you. If it’s the bill, look at n8n and Activepieces, which count one unit per run instead of one per action, or at Pabbly Connect, which counts the way Zapier does but starts with a larger quota. If it’s the free plan, Make, Activepieces and Latenode allow multi-step automations without a subscription. If you want to run the tool on your own server, n8n and Activepieces can be self-hosted.

Zapier bills “tasks.” According to its help center, each successful action in a Zap (Zapier’s name for an automation) counts as one task. The trigger, meaning the event that starts the Zap, uses none, and neither do Filter, Paths, Formatter, Delay and Looping steps. The vendor’s pages contradict each other on this point: its “Task usage rates” page lists trigger and action steps at 1 task per step, while the pricing FAQ and the help article say triggers never use a task. The math below follows the help article. The Professional plan starts at 750 tasks a month for $29.99 a month, then climbs tier by tier up to 2,000,000 tasks. The price of each tier is on the Zapier pricing page.

This page is not a ranking. It starts from five reasons to look elsewhere and names, for each one, the tool that answers it and the recorded data that shows it. automascope has not run any of these tools: everything here comes from public pricing pages and documentation, as of the date shown.

Reason 1: the bill grows with every action

One task per action means the meter runs faster as your Zaps get longer. Take a five-step automation (one trigger, four actions) that runs 1,000 times a month, is started by a webhook (a call an app sends the moment something happens) and takes 5 seconds. Here is what each tool counts under its own rule.

Tool	What is counted	Monthly usage	Plan whose quota covers it
Zapier	4 actions × 1,000	4,000 tasks	Professional, 5,000-task tier
Pabbly Connect	4 actions × 1,000	4,000 tasks	Standard (10,000 tasks)
Make	5 modules × 1,000	5,000 credits	Core (10,000 credits)
n8n	1,000 workflow runs	1,000 executions	Starter (2,500 executions)
Activepieces	1,000 flow runs	1,000 credits	Free (1,000 credits)
Latenode	1,000 × 5 seconds	5,000 CPU seconds	Free (10,000 CPU seconds)

On Zapier, that volume is already past the first Professional tier. Multiply by ten (10,000 runs): 40,000 tasks on Zapier (50,000-task tier), 40,000 on Pabbly Connect (Unlimited plan), 50,000 credits on Make (80,000-credit tier of Core), 10,000 executions on n8n (Pro, 10,000 executions), 10,000 credits on Activepieces (Plus, 10,000 credits) and 50,000 CPU seconds on Latenode, 40,000 of them billed per second.

What that math says about each alternative:

• n8n and Activepieces count the run, not the steps: a tenth action changes nothing on their meter. On Activepieces, an AI step on vendor-provided models costs more, and the vendor’s pages contradict each other on that rate.
• Pabbly Connect applies Zapier’s rule, but its first paid plan, Standard, includes 10,000 tasks a month for $19 a month.
• Make also counts the trigger, even when it finds nothing: a scenario that polls an app every 15 minutes uses 2,880 credits a month before any action runs.
• Latenode bills duration. According to the vendor, waiting on slow APIs or handling large files lengthens the billed time, so two scenarios with the same number of runs can cost different amounts.

Not every price is in the same currency: n8n lists euros, the other five list US dollars. The cost calculator redoes this math with your own volumes and the recorded price lists, and the guide to operations, credits, tasks and executions explains each rule.

Reason 2: the free plan stops at two steps

Zapier’s Free plan includes 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps only (one trigger, one action), with no Filters, Paths or webhooks.

• Make: 1,000 credits a month, routers and filters included, but no more than 2 active scenarios and at least 15 minutes between scheduled runs.
• Activepieces: 1,000 credits a month, unlimited flows, up to 5 users. The vendor’s pages contradict each other on when credits renew (monthly or daily); the database keeps the monthly quota.
• Latenode: 10,000 CPU seconds a month, 5 active scenarios, JavaScript node and headless browser included.
• Pabbly Connect: 100 tasks a month and two-step workflows, the same bounds as Zapier, with instant webhooks, filters and routers included.
• n8n: no permanent free plan on n8n Cloud, only a 14-day free trial. Free means self-hosting.

Reason 3: you want to host it yourself, or you want open code

Zapier does not run on your server. On self-hosting, the database says: No: no self-hosted plan; the vendor hosts data on AWS servers in the United States source.

Two alternatives can be self-hosted. Activepieces releases its core under the MIT license, an open-source license, and its Community Edition is free with no credits. n8n offers a free Community edition with no license key, but under its Sustainable Use License: using it for your own internal needs is allowed, hosting n8n as a service for customers is not, and n8n does not call itself “open source.” If you want an open-source Zapier in the strict sense, Activepieces is the one to look at. The guides Activepieces cloud vs self-hosted and is n8n free and open source cover what each edition includes.

For Make, the pricing page mentions no self-hosted plan. For Pabbly Connect and Latenode, self-hosting is not recorded.

Reason 4: what happens when you hit the quota

On Zapier’s paid plans, pay-per-task billing takes over once the quota is used, at a per-task rate higher than the subscription’s, up to three times the quota (2,250 tasks for a 750-task tier). After that, Zaps are paused until the next period. The vendor’s pages contradict each other on that rate: the exact figure is shown in the account’s billing settings.

• n8n (Starter and Pro): the price list says “Capped.” According to the tooltip, workflows keep running and these two plans have no overage fees.
• Activepieces (Plus and Team): flows keep running, at a published rate per extra credit. On Free, runs wait for credits to renew.
• Make: with no credits left, scenarios stop. An extra credit costs the plan’s per-credit price plus 25%.
• Pabbly Connect: tasks do not roll over. For more volume, you stack several Standard plans or move to Unlimited. The vendor’s pages contradict each other on that plan: the price list says “Unlimited Tasks,” while the terms specify 100,000 tasks credited at the start and a manual reset once a day.
• Latenode: no quota on “Pay as you go,” but an adjustable monthly spending cap, beyond which new runs fail.

Reason 5: where your data lives

Zapier states that it hosts data on AWS servers in the United States, with no EU-only storage option. That matters mostly if you or your customers need data kept in Europe.

• n8n: hosted plans run in the EU, on servers in Frankfurt; self-hosted, wherever you install it.
• Activepieces: cloud hosted in the EU, in Frankfurt by default.
• Make: a US or EU data center, picked when the organization is created and not changeable afterward. According to the vendor, an EU zone does not guarantee that all AI processing stays in the EU.
• Pabbly Connect: Amazon Web Services (United States) and Hetzner (Finland), per its privacy policy.
• Latenode: Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, both marked “US” in its list of subprocessors.

What Zapier still has going for it

Zapier lists more than 9,000 apps, the highest published figure among the six (see the integrations row of the table, where several vendors show two different numbers). Its triggers and filter steps use nothing. Zapier MCP, which opens its actions to an AI assistant through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), is available on every plan. Every new account gets a free 14-day trial of the Professional plan with no credit card.

Zapier’s counting does not penalize short Zaps: 1,000 runs of a one-action Zap make 1,000 tasks, the same number of units as 1,000 executions on n8n.

What the table doesn’t tell you

A table compares what is published. It says nothing about how comfortable the visual editor is or how good support is. An app count does not tell you whether your app is in the catalog or which actions are covered: check with each vendor before you migrate. The database records no Zap import tool, so plan on rebuilding each automation.

How to choose

• Your Zaps have many steps and run often: n8n or Activepieces. The n8n vs Zapier page compares the two models line by line.
• You want to stay on a hosted service with a larger free plan: Make. See Make vs Zapier.
• You want to keep Zapier’s logic and its way of counting: Pabbly Connect.
• You write JavaScript or drive a browser: Latenode.
• Still undecided: the six tools picked by need covers the same criteria without starting from Zapier.