Free tool

Zapier or Make vs self-hosted n8n: what would you save?

Put in what you pay today. You get the yearly cost of running n8n on your own server, a one-time migration estimate, and the month the switch pays for itself. If it doesn't pay off at your volume, it will say so.

Handling patient, client or financial records? This math is for teams without regulated data. If you handle PHI or other regulated data, the real question is where the data lives, not price; n8n's trust center lists no business associate agreement, and a defensible setup costs more than a small server. Here is how I approach that instead.

What you pay today

Your invoice is the best number to use. Add-ons, extra seats and overage charges are not in the estimate above.

Self-hosted n8n

Example prices are DigitalOcean's Basic Droplets. Other hosts cost more or less; most small teams run fine on the small or medium size.

Someone has to. n8n publishes security fixes often; check a version here.

These are points in my usual $1,500–3,500 range; price depends on whether I also handle hosting, security and handover. You get a real quote once I see your workflows.

The numbers

Today, per year
$0
Self-hosted, per year
$0
Today, per month$0
Self-hosted, per month (server + upkeep)$0
Monthly difference$0
One-time migration$0
Breaks even inn/a
Net after year one, migration included$0
Net after three years, migration included$0

How this is worked out

Where the numbers come from.

  • Zapier prices are from zapier.com/pricing as of 2026-09-22: Professional and Team, per task tier, billed annually or monthly. The page picks the smallest tier that covers your task count. For example, Professional with 5,000 tasks is $89/mo billed annually or $133.50/mo billed monthly.
  • Make prices are from make.com/en/pricing as of 2026-09-22, which lists Core at $12/mo, Pro at $21/mo and Teams at $38/mo for 10,000 credits billed monthly. The page does not show prices for higher credit tiers in a form I could confirm, so above 10,000 credits, please enter your bill.
  • Server examples are DigitalOcean Basic Droplets as of 2026-09-22 ($12, $24 and $48 a month). Backups, monitoring and domain costs are not included.
  • n8n itself: the Community Edition is the free, self-hosted version (see n8n's pricing page). You pay for the server, not per task or execution. Some features, such as log streaming, need a paid n8n licence; this calculator assumes you don't need them.
  • Migration figures are my own price range, from the services list.
  • Not counted: your team's time, and the risk of running something yourself. If nobody on your team will keep n8n updated, pick a maintenance plan above; that is the honest comparison.