Make vs Zapier: The Same Automation for €0 Instead of €214 a Year

Same automation. Same result. One costs zero, the other costs €214 a year. That’s the real difference between Make and Zapier for a small business. Most people pick Zapier because it’s the famous name. Then the first invoice shows up.

Let me show you the numbers, then a real automation you can build today.

What you actually pay for

Both tools charge for usage. They just count it differently.

• Zapier counts tasks. Every action step in a Zap uses tasks. Free plan: 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps only (one trigger, one action), and new data is checked every 15 minutes.
• Make counts credits. For normal apps, 1 operation = 1 credit, and every module that runs counts. Free plan: 1,000 credits a month.
• Zapier Professional unlocks multi-step Zaps, premium apps and webhooks. It starts at $19.99 a month on yearly billing, with 750 tasks as the smallest paid tier.
• Make paid plans: Make’s own help center does its credit math with a $9 plan that includes 10,000 credits. Check the live price in your account before you buy.

See the catch? The moment your automation needs more than one action, Zapier’s free plan is over. And almost every useful business automation needs more than one action.

The example: an order alert for a small online shop

You run a WooCommerce or Shopify store. A new order comes in. You want three things to happen, automatically:

1. The order lands as a new row in a Google Sheet (your simple sales log).
2. You get an email or Telegram message with the customer, the product and the total.
3. Nobody copies anything by hand. Ever.

Let’s say the shop does 300 orders a month.

On Make: trigger (1 credit) + add row (1 credit) + send message (1 credit) = 3 credits per order. 300 orders × 3 = 900 credits. Free plan limit: 1,000. You fit.

On Zapier: one trigger plus two actions is a multi-step Zap. Not allowed on Free. On Professional, the two actions use 2 tasks per order: 300 × 2 = 600 tasks. That fits the 750-task entry tier, which starts at $19.99 a month billed yearly.

Build it on Make in 20 minutes

1. Create a free account at make.com. No card needed for the Free plan.
2. Prepare the sheet. In Google Sheets, create columns: Date, Order #, Customer, Product, Total.
3. New scenario → add the trigger. Pick your shop app (WooCommerce or Shopify) and the “watch orders” type module. Connect your store. If your app offers an instant (webhook) trigger, choose it: the scenario runs only when an order actually arrives.
4. Add Google Sheets → “Add a row”. Map the order fields to your columns by clicking them from the trigger output.
5. Add Gmail (or Telegram Bot) → send a message. Write something like: “New order #… from … — total …”. Map the fields again.
6. Run once. Place a test order and check that the row and the message appear.
7. Switch the scenario ON. Done. It now works 24/7.

Want more? Add a filter: only orders above a certain value trigger a phone alert. Every extra module costs one more credit per run, so keep an eye on the counter in your dashboard.

Do the math

Do the math: Zapier Professional, entry tier, yearly billing: $19.99 × 12 = $239.88 a year. At the ECB rate of October 23, 2026 (1 € = 1.1193 $), that’s about €17.86 a month and €214.31 a year. Make Free for the same 300 orders: €0 a month, €0 a year. You keep €214 every year for one single automation. Build five of them and the gap only grows.

The honest weak spots

• Make has a learning curve. The visual canvas is powerful, but the first hour is slower than Zapier’s step-by-step editor.
• Credits disappear with AI. AI modules on Make can use credits based on tokens, not one flat credit. Add an AI step to every order and 1,000 credits go fast.
• Zapier has more apps. It connects to 9,000+ apps. If your niche tool only exists on Zapier, that decides it for you.
• Free means limits. Grow to 500 orders a month and this same scenario needs 1,500 credits. Then you pay — but still much less.

Alternatives

• n8n — open source; self-host it and you pay only for the server. Best for people who are not afraid of a little tech.
• Zapier Free — perfectly fine if you only need one trigger and one action, under 100 times a month.
• Native shop features — WooCommerce and Shopify already send order emails. Use them first, automate what’s missing.

Sources: Zapier · Make

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About the author

Ivan Ivanov

Founder ofHawkValue

If it doesn’t save you time or money, you won’t see it here

• Facts, not hypeEvery price and number is checked against the official source
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