Last year I got my Zapier renewal notice: $588/year for the Professional plan.
For workflows I'd built myself, running on data I own, doing automations I understood completely.
I cancelled the same day and spent the weekend migrating everything to n8n. That was 8 months ago. My automation bill since then: €0.
Here's the honest account of what happened — what was easy, what was hard, and whether I'd do it again.
What I Was Running on Zapier
Before the migration, I had:
- 12 active Zaps
- ~8,000 tasks/month
- Integrations: Gmail, Google Sheets, Slack, Typeform, GitHub, Airtable, Stripe
The mix of integrations is important because not everything migrated cleanly. I'll tell you which ones caused problems.
Why I Chose n8n (Not Make/Pipedream)
Make (formerly Integromat) was the obvious alternative — more powerful than Zapier, cheaper at scale. I ran it for two months before realizing I was still paying for ops (operations), still dependent on their servers, still limited by their pricing model.
Pipedream is developer-friendly but code-heavy. I wanted visual workflows with the option to drop into code when needed.
n8n self-hosted gave me:
- Unlimited workflow executions on my own VPS (€5/month on Hetzner)
- 400+ integrations built-in
- Full control of my data
- The option to add custom code nodes when the visual builder wasn't enough
The €5/month VPS vs €49/month Zapier math was obvious. But the real reason was control: I was tired of workflows breaking because Zapier changed something upstream.
The Migration Weekend
Friday Night: Audit
I exported a list of all my Zaps with task counts. Sorted by: how often it runs, how critical it is, how complex it is.
The top 3 critical Zaps:
- GitHub → Slack: New issue notification with priority classification
- Typeform → Airtable → Gmail: Lead capture and welcome sequence
- Stripe → Google Sheets: Payment tracking and reporting
I decided to migrate these first. Everything else could wait.
Saturday: The Easy Wins
GitHub → Slack was done in 45 minutes. n8n has native nodes for both. The workflow was: Webhook trigger (GitHub) → Format message → Slack.
The only wrinkle: Zapier handles webhook verification automatically. In n8n I had to manually set up the GitHub webhook and confirm the secret. 15 extra minutes, not a big deal.
Stripe → Google Sheets was similar. Two hours total including testing edge cases (failed payments, refunds, subscription changes).
Sunday: The Problem Child
The Typeform lead capture workflow was the hardest migration.
The Zapier version had grown over 2 years into something ugly: 7 steps with conditional logic, a Formatter step doing string manipulation, and a custom delay before the welcome email.
In n8n, I rebuilt it properly from scratch:
- Webhook node (replacing the Typeform trigger — more reliable)
- IF node for conditional routing based on lead source
- Code node for the string manipulation (cleaner than Zapier's Formatter)
- Wait node for the delay
- Gmail node for the welcome email
Took 4 hours. But the result was better than what I had in Zapier — more readable, better error handling, easier to modify.
What I Couldn't Migrate (Honestly)
Two Zaps stayed on a free Zapier account because the integrations were annoying to replicate:
Calendly → Notion: n8n has a Calendly node but I couldn't get webhook verification working within the time I'd allocated. Stayed on Zapier free tier (low usage).
Twitter/X monitoring: Zapier's Twitter integration was already broken (Twitter API changes), so "not migrating" was actually just "both broken." Ended up cutting this workflow entirely.
8 Months Later: The Honest Verdict
What worked better in n8n:
- Complex conditional logic — IF/Switch nodes are cleaner than Zapier's Paths
- Error handling — n8n lets you define fallback paths. Zapier just fails silently.
- Debugging — the execution history shows exactly what happened at each node
- Custom code — drop a JS/Python node anywhere when you need it
What worked better in Zapier:
- Onboarding — Zapier's setup wizard is excellent for beginners
- Some integrations — Zapier's Gmail integration handles edge cases better (threading, labels)
- Reliability of hosted service — my VPS had two brief outages in 8 months; Zapier's uptime is ~99.9%
The two outages: One was a VPS provider issue (30 minutes). One was me accidentally filling the disk with n8n execution logs (1 hour, entirely my fault).
Would I do it again? Yes, immediately. €588/year to €60/year (VPS) is not a close decision for my usage level.
The Migration Checklist (If You're Thinking About It)
Before you start:
- [ ] Export/document all your Zaps with task counts
- [ ] Set up n8n on a VPS or use n8n cloud (free trial available)
- [ ] Install n8n and verify it's running
Migration order (easiest to hardest):
- Simple 2-step Zaps (trigger → action, no conditions)
- Multi-step linear Zaps
- Zaps with conditional paths
- Complex Zaps with formatters and delays (rebuild from scratch, don't try to copy)
Things to watch for:
- Webhook verification: GitHub, Stripe, and others require header validation. n8n supports this but you have to configure it manually.
- Rate limits: Some APIs have stricter limits when you're polling vs. webhooks. Switch to webhooks wherever possible.
- Execution logs: n8n stores full execution history. Set a pruning schedule or you'll fill your disk.
The Templates I Built
After migrating, I turned my most-used workflows into importable templates. If you don't want to build from scratch:
- AI Automation Starter Pack (3 Workflows) — €59: The GitHub triage, standup builder, and client pipeline workflows that replaced my highest-usage Zaps
- AI Client Pipeline — €39: The lead-to-review workflow (Typeform → welcome sequence → follow-up → review request)
- DevOps Inbox Zero — €29: The GitHub triage workflow with AI classification
Each comes with full setup documentation and API configuration instructions.
One More Thing
The biggest thing Zapier sells you is "it just works." And that's real — for most people, Zapier's reliability and polish are worth paying for.
If you're a technical person running your own workflows and paying more than €100/year, the migration is worth the weekend. You'll end up with better workflows than you had.
If you're non-technical or running business-critical workflows where downtime has real consequences, the managed service premium is probably justified.
I fall into the first category. Maybe you do too.
If you're thinking about migrating and have questions, drop them in the comments. I check in regularly.
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