This is not a generic comparison. Every number here comes from actual migrations we completed between January and May 2026. Eight businesses. Three platforms. Real outcomes.
WHY BUSINESSES LEFT ZAPIER
Multi-step automations at real volume cost 149 to 382 pounds per month on Zapier. A typical UK SME running CRM sync, email triggers, Slack notifications, and form processing consumes 10,000 to 20,000 tasks per month. At that volume the Zapier bill is hard to justify when alternatives exist.
MIGRATIONS 1 TO 3: N8N SELF-HOSTED
All three had technical people on the team. Previous Zapier cost: average 298 pounds per month. New n8n cost: 8 pounds per month for Hetzner CX22 VPS. Licence is free when self-hosted.
Migration took three to four weeks per business. Longer than expected. Main issues:
Zapier delay nodes do not map directly to n8n Wait nodes. Timing on follow-up email sequences needed manual recalibration.
Zapier Formatter tool has no n8n equivalent. Replicate it with the Code node and simple JavaScript.
n8n does not alert on workflow failure by default. Build an Error Trigger workflow that posts to a Slack channel. Without this you discover failures days after they happen.
Budget two to three times your initial migration estimate. All three businesses are still on n8n six months later.
MIGRATIONS 4 TO 7: MAKE.COM
Four businesses. All non-technical teams. Decided by: visual interface similar to Zapier, pricing, EU data hosting.
Make operations model is more efficient than Zapier tasks. A branching workflow that needed three Zaps becomes one scenario. Pricing at 10,000 operations: 16 pounds versus Zapier 149 pounds.
Migration was one to two weeks per business. The issue is operation counting. A scenario with many modules can consume eight or more operations per run. New users underestimate monthly usage by a factor of three. Start with a higher plan and scale down after you see actual usage.
Make EU data hosting means personal data processing stays in Europe. For UK SMEs running customer data through automation workflows this resolves the GDPR question. Zapier processes on US servers and does not offer EU hosting.
MIGRATION 8: STAYED ON ZAPIER
Four two-step zaps. Non-technical team. Genuine resistance to change. Staying on Zapier was the right call.
COST COMPARISON AT UK SME VOLUMES
10,000 tasks per month: Zapier Professional 149 pounds. Make.com Core 16 pounds. n8n Cloud 50 pounds. n8n self-hosted 8 pounds.
50,000 tasks per month: Zapier 382 pounds. Make.com Teams 29 pounds. n8n Cloud still 50 pounds (no task limit on cloud). n8n self-hosted still 8 pounds.
Full UK comparison: softomatesolutions.com/blog/zapier-alternatives-2026/
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