Almost any tool can connect two apps these days. Choosing between them is hard, though, because the price lists look alike and each one counts something different. One bills tasks, another credits, a third executions. You’ll only see the difference on an invoice six months from now.
I hear it over and over in consultations. A business picks a tool by its monthly price, runs smoothly for six months, and then comes the month when a single scenario eats the entire limit. The tool is doing exactly what it did in January. The only thing that changed is the number of customers.
You can’t compare price lists until you know what they count
The unit a tool bills for determines the price, not the number on the price list. Until you know whether you’re paying per task, per credit, or per full execution, you’re comparing apples and oranges. I read all the prices below in the official price lists on September 19, 2026.
| Tool | What’s billed | Free | Paid entry plan (September 19, 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Make.com | credits | up to 1,000 credits a month | Core $9 a month |
| Zapier | tasks | 100 tasks a month | Professional from $19.99 a month |
| n8n | executions, or your own server | Community Edition on your own server | Starter €20 a month |
| Activepieces | pricing not verified | pricing not verified | no price given |
| Pipedream | pricing not verified | pricing not verified | no price given |
| Albato | pricing not verified | pricing not verified | no price given |
In short: Make suits most everyday integrations, Zapier suits a quick start without much thought, and n8n suits anyone who wants their data on their own server.
Integration tool
A middleman that sits between your apps and moves information between them. It doesn’t produce anything itself and doesn’t store anything permanently. Its only job is to make sure that what was created in one app also shows up in the other, without you retyping it.
I’m leaving out the price for the three tools at the bottom of the table on purpose. I couldn’t verify their price lists from an official source as of the same date, and a guessed number is worse than none. Open them yourself. It takes a minute.
“It’s just a little connector between two apps. How can it cost more than the app itself?”
I hear that line almost every time the third invoice arrives. You pay for a connector based on how often it runs, not on what it can do. And the runs multiply exactly as the business grows.
Make.com: the most sensible first choice for a small business
For most small businesses today, Make.com offers the best value for money. You build a scenario with your mouse, you see the result as a diagram, and you can still find a bug in it six months later.
Best for: a business that wants to connect three to ten apps without hiring anyone to do it.
In practice, you can set it up so that an online store order creates a contact in your CRM, a submitted form turns into a finished PDF, and the customer gets a confirmation. You walk through every step in advance and see what will flow where before you run it for the first time.
Where it falls short: since 2025, it bills credits instead of operations. Older tutorials and your own estimate from last year are therefore off, and you first notice it on the invoice.
Price as of September 19, 2026: free plan up to 1,000 credits a month, Core $9 a month, Pro $16, Teams $29. The paid prices cover 10,000 credits monthly.
Zapier: the most ready-made integrations and the fastest start
Zapier has the widest list of apps of them all. If you’re looking for yours, you’ll almost certainly find it here, even if nobody else supports it.
Best for: anyone who needs one or two simple integrations and wants them done this afternoon.
You can build a connection in twenty minutes without reading a manual. Zapier asks clear questions, step by step, and figures out the rest on its own. That’s how a business usually gets its first small automation running, for example when a click on a link in a proposal automatically creates a task for a salesperson.
Where it falls short: you pay significantly more for the same work than in Make. It bills tasks, so every step of a scenario is another line item, and a more complex scenario costs several times more.
Price as of September 19, 2026: free plan with 100 tasks a month, Professional from $19.99 a month billed annually, or $29.99 billed monthly.
Scenario run (execution)
One complete pass through an automation, from the trigger to the last step. Some tools bill the whole run regardless of how many steps it has, while others charge for each step separately. That’s why the same work can be one line item in one tool and fifteen in another.
n8n: your own server and full control over where your data flows
n8n lets you run your entire automation on your own server. You install the Community Edition there and pay nothing for the software.
Best for: a business that cares where its customers’ personal data flows, or one with so many executions that the cloud plans have stopped being fun.
It can do essentially the same things as Make, and on top of that, no outsider looks at what you send through it. This is also where integrations with Czech tools that the big platforms don’t cover belong, along with bridges between your CRM and your invoicing or bank.
Where it falls short: the software is free, but the server, backups, and updates aren’t. Somebody has to look after all of that, and that care costs time or money. It often eats up the entire license savings.
Price as of September 19, 2026: Community Edition free on your own server, Starter €20 a month billed annually for 2,500 executions, Pro €50 a month for 10,000 executions.
How I choose
Start with a list, not with the price. Write down what needs to move where and how many times a month it happens. Only then take that number to the price list and convert it to the unit that particular tool bills for. If it turns out you’re just under the free plan’s cap, expect to outgrow it within six months.
Activepieces: an open-source alternative to n8n
Activepieces is an open-source tool for anyone who likes the idea of their own server but finds n8n needlessly complicated. It’s easier to use, and you can put a basic scenario together faster.
Best for: a smaller team that wants to host the tool itself and gets by with a few common integrations.
For simple transfers between two or three apps, it’s more than enough. You’ll only notice the difference from n8n in more complex scenarios with branching and conditions.
Where it falls short: it has far fewer ready-made integrations than Make and Zapier. Whatever you don’t find on the list, somebody has to code, and that kills the main advantage of a tool you run with a mouse.
Price: not listed. I couldn’t verify the price list from an official source as of September 19, 2026, and a guess wouldn’t help you decide.
Pipedream: for anyone who can write a few lines of code
Pipedream is the most flexible of the six and also the least suitable for non-technical people. It expects you to add your own code between steps.
Best for: a business with at least one person who’s comfortable programming.
In that person’s hands, it can handle things the other tools can’t, such as calculations, more complex data transformations, or connecting to a service that has no ready-made integration.
Where it falls short: without programming, you’ll get lost in it. It isn’t a tool you can hand over to a colleague from the office after a weekend, and for small businesses, that settles it.
Price: not listed. I couldn’t verify the price list from an official source as of September 19, 2026.
Albato: a cheaper Zapier substitute with less behind it
Albato positions itself as a cheaper route to what Zapier does. You can build basic integrations in it just as fast, and the interface is clear.
Best for: anyone who finds Zapier expensive but doesn’t want to move to their own server.
It handles everyday transfers between business apps and spreadsheets, and it can, for example, make sure your social media content goes out on its own. That covers most of what a small business needs day to day.
Where it falls short: a small community. For a problem you’d solve in Make in ten minutes with someone else’s tutorial, here you’ll be looking for the answer on your own, and often in vain.
Price: not listed. I couldn’t verify the price list from an official source as of September 19, 2026.
One-minute self-test
Take one thing you’ll copy from one app into another this week. Count how many times a month it happens and multiply that by the minutes it takes. If you get more than two hours a month, you have your first candidate for an integration. If less, leave it and keep looking.
Who none of these tools will help
One group it won’t help: anyone who copies something between apps five times a month. Five retyped rows a month isn’t a problem worth paying to solve.
The second case is trickier. A business that hasn’t sorted out what belongs where won’t fix anything by connecting its apps. The tool won’t clean up the mess. It’ll just spread it faster and to more places.
And then there’s a third case: a business that expects the integration to make decisions. The tool moves information and may transform it, but it can’t judge it. Where you need to weigh the context, you’re better off with an assistant that works in your accounts on its own and asks when something is unclear.
How to choose, in a nutshell
- Write down what needs to move where and how many times a month it happens.
- Find out which unit each candidate bills for, and convert your number to it.
- For up to ten integrations without special requirements, go with Make.com.
- For one quick integration this afternoon, go with Zapier and worry about the price later.
- Where data can’t leave your hands, plan for n8n on your own server, including the work of running it.
- Open the price lists right before you buy. The numbers in this article are as of September 19, 2026.
The next time an invoice doesn’t match your estimate, don’t look for a fault in the tool. It didn’t raise its prices, and nobody dropped the ball. The business just started doing well, and with it grew the number of runs nobody was counting. You don’t recognize a good integration tool by its starting price. You recognize it by how its price grows only where your work grows too.
