Make vs Zapier vs Pabbly Connect: cost per thousand tasks and a worked automation

Every small business ends up copying the same information between apps. A payment comes in, so someone creates an invoice, updates a spreadsheet and sends a thank-you email. Automation platforms do that copying for you. A trigger in one app starts a chain of actions in others.

Make, Zapier and Pabbly Connect are three of the most used, and they sit at very different prices. Zapier connects to the most apps and charges the most per task. Make is visual, flexible and much cheaper. Pabbly Connect is the low-cost option, with plans built to undercut the other two. Zapier isn't a StartupStead partner, and we've compared it on the same terms as the others.

Make, Zapier and Pabbly Connect at a glance

Prices are the monthly rate on yearly billing, from each company's pricing page on the day we checked.^{⁠[1],[2],[3]}

What each one counts

The headline prices aren't directly comparable, because the three count usage differently. Getting this right matters more than any discount.

Zapier counts tasks, and a task is a successful action. Triggers don't count, and neither do filters, paths, steps that fail or steps that never run. Built-in tools such as Formatter, Delay, Looping and Storage are free. Some newer features cost more. AI steps depend on the model you pick, and each call through Zapier's MCP server costs two tasks.^⁠[4]

Make counts credits, and nearly every module that does something uses one. That includes reading data from an app or a webhook, searching, creating, updating and transforming data. Routers and error handlers are free.^⁠[1] The trigger counts too. When a scheduled scenario runs and finds nothing to process, Make calls it a check run, and it still uses a credit.^⁠[5]

Pabbly Connect counts tasks the way Zapier does. Triggers and internal steps, such as its formatters, filters, routers and parsers, are free, and only action steps use your allowance.^⁠[3]

So a run with a trigger and two actions costs two units on Zapier and Pabbly, and three on Make.

Cost per thousand

Here's the price of a thousand units at the volumes a small business usually needs, on yearly billing.^{⁠[1],[2],[3]}

Monthly billing costs more on all three. Make's Core plan is $10.59 a month for 10,000 credits, Pabbly's Standard plan $19, and Zapier's Professional plan $193.50 for 10,000 tasks.^{⁠[1],[2],[3]}

Even if Make used half again as many units as Zapier for the same work, it would still cost a small fraction of the price at these volumes.

A worked automation, priced on all three

Take a business that takes 500 payments a month through Stripe. For each one, it wants a sales receipt created in QuickBooks and a row added to a Google Sheet that the founder reviews every Friday.

On Zapier, the trigger is free and the two actions use two tasks a run, so 500 payments use 1,000 tasks. Professional's 750-task tier isn't enough, and the 1,500-task tier costs $39 a month billed yearly, or $58.50 monthly.^⁠[2],[4]

On Make, the trigger, the QuickBooks module and the Google Sheets module use one credit each, so 500 payments use about 1,500 credits. If the trigger checks Stripe on a schedule rather than receiving events as they happen, each empty check adds a credit. At every 15 minutes, that's up to 2,880 checks a month.^⁠[1],[5] Either way, Core's 10,000 credits cover it for $9 a month billed yearly.

On Pabbly Connect, the trigger is free and the two actions use 1,000 tasks a month. The free plan's 100 tasks and two-step limit won't do, so it's the Standard plan at $16 a month billed yearly, or $19 monthly.^⁠[3]

Add a step that looks up the customer in QuickBooks before creating the receipt, and each run uses one more unit on all three. Zapier would then need its 2,000-task tier at $49.

Free plans

All three let you try before you pay, and none of the free plans will run a business for long.

Make's free plan includes 1,000 credits a month, its visual builder and routers and filters, but scenarios can run at most every 15 minutes.^⁠[1] Zapier's free plan gives you 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps, meaning one trigger and one action.^⁠[2] Pabbly's free plan has 100 tasks a month, unlimited workflows and two-step workflows, with no credit card needed.^⁠[3]

Make's free plan is the most useful for learning, because 1,000 credits and multi-step scenarios let you build something close to what you'd really run.

What happens at the limit

Each one handles running out differently, and it's worth knowing before an invoice or an order goes missing.

Zapier switches you to pay-as-you-go when you reach your plan's tasks, unless you turn that off.^⁠[2] It warns you at 80% and 100% of the pay-per-task limit, and after that holds any further tasks until the billing cycle ends.^⁠[4]

Make stops running scenarios until you add credits. Incoming webhooks are queued up to your plan's queue size and processed when scenarios resume. You can buy extra credits in bundles of 1,000 or 10,000, or turn on automatic top-ups on paid plans. Credits expire at the end of each term.^⁠[1]

Building in each

Zapier's editor is a vertical list of steps, which is easy to follow for simple automations and gets long for complicated ones. It connects to more than 9,000 apps, which is its biggest advantage.^⁠[2]

Make shows a scenario as a diagram of connected modules. It takes longer to learn, and it makes branching, looping over lists and handling errors much clearer. It connects to more than 3,500 apps.^⁠[1]

Pabbly Connect looks closer to Zapier, with a step-by-step builder, routers for branching, and code steps in JavaScript or Python. It lists more than 2,000 apps.^⁠[3]

Before choosing on price, check that every app you need is on the platform, and that it supports the specific trigger and action you need, not just the app's name.

How quickly automations run

Speed matters when a customer is waiting for a confirmation email, and much less for a spreadsheet the founder reads on Friday.

Make's free plan runs scheduled scenarios at most every 15 minutes. Core and above let you schedule them down to the minute.^⁠[1] Remember that every scheduled check costs a credit on Make even when nothing has changed, so a one-minute schedule on a quiet trigger can use more than 40,000 credits a month on its own.^⁠[5]

Pabbly Connect lists instant webhooks on every plan, including the free one, and lets you schedule workflows by the minute, hour, day or week.^⁠[3] Zapier's instant triggers fire as soon as the other app sends an event, and polling triggers don't use tasks however often they check.^⁠[4]

Where an app offers an instant trigger, use it on all three. It's faster, and on Make it's cheaper.

When more than one person builds

A founder who builds every automation alone can use any plan. Once a second person starts building, or a contractor needs to fix a broken workflow, the plans diverge.

Zapier's Team plan, from $69 a month billed yearly for 2,000 tasks, adds 25 users, shared Zaps and folders, shared app connections, single sign-on and priority support.^⁠[2] Make's Teams plan, from $29 a month billed yearly for 10,000 credits, adds teams with roles and shared scenario templates.^⁠[1] Pabbly Connect allows unlimited team members on every plan, including the free one.^⁠[3]

Shared app connections are worth more than they sound. Without them, each builder connects the company's accounts with their own logins, and the automations break when that person leaves.

Lifetime deals

Pabbly sells lifetime plans for a single payment. When we checked, its Standard lifetime plan was $349 for 3,000 tasks a month, and its Ultimate lifetime plan $799 for 10,000 tasks a month.^⁠[3]

Against the Standard plan's $192 a year, the $799 Ultimate plan takes a little over four years to pay off, and only if Pabbly keeps serving it that long. It's a bet on one company's future, so treat it as a bonus rather than the reason to choose a platform.

Which one to pick

Choose Make if you want the most automation for the least money and someone on the team is willing to learn its visual editor. Core at $9 a month billed yearly covers most small businesses.

Choose Zapier if an app you rely on only connects through Zapier, or if the people building automations want the gentlest learning curve and volumes are low. Budget for the task tier your busiest month needs.

Choose Pabbly Connect if your apps are on its list, you want a flat price with unlimited team members, and your workflows are simple enough for its builder.

Automations are only as good as the tools at each end. Our startup tech stack covers the rest of the tools a new business runs on, and if you're building an app to sit in the middle, our comparison of Bubble, Softr and Glide covers the no-code builders.