Make, Zapier and n8n handle SaaS integrations in an SME; Power Automate is the natural choice in Microsoft 365 (Premium €13/user/month according to its website as of Oct 2026). Make charges per credit, Zapier per task and n8n per execution (from €20/month) or free self-hosted. None of them replaces a BPM if the process demands traceable approvals, case files and compliance.
What they have in common and why they are compared badly
All four are integration platforms (what analysts call iPaaS): a visual editor where a trigger in one application sets off actions in others, with ready-made connectors for the most widely used tools. All four are good at that, and an SME can build something useful in an afternoon.
The problem with most comparisons is that they stop at the number of connectors and the entry price. The differences that really change the bill and the risk are elsewhere: the billing unit (the same flow can cost three times as much in one tool as in another), the option to host it on your own servers, how they handle human intervention, what audit trail they leave and where the data resides. Those are the six criteria of this article.
And there is one shared limit: they all automate flows, not processes. That difference, in the end, decides whether you need one of these four or low-code BPM software.
Pricing model: credits, tasks, executions or per-user licence
Each tool measures consumption with a different unit, and that unit matters more than the plan price. The table shows what each website publishes as of October 2026; where it does not show the figure, we say so.
| Tool | Billing unit | Free | Paid entry point (according to its website as of Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Make | Credits: almost every module action consumes one; routers and error handlers do not | 1,000 credits a month | Core, Pro, Teams and Enterprise plans; the price per plan is calculated on its website by credits and does not appear in the FAQ consulted. Discount for annual billing and a Start-up plan for companies with fewer than 20 employees |
| Zapier | Tasks: every action step executed successfully (triggers do not count) | 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps, polling every 15 minutes | Professional from $19.99/month billed annually (750 tasks) or $29.99 monthly; Team from $69/month annually (2,000 tasks); Enterprise on request. Task overage at 2.5 times the rate (1.25 on annual) |
| n8n | Executions: a complete workflow counts as one, however many steps it has | Self-hosted Community Edition, no licence cost | Starter €20/month (2,500 executions), Pro €50/month (10,000), Business €667/month self-hosted only (40,000); Enterprise on request. Prices billed annually |
| Power Automate | Per-user or per-bot licence, with a daily request limit | 30-day trial; flows with standard connectors included in Microsoft 365 (6,000 requests/user/24 h) | Premium €13/user/month; Process €130/bot/month; Hosted Process €186.30/bot/month. Billed annually, excluding VAT |
The practical consequence: a flow that processes 500 invoices a month with five steps each consumes about 2,500 tasks in Zapier and on the order of 2,500 credits in Make, but only 500 executions in n8n. The longer and more iterative the flow, the harder per-step billing punishes you. Power Automate goes a different way: it does not count steps, it counts licensed users and caps requests at 40,000 per user per day on Premium, or 250,000 per flow with a Process licence.
None of the four offers a flat per-user rate with executions included, BPM-style, which is why on the Zapier alternative and Make alternative pages the first criterion is price per task versus predictable cost.
Comparison table: connectors, self-hosting, logic, approvals, audit trail and data in the EU
The six criteria that separate the four tools in a real project, with what each vendor states on its website as of October 2026.
| Criterion | Make | Zapier | n8n | Power Automate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Declared connectors | "3,500+ apps" | "9,000+ apps"; premium apps from the Professional plan | "500+ integrations", plus HTTP and code nodes | "1,000+ API connectors"; the FAQ mentions more than 1,400 certified ones |
| Self-hosting | Not published; cloud on AWS, Enterprise in an isolated AWS environment | No; cloud | Yes: Community Edition with Docker, or self-hosted Business/Enterprise plan | No: "not available on-premises"; connects to your own servers via the on-premises data gateway |
| Conditional logic | Routers and filters in the scenario (do not consume credits) | Filters and Paths only from Professional; the free plan is linear and two-step | Condition, branching and code nodes; loops | Conditions, loops and expressions in cloud flows |
| Human in the loop | No advertised approval feature; built with email, webhooks and wait modules | "Approval requests" in beta, Enterprise only | Human-in-the-loop approvals and human approval of tool calls in agents | Native approvals connector: five types, responses from Outlook, Teams or the approvals centre, history in Dataverse |
| Audit trail and traceability | Roles and audit logs; Enterprise adds more controls | Audit log: 6 months on Team, 1 year on Enterprise; SAML SSO from Team, SCIM on Enterprise | Audit logs, log streaming to SIEM, workflow history and Git (paid features); SAML/LDAP SSO on Business and Enterprise | Run history per flow; approval history in Dataverse |
| Data residency in the EU | AWS with ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3; its security page does not state the region | GDPR, SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3; no EU residency published on pricing or Enterprise pages | Cloud hosted in the EU (Frankfurt); self-hosted, wherever you decide | Depends on the region of your Microsoft tenant's environment; the pricing page does not detail it |
| Typical limits | Plan credits; 5 GB of transfer per 10,000 credits a month; extras in packs of 1,000 or 10,000 | Polling every 15, 2 or 1 minute depending on plan; task overage at 2.5 times the rate | Concurrent executions: 5 on Starter, 20 on Pro, 200 or more on Enterprise | 40,000 requests/user/24 h on Premium, 250,000 per Process licence; a run lasts at most 30 days, pending approvals included |
Two quick takeaways. If EU data residency is a contractual requirement, only n8n puts it in writing on its pricing page; with the rest you have to ask for it and have it recorded in the contract. And if the flow needs someone to approve, Power Automate is the only one with approval as a native piece on every plan; in Zapier it is an Enterprise extra and in Make it is a workaround.
Who each one is for: a profile in four paragraphs
Make: visual scenarios and agents, paying per credit
Make is the tool for people who want to see the whole flow on a canvas, with branches, iterators and aggregators, and it includes AI agents with goals, tools and limits. The price is credits: since August they are the billing unit, almost every action consumes one and some AI features consume more. It suits marketing and operations teams that build many medium-volume flows; it stops suiting you when a scenario iterates over thousands of records every day or when you have to prove to an auditor who did what.
Zapier: the biggest catalogue and the shortest learning curve
If the application exists, there is almost certainly a Zapier connector: it declares more than 9,000, and getting started is the quickest. Its limits appear as you grow: the free plan is linear and two-step, filters and paths start on Professional, polling drops to one minute only on Team, and human approvals are a beta exclusive to Enterprise. The per-task model is the one that brings the most end-of-month surprises when a Zap goes into a loop.
n8n: self-hosting, per-execution pricing and a developer mindset
n8n is the only one of the four you can install on your server with Docker without paying a licence, and the only one that charges per complete execution rather than per step. That is why it is the favourite of technical teams: code node, Git, MCP, agents with human approval of every tool call. Its cloud is hosted in Frankfurt, with prices in euros from €20 a month. In return it demands more skill: self-hosting means maintaining updates, backups and security, and features such as SSO, environments or log streaming to a SIEM are reserved for paid plans.
Power Automate: the natural choice if your company lives in Microsoft 365
For an SME on Microsoft 365, Power Automate is already there: flows with standard connectors, including approvals from Outlook and Teams, are built with the licence you already have. Premium, at €13 per user per month, unlocks premium connectors, desktop flows (attended RPA) and process mining; Process, at €130 per bot, covers unattended robots. The real cost lies in the per-user licence when many people trigger flows, in the daily request limit and in the fact that, outside the Microsoft ecosystem, connectors to Spanish ERPs are generic (HTTP).
When an iPaaS is enough and which to choose for each case
An iPaaS is enough when the flow meets three conditions: it does not need a person to decide in the middle, a failure can be re-run without consequences, and nobody is going to ask you for the history in two years' time. With those three conditions, the choice between the four depends on your stack and your team:
| Situation | Reasonable choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Team of 1-3 people, 100% SaaS stack, few flows | Zapier | More connectors and the fastest start; low volume keeps the per-task cost under control |
| Marketing and operations with complex data flows | Make | The most expressive editor for transforming, aggregating and iterating; watch the credits at high volumes |
| Technical team, high volume or sensitive data | Self-hosted n8n | No per-step cost, data on your infrastructure, code when needed |
| Company on Microsoft 365, flows between SharePoint, Teams, Outlook and Dynamics | Power Automate | Licence you already have, native approvals, Microsoft identity and permissions |
| Processes with approvals, documents, case files or regulation | None on its own: BPM (with the iPaaS alongside if you already have it) | Explained in the next section |
One piece of advice that saves grief: before choosing, count the steps of your three heaviest flows and multiply by monthly runs. With that figure, each website's calculator will give you the real price.
When none of them: processes with approvals, case files and compliance
All four tools automate flows: a sequence of actions between applications. A process is something else: it has people with roles, decisions with deadlines, documents that are reviewed and signed, exceptions that are escalated and a case file that someone can audit later. On that ground, the iPaaS falls short by design, not for lack of connectors:
| Need | How an iPaaS handles it | How a BPM handles it |
|---|---|---|
| Approval with deadline and escalation | Email or Teams card; if nobody responds, the flow waits or expires (30 days in Power Automate) | Task in an inbox with due date, reminder, delegation and automatic escalation to another role |
| Process model | Each tool's proprietary diagram | BPMN 2.0, a standard understood by business, IT and auditors, exportable |
| Case file | Does not exist: data is scattered across the connected applications | One case file per instance with documents, versions, decisions and signatures |
| Traceability for audit or inspection | Run history for months, depending on plan | Immutable record of who decided what, when and with which document, kept for as long as the rules require |
| Signature and legal validity | Connector to an external signature provider | Electronic signature inside the same process, with the evidence in the case file |
| Cost as you grow | Per credit, task, execution or user who triggers flows | Flat per-user rate, no step counting |
The clearest sign that you have crossed the line is when you start building things with the iPaaS that are not integrations: a spreadsheet to know which invoices are pending approval, a flow that sends reminders because nobody answered the email, a shared folder acting as a case file. Each of those workarounds is a BPM task done by hand. We go deeper in the guide to workflow automation and, for the most common case, in how to automate supplier invoice approval.
Quick rule. If, to explain the flow, you have to say "and then someone reviews it and decides", it is not an integration: it is a process. And if someone could ask you in two years' time who decided it and with which document, you need a case file, not a run history.
How Dokuflex handles it
Dokuflex, a low-code BPM platform with AI, brings the two layers together in one: ERP and CRM integration without coding, with more than 200 connectors (SAP, Sage, Holded, A3, Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics, among others) and REST and GraphQL APIs and webhooks for whatever has no connector, and the BPMN 2.0 process engine with task inboxes, traceable approvals, case files, document management and electronic signature on the same platform. The flow reads the order in the ERP, asks the manager for approval in Teams or in their inbox, attaches the document, sends it for signature and writes the result to the CRM, and every step lands in an immutable record with who, what, when and from which IP.
Against the four criteria where the tools above fall short:
- Price: flat per-user rate (Starter from €25/user/month on an annual subscription), with no counting of credits, tasks or intermediate steps. 14-day free trial, no card required.
- Human in the loop: the approval is a task in the BPMN process, with a due date, exception escalation and an audit log, not an email waiting for a reply.
- Data and compliance: data hosted in the European Union, ISO 27001, operations aligned with Spain's ENS at Medium level (certification in progress), GDPR with a signed DPA; every call between systems over OAuth 2.0 or mTLS and TLS 1.3.
- Governed AI: AI agents work inside the process, with limited permissions and a human step before critical actions, instead of being a loose module in the scenario.
And if you already have Zapier, Make or n8n running, there is no need to throw them away: they can carry on with the lightweight flows and open case files or start processes in Dokuflex via API. For those coming from Microsoft 365, the Power Automate alternative for SMEs (in Spanish) explains what stays in Power Automate and what moves to the BPM. What does make sense to move as soon as possible are the processes where "failing is not an option".
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheapest: Make, Zapier, n8n or Power Automate?+
It depends on volume and on how you measure it. According to their websites as of October 2026, Zapier has a free plan of 100 tasks a month and the Professional plan starts at $19.99 a month billed annually; n8n starts at €20 a month (2,500 executions) and its self-hosted Community Edition is free; Make offers 1,000 credits a month free and Core, Pro and Teams plans priced by the calculator on its website; Power Automate Premium costs €13 per user per month billed annually. For a few flows and low volume, anyone's free tier is enough; at high volume, self-hosted n8n or a flat rate usually works out better than paying per task or credit.
What is the difference between paying per credit, per task and per execution?+
The billing unit changes what the same flow costs you. In Make, each module action consumes one credit, although routers and error handlers do not; a scenario that iterates over 500 records burns hundreds of credits. In Zapier, every action step executed successfully counts, so a five-step Zap consumes five tasks per run. In n8n, an execution is a complete workflow, whether it has two steps or forty, and it is the most predictable unit as flows grow. Power Automate does not charge per step: it licenses per user or per bot and sets a daily request limit (40,000 per user with Premium).
Can any of them be installed on my own servers (self-hosting)?+
Only n8n. Its Community Edition deploys with Docker on your server with no licence cost and almost the full feature set; SSO, Git version control, environments, custom variables and log streaming to a SIEM require a paid plan. Make and Zapier are cloud services with no published on-premises option. Power Automate is a cloud service that, according to Microsoft's FAQ, is not available on-premises, although it can connect to internal servers through the on-premises data gateway.
Is Power Automate free with Microsoft 365?+
Partly. Microsoft 365 licences let you create cloud flows with standard connectors, including approvals, with a limit of 6,000 Power Platform requests per user every 24 hours. Premium connectors, desktop flows (RPA) and process mining require Power Automate Premium, which according to Microsoft's website as of October 2026 costs €13 per user per month billed annually and raises the limit to 40,000 daily requests. Unattended flows are licensed per bot with the Process plan, at €130 per bot per month.
Which one allows human approvals inside the flow?+
Power Automate has the approvals connector as a native feature: five types (everyone must approve, first to respond, custom responses and sequential approval), responses from Outlook, Teams or the approvals centre, and history stored in Dataverse; the flow can wait up to 30 days. n8n advertises human-in-the-loop approvals and human approval of tool calls in agents. Zapier offers approval requests in beta and only on the Enterprise plan. Make does not publish an approval feature as such on the pages consulted; it is worked around with emails, webhooks and wait modules. In none of them is the approval a task with an inbox, a deadline, delegation and a case file as in a BPM.
Where is my data stored: in the EU or in the United States?+
n8n Cloud states on its pricing page that data on hosted plans is stored in the EU, on servers in Frankfurt; if you self-host, wherever you decide. Make declares infrastructure on Amazon AWS with ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3, but its security page does not state the region. Zapier declares GDPR, SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 compliance, and its pricing and Enterprise pages do not publish EU data residency. In Power Automate the region is determined by the environment of your Microsoft tenant; the pricing page does not detail it. If you need a contractual guarantee of data in the EU, ask for it in writing before signing.
When do I need a BPM instead of an iPaaS?+
When the flow stops being "if A happens, do B" and becomes a process with people inside it: a supplier invoice that needs two approvals and a signature, an employee onboarding with documents to review, a non-conformity that opens a case file with deadlines. An iPaaS moves data between applications; a BPM models the process in BPMN 2.0, assigns tasks to inboxes with due dates and escalations, records every decision with who, when and with which document, and leaves a case file that an audit or an inspection can review. The usual set-up in an SME is both: the iPaaS for lightweight flows and the BPM for the processes that cannot fail.
Can I use Dokuflex together with Zapier, Make or n8n?+
Yes. Dokuflex exposes documented REST and GraphQL APIs and webhooks, so a Make scenario, a Zap or an n8n workflow can open a case file, start a process or read the status of a task. The sensible split is this: SaaS-to-SaaS flows with no people in them stay in your iPaaS, and processes with approvals, documents and compliance live in Dokuflex, which also brings more than 200 native connectors for SAP, Sage, Holded, A3, Salesforce, HubSpot or Dynamics. That way you do not pay per task for what is critical, nor rebuild what already works.
Sources
All consulted on 19 October 2026. Prices and limits may change; we will review this article when they do.
- Make, Pricing: FAQ on credits as the billing unit, 1,000 free credits a month, extra packs, Start-up plan and allocations per 10,000 credits.
- Make, home page: "3,500+ apps", AI agents, role-based access control and audit logs. Make, Security: AWS infrastructure, ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3.
- Zapier, Pricing: plans and prices in dollars, tasks per executed step, polling per plan, Filters and Paths, approval requests (beta, Enterprise), audit log, SAML SSO and SCIM. Zapier, home page: "9,000+ apps", SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3, GDPR. Zapier, Enterprise.
- n8n, Pricing: Starter €20, Pro €50, Business €667 a month, executions per plan, concurrency, SSO, data hosted in the EU (Frankfurt). n8n, home page: 500+ integrations, Docker, human-in-the-loop approvals, audit logs, RBAC, Git, MCP. n8n Docs, Choose n8n: Community Edition and features reserved for paid plans.
- Microsoft, Power Automate pricing: Premium €13.00/user/month, Process €130.00/bot/month, Hosted Process €186.30/bot/month, 30-day trial. Microsoft, Power Automate: connectors, not available on-premises, on-premises data gateway.
- Microsoft Learn, Power Automate approvals: approval types, responses from Outlook, Teams and the approvals centre, history in Dataverse, standard connector.
- Microsoft Learn, Power Platform request limits: 40,000 per user (Premium), 250,000 per Process licence, 6,000 with Microsoft 365. Microsoft Learn, flow limits: maximum run duration of 30 days, pending approvals included.
Your lightweight flows where they are; your critical processes, governed
Bring us your three heaviest flows (the Zaps, scenarios or workflows that cost you the most or fail the most) and in 20 minutes we will tell you which to keep running where they are and which to turn into a BPMN process with approvals, a case file and ERP connectors. No commitment.