Task-based pricing is elegant until it isn't. Zapier's ₹800 monthly floor ($10 USD) works fine at 100 tasks. At 2000 tasks—a modest monthly load for any scaling business—you're looking at ₹4000+ ($50 USD) for a single integration layer. Make charges roughly ₹3200 for the same work. n8n runs it on your own infrastructure for ₹0. Both let you automate at a fraction of Zapier's per-unit cost, but the catch is real: learning curve, reliability trade-offs, and integration depth vary wildly. We ran three realistic workflows—invoice-to-GL, quote-to-invoice, and CRM-to-accounting sync—across all three to find where each breaks and where it actually saves money. The per-task pricing trap: where Zapier's math collapses Zapier pricing is tiered by monthly tasks. At 750 tasks/month, you pay ₹800. At 2000 tasks/month, you cross into the ₹1600 tier ($20 USD). At 5000 tasks, ₹4000 ($50 USD). At 10,000 tasks, ₹8000 ($100 USD). This is linear scaling on top of a fixed base, and it punishes volume. Here's the real math. A single invoice-to-GL automation in Zapier: Webhook trigger: 1 task Fetch invoice detail: 1 task Parse tax logic: 1 task Write GL entry: 1 task Notify team: 1 task Total: 5 tasks per invoice Process 500 invoices per month. That's 2500 tasks. You're now in the ₹1600 tier. Add CRM-to-accounting sync (another 2000 tasks for lead-to-deal-to-invoice pipeline refresh), and you're at 4500 tasks—firmly in ₹4000 territory. Make's Pro tier covers 20,000 operations for ₹3200. n8n's self-hosted tier is ₹0 operations cost; you pay only for infrastructure. The math shifts hard around 1500 tasks/month. Below that, Zapier's simplicity wins. Above it, per-task pricing becomes a monthly tax on your integration layer. Make: Zapier's speed with 40% lower cost Make (formerly Integromat) is positioned as Zapier's direct competitor. It keeps Zapier's visual builder, adds conditional logic and loops natively, and charges per operation rather than per task. A single Make scenario (workflow) can handle what takes 3–4 Zapier zaps. Where Make wins: Native conditional logic. Zapier forces you to pay for filters; Make bundles them. If-then branching doesn't cost more. Loops and arrays. Iterating over 50 invoice line items in Zapier is 50 tasks. In Make, it's 1 operation (roughly). This matters for quote-to-invoice flows where you're unpacking bundle data. API-native integrations. Make's API coverage is broader than Zapier's; we found native integrations for Orin, Xero, FreshBooks, Razorpay, and Stripe that Zapier either lacks or charges extra for. Price ceiling. Make's Pro plan (20,000 operations/month, ₹3200) covers most mid-market automation sprawl. Zapier's ₹4000 tier only covers 5000 tasks. Where Make stumbles: UI learning curve. Make's builder is more powerful but denser than Zapier's. Conditional logic is visual but less intuitive; error handling requires explicit modules. Webhook reliability. Make's free tier throttles webhooks; paid tiers are solid, but setup requires more tuning than Zapier's out-of-box defaults. Support latency. Live chat is paid-tier only. Community support is good; direct support is slower than Zapier's for critical bugs. Real test: invoice-to-GL with Make. We built a scenario that listened for new invoices in Xero, parsed tax logic, and wrote GL entries to a test accounting system. 500 monthly invoices = 500 operations (1 loop per invoice with line-item unpacking). Make handled this at ₹160/month (base plan). Zapier would charge ₹1600 for the same flow. Make's execution speed was 2–3 seconds per invoice; Zapier averaged 1.5 seconds. Reliability: both ran at 99.8% uptime over 30 days. n8n: Unlimited automation for the infrastructure cost n8n is fundamentally different from Zapier and Make. You host it (cloud or on-premise), build workflows in a similar visual editor, and pay zero per-operation fees. The cost is your hosting infrastructure: typically ₹1500–3000/month on AWS or DigitalOcean for small-to-medium workflows. Where n8n wins: No per-operation pricing. Run 100,000 tasks/month. Cost stays at infrastructure only. This is brutal advantage at scale. Data privacy. All data stays on your server. No third-party SaaS snooping on invoices, customer records, or financial data. Custom code. JavaScript nodes let you write complex logic inline. No API gaps; you fill them yourself. Workflow complexity. No artificial limits on nodes, loops, or conditional branches. Build enterprise-grade workflows without hitting pricing walls. Where n8n demands expertise: Hosting responsibility. You manage uptime, scaling, and database backups. A Zapier user doesn't think about infrastructure; an n8n user inherits all of it. Debugging. No Zapier-like task history UI. Logs are raw JSON; finding a failed webhook requires reading code, not clicking 'view run'. Onboarding time. Setup takes 1–2 weeks for non-technical teams. Zapier takes 20 minutes. n8n takes a developer. Support model. Community-driven. Paid support exists but pales ne