Most automation reviews test 10 workflows at 50 tasks each. But your real question is different: at 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000 monthly tasks, which platform costs you the least? Zapier's ₹24K yearly ceiling exists for a reason—it's where the math breaks for high-volume automation teams. Make and n8n get cheaper faster. And somewhere between 2,500 and 3,500 tasks per month, self-hosted n8n flips the entire calculation. The ₹24K wall: What Zapier's pricing actually covers Zapier charges by "task.") A task is one workflow execution from trigger to action, regardless of how many steps that workflow contains. Here's what that means in rupees: Free tier: 100 tasks/month, zero cost. Enough for a small team trialling one or two workflows. Starter (₹11,100/year): 750 tasks/month. Common for small operations automating customer signup workflows or basic lead routing. Professional (₹26,500/year): 7,500 tasks/month. This is where most scaling teams land. Advanced (₹55,000/year): 30,000 tasks/month. Enterprise only. Notice the gap. To go from 750 tasks to 7,500 tasks, you pay ₹15,400 more per year. To add another 22,500 tasks, you pay another ₹28,500. Zapier's per-task cost improves as you scale, but the total bill climbs fast. At exactly 3,000 tasks per month (36,000 yearly), you're paying ₹26,500 for Zapier Pro—about ₹0.74 per task when divided flat. Reality check: That ₹26,500 yearly Zapier bill assumes you hit 7,500 tasks/month and use none of them. Many teams sitting at 3,000 tasks/month are overpaying for a higher tier just to avoid hitting Zapier's hard monthly limits. Make's per-task model: Where the math flips at 2,000 tasks Make (formerly Integromat) uses "operations," not tasks. One operation = one step (trigger or action). A workflow with a webhook trigger, two HTTP requests, and a Slack message is four operations. This shifts the math entirely. Free: 1,000 operations/month. Basic (₹8,200/year): 10,000 operations/month. Standard (₹25,800/year): 50,000 operations/month. Pro (₹61,500/year): 200,000 operations/month. Here's where Make wins: if your workflows are simple (3–4 steps each), you're paying less per actual workflow run. At 3,000 monthly workflow executions with 3 steps each (9,000 operations), Make's Basic tier (₹8,200/year) covers you. Zapier's Starter doesn't. Real cost at 3,000 monthly task equivalents: Make (Simple workflows, 3 steps): ₹8,200/year for 10,000 operations. Per workflow: ₹0.27. Zapier (3,000 tasks): ₹26,500/year for 7,500 task capacity. Per task: ₹0.74. Make is 2.7× cheaper if your workflows are short. But Make penalizes complexity: each extra step in a workflow costs real money. A 10-step workflow across 3,000 executions = 30,000 operations. Now you need Make's Standard (₹25,800), and the advantage shrinks. n8n: The crossover point (and self-hosted option) n8n offers two models: cloud and self-hosted. Most teams skip the ₹25,000+/month cloud tier and run self-hosted instead. n8n Cloud pricing is weak. At the "Pro" tier (₹40,000+/month for 50,000 executions), you're already past Zapier's Professional tier in cost, and you've hit DIY-or-die. Nobody seriously uses n8n Cloud for cost arbitrage. n8n Self-hosted is where the magic happens. You host it on a ₹2,000–₹5,000/month cloud server (AWS, DigitalOcean, etc.) and run unlimited workflows, unlimited executions. At 3,000 monthly tasks with a ₹3,000/month server, you're at ₹36,000/year—slightly cheaper than Zapier Pro. But the moment you scale to 4,000 tasks, the server cost doesn't rise. Self-hosted n8n becomes 50% cheaper than Zapier or Make. Cost comparison: 1,000 to 3,000 monthly tasks Monthly Tasks Zapier Make (3-step workflows) n8n Self-Hosted 1,000 ₹11,100 (Starter) ₹0 (Free, 1K ops) ₹36,000 2,000 ₹11,100 (Starter) ₹8,200 (Basic) ₹36,000 3,000 ₹26,500 (Pro) ₹8,200 (Basic, if 3-step avg) ₹36,000 At 1,000 tasks: Zapier wins narrowly (₹11,100 vs. ₹36,000 for self-hosted, assuming you can't use the Make free tier). At 2,000 tasks with simple workflows: Make crushes both (₹8,200). At 3,000 tasks: Make and Zapier Pro tie (both ~₹26,500), but n8n self-hosted pulls even. The real win is beyond 3,000 tasks, where self-hosted n8n stays ₹36,000 and Zapier jumps to ₹55,000. The hidden costs: Setup, maintenance, and integration debt Pricing tables lie because they ignore your time and engineering effort. Zapier and Make: Low setup, high integration lock-in. You log in, build workflows in their UI, and hand off the keys to your operations team. Setup takes days, not weeks. But you're paying ₹26,500+ yearly for the privilege of not touching infrastructure. Switching costs real money: rebuilding 30+ workflows in n8n takes your team 2–3 weeks, and many teams never do it. n8n self-hosted: High setup, zero integration lock-in. You spin up a server, install n8n, configure it for your auth and database, and then build. First-time setup (server, DNS, SSL, database, backup) runs 2–3 days for a single engineer. Ongoing maintenance: ₹500–₹1,000/month for serve