Three thousand tasks per month sounds reasonable until you see Zapier's bill. At that volume, you're paying ₹24,000 yearly—before premium features. Make charges for operations, not tasks. n8n runs free self-hosted and costs ₹100+/month cloud. The math matters less than understanding when each model breaks, and what it costs to migrate once you've picked wrong. Zapier's per-task model at 3,000 tasks/month Zapier bills on a simple principle: you get 100 tasks free per month, then ₹0.008 per task above that. At 3,000 tasks, that's 2,900 billable tasks per month. 2,900 tasks × ₹0.008 = ₹23.20 per month ₹23.20 × 12 = ₹278.40 yearly That assumes you stay on the free Zapier plan and never touch Premium (₹600+/month). Realistically, you're hitting paid features by month three: Custom code in Zaps (Premium) Schedules beyond every 5 minutes (Premium) More than 100 Zaps active (Professional at ₹1,200+/month) Multi-step webhooks and conditional logic bundled into a single Zap (Teams at ₹1,800+/month) A realistic Zapier setup for 3,000 tasks/month lands in Professional or Teams tier: ₹1,800–2,400/month, or ₹21,600–28,800 yearly . That's your actual floor. Make's operation model: cheaper than Zapier at volume, until it isn't Make counts execution minutes and operations, not tasks. Their free plan gives you 10,000 operations per month. At 3,000 tasks, you're likely under that ceiling if your Zaps are simple (one or two operations per task). But here's what trips people up: Make counts every action, webhook call, and conditional branch as a separate operation. A Zapier task that triggers, transforms data, and sends a Slack message is one task. In Make, that same flow might be four operations (trigger, data transform, HTTP request, Slack action). Realistically, 3,000 Zapier tasks become 9,000–12,000 Make operations. That pushes you past the free tier: Free: 10,000 operations/month Standard: ₹650/month (40,000 ops) Professional: ₹1,300/month (90,000 ops) At 12,000 operations, you stay free. At 20,000–30,000, you move to Standard at ₹650/month (₹7,800 yearly). At 60,000+, Professional becomes necessary (₹15,600 yearly). Make's advantage: 3,000 task-equivalents cost ₹0–7,800 yearly if your workflows are efficient. That's 66% cheaper than Zapier's Professional tier. The catch: Make requires you to think about operation efficiency. Every API call, every conditional, every data transform adds cost. Zapier hides that beneath the task abstraction. n8n: Free self-hosted, expensive cloud n8n splits pricing into two worlds: Self-hosted (cloud, your server): Free open-source. Pay only for hosting—typically ₹1,500–3,000/month on AWS or your preferred provider. n8n Cloud: ₹100–500/month depending on workflows and nodes. At 3,000 tasks, you're likely at ₹300+/month (₹3,600 yearly). n8n doesn't charge per task or operation. You pay for concurrent executions and storage. This model wins for high-volume, low-complexity workflows (webhook → database → Slack). It loses when you need premium support or enterprise features. Self-hosted n8n requires engineering overhead: you manage updates, security patches, and infrastructure. For a lean team, that's ₹2,000+/month in hidden labor. For a team with a DevOps person, it's closer to ₹500/month amortized cost. Self-hosted n8n costs ₹0 in software but ₹1,500–3,000/month in infrastructure. Cloud n8n costs ₹100–500/month with zero ops burden. The 3,000-task cost model side-by-side Platform Plan Monthly Cost Yearly Total Zapier Professional ₹1,800–2,400 ₹21,600–28,800 Make Standard ₹650 ₹7,800 n8n Cloud Pro ₹300–500 ₹3,600–6,000 n8n Self-Hosted + AWS/hosting ₹2,000–3,000 ₹24,000–36,000 Winner by raw cost: n8n Cloud at ₹3,600–6,000 yearly. Make Standard comes second at ₹7,800. Zapier is 3–8× more expensive. Winner including ops burden: Make Standard stays the best value. n8n Cloud assumes zero infrastructure cost; self-hosted n8n adds hidden labor. Zapier remains the most expensive. When Zapier makes sense despite the cost Zapier isn't cheaper, but it's sometimes the right choice anyway: Non-technical team: Zapier's UI hides complexity. Make and n8n require more logic-thinking. If your team can't debug a broken workflow, the ₹20K/year premium might be worth not hiring a developer. Legacy integrations: Zapier connects to 7,000+ apps out-of-the-box. Make has 1,000+; n8n has 400+. If you rely on niche SaaS (legacy CRM, custom APIs), Zapier's breadth saves migration time. Speed to production: Building a 50-Zap workflow takes 2–3 weeks for a non-technical founder. Make takes 4–6 weeks. n8n takes 6–8 weeks if you're learning it. If you're burning ₹50K/month operating cost waiting for automation, Zapier's speed wins despite the price. Migration checklist: Zapier to Make or n8n If Zapier's bill shocks you, moving to Make or n8n saves ₹14K–25K yearly. But migration is lossy. Here's what breaks: Pre-migration audit (Week 1) Export all Zap configs from Zapier (Settings → Export). Document trigger details, condition l