n8nVSZapier Agents
Published · Last updated
| n8n | Zapier Agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | €20/mo (Starter, billed annually) | $19.99/mo (Professional); Agents Pro $33.33/mo billed annually |
| Free plan | Self-hosted Community Edition free; Cloud has a free trial (1,000 executions, no card) | Yes: Zapier Free plan; Agents free tier 400 activities/month |
| Integrations | All integrations on every plan (count not stated on pricing page) | 9,000+ apps |
| Billing unit | Workflow executions (whole run, not per step) | Tasks (Zaps) / activities (Agents) |
| Best for | Technical builders who want control and self-hosting | Teams already on Zapier wanting agents across 9,000+ apps |
| Key features | AI Agent node MCP server trigger + MCP client Human approval for tool calls Self-hosting Code steps (JS/Python) Git version control (Business+) | Agents with web browsing & live data Chrome extension Chatbots Zapier MCP Canvas |
How we tested
Prices, free plans, and plan limits come from each vendor's official pricing and docs pages (linked on each builder profile), last checked 2026-11-10. Hands-on coverage: 3 of 10 builders. On Oct 16, 2026 we built one simple agent (summarize text into exactly 3 bullets) on the free tier or trial of n8n and Make, and ran only the AI step in Activepieces (not a full published flow). The other 7 builders have not been tested hands-on; their facts come from vendor pages only. This test shows signup friction and basic model execution. It does not measure reliability, integrations, error recovery, or ongoing cost. We don't accept payment for placement.
- n8n: Tested hands-on
- Make: Tested hands-on
- Zapier Agents: Not tested hands-on yet
- Lindy: Not tested hands-on yet
- Relevance AI: Not tested hands-on yet
- Gumloop: Not tested hands-on yet
- Activepieces: Tested hands-on (AI step only)
- Botpress: Not tested hands-on yet
- Dify: Not tested hands-on yet
- Voiceflow: Not tested hands-on yet
Build an agent that summarizes text into exactly 3 bullets, free tier/trial only.
- Setup time: ~7 min from signup start to a working run (~4 min after the instance was ready)
- Card / API key: No card, no API key
- Free AI credits: $2.00 of AI credits included with the trial
- Limits: 14-day trial, 1,000 executions
- What we built: Chat Trigger → AI Agent (gpt-5-mini via n8n gateway). Correct run: 4.5s, ~179 tokens, exactly 3 bullets.
- Friction: required 5-question survey; AI Agent node added unconnected (had to drag it in manually); first system-message edit silently didn't save; starts in AI Assistant view.
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