Best Zapier Alternatives of 2026
Seven automation and AI agent platforms to use instead of Zapier, ranked on price per run, apps, AI features and self hosting, as of October 2026.
By , research by the BestBots team · Updated Oct 19, 2026
Fact checked against each company's published pricing, documentation and verified user ratings. How we score
Make is the best Zapier alternative for most teams in October 2026: it keeps a no code builder, connects 3,500+ apps, includes AI Agents on every plan and costs $16 a month for 10,000 credits against $29.99 for 750 Zapier tasks. Technical teams should pick n8n, which bills per full run and is free to self host.
Our top picks
Why people leave Zapier
Zapier is the easiest automation tool and has the biggest catalog, 9,000+ apps. People leave for three reasons:
- Cost per task. Every successful action step uses a task, so a 6 step Zap costs 6 tasks per run. Professional includes 750 tasks for $29.99 a month billed monthly. See the full math on Zapier pricing.
- AI multipliers. AI by Zapier steps use 3 tasks on advanced models and 5 on premium models, plus the same again for every tool call. Zapier Agents runs on a second meter, 400 free activities then $50 a month for 1,500.
- No self hosting. Zapier is cloud only, which rules it out for some regulated data.
A note on lists: several top ranked "Zapier alternatives" articles still recommend Relay.app. It shut down in 2026 and is not included here.
How to choose
- Same no code style, lower bill: Make.
- Developers, self hosting, very long workflows: n8n.
- You want an assistant, not a workflow: Lindy.
- Agents that research, qualify and write: Relevance AI or Gumloop.
- Microsoft 365 company: Copilot Studio.
- You write code anyway: OpenAI's Agents SDK.
Our picks, in detail
- Starting price
- $16 per month billed monthly
- Free tier
- 1,000 credits per month
- Integrations count
- 3,500+ apps
- Self host
- No, cloud only
Make Core is $16 a month billed monthly for 10,000 credits, where most actions use 1 credit, against 750 tasks for $29.99 on Zapier Professional. It keeps a no code visual builder, connects 3,500+ apps and includes AI Agents on every plan, Free included. For most teams leaving Zapier over cost, it is the shortest move.
Pros
- AI Agents available on all plans, including Free
- 10,000 credits for $16 a month, far more volume per dollar than Zapier
- Reasoning panel shows each agent decision step by step
- SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 listed
Cons
- Visual canvas takes longer to learn than Zapier
- AI Provider actions can use more than 1 credit per step
- No self hosting
- Trustpilot 2.7 from 172 reviews
Skip it if your workflows depend on niche apps that only Zapier's 9,000+ catalog covers, or your team finds a canvas harder than Zapier's step list.
- Starting price
- €24 per month billed monthly (about $27)
- Free tier
- Self hosted Community Edition free; 14 day cloud trial with 1,000 executions
- Integrations count
- 500+ built in integrations plus any HTTP API
- Self host
- Yes, Docker, on premises or air gapped
n8n counts a whole workflow run as one execution regardless of steps, so a 12 step Zap that costs 12 tasks costs 1 execution. Cloud Starter is €24 a month (about $27) for 2,500 executions, and the Community Edition is free to self host. It supports JavaScript and Python, any model including local ones, and multi agent systems.
Pros
- Free self hosted edition with full source on GitHub (207,000+ stars)
- Bills per execution with unlimited steps, so long agent chains cost the same as short ones
- Unlimited users and workflows on every plan
- Swap cloud or local models, multi agent and RAG support
Cons
- Steeper learning curve than Zapier or Make
- Business plan jumps to €667 per month billed annually (about $750) and is self hosted only
- Self hosting means you own uptime, updates and security
- Fewer native integrations than Zapier
- Prices are listed in euros only, so the USD cost moves with the exchange rate
Skip it if nobody on the team is comfortable with JSON, APIs or running a server.
- Starting price
- $49.99 per month
- Free tier
- 7 day trial with $50 in credits
- Integrations count
- 1,500+ tools plus MCP servers
- Self host
- No
If you used Zapier to glue your inbox, calendar and CRM together, Lindy replaces the glue with an AI assistant that triages email, takes meeting notes, schedules and updates the CRM across 1,500+ tools. The Team plan starts at $49.99 a month for 5,000 credits with a 7 day trial.
Pros
- Ready made skills for email triage, meeting notes, scheduling and CRM updates
- 1,500+ integrations plus MCP and browser automation
- SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA and PIPEDA listed
- Editable plain text memory about your team
Cons
- Credit usage per task is hard to forecast before you run it
- No free plan after the 7 day trial
- Trustpilot 1.7 from 40 reviews
Skip it if you need deterministic, high volume automations; credit use per task is hard to forecast.
- Starting price
- $29 per month
- Free tier
- None (Free plan retired)
- Integrations count
- 2,000+ apps and 1,000+ triggers
- Self host
- No
Relevance AI is built for agents first, with 2,000+ apps and 1,000+ triggers, model choice across Gemini, GPT and Claude, and Python or JavaScript steps. Pro is $29 a month billed monthly ($19 yearly) for 2,500 Actions plus $20 in vendor credits, close to Zapier's entry price with agents at the center.
Pros
- Specialist agent templates such as a BDR, meeting prep and post call agent
- Workforces chain agents with AI handoffs or fixed next steps
- Vendor Credits pass model costs through at wholesale with no markup, and you can bring your own keys
- SOC 2 Type II and GDPR, with SSO, RBAC, audit logs and PII masking on Enterprise
Cons
- Two meters to track: Actions and Vendor Credits
- Extra Actions cost $80 per 1,000, far above the plan rate
- Calling and meeting agents start at $349 a month on Team
- Public pricing page shows only Enterprise, and too few public reviews to rate (2 on Trustpilot)
Skip it if you want a free plan; Relevance AI retired its Free tier.
- Starting price
- $37 per month
- Free tier
- 14 day trial only
- Integrations count
- 400+ connectors listed on the homepage, plus custom MCP servers
- Self host
- No; VPC on Enterprise
Gumloop is designed for AI steps such as scraping, enrichment and document processing, with 35+ models and bring your own keys. Pro is $37 a month for 20,000 credits, billed at provider list price plus an 8% orchestration fee, so AI calls cost close to raw rates instead of Zapier's 3 to 5 tasks per premium AI step.
Pros
- Unlimited seats, agents and teams on the $37 plan
- 35+ models with model fallback and bring your own key
- Agents reachable in Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, hosted pages and API
- Clear credit math: $0.005 per credit, published per chat cost breakdown
- SOC 2 Type II listed on the homepage
Cons
- No permanent free plan, only a 14 day trial
- 8% orchestration fee on top of model costs, 16% with your own keys
- Agents stop at the credit cap unless overage is switched on
- Shared credentials, Company Brain and SSO are Enterprise only
- No G2, Capterra or Trustpilot listing with 10+ reviews found (Product Hunt 5.0 from 9)
Skip it if you only need simple app to app automations; it has about 400 connectors.
- Starting price
- $200 per month (25,000 Copilot Credits, billed annually)
- Free tier
- No free plan; free maker trial (cannot publish) and a Teams only plan in select Microsoft 365 subscriptions
- Integrations count
- 1,500+ prebuilt connectors plus MCP servers and custom connectors
- Self host
- No, Microsoft cloud only; US Government GCC, GCC High and DoD available
Copilot Studio builds agents and agent flows on Power Platform with 1,500+ connectors, Entra identity and Purview governance. Pay as you go is $0.01 per Copilot Credit with no commitment, and employee facing agent use is included for Microsoft 365 Copilot users.
Pros
- 1,500+ prebuilt connectors and native grounding in SharePoint, OneDrive, Dataverse and Microsoft Graph
- Employee facing agent use is included for Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users, so internal agents can cost nothing extra in credits
- Model choice inside one tool: GPT models by default plus Claude Sonnet and Opus as generally available options
- Enterprise governance out of the box: DLP data policies, Purview audit logs, customer managed keys, HIPAA BAA, FedRAMP via government clouds
- Publishes to Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, SharePoint, websites, mobile apps, WhatsApp, Facebook and Azure Bot Service channels
Cons
- Credit math varies by feature (1 to 100 credits per event) and by harness, so budgets are hard to forecast
- Prepaid packs are billed annually, unused credits expire monthly, and agents are disabled at 125% of prepaid capacity unless pay as you go is linked
- The free trial cannot publish agents, so you cannot run a real pilot without buying capacity
- Value drops sharply outside the Microsoft stack; Dataverse storage above the default and premium AI tools add cost
Skip it if you are not on Microsoft 365; licensing and credit rates per feature take real work to forecast.
- Starting price
- $0.10 per 1M input tokens (gpt-6-luna)
- Free tier
- No free tier; pay as you go API billing
- Integrations count
- Not published; MCP servers, function tools and hosted tools
- Self host
- Agents SDK and ChatKit server run in your own infrastructure; models stay on OpenAI's API
Developers who outgrew Zapier's builder can write agents with OpenAI's Agents SDK and pay only API tokens, from $0.10 per 1M input tokens, plus per call tool fees. There is no seat or task fee at all.
Pros
- No seat or platform fee; you pay API tokens and per call tool rates
- Agents API runs a managed Codex harness with sessions, compaction and sandboxes
- ChatKit gives a production chat UI with widgets and attachments
- API data is not used for training by default, with Zero Data Retention for approved customers
Cons
- Agent Builder, the visual canvas, shuts down November 30, 2026
- Requires engineering time; no no code path for new projects
- Costs scale with tokens and tool calls, so heavy agents need budget monitoring
- Agents API is still in beta
Skip it if you need no code; OpenAI's visual Agent Builder shuts down November 30, 2026.
Price per run compared
The fairest way to compare is the cost of one run of a typical 5 action workflow.
| Platform | Plan | Units per run | Runs for the plan price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier | Professional, $29.99 for 750 tasks | 5 tasks | 150 |
| Make | Core, $16 for 10,000 credits | about 5 credits | about 2,000 |
| n8n Cloud | Starter, €24 for 2,500 executions | 1 execution | 2,500 |
| n8n self hosted | Community Edition, $0 plus your server | 1 execution | Unlimited |
| Relevance AI | Pro, $29 for 2,500 Actions | depends on actions per run | up to 2,500 actions |
Add an AI step and the gap widens: on Zapier a premium model step alone is 5 tasks. On Make it depends on tokens, and with your own model key you pay only the module credits. See the AI Price Index for all agent builders.
What you give up
- App coverage. No alternative matches 9,000+ apps. Make has 3,500+, Relevance AI 2,000+, Copilot Studio 1,500+ connectors, n8n 500+ built in nodes plus any HTTP API. Check your three most important apps before you move.
- Ease. Zapier's linear editor is the fastest for beginners. Make and n8n canvases take longer to learn.
- Ecosystem. Many SaaS vendors build their Zapier integration first and keep it best maintained.
Migration tips
- Export a list of your Zaps and rank them by task use; move the most expensive first.
- Rebuild one workflow in the new tool and run both side by side for a week.
- Replace polling triggers with webhooks where the app supports them, which cuts runs on Make and n8n.
- Move AI steps to small models or your own API key to stop paying a markup per call.
- Cancel Zapier only after a full billing cycle with no failures.
How we picked
We started from the platforms people compare most often with Zapier, then kept those with published prices, an active product and a clear reason to switch. Each pick is drawn from our bot records, which list every price and limit with its source and the date we checked it. The order is editorial: the best fit for most people leaving Zapier on cost, AI features and control. See how we score.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Zapier?
Make is the best alternative for most teams. It keeps a no code builder, connects 3,500+ apps, includes AI Agents on every plan and costs $16 a month for 10,000 credits against $29.99 for 750 tasks on Zapier. Technical teams should look at n8n, which is free to self host.
What is a cheaper alternative to Zapier?
Make and n8n are both far cheaper at volume. Make Core gives 10,000 credits for $16 a month. n8n Cloud Starter gives 2,500 full workflow runs for €24 a month, with unlimited steps per run, and its self hosted Community Edition has no subscription.
Is there a free Zapier alternative?
Yes. Make Free includes 1,000 credits a month and AI Agents. n8n's Community Edition is free to self host with unlimited workflows; you pay only for your own server.
Is there an open source alternative to Zapier?
n8n is the best known, released under a fair code license with a free self hosted Community Edition. You can run it on Docker, on premises or air gapped.
Is n8n better than Zapier?
For technical teams and long, high volume workflows, yes, because n8n bills per execution and can be self hosted. For non technical teams that want the widest app catalog and the easiest builder, Zapier is still better.
What happened to Relay.app?
Relay.app shut down in 2026, and its site says accounts and workflows were deleted. If you were using it as a Zapier alternative, Make is the closest no code replacement.
Should I switch from Zapier to Make?
Switch if your bill is driven by multi step Zaps at volume and your apps are in Make's 3,500+ catalog. Stay if your team relies on niche apps only Zapier connects or values Zapier's simpler step by step editor more than the savings.