Both Make and n8n can handle a serious amount of automation work. They connect APIs, move data between apps, trigger actions based on conditions, and save your team from doing repetitive tasks manually. If you're evaluating which one to use, the honest answer is: it depends on your situation.

We've built production automations on both platforms for Australian businesses - from small trades businesses through to multi-location hospitality groups. This breakdown is based on real experience, not spec sheets.

Quick overview of each

Make (previously called Integromat) is a cloud-based automation platform with a visual, drag-and-drop interface. You build "scenarios" by connecting modules together on a canvas. It has a large library of pre-built app connectors - over 1,500 of them - and a polished UI that non-technical users can get comfortable with fairly quickly. Make handles hosting, updates, and reliability for you.

n8n is open-source and works differently. You can self-host it on your own server, or use their cloud offering. It also has a visual workflow editor, but it leans more technical - you can drop JavaScript or Python directly into nodes, build custom integrations, and get much closer to the underlying data. It has a strong and active community, and the self-hosted version is free to use regardless of how many operations you run.

Both tools have grown significantly in capability over the past few years. The gap between them is narrowing in some areas, but the fundamental differences in pricing model and technical depth still matter when you're choosing one for your business.

Pricing comparison

Make starts with a free plan that gives you 1,000 operations per month. After that, you're paying per operation - the more your automations run, the higher your monthly bill. For low-volume workflows this is fine. But for businesses where automations trigger hundreds or thousands of times a day, costs compound quickly. A busy e-commerce store running order processing, inventory syncs, and customer notifications could easily exceed 100,000 operations a month, which puts you into the higher pricing tiers.

n8n's self-hosted version is free with no per-operation limits. You pay for server hosting (typically $10-30/month on a basic cloud VPS) regardless of how many times your workflows run. Their cloud plan, if you don't want to manage infrastructure, is flat-rate monthly pricing - no operation counting. For high-volume use cases, this is almost always cheaper than Make at scale.

The practical implication: if your automation runs 50 times a day, Make's pricing probably doesn't hurt much. If it runs 5,000 times a day, the calculus changes significantly.

Ease of use

Make wins here for non-technical users. The interface is genuinely well designed - the visual scenario builder is intuitive, error messages are readable, and setting up common integrations (Slack, Gmail, Google Sheets, CRMs) takes minutes rather than hours. If you want a team member who isn't technically inclined to own and manage your automations, Make is a safer bet.

n8n has improved its UI considerably, but it still assumes a higher baseline of technical comfort. Setting up self-hosting requires command line access and some familiarity with server management. Even on n8n cloud, some features - like writing custom code nodes or debugging complex data transformations - are more approachable if you've got some development background. It's not inaccessible, but the learning curve is steeper.

That said, the extra technical depth in n8n is also its strength. When you need to do something that doesn't fit neatly into a pre-built connector - custom API calls with unusual authentication, complex data reshaping, conditional logic that goes beyond basic filters - n8n gives you the tools to handle it without workarounds.

When to choose Make

Make is a good fit if:

  • Your team is non-technical and needs to manage or adjust workflows without developer help
  • Your automation volume is moderate and predictable, so per-operation pricing doesn't become a problem
  • You want a fully managed cloud service with no infrastructure to worry about
  • You're connecting common SaaS apps that Make already has polished connectors for
  • Speed of setup matters more than maximum flexibility

It's also worth noting that Make's visual interface makes it easier to hand off to a client who wants to understand or occasionally modify their own workflows. If transparency and client ownership of the automation layer matters to you, Make's readability is a genuine advantage.

When to choose n8n

n8n is the better call if:

  • You're running high-volume workflows where per-operation pricing would get expensive
  • You need custom code nodes to handle logic that pre-built connectors can't manage
  • Your business has data compliance requirements and you want workflows running on your own infrastructure rather than a third-party cloud
  • You want cost predictability at scale - a flat server cost is easier to budget for than variable operation counts
  • You have technical resources (in-house or via an agency) to handle setup and maintenance

Self-hosting also means your automation infrastructure doesn't disappear if a vendor changes their pricing, gets acquired, or shuts down a plan tier. For businesses that want long-term stability in their tech stack, owning your own instance matters.

What we use at Workvolve

Our default is n8n for client builds, and that comes down to a few practical reasons.

First, code ownership. When we build an automation on n8n, the client owns the instance and the workflows. There's no vendor lock-in, no usage-based billing that could spike unexpectedly, and no dependency on our account staying active. The automation is theirs, full stop.

Second, cost at scale. Most of the businesses we work with in Brisbane and across Australia have automation needs that grow over time. Starting with flat-rate infrastructure costs means there's no pricing cliff to worry about as volume increases.

Third, flexibility. n8n handles edge cases better. When a client's workflow needs something slightly unusual - a custom webhook format, a multi-step data transformation, an API that doesn't have a pre-built connector - n8n gives us the tools to solve it properly rather than bodging together workarounds.

That said, we're not dogmatic about it. If a client has an existing Make setup that's working well, we'll work within that. If the use case is genuinely simple and the client wants to manage it themselves after handover, Make might be the right call. The platform should fit the job, not the other way around.

If you're not sure which direction makes sense for your business, that's exactly the kind of question we work through on a strategy call. No commitment required - just a straight conversation about what you're trying to automate and what the right approach looks like.