Make (formerly Integromat): How Automation Works & Pricing
Make lets you automate workflows without code using a visual canvas. You pay per operation, not per workflow. Here's how it works and when to choose it.
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Make (formerly Integromat) is a no-code automation tool: you connect apps in a scenario on a canvas, set what triggers the flow, and pass data from one service to another. What sets it apart from competitors is its visual layout, where you see each step as a circle on a map, and billing based on operations rather than the number of tasks or workflows. Below: how it works, what it costs, and when to choose Make instead of Zapier or n8n.
How a Scenario Is Built
- Trigger: a new email, a new row in a spreadsheet, a scheduled time, an external request.
- Modules: sequential steps, one per app or operation.
- Routers and filters: branches with conditions, so one scenario handles multiple cases.
- Error handling: separate paths in case a step fails; this is a feature beginners don’t set up, but it determines whether your automation survives a month.
What You Pay For
The billing unit is an operation, meaning a single execution of a module. A scenario with six modules running one hundred times a day consumes six hundred operations per day, not one hundred. This is the most common source of billing surprises and why you should filter data as early as possible in the flow, before it passes through additional modules. The free plan is enough for learning and a few simple automations; for production work, you need to count operations before choosing a pricing tier.
Make, Zapier or n8n
| Criterion | Make | Zapier | n8n |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it works | visual canvas with branches | linear list of steps | nodes on canvas, closer to programming |
| Entry barrier | medium | lowest | highest |
| Billing | per operation | per task | per execution or self-hosted |
| Self-hosting | no | no | yes, also free |
| Best for | complex flows with conditions | quick connections between two apps | full control and data on your server |
Where AI Comes In
Make has ready-made modules for language models, so a typical scenario looks like this: a message arrives, the model classifies and summarizes it, the result goes to a spreadsheet, and urgent matters are sent as notifications to a messenger. With these flows, remember two things: the model costs separately from Make operations, and you need to validate its response before saving it in your system, because models hallucinate when they receive incomplete data.
See also: Gumloop: AI Agents Without Code
Google · Your sourcesQuantslant higher in your Google - one clickAdd to preferred sources →Common Questions
Is Make free?
It has a free plan with a monthly pool of operations and a limit on execution frequency. It’s enough for learning.
Is Make the former Integromat?
Yes, it’s the same service after a name change; old Integromat tutorials mostly still describe the current logic.
What should you choose to start?
If you need to connect two apps in one step, Zapier will be faster. If your scenario has conditions and multiple paths, Make. If your data can’t leave your server, n8n. This is our recommendation from practice, not the result of a comparative test.
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