AI Automation pricing compared
What 9 ai automation tools actually cost — free tiers, the cheapest paid plan, and where each free plan runs out. Each figure is taken from the vendor’s own pricing page and dated, so you can see when we last checked.
| Tool | Free tier | Cheapest paid plan | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Activepieces | Yes | $5/per active flow/mo · Pro (per-flow) | 14 Jul 2026 |
| Relay.app | Yes | $19/mo · Paid (Starting at $19/mo) | 14 Jul 2026 |
| Zapier AI | Yes | $19.99/mo · Professional | 14 Jul 2026 |
| Zapier | Yes | $19.99/mo · Professional | 14 Jul 2026 |
| n8n | No | €20/mo · Starter | 14 Jul 2026 |
| Pipedream | Yes | $29/mo · Basic | 14 Jul 2026 |
| Gumloop | Yes | $37/month · Starter | 14 Jul 2026 |
| Clay | Yes | $54//mo · Starter | 14 Jul 2026 |
| Make | Yes | Custom / contact | 14 Jul 2026 |
Prices are as published by each vendor and may be region-specific — many vendors price by country. Confirm on the vendor’s page before buying.
Sorted cheapest paid plan first. A “free tier” means there is a genuinely free plan — tap through to any tool to see the full tier breakdown and exactly where the free plan stops. We list no fabricated prices: where a vendor only quotes “contact sales” we say so.
What drives ai automation pricing
The meter here is the operation, but every vendor defines it differently, and that definition is the whole ballgame. Zapier counts tasks, one per action a Zap completes, and gives 100 free a month. Make counts operations, one per module run, and is far more generous with 1,000 free, which is why a workflow with many steps burns Zapier tasks faster than Make operations for the same job. n8n meters AI credits and workflow executions rather than per-step, starting at 2,300 AI credits on its €20 tier. Activepieces charges per active flow at $5 each beyond a free 10, so cost scales with how many automations you keep running, not how often they fire. Pipedream and Gumloop use credit wallets, and Clay adds enrichment credits on top because each data lookup hits a paid third-party source. Multi-step complexity, not automation count, is usually what inflates the bill.
How to choose on price
Count the steps in your typical workflow before you count the workflows, because the per-task versus per-operation distinction decides everything. A five-action Zap consumes five Zapier tasks per run but a similar Make scenario is priced by operation with a far larger free pool, so step-heavy automations favor Make's model while simple two-step triggers favor Zapier's. Activepieces flips the logic entirely: at $5 per active flow you are rewarded for few, high-frequency automations and penalized for many rarely-fired ones. The classic false economy is starting on Zapier's 100-task free tier, hitting the ceiling mid-month, and getting forced onto a plan that is priced for far more than you need. Map your monthly run volume times steps-per-run to a real operation count, then pick the vendor whose unit definition makes that number cheapest. Watch enrichment tools like Clay, where credits deplete against paid external data.
AI Automation pricing FAQ
What is the difference between a task, an operation, and a credit?
A Zapier task is one completed action; a five-step Zap uses five tasks per run. A Make operation is one module execution, priced with a much larger free allowance. Credits, used by Pipedream, Gumloop and n8n, are a wallet that different actions draw down at different rates. The same workflow can cost very differently depending on which unit a vendor bills, so always translate your usage into the specific metric.
Why does Make give 1,000 free but Zapier only 100?
Because the units are not equal. Make's 1,000 operations are consumed per module, so a multi-step scenario eats several per run, while Zapier's 100 tasks are per action too but the smaller pool reflects a different pricing philosophy. Neither is inherently cheaper; a workflow with many steps drains both quickly, so compare on your actual steps-per-run, not the headline free number.
What does "per active flow" pricing mean for cost?
Activepieces charges $5 for each active automation beyond a free 10, regardless of how often it runs. This rewards a few heavily-used flows and punishes hoarding many idle ones. If you keep dozens of rarely-triggered automations, per-flow pricing gets expensive fast; if you run a handful of high-volume ones, it is cheaper than per-task metering.
Why do enrichment tools like Clay burn credits faster?
Because each enrichment calls a paid third-party data provider, and Clay passes that cost through as credits. Clay's plans scale with credit volume up to $167 and $446 a month, and phone-number lookups are excluded from the free tier entirely. Data-enrichment workflows deplete credits far faster than plain logic automations, so budget separately for lookup-heavy pipelines.
See the full breakdown
Open any tool for its complete pricing tiers, free-tier limits, screenshot and honest review.