Make vs Zapier for lead management

A small team that routes web-form leads into a CRM, sends a first reply and notifies an owner, and has to pick between the two platforms. For the full workflow with CRM-specific operations, duplicates, stop rules and consent, see automating lead follow-up; for the units themselves, how automation pricing really works.

An instant (webhook) trigger fires for each lead, then five steps: clean and check the input, find or create the contact, create the deal or task, send the first email, notify the owner. Each run is one lead.

• Make counts each module run as an operation, and its help page says trigger modules count too, once per check. On this workflow that is 6 credits per lead: the trigger plus five modules, assuming one credit per operation (this article's assumption; the help page ties credits to operations without stating the ratio).
• Zapier counts each successful action step as a task. Its help page says triggers, Filter steps, Paths steps, Formatter steps and Delay steps do not count. If the cleaning step is a Formatter or Filter step, a lead costs 4 tasks; if it uses an app action it costs 5. The tables below give the same plan either way.

Make's Core plan covers all three volumes because 10,000 credits is its entry size, so its price does not move across this range. Zapier's price moves in steps as the task count crosses a plan size. Its smallest Professional size is 750 tasks (from $19.99 a month on the annual option), which the 200-lead case exceeds at 800 tasks, so the table starts at the 1,500-task size. Above 10,000 credits Make's price is set on a slider by volume, and this comparison does not price those volumes. Open the same workflow in the calculator and change the inputs: 200 leads a month or 1,000 leads a month.

This table keeps the workflow defined above fixed and counts it the way each platform does: four tasks on Zapier and six credits on Make for each lead, so 1,000 Zapier tasks is 250 leads and 1,500 Make credits. One Zapier task is therefore not one Make credit here: it is 1.5 credits on this workflow, and the ratio would be different for a workflow with another mix of steps, routers or polling triggers. On Make the nearest published size above the credits is chosen (Free covers only 1,000 credits, so 1,500 needs Core 10,000). Over twelve months on annual billing that is $108, $192 and $660 on Make Core against $468, $1,548 and $3,468 on Zapier Professional; on monthly billing $127.08, $225.84 and $776.52 against $702, $2,322 and $5,202. Both columns are list prices and assume an instant trigger; a Make polling trigger would add one credit per check. Our guide to Make pricing by credit volume and Zapier pricing by task volume explain each side further.

Make's free plan includes 1,000 credits a month, which covers 166 leads at 6 credits each. Zapier's free plan lists 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps, so the five-step workflow above cannot run on it at all. Either free plan is a way to test the connection to your CRM, not to run a lead flow.

Zapier lists Paths, its branching feature, on Professional, Team and Enterprise and not on Free, and says Paths and Filter steps do not count toward task usage. Make's help page describes the router, which branches a scenario into several chains of modules by condition; the page read does not say which plans have it or whether it consumes credits, so check both before you design a routing flow around it.

• Your volume will grow: its monthly price steps up with each plan size, from $39 at the 1,500-task size to $89 at 5,000 and $129 at 10,000 tasks on the annual option.
• You want to run the workflow on a free plan: the free plan lists two-step Zaps.
• Your CRM is Pipedrive and you want a single "find or create" step: Zapier lists one, but check that your flow does not need more steps than the plan allows.

• Your CRM is Pipedrive and you want one find-or-create step: Make lists create, update and search as separate modules, so you build the branch yourself.
• You poll for new submissions instead of receiving a webhook: Make's help page counts a trigger check as an operation, so frequent polling uses credits.
• You want a fixed price at high volume without reading a slider: above its entry size Make's price depends on the credits you choose.

1. Write your own workflow as a list of steps and mark which would be filters, formatting or delays.
2. Count units per lead in each platform's rule, then multiply by your real monthly lead count.
3. Open each pricing page at that volume and note the plan, in both billing modes.
4. Build the same two-step test (form to CRM) on both free plans before you pay.
5. When you have chosen, follow the lead follow-up guide for duplicates, stop rules and consent.

• Testing. No platform was used for this comparison.
• n8n. It is priced by executions and covered in the lead follow-up guide.
• Error handling and reliability. Retries, error routes and uptime were not compared.
• Tax and regional prices. None of the pricing pages states how tax is treated.

For n8n, see Make vs n8n pricing for one workload.