Make.com vs n8n: real numbers from a solo AI business
Most Make.com vs n8n comparisons are written by people who tested both for an afternoon. Kane Fuller, who runs Claw Labs, a solo AI content and product business on a Mac Mini M4, ran them in parallel for a full week against real production workloads. The verdict is less about which tool is better and more about which constraint matters most to you right now.
One disclosure from the source worth flagging: the original post contains a Make.com affiliate link. The numbers below come from the article as published.
️ What the Automation Stack Needed to Handle
The requirements were not hypothetical. Claw Labs uses Claude Code as an autonomous agent to write articles, publish to Gumroad, manage a Substack newsletter, and log activity. The automation layer needed to:
- Trigger on webhooks (Gumroad purchase firing an email sequence)
- Call external APIs including Airtable, Gmail, and Dev.to
- Run on a schedule for weekly revenue reports
- Handle branching logic for different sequences per product
That is a real workload. Both tools got tested against it.
⚙️ Make.com: Fast to Ship, Costs Add Up
The visual scenario builder is genuinely fast. Fuller had a working scenario running in under 20 minutes. Native integrations cover Airtable, Gmail, Gumroad, and OpenAI without any custom wiring. When something breaks, Make shows you exactly which module failed and why. The free tier gives you 1,000 operations per month, enough to validate whether the workflow logic is sound before spending anything.
The catch is operations math. Once logging was added to every scenario, the 1,000 free operations were gone in three days. Make does not offer self-hosting, so if the platform goes down, your automations stop. The step up to the Core plan is £9 per month for 10,000 operations, which is reasonable but real money for a side project.
⚙️ n8n: Cheaper at Scale, More Friction at the Start
n8n is open source. Self-host it on a VPS and you run unlimited operations for roughly £5 per month in server costs. JavaScript in nodes means any logic you can write in code, you can execute. Community templates cover the most common patterns. No vendor lock-in.
The tradeoff is setup time. Getting n8n running locally or on a VPS takes 30 to 60 minutes if you know what you are doing. Longer if you do not. The UI carries more friction than Make’s polished flow builder, and credential management is messier than Make’s clean OAuth flows.
The Real Numbers
Current Make.com usage at Claw Labs: approximately 2,800 operations per month across 6 active scenarios. The Core plan (10,000 ops at £9 per month) is sufficient at that volume. Fuller is on Core.
The explicit calculation on n8n: it would save £9 per month and cost roughly one extra hour of setup and ongoing maintenance. At current volume, that trade is not worth it. At £50 per month in Make costs, it would be.
Side-by-Side
| Make.com | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | Fast (20 min) | Slow (60 min+) |
| UI polish | High | Medium |
| Cost at scale | Gets expensive | Near-zero (self-hosted) |
| Self-host option | No | Yes |
| Best for | Getting started fast | High-volume or cost-sensitive |
Which One to Pick
Fuller chose Make.com. Not because it wins on every dimension, but because there were 48 hours to get automations live and the visual builder closed that gap fastest. When you are shipping a side project with a deadline, setup time is a real cost, not a footnote.
n8n is the right choice if you are running high-volume automations, need full data privacy, or already write JavaScript comfortably. Make is the right choice if you need something working today and £9 per month is not a dealbreaker at your current scale.
Neither is wrong. The constraint that matters most to you right now is the deciding factor.
I’m founder of BizStack at Cagri Sarigoz LLC and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurs.
With over 14 years in tech, marketing, and AI, including my role as Head of SEO at CitizenShipper and co-founder of TaleBot at Intale AI, I’m dedicated to sharing genuine, useful product insights and tips.
At BizStack, I aim to cut through the digital noise to provide clear, actionable advice.
And more than all else, I’m a father to a (always) little girl and a husband.
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