n8n vs Zapier vs Make for social media automation: what one post costs in each

How n8n, Zapier and Make charge for a run

n8n, Zapier and Make each count a different unit, and the unit decides what social media automation costs. n8n's pricing page bills workflow executions, and says an execution is a single run of the whole workflow, regardless of how many steps it has. Zapier counts tasks: its task usage article defines a task as a successful action, and says Zap triggers, Filter and Paths steps, Formatter steps and failed actions never use one. Make counts credits: its credits guide says one operation equals one credit by default, and its operations guide says a trigger module uses one operation every time it checks for data.

The euro and dollar figures are as each vendor listed them, without tax. n8n says annual billing saves 17%. Zapier's Professional plan rises to $58.50 a month for 1,500 tasks, $73.50 for 2,000 and $133.50 for 5,000 on monthly billing. Make's pricing page now shows one paid plan, the Make Plan, sized by a credit slider, next to Free and Enterprise.

What one social post costs in each tool: a worked count

One social post sent to four networks costs 1 execution in n8n, 4 tasks in Zapier and 5 credits in Make, when each network gets its own step. The count below assumes a workflow scheduled once a day that reads one row, such as a post written in a spreadsheet, and publishes it to LinkedIn, X, Bluesky and Mastodon. Thirty days make 30 runs.

At that volume, the cheapest tier of each tool covers the work. Make's Free tier holds 150 credits inside its 1,000. Zapier's Free tier does not fit, because it allows two-step Zaps only and leaves out webhooks, so the four-network Zap needs Professional.

Scale the same setup to an agency posting 20 times a day, 600 runs a month, and the order changes. n8n uses 600 executions, inside Starter at 24 euros. Make uses 3,000 credits with one step per network, inside the 5,000-credit Make Plan at $10.59. Zapier uses 2,400 tasks, which needs the 5,000-task Professional tier at $133.50. With one HTTP call per run, Zapier drops to 600 tasks, inside the 750-task tier at $29.99. All prices are monthly billing, read on October 20, 2026.

The polling trap sits under every figure above. A Make trigger that checks a sheet every 15 minutes runs 96 checks a day, 2,880 in 30 days, and the operations guide counts each check whether or not a row arrived. An n8n Schedule Trigger set to every 15 minutes is likewise 2,880 workflow runs a month, above Starter's 2,500. Zapier is the exception: its task article says polling for new data uses no tasks. Schedule the check to match how often you post.

The networks can bill too. X's API pricing was pay-per-use on October 20, 2026: $0.015 per post created, and $0.200 for a post that contains a URL. A tool that posts with your own X developer app passes that bill to you, so 30 posts with a link cost $6.00 a month at those rates.

Posting to LinkedIn, X, Bluesky and Mastodon from each tool

n8n, Zapier and Make each post natively to some networks and need an HTTP step for the rest. The table records what each vendor documented on October 20, 2026; a vendor page that answered "not found" that day is listed as missing.

The LinkedIn row is the costly one for teams that post as a brand. n8n's LinkedIn credential docs say posting as an organization requires putting your own LinkedIn developer app through LinkedIn's Community Management App Review. The X credential docs likewise ask for an X developer account and an app with read and write permissions. Zapier's Twitter FAQ puts the end of its integration down to Twitter's API terms and fees. Make documents LinkedIn, Bluesky and Mastodon apps, and Zapier lists a Bluesky app. For n8n and Mastodon, n8n's Mastodon page points to the HTTP Request node.

Character limits differ by network as well, and a native step per network means a copy field per network. The table of social media character limits lists them side by side.

Approvals: who can stop a post before it goes out

Zapier and n8n document an approval step you add to a flow, and Make documents one for Enterprise customers in a closed beta. Zapier's Human in the Loop Request Approval action pauses a Zap until a reviewer approves, declines or edits the data. It is on Professional, Team and Enterprise, reviewers need a Zapier account, and a timeout decides whether an unanswered request skips ahead or ends the run. n8n's human review for tools pauses an AI Agent before a chosen tool runs and can ask over Chat, Slack, Gmail, Telegram, Microsoft Teams and other channels. Make's Human in the Loop app is on the Enterprise plan and in closed beta for invited customers.

A review step you never add never asks. The longer argument for keeping a person on send is in the guide to human-in-the-loop AI for marketing.

Self-hosting and data control

n8n is the only one of the three that you can run on your own server. Its Sustainable Use License allows use for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use, and allows redistribution only free of charge for non-commercial purposes. That limit matters to an agency that wants to resell automation built on it. n8n's Business plan, listed at 667 euros a month billed yearly, is self-hosted only.

Neither Zapier's nor Make's pricing page lists a self-hosted edition. Make's Enterprise plan lists an on-prem agent for reaching systems on a local network. Self-hosting moves the work too: updates, backups, uptime and the security of every stored social media token become yours.

Errors, retries and duplicate posts

A failed social post costs differently in each tool. Zapier does not charge a task for an action that errors or halts. Make lists error handler modules (Rollback, Break, Resume, Commit, Ignore) and the Router as free of credits. n8n's pricing page counts each run as one execution and does not list failed runs as exempt.

The harder problem is the retry that posts twice. A run that times out after the network accepted the post looks like a failure, and a retry publishes it again. A posting API that accepts an idempotency key closes that gap: the overads idempotency rules replay the stored result for a repeated key and body within 24 hours, so nothing posts a second time. Key each request on something that stays the same when a run is retried, such as the sheet row id.

Signed webhooks are the other half: the tool learns the post's real outcome later, from the posting service. n8n's Webhook node has a Raw Body option, and Zapier's Catch Raw Hook keeps the body unparsed with its headers, which is what a signature check needs. overads' Make guide notes that Make parses JSON bodies before the scenario runs, so the raw bytes are not there to check, and suggests a small function in front.

Recipes: one HTTP call to a posting API from each tool

A posting API recipe in n8n, Zapier or Make is one HTTP step that sends the copy and a list of accounts, and lets the service fan out. The overads version is POST /posts with up to 20 connection ids, per-network copy in variants, and a result per account, as the posts API reference documents. The JSON body is the same in all three tools:

{
  "content": "New guide on the blog: what one social post costs in each automation tool.",
  "connectionIds": ["LINKEDIN_ID", "X_ID", "BLUESKY_ID", "MASTODON_ID"],
  "variants": { "twitter": { "content": "What one post costs in n8n, Zapier and Make." } },
  "scheduledAt": "2026-10-21T09:00:00Z",
  "requireApproval": true
}

1. In n8n, add an HTTP Request node with method POST, a Header Auth credential carrying the API key, and an Idempotency-Key header built from the execution id. The overads n8n guide gives the exact fields, plus an MCP Client Tool setup for AI Agent nodes.
2. In Zapier, add a Webhooks by Zapier Custom Request step with the Authorization, Content-Type and Idempotency-Key headers. The overads Zapier guide covers the flattened response fields and a Catch Raw Hook trigger for results.
3. In Make, add the HTTP app's Make a request module with a raw JSON body and Parse response on. The Make guide maps the approval warning to a Router filter.
4. Register a webhook for post.published and post.failed. Each event reports one account, so a partial failure names the network that refused.

With requireApproval set, the post waits as pending until a member approves it in the overads app; no API call approves a post, as the scheduling and approvals guide explains. The same API is reachable from AI assistants over MCP, set out in the guide to scheduling social posts from Claude.

Where overads fits

overads is a posting service and marketing assistant that n8n, Zapier and Make can call, not a replacement for a general automation tool. overads Publish posts to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, Mastodon and Pinterest today; Threads awaits Meta's approval, and YouTube and TikTok are in review. The API, webhooks and MCP server are included on both plans, Pro and Scale. Pro allows 120 API requests a minute and 40,000 a day per workspace, and Scale 600 and 200,000, per the rate limits page.

What overads does not do, and when another tool fits better:

• overads has no app in the Zapier directory. Zapier users call it with Webhooks by Zapier, which needs a paid Zapier plan.
• overads workflows run 6 times a day on Pro and 12 on Scale, so a high-volume chain belongs in n8n, Zapier or Make, with overads as the posting step.
• overads only knows marketing work. If the chain touches a database, a help desk or an internal tool, n8n, Zapier or Make is the right home for it; the overads vs n8n comparison sets out where n8n wins.
• overads is hosted only. A team that must keep automation on its own servers should run n8n.