For the majority of UK small businesses wanting to automate repetitive tasks without writing code, Zapier is the fastest route to a working automation — if your workflows are straightforward and you can absorb the higher per-task cost as you scale. Make.com is the better choice if your workflows involve branching logic, data reshaping, or you need to keep costs down at volume. Power Automate wins if your business already runs Microsoft 365 and your automations primarily connect Microsoft tools — but its learning curve and licensing model make it a poor fit for teams that are not already in the Microsoft fold.
The Pricing Models Are Not Directly Comparable
This is the first thing that trips up UK buyers. Zapier charges per task. Make.com charges per operation. Power Automate charges per user or per flow. These are fundamentally different units, and converting between them requires understanding what each platform counts.
A Zapier task is a single action — one email sent, one spreadsheet row created, one Slack message posted. A five-step Zap that triggers and runs four actions uses four tasks per run (the trigger is free).
A Make.com operation is each module that processes data in a scenario. The same five-step workflow uses five operations per run — Make counts the trigger as an operation.
Power Automate counts differently again. The per-user licence at £11.50 per month gives one person unlimited standard cloud flows. The per-flow licence at £76.90 per month covers one flow regardless of the number of users who trigger it. The pay-as-you-go option bills 60p per premium cloud-flow run via an Azure subscription.
For a UK small business running ten automations that each fire twenty times per day, the monthly volume is roughly 6,000 Zapier tasks or 7,500 Make.com operations. That context makes the pricing tiers meaningful.
What You Will Actually Pay in GBP
Annual Cost Comparison for a 5-Person UK SMB
Estimated annual automation platform costs in GBP for a five-person UK small business running approximately 6,000 actions per month
Source: Vendor pricing pages, February 2026 (USD converted at 0.79)
Zapier's free plan gives you 100 tasks per month — enough for testing, not for production. The Professional plan starts at approximately £16 per month (billed annually) for 750 tasks. Scaling to 2,000 tasks pushes the cost to around £40 per month. The Team plan starts at roughly £55 per month with 2,000 tasks and adds shared workspaces.
Make.com's free plan gives you 1,000 operations per month — ten times Zapier's free allocation. The Core plan starts at approximately £8.50 per month (billed annually) for 10,000 operations. The Teams plan is roughly £27 per month with collaborative features. Additional operation packs cost about £7 per 10,000 operations.
Power Automate's per-user Premium licence is £11.50 per month with no cap on standard flow runs. This is the simplest model for businesses where a few people build and own the automations. The per-flow licence at £76.90 per month suits high-volume processes triggered by the whole organisation — but the five-flow minimum means your entry cost is £384.50 per month, which prices out the majority of SMBs.
For a team of five people building automations that consume roughly 6,000 actions per month, the approximate annual costs are: Make.com Core at roughly £100, Zapier Professional at roughly £480, and Power Automate per-user at roughly £690. The gap narrows or reverses at higher volumes and with more users.
App Coverage and Where Each Platform Excels
App Catalogue Size Comparison
Number of supported application connections across Make.com, Zapier, and Power Automate
Source: Vendor documentation, February 2026
Zapier connects to over 7,000 applications — the broadest catalogue by a wide margin. If your automation involves a niche SaaS tool, Zapier is the likeliest to support it. The depth of each connection varies, but the breadth is unmatched.
Make.com connects to over 1,500 applications. The catalogue is smaller, but each connection tends to offer more granular control. Where Zapier might expose five actions for a given app, Make.com often exposes fifteen. For teams that need to pull specific data fields or trigger on precise conditions, this granularity matters.
Power Automate connects natively to the Microsoft stack — Outlook, SharePoint, Teams, Dynamics 365, Dataverse — plus roughly 1,000 third-party connectors. The Microsoft connections are the deepest of any platform. The third-party connections are adequate but rarely the strongest available.
For a UK SMB running Xero, Slack, and HubSpot, Zapier and Make.com both cover the stack comfortably. Power Automate can connect to these tools but requires premium connectors (extra cost on some licence tiers) and the connections are less polished than the native Microsoft ones.
Complexity: Where the Platforms Diverge
Zapier is linear. A Zap triggers, runs through steps in order, and finishes. You can add filters and paths (branching), but the visual model is a straight line. For the bulk of small business automations — "when this happens, do that" — this is perfectly adequate and easy to maintain.
Make.com is visual and non-linear. Scenarios are built as flowcharts with routers, iterators, and error handlers. You can split a workflow into parallel branches, loop through arrays, and transform data between steps. This power comes at the cost of a steeper learning curve — budget a day or two of experimentation before your first production scenario.
Power Automate sits between the two. Its desktop flow builder handles complex logic well, and the cloud flow builder supports conditions, loops, and parallel branches. The expression language is powerful but less intuitive than Make.com's visual approach. Teams already comfortable with Microsoft tooling will adapt faster than those coming from outside the Microsoft fold. If your business is already using Power Automate with AI Builder for invoice processing, the platform's depth is a genuine advantage.
The Hidden Costs Nobody Talks About
Zapier's task consumption can surprise you. A Zap with a filter that checks every row in a spreadsheet consumes a task for each row checked, even if the filter rejects it. At scale, this means your actual task consumption can be three to five times what you estimated.
Make.com's operation counting is more predictable, but the platform charges for data transfer above your plan's limit. The Core plan includes 1 GB of data transfer — sufficient for text-based automations, but image processing or file-moving workflows can exceed this quickly.
Power Automate's hidden cost is people. Building and maintaining Power Automate flows requires someone comfortable with the Microsoft Power Platform. For SMBs without a dedicated IT function, this often means hiring a consultant at £500 to £1,500 per day or investing in training. The platform is free for basic triggers within Microsoft 365, but anything involving premium connectors or advanced logic requires the paid licence.
Zapier and Make.com both offer marketplace premium apps that carry additional per-connection fees. Check whether your critical connections are included in the base plan before committing.
Who Should Choose What
Choose Zapier if your team needs automations working within the hour, your workflows are straightforward trigger-and-action sequences, and you value the broadest possible app catalogue. Accept that costs rise quickly at volume and that complex branching logic is limited. Zapier is the right starting point for teams that have never automated anything.
Choose Make.com if your workflows involve conditional logic, data reshaping, or you need to keep costs controlled as volume grows. The learning curve is steeper, but the per-operation cost is a fraction of Zapier's per-task price. Teams already using Make.com to connect Xero and HubSpot will recognise the platform's strengths for multi-step financial workflows.
Choose Power Automate if your business runs Microsoft 365 and the majority of your automations connect Microsoft tools to each other. The per-user licence is excellent value for internal workflow automation — approval chains, document routing, Teams notifications. It is a poor choice for connecting non-Microsoft SaaS tools or for teams without Microsoft 365.
