If you've started looking into automating your business workflows, you've almost certainly come across two names: Zapier and Make (formerly Integromat). Both platforms let you connect apps and automate repetitive tasks without writing code. Both are genuinely useful. But they are meaningfully different tools — and choosing the wrong one for your context will either limit what you can achieve or add unnecessary complexity.
We use both regularly with our clients. Here's our honest take on which suits Irish SMEs better, and when.
The core difference in one sentence
Zapier is designed for simplicity and speed; Make is designed for power and flexibility. That single distinction explains most of the trade-offs below.
Zapier: what it does well
Zapier's strength is its ease of use. You can set up a basic automation — called a "Zap" — in minutes, even with no technical background. Its interface walks you through trigger and action steps clearly, and its library of over 6,000 app integrations is the largest in the market.
For straightforward, linear automations — "when X happens in app A, do Y in app B" — Zapier is hard to beat for speed of setup. Typical examples that work extremely well: automatically creating a CRM contact when a form is submitted, sending a Slack notification when a new invoice is created, logging a spreadsheet row when a calendar event is booked.
Zapier pricing note: The free plan is limited and most business use cases require a paid plan. Pricing is per task (per individual automation run), which can add up quickly at high volumes. Budget carefully before committing.
Make: what it does well
Make's visual, flowchart-style interface lets you build automations with branching logic, loops, error handling, and data transformation that simply aren't possible in Zapier's more linear structure. Complex, multi-step workflows with conditional paths are Make's natural home.
Make is also significantly better value at higher automation volumes. Its pricing is based on operations (individual steps within a scenario), and the cost per operation is considerably lower than Zapier's equivalent task-based pricing. For businesses running automations at scale, this difference can be substantial.
Make also handles structured data — arrays, JSON, nested objects — much more naturally than Zapier, which matters when integrating with APIs or working with complex data sources.
Head-to-head comparison
Ease of use: Zapier wins clearly. Make has a steeper learning curve, and some concepts (like iterators and aggregators) require real effort to understand. A non-technical business owner can be productive in Zapier in an afternoon; Make typically requires more time or external help to get started.
Power and flexibility: Make wins clearly. If your automation needs conditional branching, loops, or complex data manipulation, Zapier will hit its limits quickly. Make handles these scenarios natively.
App integrations: Zapier has more integrations by volume. Make has fewer but covers all the mainstream business tools, and both support custom webhooks for connecting anything else.
Pricing: Make is significantly more affordable at scale. Zapier's per-task pricing model can become expensive for high-volume automations. Make's operation-based pricing rewards efficiency.
Reliability and monitoring: Both platforms offer execution logs and error notifications. Make's scenario monitoring and error handling capabilities are more sophisticated, which matters when automations are handling business-critical data.
Our recommendation for Irish SMEs
Start with Zapier if you're new to automation and want to get a few simple workflows running quickly with minimal learning investment. It's excellent for validating whether automation will save you time before committing to something more complex.
Move to Make (or start there) if you're building automations with any real complexity — multiple conditions, data transformation, high volumes, or integrations with non-standard systems. The extra learning time pays back quickly in flexibility and cost savings.
In practice, many of our clients end up using both: Zapier for quick, simple connectors and Make for more sophisticated workflows that require proper design and testing.
Not Sure Which Platform Fits Your Workflows?
We design and build automation solutions on both Make and Zapier — and we'll recommend what actually makes sense for your business, not what's easiest for us to sell.
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