Zapier alternatives that are free: what each tier really gives you
What the free plans actually permit once you read the limits, which ones run a real process, and the caps that catch people out. Free tiers only, compared on their restrictions.
Rebecca Pearson10 min read
On this page
Zapier's free plan gives you 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps only, and that second restriction is the one that matters. Two steps means a trigger and one action, which rules out anything with a condition, a lookup, or a second destination — that is to say, most real processes.
So the question is not which alternative is free, since several are. It is which free tier permits enough to run something you actually need. This page compares them on their limits rather than their marketing, because the limits are what you will meet in week two.
If self-hosting is your route to free, the open-source alternatives cover that separately. This page is about managed free tiers where somebody else runs it.
Limits were checked against each vendor's pricing page in September 2026 and change often.
What we'll cover
The limit that actually stops you
Every free tier restricts you in several ways at once, and only one of them will be the thing that stops you. Knowing which in advance saves a wasted afternoon.
Step count is the harshest, because it constrains what you can build at all rather than how much you can run. Zapier's two-step cap and Albato's two-step cap are both in this category.
Run or task volume is the one everyone compares and rarely the binding constraint at small scale.
Automation count limits how many separate things you can have running, which bites when you want five small automations rather than one big one.
Daily rather than monthly caps catch people out badly, because they do not accumulate. An allowance of 100 a day is not 3,000 a month, and a workload that is quiet most days and busy on Mondays fails on Mondays.
Log retention determines whether you can debug something that failed last week.
Work out which of these your process will hit first, then read the plans below for that specific number.
Make's free plan
The most capable free tier here for building something real.
Make's free plan includes 1,000 operations a month, with an operation being roughly one module doing one thing. Crucially, there is no step limit: you can build a scenario with branching, routers, iterators, and error handling, exactly as you would on a paid plan.
That makes it the only free tier in this group that lets you evaluate a genuine multi-step process rather than confirm that a connection works. A ten-module scenario running 100 times a month is 1,000 operations, so the allowance is real but modest.
What stops you: the operation count, and quickly, because operations multiply by modules. A scenario with fifteen modules exhausts the monthly allowance in around 66 runs.
Best for: anyone who wants to know what a real automation feels like before paying. When you outgrow it, Core is $9 a month, which is a low enough step up that this free tier functions as a trial more than a permanent home.
Activepieces' free plan
Free at $0, with 100 credits a day and unlimited flows, plus chat-to-automation building, agents, tables, MCP and API access.
Unlimited flows is genuinely unusual on a free tier and it is the standout feature here. Most free plans limit how many automations you can have; this one limits only consumption, so you can build a dozen small automations rather than being forced into one.
What stops you: the cap is 100 credits a day, not a month, and it does not accumulate. That is the single most important detail on this page. A workflow that runs 30 times on a quiet Tuesday and 300 times on a busy Monday will fail on the Monday, while the monthly average looks entirely comfortable.
Best for: several small, steady automations with predictable daily volume, and AI-centred work where the chat-based building is an advantage.
Albato's free plan
Free at $0 with 100 transactions, where a transaction is one complete run of an automation regardless of how many steps it contains.
That unit is more generous per run than Zapier's tasks — a five-step automation is one transaction rather than five tasks. The free plan then undercuts that advantage with its other limits: five active automations, two steps each, and seven-day log retention.
What stops you: the two-step limit, almost immediately, for the same reason Zapier's does. Two steps rules out conditions and second destinations, which is most processes.
Best for: confirming that Albato connects to your specific systems before paying. As a place to run something real, the two-step cap makes it unsuitable.
Google Apps Script, free with Workspace
Frequently overlooked and genuinely free if you already pay for Google Workspace.
Apps Script runs JavaScript against Google's own services with no additional subscription: Sheets, Docs, Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Forms. It supports time-based triggers, event triggers on documents, and can call external APIs over HTTP.
What stops you: it requires writing code, quotas apply per account on things like emails sent and script runtime, and it is unpleasant for anything heavily outside Google's ecosystem.
Best for: processes that live entirely inside Google Workspace. A weekly Sheets report emailed to a list, a Forms submission creating a Doc and a Calendar event, a Drive folder tidied on a schedule. For that shape it is free, permanent, and better than any free automation tier, and nobody thinks of it.
The free tiers compared
| Plan | Volume allowance | Step limit | Automation limit | The thing that stops you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier Free | 100 tasks/month | 2 steps | Unlimited Zaps | Two-step cap |
| Make Free | 1,000 operations/month | None | Limited scenarios | Operations, multiplied by modules |
| Activepieces Free | 100 credits/day | None | Unlimited flows | Daily cap, does not roll over |
| Albato Free | 100 transactions/month | 2 steps | 5 automations | Two-step cap |
| Apps Script | Account quotas | None | Unlimited | Requires code; Google only |
The short version: Make if you want to build something real and see how it behaves. Activepieces if you want several small automations running permanently and your volume is steady day to day. Apps Script if your work is inside Google. Zapier and Albato free are for testing that a connection works rather than for running anything.
When free stops being the right answer
Worth saying plainly, because free tiers have a cost that does not appear on the bill.
When you spend more than an afternoon working around a limit. Splitting a process into three two-step automations to fit a free cap is an hour of your time and a permanently more fragile arrangement. Make's Core at $9 or Activepieces' Plus at $20 removes that entirely, and your hour is worth more than the difference.
When the automation starts to matter. Free tiers generally come with shorter log retention, lower priority, and no support commitment. Once a process being down would cost you something real, those are the wrong economics.
When you cannot see what went wrong. Seven-day log retention means a problem noticed on the ninth day is uninvestigable.
When you are building around the limit rather than around the process. That is the clearest signal, and it is usually visible in hindsight rather than at the time. If your automation's shape is being determined by a pricing tier, you have started paying in complexity instead of money.
A different framing worth considering: the free-tier question assumes you will be operating a builder yourself. On CodeWords you describe the process in plain language and Cody, the automation builder, builds it, connects it to the tools you already use, and deploys it, with more than 3,000 integrations available. The free plan covers light use, with Pro at $39 per month and Business at $100 per month as usage grows; details are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Which free tier is best overall?
Make's, for building something real, because it has no step limit and lets you use branching and error handling exactly as a paid plan does. Activepieces' free tier is better if you want many small automations running permanently rather than one substantial one.
Can I run a business on a free automation tier?
Light use, genuinely yes, particularly on Activepieces with unlimited flows or Apps Script inside Google Workspace. The moment a process matters enough that its failure would cost you, the log retention and support limits make free the wrong choice rather than the cheap one.
Why is Zapier's free plan so restricted?
Two steps and 100 tasks is designed to demonstrate the product rather than to run anything, which is a reasonable commercial decision given the catalog is what you are paying for. Use it to confirm that your specific apps connect properly, then decide.
What does "100 credits a day" actually mean on Activepieces?
A daily ceiling that resets rather than accumulates, so you cannot save Tuesday's unused allowance for Monday's peak. For steady workloads it is generous; for bursty ones it fails exactly when you are busiest, which is the worst possible timing.
Is self-hosting a cheaper way to get this free?
It removes the licence fee and adds a maintenance obligation. That is genuinely cheapest at high volume when someone already runs infrastructure, and more expensive than a $9 plan when they do not. The open-source alternatives go through that trade in detail.
Do free tiers expire?
The ones here are free indefinitely rather than time-limited trials, which is worth checking when comparing, since some vendors describe a 14-day trial as a free plan. Gumloop, for instance, offers a trial rather than a permanent free tier.
Can I combine free tiers across tools?
You can, and it produces an estate nobody can debug. Splitting a process across three vendors to stay inside three free allowances means three places to check when something fails and three accounts to maintain. The $9 that avoids it is almost always the better deal.
How do I make a free tier last longer?
Three things help more than anything else. Consolidate: one automation with a condition uses fewer runs than two automations doing similar things. Filter early, so the automation stops before doing work it does not need to. And avoid polling triggers where a webhook is available, since polling consumes allowance checking for things that have not happened.
Will I lose my automations if I downgrade back to free?
Usually they are disabled rather than deleted, and anything above the free tier's limits stops working — a five-step automation on a plan that permits two will not run. Check the specific behaviour before downgrading, because "kept but disabled" and "deleted after 30 days" are both common and only one of them is recoverable.
Is a free trial the same as a free tier?
No, and the distinction matters when comparing. A free tier continues indefinitely; a trial ends. Some vendors describe a 14-day trial as a free plan, so read whether it expires before building anything on it.
Which free tier should I use just to evaluate a tool?
Make's, because its lack of a step limit means you can build the thing you actually intend to run rather than a simplified version of it. Evaluating on a two-step-capped tier tells you whether the connection works and nothing about whether the tool suits your process, which is the question you were trying to answer.