The honest pitch
I'm not anti-Zapier. Zapier is excellent for businesses doing fewer than ~5K tasks/month and zero engineering. The interface is friendlier, the integration count is higher, the support is real.
But once you cross a certain volume, the math stops working:
| Tasks/month | Zapier | Self-hosted n8n |
|---|---|---|
| 750 | Free | ~$5/mo VPS |
| 5,000 | $69/mo | ~$5/mo VPS |
| 25,000 | $289/mo | ~$10/mo VPS |
| 100,000 | $749/mo | ~$20/mo VPS |
The break-even hits fast. But the bigger reason is what you can build.
What n8n lets you do that Zapier doesn't
- Run code in the middle of a workflow. JS or Python, full access to the data flowing through. No paid "Code by Zapier" tier, no execution limits.
- Self-host the database. Your customer data, lead pipeline, and CRM webhooks all flow through your infrastructure. For HIPAA / GDPR / SOC2-ish work this matters.
- Compose workflows that call other workflows. Subflows. Real engineering primitives.
- Run on a schedule that's measured in seconds, not the 15-minute polling cadence on Zapier's cheap tiers.
When to stick with Zapier
- Fewer than ~5K tasks/month and growing slowly
- Zero willingness to touch a VPS
- Need an integration that exists on Zapier but not on n8n (rare, but check)
- Already wired to dozens of Zaps that work fine and aren't bottlenecking anything
For the rest of the course, we're self-hosting n8n on a $5 Hetzner VPS. The next lesson walks through the install end-to-end.
// NEXT LESSONInstalling n8n on a VPS