Agents & automation

Zapier is the easiest place to start, with simple trigger and action steps and no developer needed. Make suits you if you like building the logic yourself, with branches, routers and precise error handling, and it costs less at high volume. n8n fits technical teams who self-host or run long workflows, since you pay per run however many steps it has. Start with the one that matches who will maintain the automations.

Zapier bills by task volume, so costs climb as each automation runs more often. n8n charges per workflow run, which favours long workflows with many steps. Activepieces gives 1,000 free cloud credits a month with unlimited flows, then $20 a month for 10,000 credits on Plus, and its open-source edition can be self-hosted. Gumloop starts at $37 a month after a 14-day trial.

Keep the workflows that run the same steps every time, because they are predictable and cheap to debug. An agent helps when the steps change from case to case, such as reading an email and deciding whether to book a call or send a quote. Lindy and Relevance AI build agents without code for that kind of job. Many teams run both: workflows for routine moves, agents for judgement calls.

Give it one narrow job first, such as qualifying inbound leads, and review its output for a couple of weeks. Limit which apps and accounts it can touch, and require approval before it sends, pays or deletes anything. Log what it does, so you can trace a bad result back to its input. Widen its scope only after it has handled real cases well.

Self-hosting gives you the most control: n8n and Activepieces both run on your own server, which you can place in an EU data centre. With cloud tools, check where each provider stores data and whether it offers a data processing agreement under GDPR. Our data lists every pick here for European markets. Check the hosting location for the plan you choose. Ask before you route customer data through any of them.