Automation Stack Monthly TCO & Break-Even Calculator
Calculate all-in monthly automation costs combining workflow runs, operation multipliers, Firecrawl/Apify scraping, LLM calls, and self-host maintenance hours.
Automation workload presets
Total monthly TCO
Monthly total operations
60,000Lowest monthly landed TCO
$79.39Self-host break-even runs/mo
19,335+ runs/mo favors self-host| Automation stack | Platform / Host | Scraper + LLM + Ops labor | Total monthly TCO | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Make Cloud (Ops)Lowest Infra only $79.39 | $55.59 | $23.80 | $79.39 | View Make |
n8n Cloud (Executions) Infra only $88.80 | $65.00 | $23.80 | $88.80 | Official pricing |
n8n Self-Host (Vultr Seoul ($6/mo)) Infra only $29.80 | $6.00 | $123.80 | $129.80 | Official pricing |
Zapier Cloud (Tasks) Infra only $677.80 | $654.00 | $23.80 | $677.80 | Official pricing |
Lowest monthly TCO stackMake Cloud (Ops) $79.39
Methodology & cost drivers
- Make and Zapier meter every step/operation inside loops and filters, which amplifies billable volume 6x to 15x per run.
- n8n Self-Host lowers platform fees to $4.50-$10/mo on Vultr or Hetzner, so modeling monthly DevOps maintenance hours prevents hidden undercounting.
- Scraper and LLM call costs are added equally across all four automation platforms for apples-to-apples TCO comparison.
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