AI automation cost model

Enter your real volume. See what the same workflow costs under a per-task, per-credit and per-execution billing model. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Your workflow

Workflow runs per month How often the automation fires.

Billable steps per run: 10 Action steps that consume quota. Zapier does not bill triggers or filters.

What that costs on each billing model

Platform and model	Billable units a month	Entry tier allowance	Verdict	Cost at the entry-tier unit rate

Outcome-based billing, for the support layer

Tickets an AI agent resolves per month Resolved without escalation to a person.

What this model does not do

It prices your volume at each vendor's entry paid tier unit rate. It does not climb the tier ladder for you, because published higher tiers change often and vary by region and contract.

It ignores what usually decides the real bill: retries on failure, polling triggers that fire whether or not there is work, loops that multiply steps at runtime, and the LLM tokens an AI step consumes on top of the platform's own metering.

Currencies are quoted as each vendor quotes them. No exchange rate is applied.

Prices this model uses

Zapier Professional, USD 19.99 a month for 750 tasks. A task is one completed action; triggers and filters are not billed.
Make Core, USD 12 a month for 10,000 credits. Each module action in a scenario is one credit.
n8n Starter, EUR 20 a month for 2,500 executions. One execution is one whole workflow run, whatever its step count. Self-hosting the Community Edition carries no licence fee.
Intercom Fin, from USD 0.99 per resolved outcome.
Zendesk Suite Team, USD 55 per agent a month, with AI agents billed separately on automated resolutions.

All figures read from the vendors' own pricing pages on 25 September 2026, annual billing where offered. Pricing changes. Re-read the page before you sign.