Keep your stack or change automation tools?

Decision guide · October 14, 2026 · Framework, not a product benchmark.

Start with one workflow you already run. Count a normal month, a busy month and a month with failures. A subscription price alone cannot tell you which setup costs less.

Put both options on the same ledger.

• Platform subscription, seats, usage units and overages.
• Model calls, retries, storage and other paid integrations.
• Setup and migration hours, including testing.
• Monthly maintenance, incident handling and manual review.
• Quality requirements: a cheaper workflow that creates rework may cost more.

Three sensible outcomes.

Stay: the current setup is reliable and switching would not recover its cost within your chosen horizon.

Test a managed service: reducing maintenance might justify its fee. Compare n8n pricing and Make pricing against the same workflow, including each provider’s usage definitions. These are standard, non-affiliate links.

Consider self-hosting: only when you can operate, secure and support it. License cost and operating cost are different lines in the budget.

Scruuge has not benchmarked these services against your workload. Retain the old workflow until the alternative passes your acceptance checks.

Estimate the payback before switching →

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