Pricing · Updated Apr 6, 2026 · ~6–9 min

Make pricing calculator (2026)

Make is often “cheap” or “expensive” depending on operations. The best way to choose a plan is to estimate operations per scenario and then validate with real runs.

1) The formula

Use this baseline (per scenario):

• Monthly operations ≈ (triggers/day) × (steps/run) × (days/month) × (safety margin)

Defaults you can start with:

• days/month: 30
• safety margin: 1.2 to 1.5

2) Scenario worksheet

For each scenario, write:

• Trigger type: webhook (instant) or polling (scheduled)
• Triggers/day (average + peak)
• Steps/run (count modules on the “happy path”)
• Loop multipliers (items per run)
• Retry rate (rough guess)

Then compute:

• steps/run × items/run (if looping) = “effective steps”

3) Example

Shopify order webhook → 8 steps → 200 orders/day:

• 200 × 8 × 30 × 1.25 ≈ 60,000 operations/month

If your scenario loops over 5 line items per order, the effective steps can multiply fast — that’s why loops matter.

4) Why operations spike

The most common causes:

• Polling too frequently (wasted runs)
• Loops over many items (line items, contacts, rows)
• Retries on transient errors
• Duplicates (same event processed twice)
• Chatty API designs (many small calls instead of batch)

5) Reduce operations (high impact)

• Filter early (before routers/loops)
• Batch writes (aggregate then write once)
• Cache lookups and dedupe (Data Store)
• Prefer webhooks over polling when possible
• Handle errors with targeted retries (not blind retries everywhere)

If you want a “real estimate”, run the scenario for 3–7 days and compare the model against actual consumption.