Zapier Agents: Pricing, Limits, and 5 Alternatives
Zapier Agents are AI teammates you build in a few minutes, give company knowledge to, and turn loose across Zapier’s 9,000+ connected apps. They browse the web, read live data sources, and run on a schedule or on command. There is also a Chrome extension for talking to them directly.
Before comparing anything, two things about Zapier Agents are worth getting straight, because most write-ups on the internet have them wrong.
There are now two different “Zapier AI agents”
Zapier restructured pricing in 2026, and the word “agent” now covers two separate products that are billed in completely different ways.
AI agent steps inside Zaps are included in your regular Zapier plan. Zapier moved AI steps, code, and the SDK onto the same task-based model as everything else, so an AI step inside a normal Zap now consumes tasks like any other step. Nothing separate to buy.
Zapier Agents, the standalone product, is a paid add-on with its own tiers and its own meter. That meter is activities, not tasks.
If you read a blog post claiming Zapier Agents costs $3/month, or $20/month, it is describing a state of the world that no longer exists. Verified against Zapier’s own pricing page in July 2026, the real numbers are:
| Plan | Price | Activities per month |
|---|---|---|
| Agents Free | $0 | 400 |
| Agents Pro | $50/month | 1,500 |
| Agents Enterprise | Contact sales | Custom |
What actually counts as an activity
This is the part that decides your bill. An activity is counted every time an agent uses a tool, searches the web, or queries a knowledge source. It is not one activity per task you assign.
Ask an agent to research ten inbound leads and it may search the web for each one, hit your CRM for each one, and check a knowledge source for each one. That is thirty activities from a single instruction. The free tier’s 400 activities is a genuine trial rather than a working allowance, and 1,500 goes faster than the number suggests once agents are doing research rather than simple lookups.
None of that makes Zapier Agents a bad product. It makes it a product whose cost scales with how curious your agents are, which is difficult to forecast and impossible to cap without capping the work.
1. Carly
Carly is an AI agent platform you reach over email or text. Each agent has its own email address, instructions, memory, and tool access across 200+ integrations, with any public-API app reachable through your own key.
What makes it different from Zapier Agents: the meter. Carly runs on visible workflows where every step that does not call an AI model is free. Watching a mailbox, filtering, routing, updating a record, posting a notification: none of those count against anything. There is no activity counter ticking while an agent looks something up in your CRM.
Where the money starts: at $35/month, when a step calls an AI model. A research-heavy agent still costs more than a simple one, but the plumbing around it does not.
Event triggers:
The unattended-work gap closed in 2026: ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks and Claude Cowork both run on their own. The remaining gap is what starts them. These run on a timer, not in response to an event in your apps, so "when this happens, do that" is still outside what they do.
That matters here because Zapier Agents lean on schedules and prompts, and a scheduled agent that wakes up every fifteen minutes to check whether anything happened is spending activities to discover that nothing did.Best for: Teams who want agents doing real research without watching a counter. Pricing: Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month
2. n8n
Open-source automation with a visual builder, AI agent nodes, and self-hosting. Self-host it and there is no usage meter at all, because the only bill is your own server.
Different from Zapier Agents: you trade a metered SaaS for infrastructure you maintain. n8n also has genuine approval steps, which matters if an agent is doing anything you would want to review first.
Best for: Technical teams with someone to run it. Pricing: Free self-hosted; paid cloud on top
3. Gumloop
Enterprise-shaped AI automation with a visual canvas, prebuilt templates, and SOC 2 Type II compliance. Raised $50M Series B from Benchmark.
Different from Zapier Agents: stronger governance and compliance, sales-led pricing, and still credit-metered per run. You are buying a compliance posture, not an escape from metering.
Best for: Larger teams that need audit and access controls. Pricing: Sales-led, credits per run
4. Lindy
A ready-made AI executive assistant for inbox triage, drafting, scheduling, and notes, with about 100+ integrations.
Different from Zapier Agents: Lindy is finished rather than buildable. It drafts and waits for your approval on most work, so for tasks you want completed unattended, Carly is the more dependable option.
Best for: Solo operators who want an inbox handled. Pricing: Free tier with credits; Pro from $49.99/month
5. Make
Visual automation with strong branching and error handling, priced in operations rather than agent activities. Its AI features sit inside normal scenarios.
Different from Zapier Agents: Make gives you more control over each step and less autonomy per step. An agent that decides its own approach is exactly what you do not get, which is sometimes the point.
Best for: People who want deterministic automations with AI in specific spots. Pricing: Operations-based tiers
Which meter fits your work
Every option here charges for something. The useful question is whether it charges for the part you value.
- Metered per agent action: Zapier Agents. Predictable only if your agents do predictable amounts of looking around.
- Metered per run: Gumloop, Make. Predictable, but the plumbing costs the same as the thinking.
- Metered on infrastructure: n8n self-hosted. Flat, if you have the operational appetite.
- Metered on AI only: Carly. Non-AI steps are free, so an agent researching a lead costs money for the reasoning and nothing for the six record lookups around it.
If you already run Zapier for everything else, the add-on is the path of least resistance and 400 free activities will tell you within a week whether the meter suits your work. If the counter is the thing making you nervous, that is a pricing-model problem, and no amount of tier-shopping inside Zapier fixes it.
FAQ
How much does Zapier Agents cost?
Agents Free is $0 with 400 activities per month. Agents Pro is $50/month with 1,500 activities. Agents Enterprise is custom-priced. These are separate from your regular Zapier plan.
What counts as an activity in Zapier Agents?
An activity is counted each time an agent uses a tool, searches the web, or queries a knowledge source. A single instruction that requires research across several sources can consume many activities.
Are Zapier Agents included in my Zapier plan?
No. The standalone Agents product is a paid add-on. What is included in your plan is AI agent steps you build into regular Zap workflows, which consume tasks under the standard task-based model Zapier moved to in 2026.
What is the cheapest Zapier Agents alternative?
Carly starts at $35/month for AI agents, and workflow steps that do not call an AI model are free. Self-hosted n8n has no usage meter at all if you can run your own server.
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"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.
Now Carly reaches out to candidates, shares my real-time availability, lets them pick a slot, then sends a Zoom link and drops it straight into my calendar. She sends reminders to both of us before each call, which has significantly reduced no-shows and last-minute confusion.
On top of scheduling, Carly acts like a full executive assistant, sending me my schedule the night before so I can prepare for each call. It reminds me of the old x.ai assistant, but Carly is noticeably smarter, faster, and better suited to my healthcare recruitment business."
