Year in Review

Automation Tools Year in Review: 2025

2025 was the year AI entered automation platforms and pricing diverged further. Make maintained its cost advantage. Zapier added AI actions. n8n expanded cloud offerings. And Bardeen shocked users with an 890% price increase.

14 min readUpdated March 2026

Major Changes in 2025

Bardeen 890% Price Increase

Bardeen went from $10/month to $99/month — an 890% increase. The AI-powered automation tool repositioned from affordable to premium. Users who relied on the $10 tier were forced to 10x their spend or switch to Make or Zapier.

Zapier Added AI Actions

Zapier Professional ($29.99/mo, 750 tasks) added AI-powered actions: summarize, extract, classify, and generate. Available on Professional tier and above. Each AI action counts as a task toward your monthly limit.

Make Held Pricing Steady

Make maintained Core at $10.59/month (10,000 ops), Pro at $18.82/month, and Teams at $34.12/month. The most stable pricing in automation. Make continued gaining market share from Zapier on the cost advantage alone.

n8n Expanded Cloud Plans

n8n Cloud added Starter at $20/month (2,500 executions) and Pro at $50/month (10,000 executions). Self-hosted Community edition remained free and unlimited. The cloud option made n8n accessible to non-technical users.

Current Pricing (March 2026)

ToolEntry PaidIncluded VolumeAnnual Cost
MakeCore $10.59/mo10,000 ops$127/yr
n8n CloudStarter $20/mo2,500 executions$240/yr
ZapierProfessional $29.99/mo750 tasks$360/yr

Predictions for 2026

  • AI actions will become standard across all automation platforms
  • Make will likely gain further market share from cost-conscious teams
  • Zapier may raise prices or restructure task counting to improve margins
  • Self-hosted automation (n8n) will grow as data privacy concerns increase
  • AI agent frameworks may disrupt traditional trigger-action automation

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