What Is Make (formerly Integromat)? A Beginner's Guide
What is Make.com? Learn how this visual automation platform works, how its credit pricing adds up, and whether it's the right fit for your workflows.
If you’ve spent any time researching no-code automation tools in 2026, you’ve probably run into the name Make. You may have also run into its older name, Integromat, in older forum posts or tutorials that never got updated. They’re the same product, and understanding why the name changed helps explain what Make is trying to be today.
The Integromat-to-Make rebrand, and why it matters
Integromat launched years ago as a scrappy, visually distinctive alternative to Zapier. It had a loyal following among people who liked seeing their automations laid out as flowcharts rather than as a plain numbered list of steps. In 2022, the company behind it (Celonis) rebranded the product to Make.
The name change wasn’t just cosmetic. It came with a broader push to make the platform feel less like a niche developer tool and more like something a marketing coordinator or small business owner could pick up without a computer science background. The core engine stayed the same, but the onboarding, templates, and interface got a coat of polish aimed at a wider audience.
That history matters for a practical reason: if you search for help and land on an old Integromat tutorial, the concepts still apply. The interface has shifted since, but the underlying logic that made Integromat popular, the visual, flowchart-based approach to building automations, is exactly what still sets Make apart today.
So, what is Make.com, really?
Make is a no-code automation platform that connects different apps and services so they can pass data to each other and trigger actions automatically, without you writing code. If a new order comes into your store, Make can add the customer to your email list, post a summary to a Slack channel, and update a spreadsheet, all without anyone touching those tools by hand.
That description could apply to a dozen automation tools. What makes Make distinct is how you build these connections.
The “scenario”: Make’s core building block
In Make, an automation is called a scenario. Instead of assembling a linear checklist of steps like you would in some competing tools, you build a scenario on a canvas, dragging and dropping modules and connecting them with visible lines.
Each module represents one piece of the automation:
- A trigger, the event that starts the scenario (a new row in a spreadsheet, a new email, a form submission)
- Actions, the things that happen as a result (creating a record, sending a message, updating a file)
- Logic steps, like filters, routers, and aggregators, that decide which path the data takes and how it gets reshaped along the way
Because everything sits on a visual canvas with connecting lines, you can trace a scenario with your eyes instead of scrolling through a list. If a scenario branches into three different paths depending on conditions, you can actually see those branches fork out from a router module. That’s a genuine advantage when you’re troubleshooting a scenario that stopped working, or when you’re trying to understand something a colleague built six months ago. Compared to a purely linear, list-style builder, tracing cause and effect in Make’s canvas tends to be faster once a workflow has more than a handful of steps.
This isn’t just a nicer-looking version of the same idea. For people who think visually, or who need to explain an automation to a non-technical teammate, seeing the whole flow laid out at once is often the difference between “I understand what this does” and “I have to guess.”
How Make’s credit-based pricing actually works
This is the part that trips up a lot of new users, so it’s worth spelling out clearly.
Make doesn’t charge per scenario or per app connection. It charges based on operations, also called credits. Every individual step in a scenario run, every trigger check, every filter, every action, consumes one credit. Some more advanced features, like the Make Code app for custom scripting or certain AI-powered actions, can consume more than one credit per use.
Here’s a simple example to make this concrete. Say you build a scenario with five steps: a trigger, a filter, and three actions. Each time that scenario runs from start to finish, it uses 5 credits. If that scenario runs 100 times in a month, say once for every new lead that comes in, you’d use 500 credits for the month.
That example also shows where costs can sneak up on people. A short scenario running occasionally barely dents your monthly allowance. But a 15-step scenario checking every minute for new data, and executing all 15 steps every single time, will burn through credits far faster than the same scenario checking once an hour. It’s worth watching both the number of steps in a scenario and how often it runs, since both multiply directly against your credit usage.
Make’s pricing tiers
Make offers a straightforward set of plans:
- Free: $0/month, 1,000 credits per month, limited to 2 active scenarios, with a 15-minute minimum interval between scheduled runs.
- Core: $9/month billed annually, 10,000 credits per month, unlimited active scenarios, a 1-minute minimum interval between runs, and API access.
- Pro: $16/month billed annually, 10,000+ credits (expandable as needed), plus full-text execution logs, custom variables, and priority execution.
- Teams: $29/month billed annually, 10,000+ credits (scalable), with shared templates and role management for teams building automations together.
- Enterprise: custom pricing, with custom credit allocation and advanced security and compliance features for larger organizations.
The jump from Free to Core is the one most people eventually make, mainly because the Free plan’s 2-scenario limit and 15-minute polling interval are restrictive once you’re relying on automation for anything time-sensitive. Beyond Core, the differences are less about raw credit volume and more about visibility (full logs on Pro) and collaboration features (shared templates and roles on Teams).
Who Make is a genuinely good fit for
Make tends to work best for people who are budget-conscious and want to actually see what their automations are doing. If you’re comparing costs against Zapier at similar usage levels, Make is consistently the cheaper option, sometimes significantly so, thanks to its credit structure and lower entry-level pricing. Combined with roughly 3,000-plus app connectors, that makes it a reasonable starting point for freelancers, small businesses, and solo operators who need to connect common tools like CRMs, spreadsheets, email platforms, and chat apps without a big monthly bill.
It also suits anyone who prefers understanding their automation visually rather than reading through a linear step list. If you like being able to point at a diagram and say “here’s where the data splits based on order value,” Make’s scenario builder is built for exactly that kind of clarity.
Who might outgrow it
Make isn’t the strongest choice for two groups in particular. First, teams that want to build heavily AI-native workflows, where AI models are doing a lot of the reasoning and decision-making inside the automation, may find Make’s AI capabilities feel like an add-on rather than a core strength. Newer, AI-first tools have moved faster in that specific area, and Make’s interface, while functional, can feel dated next to them.
Second, anyone who wants or needs to self-host their automation platform, for data residency, compliance, or cost-at-scale reasons, won’t find that option in Make. It’s a cloud-hosted service only. Open-source alternatives exist for teams that need that level of control, and it’s worth weighing that trade-off before committing to Make for anything mission-critical.
FAQs
Is Make the same as Integromat?
Yes. Make is the rebranded name for Integromat, which changed in 2022. The underlying platform and scenario-based approach carried over; only the branding, interface polish, and some onboarding materials changed.
How much does Make cost to get started?
Make has a free plan with 1,000 credits per month, though it’s limited to 2 active scenarios and a 15-minute minimum interval between runs. Paid plans start at $9/month billed annually for the Core tier, which removes the scenario limit and drops the minimum interval to 1 minute.
What exactly counts as a credit in Make?
Each trigger check, filter, action, or other step that runs within a scenario counts as one credit. A five-step scenario that runs 100 times in a month uses 500 credits. Some advanced features, like custom code or certain AI actions, can use more than one credit per execution.
Is Make good for beginners with no coding background?
Yes, that’s largely the point of the platform. The drag-and-drop scenario builder and pre-built templates are designed so people without a technical background can put together working automations, though there’s still a learning curve around understanding filters, routers, and how data maps between apps.
Can Make handle complex, branching automations?
Yes, and this is one of its strengths. Because scenarios are visual, with routers and filters shown as actual branch points on the canvas, it’s often easier to build and audit complex, multi-path automations in Make than in tools that present everything as a flat list.
Does Make offer a self-hosted version?
No. Make is a cloud-hosted platform only. If self-hosting is a requirement for your organization, you’ll need to look at an open-source alternative instead.
