GoHighLevel is best for UK agencies needing CRM and marketing automation in one platform (from £79 to £360 per month). Make (formerly Integromat) is best for multi-step workflow automation connecting 1,500+ apps at lower cost (from £0 to £275 per month). Zapier is best for simple two-step integrations with minimal setup (from £0 to £598 per month). Most UK businesses end up using GoHighLevel for client-facing automation and Make or n8n for back-office integration.
Last updated: 17 May 2026
GoHighLevel, Make, and Zapier each solve a different automation problem. GoHighLevel is a full CRM and marketing platform. Make is a visual workflow builder for complex multi-step automations. Zapier is a connector tool optimised for simplicity and breadth of integrations, not depth.
The table below covers the eight dimensions UK business owners ask about most when choosing between these three platforms:
| Feature | GoHighLevel | Make | Zapier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost (paid) | £79 to £360/month | £9 to £275/month | £19 to £598/month |
| Free tier | No (14-day trial) | Yes (1,000 ops/month) | Yes (100 tasks/month) |
| CRM included | Yes (full CRM + pipeline) | No | No |
| SMS and email native | Yes (built-in) | Via integrations only | Via integrations only |
| App integrations | ~100 native + webhooks | 1,500+ | 6,000+ |
| Best for | Agencies and client-facing automation | Complex multi-step back-office workflows | Simple two-step integrations, non-technical teams |
| Steepest learning curve | High (CRM + automation combined) | Medium (visual but logic-heavy) | Low (wizard-driven setup) |
| UK support | Email and community | Email and community | Email and priority (paid tiers) |
The comparison above reflects pricing converted to GBP at May 2026 exchange rates. All three tools bill in USD, so your actual monthly cost will vary slightly with exchange rate movements. This is worth factoring into your three-year cost projection, particularly at scale.
GoHighLevel is the right choice when you need CRM, multi-channel follow-up, appointment booking, and marketing automation in a single platform rather than assembling those capabilities from separate tools. It is particularly strong for UK agencies managing automation for multiple clients.
GoHighLevel consolidates features that would otherwise require five or six separate SaaS subscriptions: a CRM, an email marketing platform, an SMS gateway, a booking tool, a sales funnel builder, and a review management tool. For a UK marketing agency or lead generation business, the savings from consolidation often make GHL cheaper than building the equivalent stack from Mailchimp, Calendly, HubSpot, and Twilio separately.
The platform's white-label capability is its most distinctive feature for UK agencies. You can resell GoHighLevel to clients under your own brand name, creating a recurring revenue stream. UK agencies using this model typically charge clients £150 to £350 per month for a branded platform that costs £297 per month in wholesale agency access, regardless of how many sub-accounts you create.
Choose GoHighLevel when your use case includes any of the following:
GoHighLevel works less well when your primary need is connecting enterprise back-office systems (think SAP, Oracle, or Odoo with complex conditional logic), where Make's visual builder and 1,500+ integrations are a better fit.
Make (formerly Integromat) is the right choice for UK businesses that need complex, multi-step workflow automation connecting multiple data sources, with conditional logic, error handling, and lower cost-per-operation than Zapier. It is the preferred back-office automation tool for businesses that have outgrown Zapier's task pricing.
Make's visual builder shows the complete workflow as a diagram, which makes it significantly easier to debug and modify than Zapier's linear zap structure. When a workflow has 10 steps, 4 conditional branches, and 3 data transformation steps, Make's canvas approach is faster to work with than Zapier's step-by-step editor.
Pricing is Make's most significant advantage over Zapier at scale. Make charges by operation (a single module execution), while Zapier charges by task. A complex 10-step workflow counts as 10 tasks in Zapier but roughly 10 operations in Make. At high volume, Make's Pro plan at approximately £16 per month for 10,000 operations compares favourably to Zapier's Professional plan at approximately £49 per month for 2,000 tasks.
Choose Make when your use case includes any of the following:
For UK businesses already using GoHighLevel for client-facing automation, Make is the natural complement for back-office data flows that GHL's native integrations do not cover cleanly.
Zapier is the right choice for UK businesses that need a non-technical team member to connect two apps quickly, without any training, and where the workflow is a simple trigger-and-action with no conditional logic. Its 6,000+ app directory means almost any UK SaaS tool you use will be supported out of the box.
Zapier's primary advantage is speed of setup. A non-technical operations manager can build a working Zap between Google Forms and Slack in under five minutes, without reading documentation. For simple two-step integrations that a business needs immediately, no other tool matches Zapier's ease of use.
The breadth of Zapier's integration library is genuinely unmatched. With 6,000+ supported apps, it includes many niche UK SaaS tools that Make does not yet support natively, such as some UK-specific accounting software, legal case management tools, and specialist CRMs used in regulated sectors.
Choose Zapier when your use case includes any of the following:
Zapier becomes expensive quickly as workflow complexity and volume increase. A UK business running 50,000 tasks per month would pay approximately £598 per month on Zapier's Business plan, versus approximately £88 per month on Make's equivalent tier for the same operation volume.
The majority of Softomate's UK clients do not choose between GoHighLevel and Make. They run both: GoHighLevel for all client-facing and sales-process automation, and Make (or n8n) for back-office data flows that connect GoHighLevel to accounting, project management, and ERP systems.
This dual-stack approach is more common than any single-tool deployment in our client base. GoHighLevel handles lead capture, SMS and email follow-up, appointment booking, and pipeline management. Make handles the data flows that happen after a deal closes: creating the Xero invoice, updating the project management board, syncing contact data to the company's ERP, and triggering onboarding sequences in separate systems.
A concrete example: a UK mortgage broker we work with in Harrow saves 12 hours per week using this combined stack. GoHighLevel runs the entire lead qualification and follow-up workflow: a new enquiry lands on the GHL form, triggers a 5-touch SMS and email sequence, books a consultation call via GHL's calendar, and moves the lead through the pipeline stages. Once a deal reaches the "application submitted" stage, a Make webhook catches the stage change and runs a separate workflow: it creates a client record in the broker's CRM, generates a Zoho CRM contact, and creates the Xero invoice automatically. Before this stack, those three steps were done manually by a mortgage administrator, taking approximately 25 minutes per new client. At 30 new clients per month, that is 12.5 hours saved every month from one automation trigger.
The failure mode we see most often with GHL-only deployments is trying to force GoHighLevel to do back-office work it was not built for. GHL's webhook and API connections work, but they lack Make's error handling, retry logic, and data transformation capabilities. When a workflow sends data from GHL to an accounting system and the accounting system returns an error, GHL has no native way to catch that error, log it, and retry. Make handles this natively. That distinction matters when the automation is touching financial data.
Total cost of ownership over three years reveals a different picture than monthly pricing alone. Setup time, training, and the cost of tools you can retire once a platform is in place all factor into the real comparison.
| Cost Component (3 Years) | GoHighLevel Agency | Make Pro | Zapier Professional |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform subscription | ~£10,800 (£300/month) | ~£576 (£16/month) | ~£1,764 (£49/month) |
| Tools retired on adoption | CRM, email tool, booking tool, funnel builder, SMS gateway (saves ~£400/month) | None retired (Make adds to stack, not replaces) | None retired (Zapier adds to stack, not replaces) |
| Net subscription cost (after savings) | ~-£3,600 (net saving vs existing stack) | ~£576 | ~£1,764 |
| Typical setup and configuration time | 40-80 hours (or £2,500-£5,000 agency fee) | 10-30 hours per workflow set | 2-8 hours per zap set |
| Ongoing maintenance (per year) | 5-15 hours/year | 10-20 hours/year | 5-10 hours/year |
| Revenue generation potential | High (white-label resale, £150-350/client/month) | Low (internal tool only) | Low (internal tool only) |
The three-year cost comparison shows GoHighLevel is the highest headline subscription but generates the most financial return for agencies, both from tool consolidation savings and from the white-label resale opportunity. For a 10-client agency reselling GoHighLevel at £200 per client per month, the revenue generated in year one alone is £24,000 against a platform cost of approximately £3,600. Make and Zapier do not offer this commercial model.
n8n is a self-hosted open-source automation tool that replicates much of Make's functionality at near-zero marginal cost for high-volume workflows. It wins when a UK business processes more than 50,000 automation operations per month and has the technical resource to self-host and maintain it.
At 100,000 operations per month, Make's Teams plan costs approximately £82 per month. n8n self-hosted on a £10 per month VPS costs £10 per month regardless of operation volume. The saving is real at scale. For a business running complex data pipelines with millions of operations, n8n can save thousands of pounds per year over Make.
The trade-off is maintenance overhead. Self-hosted n8n requires a developer or technical operations person to manage updates, handle downtime, and debug infrastructure issues. For a business without that resource, a cloud tool like Make is more reliable despite the higher cost. n8n also offers a cloud version starting at approximately £18 per month, which removes the hosting burden but narrows the cost advantage over Make.
Softomate uses n8n for internal back-office workflows that process high volumes of data, and GoHighLevel plus Make for client-facing and mid-volume back-office work. The right tool depends on volume, technical resource, and risk tolerance for self-managed infrastructure.
Make is better than Zapier for UK businesses that need complex multi-step workflows, conditional logic, or high operation volumes. Make's pricing at scale is significantly lower: 10,000 operations per month costs approximately £16 on Make versus approximately £49 for 2,000 tasks on Zapier's equivalent plan. Zapier is better for simple two-step integrations where setup speed matters more than cost efficiency.
Yes, GoHighLevel and Make work well together and this is the most common stack we deploy for UK agencies. GoHighLevel handles client-facing CRM and marketing automation. Make connects GoHighLevel's webhooks to back-office systems like Xero, Zoho, Odoo, or project management tools. The trigger is typically a GHL pipeline stage change, which fires a webhook that Make catches and processes into downstream systems.
For UK SMEs with low operation volumes (under 1,000 per month), Make's free tier is the cheapest option at £0. For businesses needing more than that, Make's Core plan at approximately £9 per month offers 10,000 operations per month, which is significantly cheaper than Zapier's equivalent. GoHighLevel is not the cheapest but delivers the most value when it replaces multiple existing subscriptions.
GoHighLevel replaces Zapier for most client-facing and sales automation tasks: lead capture, follow-up sequences, appointment booking, pipeline automation, and email and SMS campaigns. It does not replace Zapier for connecting GoHighLevel to third-party back-office tools (accounting software, ERPs, project management). For those connections, Make or n8n is the better complement to GoHighLevel.
GoHighLevel is the best primary tool for UK marketing agencies because it includes CRM, multi-channel automation, funnel builder, and white-label resale capability in one platform. Agencies typically add Make for back-office data flows that GoHighLevel's native integrations do not cover. This GoHighLevel and Make combination serves the majority of UK agency automation needs without requiring a third platform.
GoHighLevel, Make, and Zapier each have a clear primary use case. GoHighLevel is the right platform for UK agencies and sales-focused businesses that need CRM and multi-channel automation combined. Make delivers the best cost efficiency and flexibility for complex back-office workflows connecting multiple systems. Zapier wins on simplicity and breadth of integrations for non-technical teams running simple two-step automations. Most growing UK agencies end up running GoHighLevel alongside Make or n8n: GHL for everything that touches leads and clients, Make or n8n for the back-office data flows. At 10,000 operations per month, Make costs approximately £16 versus Zapier's £49 for equivalent volume, making it the more scalable choice as workflows grow.
If you are evaluating which automation stack fits your UK business and want advice based on your existing tools, workflows, and budget, the Softomate Solutions team in Stanmore, London works with businesses across the UK to design and implement GoHighLevel, Make, and n8n deployments. Request a free automation audit at our contact page or call us on +44 7442 569900.
About the author: This post was written by the Softomate Solutions automation team, based in Stanmore, London (Borough of Harrow). Softomate builds and deploys GoHighLevel, Make, n8n, and VAPI automation systems for UK businesses and agencies. The team has configured GoHighLevel sub-accounts for clients across financial services, property, legal, and professional services sectors.
GoHighLevel is worth the investment for UK small businesses with active lead pipelines. A business generating 50+ enquiries per month typically recoups the £77/month plan cost within 2-3 weeks through automated follow-up sequences. For businesses with fewer than 20 monthly leads, simpler tools like HubSpot Free or Pipedrive Starter are more appropriate.
Yes. GoHighLevel supports UK 01, 02, 07 and 0800 numbers via Twilio integration. For GDPR compliance, configure explicit consent checkboxes on all lead capture forms, enable unsubscribe links in all email and SMS sequences, and review GoHighLevel's Data Processing Agreement (DPA). UK data is processed on US servers under the UK-US Data Bridge adequacy arrangement.
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