The scenario
Leads arrive from a website form, 300 a month at the base volume and 900 at three times that. For each lead, the automation does four things: adds the lead to a tracking sheet or CRM, adds them to a MailerLite group that starts a four-email follow-up sequence, notifies the owner, and creates a follow-up task. The emails themselves are sent by MailerLite, not by the automation tool. Prices are US dollars before tax.
Counting units: credits on Make, tasks on Pabbly
Make charges 1 credit per operation for most apps. Trigger modules use 1 credit per run, and action modules use 1 credit per bundle processed. Routers, filters and error handlers are free. [2] With an instant webhook trigger, each lead costs 1 trigger credit plus 4 action credits, or 5 credits.
Pabbly Connect says only action steps count as tasks. Triggers and internal steps such as Filter, Router and Formatter are free. Its example: sending one lead from Facebook Lead Ads to Mailchimp and then to Google Sheets counts as two tasks. [5] The same lead here is 4 tasks.
| Volume | Make credits a month (5 per lead) | Pabbly tasks a month (4 per lead) | Fits Make Free (1,000)? | Fits Pabbly Free (100)? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 300 leads (1x) | 300 x 5 = 1,500 | 300 x 4 = 1,200 | No | No |
| 900 leads (3x) | 900 x 5 = 4,500 | 900 x 4 = 3,600 | No | No |
What the automation layer costs per year
Make's pricing page listed Core with 10,000 credits a month at $16 a month billed monthly or $12 a month billed annually on 2026-10-30. [1] On Core, credits are allocated monthly even with annual billing. [4] Pabbly Connect Standard covers 10,000 tasks a month for $19 a month or $194 a year, and its Free plan has 100 tasks a month. [5] Both volumes in this scenario fit the 10,000-unit tier, so the yearly cost is the same at 1x and 3x.
On annual billing Make Core is $50 a year cheaper than Pabbly Standard. On monthly billing the gap shrinks to $36. Pabbly also sells 2-year ($365) and 3-year ($513) Standard terms, which lower the yearly cost if you are sure of the tool.
The polling trap that changes the answer
If your form tool cannot send a webhook, the scenario has to check for new leads on a schedule. On Make, every check costs 1 credit even when nothing is new. [2] Checking every 5 minutes is 288 runs a day, or 8,640 in a 30-day month. Add 1,200 action credits at 1x and the total is 9,840, just under Core's 10,000. At 3x it is 8,640 + 3,600 = 12,240, which no longer fits. Note that a check that finds several new leads still uses 1 trigger credit, so at 3x the actions count as 4 per lead rather than 5.
At that point you have three options. You can move to Make Core's 20,000-credit tier, listed at $28 a month billed monthly or $21 billed annually. [1] You can buy 3,000 extra credits by hand at the plan rate plus 25%: $1.60 per 1,000 on monthly Core becomes $2.00, so $6 a month. [3] Or you can check every 15 minutes, which is 2,880 checks a month. The last option is the cheapest, but leads wait longer for their first touch.
Pabbly Connect describes these checks as operations and says it does not charge for them. Its example is a check every 5 minutes, or 288 operations a day. [5] If you are stuck with polling, that is Pabbly's clearest cost advantage in this scenario.
The email platform: where most of the money goes
MailerLite Free stops at 250 subscribers, so 300 leads in month one already needs Comfort. [6] Comfort is priced by active subscribers: $12 up to 500, $19 up to 1,000, $33 up to 2,500, $49 up to 5,000, $69 up to 8,000, $89 up to 10,000 and $129 up to 15,000 on monthly billing. [6] Four follow-up emails per lead is 1,200 emails a month at 1x, far below Comfort's sending cap of 10 times the tier ceiling.
If you never remove leads, the list grows by 300 or 900 a month and the bill climbs with it. MailerLite counts subscribers cumulatively within a billing cycle, so deleted contacts still count until the cycle resets. [6] If you remove leads who finished the sequence without buying, just before each billing date, and keep about three months of leads, the list levels off at about four months' worth by the end of each cycle: 1,200 at 1x and 3,600 at 3x.
| MailerLite Comfort, monthly billing | Keep every lead | Keep about 3 months of leads |
|---|---|---|
| 300 leads a month | $12 + $19 x 2 + $33 x 5 + $49 x 4 = $411 | $12 + $19 + $19 + $33 x 9 = $347 |
| 900 leads a month | $19 + $33 + $49 x 3 + $69 x 3 + $89 x 3 + $129 = $802 | $19 + $33 + $49 x 10 = $542 |
Totals and who each setup fits
With an instant webhook trigger and annual billing for the automation tool, the year comes to about $555 at 1x if you keep every lead ($144 Make + $411 MailerLite) or $491 if you prune. At 3x it is $946 or $686. Pabbly Standard adds $50 to each total.
Make fits teams that want branching, error handling and many apps, and can use instant triggers. Pabbly Connect fits a fixed, high-volume flow where the source app can only be polled, or where you want to stop counting trigger checks. Whichever you choose, prune leads in the email platform; it saves more than switching automation tools.
- Write down the number of action modules per lead and multiply by monthly volume.
- On Make, add 1 credit per trigger run, and every scheduled check if you poll.
- Use webhooks wherever the form tool supports them.
- Set a pruning rule in MailerLite for leads who finish the sequence without converting, and run it just before the billing date.
- Recheck at 3x volume before a campaign that could triple leads.
Questions before you decide
Why does Make use 5 credits for a 4-step workflow?
Make counts the trigger as an operation: trigger modules use 1 credit per run. A webhook trigger plus four action modules is 5 credits per lead. Pabbly Connect says triggers and internal steps such as filters, routers and formatters are not counted as tasks, so the same flow is 4 tasks.
Do scheduled checks cost anything?
On Make, yes. A trigger uses 1 credit per run even when it finds no new data, so a check every 5 minutes is 8,640 credits in a 30-day month. Pabbly Connect says it does not charge for operations, which is how it counts these checks.
What if I go over 10,000 credits on Make Core?
Scenarios stop until credits are added, unless you buy extra credits. Extra credits cost 25% more than plan credits. Auto-purchase buys 10,000 at a time and, on a 10,000-credit plan, is capped at one purchase per cycle.
Can I keep the email cost down?
Yes, by removing leads who finish the sequence without buying. MailerLite bills on active subscribers, counted cumulatively within the billing cycle, so remove them just before your billing date. At 300 leads a month, keeping about three months of leads and pruning just before each billing date holds the billed count near 1,200.
Sources & verification
Product details and prices can change. Check the linked provider before buying.
- Make pricing and FAQ Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Make Help Center: How features use credits Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Make Help Center: Extra credits Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Make Help Center: Monthly and annual subscriptions Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Pabbly Connect pricing and FAQ Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- MailerLite pricing Accessed 30 Oct 2026
Sources link directly to providers. Product buttons may use separately labeled affiliate links. Read our disclosure.