Make credits calculator
Make bills in credits, and a scheduled scenario spends them even when nothing happens. Put in your bookings or leads, the steps and the trigger, and see whether Free covers you or when you need Core.
Fill in your numbers to see your plan.
How the credits are counted
We measured two numbers on our own Make Free account: a run of a 4-module booking automation took the credit counter from 0 to 4, and a scheduled check that found nothing still cost 1 credit. The calculator uses exactly those.
Webhook trigger: credits = runs × steps
Scheduled trigger: credits = checks + runs × (steps − 1), with checks = scenarios × 43,200 minutes ÷ interval
A 15-minute schedule is 96 checks a day, 2,880 a month, before a single booking. That is almost three times Free's 1,000 credits, which is why a webhook trigger is the first thing to change when credits run out.
When Free stops being enough
- Credits: more than 1,000 a month. Core has 10,000.
- Scenarios: a third active scenario. Free allows 2; Core has no limit.
- Speed: checking more often than every 15 minutes. Core goes down to every minute.
Any one of the three is enough to need Core. The result above names the one you hit.
Where the numbers come from
- Plan limits and prices: make.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026 and confirmed on our own Free account the same day.
- Credits per run and per empty check: measured by us on that account. A 4-module run took the counter from 0 to 4 credits, and two scheduled checks that found nothing cost 1 credit each (the full build log).
- Core: we have never paid for it. Its numbers come from the pricing page only.
- Modules that call AI or move large files can bill more than 1 credit. The calculator uses the plain-module number we measured, so treat heavy AI steps as extra.
Questions
How many credits does one Make run use?
On our own Free account, one run of a 4-module booking automation used 4 credits: 1 per module. Modules that call AI or process large files can use more, so the calculator treats your step count as the minimum.
Does a scheduled scenario use credits when nothing happens?
Yes. We switched on a 15-minute schedule with no new data and each empty check still cost 1 credit. Every 15 minutes is 96 checks a day, about 2,880 credits a month with zero bookings, nearly three times the Free allowance. A webhook trigger runs only when data arrives and costs nothing while idle.
What does Make Free include?
1,000 credits a month, 2 active scenarios and a 15-minute minimum between scheduled runs (make.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026 and confirmed in our account).
What does Make Core cost?
$10.59 a month billed monthly, or $9.00 a month billed yearly, for 10,000 credits, with unlimited active scenarios and a 1-minute schedule (make.com/pricing, 18 September 2026). We have not paid for Core ourselves.
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Read next
Make vs Zapier Free: We Built the Same Booking Automation
We built one 4-step booking automation on Make free and on a new Zapier account, counted every credit and task, and found what idle checks cost.
Make.com Pricing: When Free Runs Out and What Core Costs
Make Core is $10.59 a month for 10,000 credits. We measured 4 credits per booking: 2,500 bookings a month at 0.42 cents each, vs 250 on Free.
Build a Booking App Without Code: Our $0 Base44 Build
We built a real booking app on Base44 Free and logged every credit, then tested free Make and Systeme.io for the jobs the app could not do.
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