# Zapier MCP alternatives priced per user

> Zapier MCP alternatives priced per user for a whole company: what changes when the bill follows headcount instead of tool calls, and when it should not.

**TL;DR** Elaichi prices per seat: Gold is $15 per user per month, or $120 per user per year, with two plans, Gold and Black, with a 14-day trial. Zapier MCP and Composio bill on what the agents do, which is cheaper when usage is thin and unpredictable when it is not. The pricing fork sits on top of an address fork: one organization-wide MCP endpoint behind OAuth, or a server and token for each member.

Somebody in finance asks what the AI tooling line will cost next year. You go to answer and find the number depends on how many times an agent called a tool last month. That is usually the moment a team starts looking for Zapier MCP alternatives priced per user for a whole company. A headcount number survives a budget review. A task-consumption number gets a follow-up question every quarter.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standard way an AI assistant calls tools in other apps

What follows compares the two pricing shapes, names the architectural fork sitting under them, and says plainly where the per-call model is the cheaper correct answer.

## What are the Zapier MCP alternatives priced per user for a whole company?

Elaichi is one, and it charges for the seat rather than the call. Gold is $15 per user per month, or $120 per user per year. There are two plans, Gold and Black. The two plans are Gold and Black, with a 14-day trial. A 14-day trial starts without a credit card.

Zapier MCP does not bill MCP separately. Zapier's documentation says each successful tool call through your MCP server consumes two tasks, that failed calls consume none, and that those tasks count toward the plan's allowance ([Zapier MCP usage](https://docs.zapier.com/mcp/features/usage), checked September 2026). The bill moves with how chatty the agents are.

Composio also bills on tool calls. Its pricing page lists Hobby as free with three team members, Pro at $29 a month, and a custom Enterprise tier naming SSO, SCIM and customer-managed keys ([Composio pricing](https://composio.dev/pricing), checked September 2026).

That is the fork. One model charges for the people who hold access. The other charges for what those people's agents do. Neither is generous by nature. They fail in opposite directions.

## Per seat or per call: which model your budget can defend

| Axis | Zapier MCP (task-based) | Composio (per tool call) | Elaichi (per-seat) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Unit of billing | Tasks: two per successful tool call, none per failed | Tool calls, on top of the plan tier | An active membership seat |
| Predictability at 1000 calls per user | Rises with agent chattiness; a retry loop moves the bill without a purchase order | Rises with call volume; harder to forecast a month ahead when usage is thin and unpredictable | One multiplication of billable seats times rate; the August figure holds in March |
| Offboarding cost | Delete each member's server and token; task usage stops with them | Detach the member's connections; the meter follows what remains | Suspend the member; excluded from the billable count and every live grant is revoked in the same transaction |
| Added seats | No direct seat charge; the meter may rise with the person | No direct seat charge; the meter may rise with the person | $15 per user per month, or $120 per user per year |
| Added apps | Covered within the plan's task allowance | Adds tool-call volume against the same meter | Included in Elaichi's 450+ native connectors |
| Free auditor seat | Not documented as a dedicated read-only tier | Not documented as a dedicated read-only tier | Auditor role is a free seat class, so a compliance reviewer does not consume a license |

A seat price is predictable and slightly wasteful. A call price is efficient and hard to forecast. Choose based on which of the two hurts your finance team more.

A seat price gives you one multiplication: billable people times rate. You can write it down in August and it is still true in March. You also pay full rate for the person who runs four tool calls a month and forgets the client is connected.

Consumption pricing inverts that. Thin usage costs almost nothing, which is a real advantage and worth conceding. The risk is that usage is not a decision anyone makes. A retry loop, a new workflow discovered in week three, or one enthusiastic analyst all move the number without a purchase order. If your controls sit downstream of an allowance, a busy month looks like an incident.

For a five-person company using an assistant occasionally, the consumption plan almost certainly wins, especially when the automation account is already paid for. For sixty people across support, finance and sales, a seat line is easier to defend and easier to cap.

## What counts as a billable seat, and what does not

Billable seats in Elaichi are active memberships, minimum one. Suspended members are excluded from the count. Guest, Billing Admin and Auditor are free seat classes.

That last one matters when the buyer is IT and the reviewer is not. Auditor is read-only and free, so a compliance reviewer can read the audit log, the append-only record of who called which tool against which account, without consuming a license. Org Owner, Org Admin, People Admin, Team Admin and Member are billable. Each member holds exactly one role.

The trial arithmetic is worth knowing before you start it. The 14-day trial needs no card. Checkout does collect one, and it sets the paid trial to the remaining days rather than granting a fresh 14, so it is one continuous trial rather than two. If the trial ends without checkout, the workspace pauses: plan-gated features lock and gated routes return a structured error. Nothing is deleted, and subscribing picks up where it left off. The two plans are Gold and Black, with a 14-day trial. underneath to land on.

## One endpoint for the organization, or one server for each member?

Elaichi serves one organization-wide MCP endpoint, `POST /mcp`, standard MCP over Streamable HTTP, behind OAuth. An endpoint is the single web address a client calls. OAuth is the sign-in that hands the client a grant instead of a token somebody pastes into a config file. A grant is the record of what that signed-in member may reach. Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and any other MCP client point at the same address. There are no per-toolbox URLs and no embedded tokens. The address never varies. The grant does.

Zapier describes a different shape. Its rollout documentation says to give each user their own server and token rather than sharing one, and that for most MCP clients the member adds Zapier inside the client and Zapier creates and configures the server during that sign-in. Clients not on Zapier's list, and code you write, use a connection token that is long-lived, tied to one server, and grants whoever holds it the ability to run the server's tools ([how connections work](https://docs.zapier.com/mcp/overview/how-connections-work), [rollout overview](https://docs.zapier.com/mcp/manage/rollout/overview), checked September 2026). The connect endpoint itself is not a credential.

The cost consequence is administrative rather than financial. A per-member server scales with headcount in setup and in offboarding even where the price does not. In Elaichi, removing or suspending a member revokes every live grant in the same transaction as the membership change, so it is effective on the next call, and the suspended member stops being billable. Role and restriction changes take about two minutes to take effect. The address model gets a fuller treatment in [the one-endpoint comparison](/blog/zapier-mcp-alternative/).

## Who authors the connectors you are about to govern?

Elaichi authors, maintains and serves its own connectors, 450+ of them, from its own infrastructure. Your company does not run MCP servers, and Elaichi does not resell a registry of servers other people run.

The alternatives draw from somewhere else, and that is sometimes the better deal. Zapier MCP uses the same app connections and actions as Zaps ([what Zapier MCP is](https://help.zapier.com/hc/en-us/articles/48308034391821-What-is-Zapier-MCP), checked September 2026). If your operations team has already built Zaps across forty apps, those connections exist, the actions match real work, and the coverage is paid for. Composio Connect is an MCP server at `https://connect.composio.dev/mcp` that gives an agent access to 1000+ apps through a small set of meta-tools, with OAuth links approved in the browser ([Composio Connect docs](https://docs.composio.dev/docs/composio-connect), checked September 2026).

Where the connector comes from decides what a restriction can bind to. A restriction in Elaichi is a rule about which connectors and tools a role or a user may reach, and it pins the catalog operation rather than trusting the advertised tool name, for reasons set out in [why a block matches the name and an allow matches the operation](/blog/block-matches-name-allow-matches-operation/). Side-by-side detail on the Composio comparison lives in [the Composio write-up](/blog/elaichi-vs-composio/).

## What about Make, Workato, Tray.io, n8n and Power Automate?

This post does not restate their prices. Each vendor's own pricing page on the day you read it is the only source worth quoting, and those pages move faster than any blog post: [Make](https://www.make.com/en/pricing), [Workato](https://www.workato.com/pricing), [Tray](https://tray.ai/pricing), [n8n](https://n8n.io/pricing/), [Power Automate](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-automate/pricing) (all checked September 2026).

Ask each of them the same five questions and write the answers down with the date.

What is the billing unit: a seat, a task, an operation or a workflow run. Does the MCP surface bill on the same meter as everything else, or separately. Does each member need their own address or token, and who cleans that up when the member leaves. Who authors and maintains the connectors, and what happens when a vendor changes an API. Is there a read-only seat for an auditor, and does it cost a license.

Answers to those five determine the annual number more than the headline rate does.

## When the cheapest correct answer is to buy nothing

Three people, two connected apps and occasional use does not need a control plane of any kind. The native connectors inside the AI client may cover the whole job, and [the native connector comparison](/blog/elaichi-vs-native-ai-connectors/) sets out where that stops working. The wider version of the question is in [the case for waiting](/blog/when-you-dont-need-an-mcp-gateway/).

If a platform team already runs MCP servers and the argument is about engineering time rather than license fees, the cost model is different again, and [the self-hosting cost breakdown](/blog/self-hosted-mcp-servers-vs-control-plane/) is the right page.

The two plans are Gold and Black, with a 14-day trial. From day 15 it is a line item, and if nobody in support, finance or legal is asking for governed access yet, that line item is early.

## How to price the two models against each other

Run the comparison on your own numbers rather than on list prices. It takes about an hour and it settles the argument.

Count the people who would actually hold a grant, not total headcount. Subtract the reviewers who only read the audit log, because that seat is free in Elaichi. Multiply the rest by $15 a month, or $120 a year if you are paying annually.

Then build the consumption side. Take a week of real usage from a pilot, count successful tool calls per active person, and convert that to the vendor's unit using their own published page. Multiply by 52, then double it, because usage rises when a workflow turns out to be useful.

Add the administrative cost to both columns: setting up each new joiner, and removing access for each leaver. Then compare the two totals at today's headcount and again at your planned headcount after hiring.

The [pricing page](/pricing/) has the current plan detail, the [connector catalog](/connectors/) shows what is already covered, and [the team use cases](/use-cases/) show the shape of a first rollout. More head-to-heads sit under [comparisons](/blog/category/comparisons/).

## FAQ

### Is there a free trial?

No. Elaichi has two plans, Gold and Black, with a 14-day trial. Gold is $15 per user per month, or $120 per user per year. A 14-day trial starts without a credit card. If the trial ends without checkout, the workspace pauses, plan-gated features lock and gated routes return a structured error, but nothing is deleted and subscribing picks up where it left off.

### Does Elaichi charge per tool call?

No. Elaichi bills per seat. Billable seats are active memberships, minimum one. Suspended members are excluded from the count, and the Guest, Billing Admin and Auditor roles are free seat classes, so a read-only compliance reviewer does not consume a license.

### How does Zapier MCP charge for tool calls?

Zapier's documentation says there is no separate billing for Zapier MCP, that each successful tool call through your MCP server consumes two tasks, that failed calls consume none, and that those tasks count toward the plan's allowance (https://docs.zapier.com/mcp/features/usage, checked September 2026).

### Does every employee need their own MCP server URL?

Not with Elaichi. Elaichi serves one organization-wide MCP endpoint, POST /mcp, behind OAuth, with no per-toolbox URLs and no embedded tokens. The address is the same for everyone and the grant is what varies. Zapier's rollout documentation, by contrast, advises giving each user their own server and token rather than sharing one (https://docs.zapier.com/mcp/manage/rollout/overview, checked September 2026).

### How quickly does removing someone stop their AI access and their seat cost?

In Elaichi, removing or suspending a member revokes every live grant in the same transaction as the membership change, so it is effective on the next call, and suspended members are excluded from the billable seat count. Role and restriction changes are different: they take effect within about two minutes.

## Read next

- [Elaichi vs Composio for company-wide MCP access](/blog/elaichi-vs-composio/) — Elaichi vs Composio: one organization-wide MCP endpoint with connectors Elaichi authors, against per-team endpoints over a large third-party app registry.
- [Elaichi vs native AI connectors: one plane, many clients](/blog/elaichi-vs-native-ai-connectors/) — Elaichi vs native AI connectors: what a second AI client costs in repeated authorization, provisioning, audit shapes and role models, and when native is still right.
- [Lunar MCPX alternative: count your servers first](/blog/lunar-mcpx-alternative-governed-access/) — Lunar's MCPX fronts the MCP servers you already run. If you run none, the right Lunar MCPX alternative removes the servers instead of proxying them.