Comparison
Croft vs Zapier
Zapier is the widest set of app connections in the world, billed by the task. Croft is a smaller set of connections and a workflow that can actually think, billed by the workspace.
The short answer
Zapier connects thousands of applications and is very good at the shape it was built for: when this happens over there, do that over here. You build a Zap in an editor, it runs in seconds, and you are billed for every task it performs.
Croft is for the automation that will not fit in that shape. You describe the problem, an agent writes it as TypeScript, and it runs on a durable runtime — so loops, conditions, judgement calls and work that takes hours are ordinary rather than an upgrade tier. Pricing is a flat price per workspace metered on runs per week, so a workflow that touches two hundred rows costs exactly what one that touches two costs.
Pick Zapier when the app you need is in its catalogue and the automation is genuinely two steps. Pick Croft when the automation has an "except when…" in it, or when running it more often should not cost more.
What Zapier is
Zapier is the original no-code automation service: a trigger in one app, one or more actions in others, assembled in a web editor by anyone, with a catalogue of apps nothing else comes close to.
No-code app-to-app automation. This page is our reading of Zapier's own published material as of — we deliberately quote no prices of theirs, because a stale price is worse than none. Check their site for the current details.
Croft and Zapier, side by side
| Croft | Zapier | |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes the workflow | You describe the problem in your own words. An agent writes it through MCP, and it is live in the same conversation. | You do, in the Zap editor — pick a trigger, then an action, then the next one. |
| What a workflow actually is | TypeScript, compiled to WASM, run in a sandbox with no ambient network and no ambient credentials. | A stored configuration: a trigger, its actions, and the field mappings between them. |
| Where the connections live | Held by Croft, scoped to one workspace, granted by a human and revocable in one click. Never inside workflow code. | App connections held in your Zapier account, shared across your Zaps. |
| When a run is interrupted | It carries on. Runs are checkpointed and replayable, and survive deploys, crashes and losing the machine underneath them. | Zaps run and finish in seconds. There is no long-running or resumable execution model; a failed run is replayed from the task history. |
| What you operate | Nothing. No instance, no workers, no queue, no upgrade window. | Nothing. |
| What you are billed on | A flat price per workspace, metered only on runs per week. People, workspaces and workflows are unlimited on every plan. | Per task. Every action a Zap performs is billed, so the more the automation does, the more it costs to have done it. |
| What an agent can do | Everything. Every capability is an MCP tool before it is a screen, so Claude can build, run, inspect and fix workflows directly. | Zapier exposes its actions to agents over MCP, which is genuinely useful. The Zaps themselves are still built by a person in the editor. |
| Getting your work back out | Your workflow TypeScript, your tables and your files export at any time. | There is nothing to export — the logic is configuration inside Zapier. |
The four differences that matter
Running it more is not a punishment
Per-task billing quietly shapes what people automate. Teams batch, sample, and leave the boring 80% manual, because every extra action is on the bill. Croft meters runs per week and nothing else: a run that sends one email and a run that reconciles four hundred invoice lines cost the same, so you automate the whole job instead of the affordable part of it.
"Except when…" is just code
Real processes have exceptions: chase everyone except the two who already replied, unless it's the end of quarter, and never the client who asked us to stop. In a Zap those become paths, filters, lookup tables, and eventually a Code step with the rest of the logic scattered around it. A Croft workflow is TypeScript from the first line, so the exception is an `if`, and the agent writes it when you mention it.
Work that takes longer than a moment
A Zap is a burst. Croft workflows are durable: they can wait for a reply, sleep until Monday, retry for a day, and survive us deploying underneath them. That is what lets a workflow own a whole process — send the invoice, wait, nudge at seven days, escalate at fourteen — rather than being the first step of one.
The agent is the editor
Zapier lets an agent call your Zaps. Croft lets an agent write them. Every capability here is an MCP tool before it is a screen, so Claude creates the workflow, runs it, reads the failure, and fixes it — in the same conversation where you described the problem. Nobody opens an editor at any point.
Which one you want
Use Zapier when
- — The app you need is one of the thousands in Zapier's catalogue and not one of Croft's connectors.
- — The automation really is a trigger and one action, and it always will be.
- — You want it working in the next ten minutes and you already have a Zapier account.
- — Your volume is low enough that per-task pricing never comes up.
Use Croft when
- ✓ Your process has conditions, loops, or exceptions that a Zap turns into a maze.
- ✓ The task bill is shaping what you are willing to automate.
- ✓ The work spans hours or days — waiting, nudging, escalating — not seconds.
- ✓ You want an agent to build and maintain the automation, not a person in an editor.
Common questions
Is Croft a Zapier alternative?
For the harder half of what people use Zapier for, yes. If your automation is one trigger and one action into a long-tail SaaS app, Zapier's catalogue is unbeatable and you should use it. If it has conditions, runs at volume, or needs to keep state between runs, that is what Croft is built for.
Does Croft charge per task like Zapier?
No. Croft charges a flat price per workspace and meters only runs per week. What happens inside a run — how many rows it reads, how many emails it sends, how many steps it takes — is not billed. People, workspaces and workflows are unlimited on every plan.
Can I move a Zap to Croft?
Not by importing it. You describe what the Zap was for and an agent writes the workflow, which is usually faster than translating it step by step — and the version it writes tends to do the whole job rather than the part that fitted in a Zap.
Does Croft connect to as many apps as Zapier?
No. Zapier has thousands; Croft has a curated set of managed connectors plus an allowlisted HTTP connector for anything with an API. The connectors Croft does have hold their own credentials, refresh their own tokens, and can be granted and revoked per workspace by someone non-technical.
The fastest way to tell the difference
Say the thing your team keeps having to do, in your own words. An agent writes the workflow, it runs this week, and you have something to compare against Zapier rather than a table to read. The free plan needs no card.