Native Integrations Threaten Zapier and Make

The core risk is that integration is moving from a separate tool into the product itself. When a SaaS app builds its top workflows natively, setup happens inside the app, the UI has more context, and the vendor keeps the customer relationship and usage data. That pushes tools like Zapier and Make toward the long tail, where workflows are less common, less critical, and harder to monetize at premium task based pricing.

• The head of the market is small but valuable. Research with operators suggests many products can satisfy most customer demand with roughly 10 to 15 native integrations, then leave the next 50 edge cases to Zapier. That is painful for Make and Zapier because the highest volume automations tend to sit in that head.
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• Native integration infrastructure makes this shift easier. Tools like Alloy and Paragon let software vendors keep the integration inside their own product while outsourcing the hard plumbing, like auth, mapping, and API maintenance. That gives customers a first party feel without each vendor building every connector from scratch.
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• The pressure also comes from adjacent platforms bundling automation into a bigger product. Airtable has expanded as a no code app platform, and Notion has added forms, database automations, and AI driven workflows. In those products, automation is a feature that helps sell seats, not a standalone line item priced per task.
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The likely outcome is a split market. Native and embedded integrations will absorb the most common, highest intent workflows, while Make and Zapier remain the default layer for cross app edge cases and smaller customers. The winners in automation will be the ones that make integrations feel invisible, not the ones that ask users to leave the product to wire them up.