Make Review September 2026: The ChatGPT Plugin, Claude Fable 5.1, and What October 1 Changes
Make now runs inside ChatGPT, added Claude Fable 5.1 to its AI modules, and removes the cycles-per-run setting on October 1. Updated per-persona picks, current pricing, and whether the 4.5 holds against n8n.
- ✓The Make plugin for ChatGPT lets you build automations, create AI agents, and browse execution history from inside ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex, on every plan including Free
- ✓Automations keep running in Make's cloud with your existing connections, permissions, scheduling, and retries whether or not ChatGPT is open
- ✕The ChatGPT plugin is a control surface over the same engine, not new building power, so Maia inside the Scenario Builder still owns the deep building and editing
- ✕Claude Fable 5.1 lists at 10 / 50 USD per million tokens and draws far more credits per run than Gemini 3.7 Flash or Sonnet 5, so the wrong model choice inflates a scenario's cost fast
Make holds at 4.5 in September 2026. The plugin for ChatGPT is the most interesting structural shift since Maia, because it flips Make from an AI-assistant-inside-the-builder to a tool you drive from inside ChatGPT, but it is a new front door, not a new capability floor, and it leaves the credit-meter economics and the self-hosting gap exactly where August found them. Claude Fable 5.1 adds a top-end reasoning model to the AI modules at a real credit-draw premium, and the October 1 cycles-per-run removal is an audit item, not a rating mover. For a solo non-developer operator, Make is still the pick, and now you have two front doors to build from. For a mixed-technical ops team that wants managed spend caps and custom access roles without a server, Make edges n8n. For a fully technical team that can run Docker at volume, self-hosted n8n still wins on cost, because nothing in September deletes the per-credit meter.