# AI crawler access test: can answer engines read these vendors?

> 4 of 4 tool sites reachable from our build machine on 2026-09-20. 0 of 4 restrict any checked AI crawler in robots.txt. 4 of 4 ship an /llms.txt (n8n, zapier, make, activepieces). Median homepage TTFB: n8n fastest at 45ms, make slowest at 785ms.

Human page: https://testedactually.com/workflow-automation/benchmarks/workflow-automation-ai-crawler-access/
Mirror: https://testedactually.com/workflow-automation/benchmarks/workflow-automation-ai-crawler-access.md
Updated: 2026-09-20

Methodology: https://testedactually.com/workflow-automation/benchmarks/workflow-automation-ai-crawler-access/ — script: `scripts/crawler-test.mjs`, n=4 tools × 3 runs, run 2026-09-20.

**AI crawler access test: can answer engines read these vendors? — n=4 tools, 3 runs per tool**

| Tool | TTFB ms (median) | HTML KB | /llms.txt | AI crawler policy | Blocked bots |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [n8n](/workflow-automation/n8n/) | 45 | 336 | yes | open | none |
| [zapier](/workflow-automation/zapier/) | 92 | 574.4 | yes | open | none |
| [make](/workflow-automation/make/) | 785 | 463.3 | yes | open | none |
| [activepieces](/workflow-automation/activepieces/) | 63 | 264.4 | yes | open | none |

### Methodology

- Fetch https://<domain>/robots.txt with a plain HTTP GET and a desktop user agent.
- Parse User-agent groups line by line; a bot is blocked only if a group naming it (or the * wildcard) contains a 'Disallow: /' rule.
- Bots checked: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, Bytespider.
- Policy: blocked = GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and CCBot all disallowed from /; partial = at least one checked bot disallowed; open = no restrictions; unknown = robots.txt unreachable.
- Fetch https://<domain>/llms.txt; llmsTxt = HTTP 200.
- Fetch the homepage 3 times; TTFB is time to response headers; report the median. HTML size is the decoded body length of the last successful fetch.

### Limitations

- Single machine, single network location — TTFB is directional, not global CDN truth.
- n=3 runs per tool; we report the median, not a distribution.
- Simplified robots.txt parsing: bot names matched case-insensitively, only Disallow rules read, path wildcards beyond 'Disallow: /' not modeled.
- Homepage only; vendor pricing pages may have different crawler policies.
- Snapshot of 2026-09-20; vendors change crawler policies without notice.