n8n Cloud starts at $20 a month billed annually ($24 monthly) for 2,500 workflow executions. Pro is $50 ($60) for 10,000. Business is $800 ($960) for 40,000 executions and runs on your own server. Enterprise is quoted. The self hosted Community Edition has no license fee and no execution cap, but you pay for the server and the hours it takes to keep it healthy. In euros the list reads €20, €50 and €667 billed annually.
If you are comparing automation tools, the n8n price is the part that looks simple and then surprises people. The sticker price is low. What you actually pay depends on how many times your workflows run, where you host them, and how much of the setup and upkeep you do yourself. This guide walks through all three, with a calculator you can use on your own numbers.
How n8n pricing works: you pay per execution, not per step
n8n charges for executions. One execution is one full run of a workflow, no matter how many nodes or steps sit inside it. A workflow that checks an inbox, enriches a lead, writes to a CRM and posts to chat counts as a single execution. Tools that bill per task or per step would count that same run several times, which is why long, branching workflows often cost less on n8n.
The catch is the ceiling. Each cloud plan includes a fixed number of executions per month, and what happens at the ceiling depends on your tier. On Starter and Pro, workflows pause until the next billing month or until you upgrade. On Business and Enterprise, workflows keep running and overages are invoiced, reported at €4,000 per extra bucket of 300,000 executions, billed about 45 days after they occur.
How scheduled workflows eat your allowance
Schedules are the fastest way to burn through a plan, because every tick is an execution even when there is nothing to process. Here is the arithmetic for a single workflow over a 30 day month.
| Schedule | Runs per month | Smallest plan that holds it |
|---|---|---|
| Once a day | 30 | Starter |
| Every hour | 720 | Starter |
| Every 30 minutes | 1,440 | Starter |
| Every 15 minutes | 2,880 | Pro |
| Every 5 minutes | 8,640 | Pro |
| Every minute | 43,200 | Above Business (40,000) |
One workflow polling every minute is enough to overrun even the Business allowance. If a trigger can be a webhook instead of a poll, switch it. You pay only when something actually happens.
n8n Cloud plans and prices in 2026
n8n lists its cloud prices in euros, and US customers see dollar prices. Annual billing takes about 17 percent off. Treat the table as a snapshot and confirm on n8n.io/pricing before you commit, because plans and limits change.
| Plan | Annual billing, per month | Monthly billing | Executions | Hosting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $20 (€20) | $24 (€24) | 2,500 | n8n Cloud |
| Pro | $50 (€50) | $60 (€60) | 10,000 | n8n Cloud |
| Business | $800 (€667) | $960 (€800) | 40,000 | Your own server |
| Enterprise | Quote | Quote | Custom | Cloud or your server |
| Community | Free | Free | No cap | Your own server |
Starter: for your first real automations
At 2,500 executions you have roughly 83 runs a day to spend. That suits one person automating a handful of processes. It includes five concurrent executions, so a burst of simultaneous triggers can queue.
Pro: for a business that runs on its automations
Pro quadruples the allowance to 10,000 executions, about 333 runs a day, and adds more room for team use. For most small teams that run automations in production, this is the plan where cloud hosting stops feeling tight.
Business: a governance purchase, not a volume purchase
Business costs about 16 times Pro for four times the executions. You buy it for SSO, SAML and LDAP, Git based version control, multiple environments and more shared projects. Note that it is a self hosted license, so you still supply the server. If you only need more executions, the Community Edition is the cheaper path.
Enterprise: custom pricing
Enterprise removes the standard caps and adds audit logging, SLAs and commercial support, on n8n’s cloud or your own infrastructure. The price is set in a sales conversation.
Both Starter and Pro come with a 14 day free trial that runs under trial limits, including 1,000 executions, which is enough to test a real workflow before paying.
Calculator: estimate your n8n price from your own workflows
Monthly executions and cost
Starts with example values. Change them to match your setup. Server and time costs are your own estimates, so adjust those first.
You fit on the Pro plan with 7,360 executions to spare. Lowest monthly total on these inputs: n8n Cloud Pro at $50.
Over 12 months, the lowest option comes to $600.
Cloud and Business prices are list prices from the table above. Self hosted totals add your server cost and your maintenance time. The Community Edition license covers internal business use only, see the license section below.
Is n8n free? What the Community Edition really includes
Yes and no. The Community Edition is free to download, runs on your own server, and has no execution limit, no workflow limit and no user cap. You get the editor, the integrations, code and AI nodes, and webhooks at no license cost. What you do not get is n8n hosting, vendor support, or the enterprise features such as SSO and audit logs.
One reviewer summed up the trade well, calling the self hosted option technically free but quietly expensive
(Arahi). The license fee is zero. The server, the backups, the updates and the 2 a.m. debugging are not.
The license matters more than most guides admit
n8n uses the Sustainable Use License, a fair-code license. It is source available, not open source in the strict sense. You may use it for your own internal business purposes or for personal and non-commercial use, and n8n’s documentation frames the allowed scope as internal business purposes
(n8n docs). In practice:
- Allowed: running your own company’s automations, personal projects, learning and research, and using n8n as a silent processing layer behind your own operations.
- Allowed for consultants: building and running workflows on your own n8n for clients, as long as clients never log into or modify n8n itself. This was confirmed by n8n support in a public community thread.
- Not allowed without a commercial license: reselling or white labeling n8n, offering n8n as a hosted service, or giving customers access to build their own workflows in it.
If your product’s value comes mostly from n8n itself, ask before you launch. n8n lists a licensing contact at license@n8n.io and a sales contact for commercial agreements.
“I actually want to build a business around it.”Jan Oberhauser, founder and CEO of n8n, explaining on Sequoia’s Training Data podcast why a free edition and paid tiers sit side by side
n8n self hosted cost: server, setup and maintenance
The honest n8n self hosted cost has three parts: the machine, the setup hours, and the upkeep hours. Most price pages only give you the first.
1. The server
A small virtual private server that can run n8n typically costs about $4 to $7 a month, which is fine for personal use and light workloads. For a small team in production, plan for around 4 GB of RAM. Once you add log collection, alerting on failed executions and disk alarms, a realistic production setup lands around $40 to $100 a month at the low end and $300 or more at scale. A 100,000 execution a month workload commonly sits in the $50 to $200 range for hosting alone.
2. Setup time
Standing n8n up means installing Docker and Docker Compose, putting a reverse proxy and HTTPS in front of it, configuring a proper database instead of the default, setting the encryption key, and wiring up backups. If you have done it before, that is an afternoon. If your team has never debugged a container, budget longer and expect to learn on the job.
3. Maintenance time
Routine upkeep on a stable deployment is commonly estimated at 1 to 2 hours a month: applying updates, checking backups, watching disk and memory, rotating credentials and reading failed execution logs. It spikes when something breaks or when a major version needs a migration. Put a price on those hours, because that is where self hosting stops being free.
Self hosting maintenance checklist
Tick these off as a go live checklist. Your progress is saved in this browser only.
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n8n cloud vs self hosted cost: a side by side comparison
The right answer is rarely about the monthly bill alone. It is about volume, risk and who is on call.
| Factor | n8n Cloud (Starter or Pro) | Self hosted Community |
|---|---|---|
| License cost | $20 to $60 a month | Free |
| Other costs | None | Server, backups, monitoring, your time |
| Execution limit | 2,500 or 10,000, then workflows pause | None, bounded by your hardware |
| Updates and uptime | Handled by n8n | You |
| Data location | n8n’s infrastructure | Your servers |
| Team features such as SSO | Limited by plan | Needs a paid Business or Enterprise license |
| Time to first workflow | Minutes | An afternoon or more |
A useful rule: under about 10,000 executions a month with nobody on staff who enjoys servers, cloud wins on total cost once you count time. Above that, self hosting pulls ahead on price, and one comparison puts n8n at 5 to 20 times cheaper than per task pricing beyond roughly 15,000 to 20,000 executions a month. Self hosting also keeps execution data on your own servers, which matters for regulated data and for teams that want to avoid lock in. As Oberhauser put it when discussing AI vendor dependence, relying on a single provider could literally kill your company
. Control has a price, and so does giving it up.
n8n pricing for small business: which plan fits
Small businesses tend to land in one of five situations. Find yours, then use the calculator to check the numbers.
- Solo owner or freelancer with a few automations: Starter. Stay under about 83 runs a day and use webhooks instead of fast polling.
- Small team running automations in production: Pro. About 333 runs a day gives you real room, and nobody has to run a server.
- A team with one technical person and heavy volume: Community Edition on a managed or small production server. Make sure your use is internal, and price that person’s maintenance hours honestly.
- A company that needs SSO, Git version control and separate environments: Business, with a server you operate yourself. Evaluate Enterprise if audit logs and SLAs are required.
- An agency delivering automation to clients: your own n8n is fine when clients only receive results. Reselling access or white labeling needs a commercial agreement.
Whichever you pick, leave headroom. A plan that is 90 percent full in a normal month will pause your workflows in a busy one.
n8n workflow implementation cost: the number most guides skip
For a small team, the platform fee is usually the smaller line item. Your n8n workflow implementation cost is mostly people time: mapping the process, building and testing each workflow, connecting and securing credentials, adding error handling and alerts, and making changes after the first week of real use. Platform price only decides how much of that time you can spend on servers.
Estimate it with a simple formula: build hours per workflow, times the number of workflows, times your hourly rate, plus the first year of platform and hosting cost. The panel below does the arithmetic. It borrows the monthly figure from the calculator above, so run that one first.
First year cost estimate
Example values only. Replace them with your own scope and rate.
First year total = build cost plus 12 months of n8n Cloud Pro at $50 per month, taken from the calculator above. It does not include changes requested after launch.
Two habits keep this number down. Build one workflow end to end before you build ten, and add error alerts on day one. A silent failure that runs for a week costs more than the alert would have.
Hidden costs and common pricing mistakes
- Polling when you could use a webhook. Every empty poll still counts as an execution.
- Buying Business for volume. It is priced for governance. For raw volume, the Community Edition or Pro is far cheaper.
- Ignoring the currency. n8n lists euros. Your invoice may differ from a dollar figure you saw in a blog post, including this one.
- Forgetting your own time. Free software with no one assigned to maintain it is a risk, not a saving.
- Skipping the license check. Embedding n8n in a paid product or giving clients direct access needs a commercial license.
n8n pricing FAQ
How much does n8n cost?
n8n Cloud starts at $20 a month billed annually ($24 monthly) for 2,500 executions. Pro is $50 ($60) for 10,000. Business is $800 ($960) for 40,000 executions on your own server. Enterprise is quoted. The self hosted Community Edition has no license fee.
Is n8n free?
The self hosted Community Edition is free and has no execution cap, but you pay for the server and the time to maintain it. n8n Cloud is paid, with a 14 day trial.
What counts as an n8n execution?
One full run of a workflow, regardless of how many steps or nodes it contains.
What happens when I hit my execution limit?
On Starter and Pro, workflows pause until the next billing month or until you upgrade. On Business and Enterprise, workflows keep running and overages are billed.
How much does it cost to self host n8n?
A small server runs roughly $4 to $7 a month. A production setup with monitoring and backups typically costs $40 to $100 a month at the low end, plus about 1 to 2 hours a month of maintenance time.
Can an agency or freelancer use the free Community Edition for clients?
Using n8n as your own internal tool to deliver results is allowed when clients never access n8n itself. Reselling n8n, white labeling it, or giving clients direct access requires a commercial license. Confirm your case with n8n at license@n8n.io.