n8n Pricing 2026

n8n costs $0-$800+/month depending on the plan. The Community Edition (self-hosted) is free with unlimited executions. n8n Cloud plans start at $24/month for Starter (2,500 executions/month), $60/month for Pro (10,000 executions), and $800/month for Business (40,000 executions). Enterprise pricing is custom. Annual billing offers ~17% savings (e.g., Starter $20/month, Pro $50/month).

Yes, n8n offers a free Community Edition (self-hosted) with unlimited executions, workflows, and users. It is fully open source and requires you to host it on your own infrastructure (Docker, cloud VMs, Kubernetes). For managed cloud hosting, paid plans start at $24/month. The free Community Edition is ideal for technical teams with DevOps expertise.

n8n is an open-source workflow automation tool that connects 400+ apps and services with a visual node-based editor. Unlike competitors, n8n offers both self-hosted (free, unlimited executions) and cloud-hosted (paid, managed) options. It emphasizes data privacy, customization, and fair pricing. n8n counts full workflow executions (not per-step), making it cost-effective for complex automations.

n8n is significantly cheaper and more flexible than Zapier. n8n Community Edition is free (unlimited, self-hosted); n8n Cloud Starter at $24/month includes 2,500 executions vs Zapier Starter at $29.99/month for 750 tasks. n8n is open-source and self-hostable for data privacy. Choose n8n for cost-effectiveness, data control, and technical flexibility. Choose Zapier for simplicity and pre-built templates.

Choose self-hosted n8n (Community Edition) if you have DevOps expertise, want unlimited free executions, or need full data control. Choose n8n Cloud if you prefer managed hosting, want automatic updates, or lack infrastructure expertise. Self-hosted is free but requires 10-20 hours/month for maintenance. Cloud starts at $24/month but is fully managed.

n8n counts each workflow run from start to finish as one execution, regardless of how many steps (nodes) are in the workflow. A 10-step workflow that runs 100 times = 100 executions (not 1,000 like Make.com operations). This makes n8n cost-effective for complex workflows. Self-hosted Community Edition has unlimited executions; Cloud plans limit executions by tier.

Active workflows in n8n are workflows that are turned on and can be triggered (via webhooks, schedules, or manual execution). Starter allows 5 active workflows; Pro allows 15; Business and Enterprise allow unlimited. Inactive (paused) workflows do not count toward this limit. Teams with many scheduled automations need Pro or Business tiers.

Yes, n8n Cloud allows upgrades and downgrades between Starter, Pro, and Business plans at any time. Upgrades are immediate; downgrades take effect at the next billing cycle. Unused executions do not roll over. For Enterprise plans, changes require contacting sales. Self-hosted Community Edition has no usage limits to upgrade from.

n8n Cloud does not offer a traditional free trial. However, the self-hosted Community Edition is permanently free with unlimited executions, workflows, and users, allowing teams to fully test n8n before committing to Cloud plans. To trial n8n Cloud features (managed hosting, support), you must subscribe to Starter ($24/month).

Hidden costs include: DevOps time for self-hosted maintenance (10-20 hours/month = $750-$1,500), execution limit overages requiring immediate upgrades, active workflow limits (5 on Starter, 15 on Pro, requiring $800/month Business for unlimited), concurrent execution throttling, and RAM/CPU limits on lower tiers. Budget conservatively for execution growth.

The Community Edition (Self-Hosted) is genuinely free with unlimited workflow executions - no software license fees. However, you'll need to pay for your own server infrastructure (VPS hosting typically $3-10/month) and any external API costs for services your workflows use. The cloud-hosted version has a free tier with limited executions, then paid plans starting at $20/month.

Enterprise pricing represents a massive jump - from $0-60/month for community/cloud plans to $20,000-50,000/year for enterprise licenses. Users report this pricing is 'absurd' and 'actively discourages' full platform usage. The enterprise tier adds features like SSO, audit logs, and priority support, but the cost differential has frustrated many businesses trying to scale.

n8n is significantly cheaper for complex workflows because it charges per workflow execution rather than per operation. Users report 50-90% cost savings versus Make/Zapier. For example, Make charges per operation (each step in your workflow), while n8n's Starter plan at $20/month gives 2,500 workflow executions regardless of how many steps each workflow has. A workflow with 20 steps would cost 20x more on Make but the same price on n8n.

This is a major gotcha - when you buy a business or enterprise license for self-hosted n8n, you lose unlimited executions and get capped at 480k executions, even though you're paying $8,000+ for the smallest license. This has surprised and frustrated users who expected enterprise licenses to offer more, not less.

Beyond n8n's software costs, budget for: (1) Server hosting if self-hosting ($3-10/month for basic VPS), (2) API costs for external services like OpenAI, which users report can consume 5-50% of revenue depending on usage, (3) Additional storage/compute if scaling, (4) Support contracts if needed on lower tiers since free support is very limited.