n8n Pricing (2026): Open Source vs Cloud Costs
n8n is one of the few workflow automation tools where self-hosting is free. No catch. Unlimited workflows, unlimited executions, no license fees. The cloud version starts at $20/mo if you'd rather not manage infrastructure.
n8n pricing starts at Free (N/A) for the Community (Self-Hosted) plan.
Published Pricing
Community (Self-Hosted)
- Unlimited workflows
- Unlimited executions
- 400+ integrations
- Full source code access
- Community support only
Starter (Cloud)
- Cloud hosted by n8n
- 2,500 workflow executions/month
- Core integrations
- Basic support
- 5 active workflows
Pro (Cloud)
- 10,000 executions/month
- Unlimited active workflows
- Execution history (7 days)
- Debugging tools
- Priority support
Enterprise
- SSO/SAML
- Audit logging
- Custom execution limits
- Dedicated infrastructure
- SLA and dedicated support
What They Don't Tell You
The listed price is just the starting point. Here are the costs that show up after you sign:
You'll need a VPS or container. A basic instance handles light workloads. CPU-intensive workflows or high volume push server costs up.
Updates, monitoring, backups. Someone on your team needs to own this. It's not difficult, but it's not zero effort either.
Community forums and GitHub issues are your support channels. There's no SLA, no guaranteed response time.
Going over your monthly execution limit costs roughly a penny per extra execution. Monitor your usage to avoid surprises.
Some trigger types (webhooks with custom auth, polling at high frequency) may consume executions faster than expected.
If you need connectors that don't exist, you'll build them yourself. n8n's SDK makes this possible, but it takes engineering hours.
What It Actually Costs: A Real Example
DevOps team running 20 workflows with 8,000 monthly executions
| n8n Pro cloud plan | $600 |
| Occasional execution overages (estimated) | $120 |
| Total Annual Cost | $240-$720/year depending on deployment model |
The Bottom Line
n8n is the most cost-effective option for technical teams. Self-hosted is free forever with unlimited workflows. Cloud is competitively priced for teams that don't want to manage infrastructure. The trade-off is clear: pay with money (cloud) or pay with time (self-hosted). For most dev and ops teams, n8n costs 90% less than Zapier for equivalent workloads.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does n8n pricing compare to Zapier?
Dramatically cheaper. Zapier's Team plan costs $399/mo for multi-step workflows. n8n's Pro plan is $50/mo with 10,000 executions. Self-hosted n8n is free. For technical teams comfortable with a slightly steeper learning curve, the savings are massive.
What do I need to self-host n8n?
A Linux server with Docker. A $20/mo VPS from DigitalOcean, Hetzner, or AWS Lightsail works for most teams. You'll want at least 2GB RAM and reasonable disk space. n8n provides Docker images and docker-compose files to simplify setup.
Is the free self-hosted version limited in features?
No. The self-hosted Community edition includes all core features, all integrations, and unlimited workflows and executions. You miss out on cloud-only conveniences like managed hosting, automatic updates, and vendor support. But the feature set is the same.