n8n cost: cloud plans vs self-hosting, priced for 2026
Quick answer
Self-hosted n8n is free software, so your only bill is the server, about 4 to 12 euros a month. n8n Cloud starts at 24 euros a month for 2,500 executions and rises to 800 euros for 40,000.
- Community Edition: no licence fee, unlimited executions, you pay only for a VPS (about 4 to 12 euros a month).
- n8n Cloud Starter: 24 euros a month for 2,500 executions, or 20 euros billed annually.
- n8n Cloud Pro: 60 euros a month for 10,000 executions, or 50 euros annually.
- Business is a self-hosted licence at 800 euros a month (667 annually) for 40,000 executions.
- The catch: self-hosting trades a bill for a job. You own updates, backups and uptime.
n8n bills on executions, not steps. One full run of a workflow is one execution, no matter how many nodes it has. A twenty-step workflow and a two-step workflow cost the same. That single rule decides whether n8n is the cheapest automation tool you can buy or an overpriced one.
Prices are published in euros because n8n is a German company with EU hosting. At the exchange rate in August 2026 that works out to roughly $23 a month for Starter and $58 for Pro on annual billing. Wherever you buy it from, the euro is the number that moves your card.
What n8n costs on Cloud
| Plan | Annual | Monthly | Executions a month | Hosting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 20€ | 24€ | 2,500 | n8n cloud |
| Pro | 50€ | 60€ | 10,000 | n8n cloud |
| Business | 667€ | 800€ | 40,000 | self-hosted licence |
| Enterprise | custom | custom | negotiated | either |
Starter and Pro are the only two plans n8n hosts for you. Business is a licence key you run on your own server, which is why it unlocks single sign-on and Git-style environments. Unused executions do not roll over, so size the plan for your busiest month, not your average.
What self-hosting actually costs
The Community Edition licence is free and has no execution limit. You pay for hardware and for your own time. A realistic small setup:
| Item | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| VPS, 2 vCPU and 4 GB (Hetzner CX22 class) | about 4–6€ a month |
| Same size on DigitalOcean | about $12–18 a month |
| Domain | about 1€ a month (you likely have one) |
| Off-site backup storage | 0–1€ a month at this scale |
| Setup time | 30–45 minutes, once |
| Maintenance | about an hour a month |
Before and after: cloud versus self-hosted
| Dimension | n8n Cloud (Starter) | Self-hosted (VPS) |
|---|---|---|
| Base cost | 24€ a month | 4–12€ a month |
| Executions | capped at 2,500 | unlimited, hardware-bound |
| Setup time | about 5 minutes | 30–45 minutes |
| Maintenance | none | yours: updates, backups, SSL |
| Data location | n8n's cloud | your server |
| Uptime | their responsibility | your responsibility |
| SSO and staging environments | higher tiers | paid licence |
Where the break-even sits
Under 2,500 executions a month, Cloud Starter at 24€ is genuinely fine. You pay about 18€ more than a VPS to never think about a server. That is a reasonable trade.
Between 2,500 and 10,000, Cloud pushes you to the 60€ tier for volume a 5€ VPS handles without noticing. Self-hosting saves 600€ or more a year here.
Over 10,000, or with polling workflows, it is no contest. A workflow that polls every five minutes is roughly 8,600 executions a month on its own. Two of those exhaust the Pro tier. Self-hosted, they are free.
The honest variable is your time. If an hour of your work is worth more than the gap between a 6€ VPS and a 20€ plan, Cloud is the cheaper choice even when the invoice is higher.
The catch
Self-hosting trades a bill for a job. You own the updates, the backups, the SSL certificate and the 3am page when the container dies. The licence is free. The responsibility is not. If nobody on your team will patch a server, pay for Cloud and use the hours you save on the workflows themselves.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure above was read from the vendor in October 2026. Check the current price before you buy, because AI and automation pricing moves faster than almost anything else in software.
- n8n pricing (n8n.io)
- n8n self-hosting docs (Community Edition)
- Hetzner Cloud VPS pricing
- DigitalOcean Droplet pricing
One note: n8n quotes in euros. If you pay from a dollar or pound card, your bill moves with the exchange rate every month. Budget a little headroom on the monthly plans.
Frequently asked questions
How much does n8n cost per month?
n8n Cloud starts at 24 euros a month for Starter, which covers 2,500 executions, or 20 euros a month billed annually. Pro is 60 euros a month for 10,000 executions. The self-hosted Community Edition is free and you pay only for a server, typically 4 to 12 euros a month.
Is self-hosting n8n really cheaper than Cloud?
Below about 2,500 executions a month, Cloud is usually cheaper once you price in your own setup and maintenance time. Above 10,000 executions, or with polling workflows, a small VPS wins by a wide margin because there is no execution ceiling.
What counts as an execution in n8n?
One execution is one full run of a workflow from trigger to finish, no matter how many steps it contains. That is different from Zapier, which bills per task, and Make, which bills per operation, so multi-step workflows are far cheaper on n8n.
Can I run n8n for free?
Yes. The self-hosted Community Edition is free software with unlimited executions and all the integrations. You still pay for the server it runs on, and you carry the maintenance.
Does n8n have a free trial?
n8n Cloud offers a 14-day free trial on Starter and Pro, and no credit card is required. The Community Edition is free forever.