Comparison
n8n pricing explained: plans, executions, and real costs
Direct answer
Here is n8n pricing as of October 2026. n8n Cloud starts at €20 a month (billed annually) for the Starter plan with 2,500 workflow executions, and €50 a month for Pro with 10,000 executions, according to n8n's pricing page. n8n charges per execution, meaning one full run of a workflow no matter how many steps it has. The self-hosted Community Edition is free, while the self-hosted Business plan is €667 a month billed annually and Enterprise is quoted by sales. For most small businesses, the bigger cost is the time it takes to build and maintain the workflows. The subscription is small by comparison.
n8n plans at a glance
These figures come from n8n's pricing page as of October 2026. The page we checked lists prices in euros. Paying annually saves about 17% over paying month to month.
| Plan | Price | Executions per month | Where it runs | Notable limits and features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community Edition | Free | Unlimited (your server's capacity) | Self-hosted only | Open source; you handle hosting, updates, security |
| Starter | €20/mo billed annually | 2,500 | n8n Cloud | 5 concurrent executions, 1 shared project |
| Pro | €50/mo billed annually | 10,000 | n8n Cloud | 50 concurrent executions, 3 shared projects, 7-day execution history, admin roles |
| Business | €667/mo billed annually | 40,000 | Self-hosted (not yet on Cloud) | SSO/SAML/LDAP, Git version control, queue mode, multiple environments |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Cloud or self-hosted | 200+ concurrent executions, external secret store, SLA support |
Some other details from the pricing page:
- Every plan includes unlimited users, unlimited workflows, and every integration, per the pricing page. You don't pay per seat or per workflow.
- Business has extra execution buckets. The pricing page lists 300,000 extra executions for €4,000. It doesn't list per-execution overage for Starter or Pro. On those plans, you upgrade.
- Startups get a discount. n8n advertises 50% off the Business plan for qualifying companies with fewer than 20 employees.
- Free trials are available on Starter and Pro with no credit card required.
What counts as an execution
n8n defines it plainly: "An execution is a single run of your entire workflow. It doesn't matter how many steps are in the workflow or how much data it processes" (n8n pricing FAQ).
If you remember one thing about n8n pricing, make it this. A workflow that pulls 300 overdue invoices, loops over each one, checks the customer record, drafts a reminder, and logs the result is still one execution. In per-action tools such as Make or Zapier, the same run could cost hundreds of billable steps.
It also matters what happens at the cap. On n8n Cloud, executions over the limit are not queued. They fail immediately with "Execution limit reached. Consider upgrading your plan," and nothing is saved to retry when the month resets. If a lead-intake workflow hits the limit on the 25th, that workflow won't process those leads until you upgrade or the month rolls over.
A worked example for a small business
Take a 10-person home services company that wants four workflows. These volumes are an illustration, not a benchmark.
| Workflow | Trigger | Runs per month | Executions |
|---|---|---|---|
| New website lead: add to CRM, alert the team in Slack, send a first reply | Each form submission | 300 | 300 |
| Inbox triage: label new Gmail messages and draft replies with an AI step | Each new email | 1,200 | 1,200 |
| Overdue invoice reminders: pull overdue invoices from QuickBooks and loop over them | Once a day | 30 | 30 |
| Weekly summary to the owner | Once a week | 4 | 4 |
| Total | about 1,534 |
That fits on Starter at €20 a month billed annually, or €240 a year. Look at what drives the count. The inbox workflow is 78% of executions, even though the invoice workflow does far more steps. Triggers that fire on every event eat executions. Scheduled batch jobs barely register.
Now say the business grows and email doubles to 2,400 a month. The total passes 2,500, and executions start failing late in the month. Moving to Pro at €50 a month fixes it, with room for 10,000 executions.
Two costs don't show up on the n8n bill:
- AI usage. AI steps in n8n typically call a model provider through credentials you connect, and that provider bills you separately for usage.
- Your apps. Your CRM, QuickBooks, and email plans are unchanged.
Self-hosting: free license, real costs
The Community Edition costs nothing to license, which is a big part of why technical teams like n8n. But n8n's own docs say self-hosting requires technical knowledge, including setting up and configuring servers and containers, managing application resources and scaling, securing servers and applications, and configuring n8n. They recommend n8n Cloud if you are not experienced at managing servers, warning that mistakes can lead to data loss, security issues, and downtime.
So self-hosting means paying for a server from your hosting provider, plus someone's time for updates, backups, database maintenance, SSL, and security patches. If you have a developer who already runs servers, that's a small cost. If you don't, Cloud usually ends up cheaper.
The hidden cost: maintaining workflows yourself
The subscription is the smallest line item. With any workflow builder, most of the cost is the hours you spend around it:
- Building. Each workflow needs design, credentials, field mapping, error branches, and testing.
- Breakage. Connected apps change fields, OAuth tokens expire, and a vendor updates its API. Someone has to notice and fix it.
- Monitoring. A failed execution is easy to miss. If nobody checks the executions list, a lead or an invoice slips through.
- Judgment. Workflows follow rules well. Edge cases, like a customer who disputes an invoice, still end up with a person.
As an illustration: if the owner or office manager spends four hours a month fixing and checking workflows, and their time is worth $75 an hour, that is $300 a month of hidden cost on top of a €20 plan. Your numbers will be different, so run your own.
When a done-for-you team is cheaper, and when it is not
TeamShift is a hosted team of nine AI workers. It does the work itself, so there's no builder for you to learn. You hand off a job in a sentence, such as "chase the overdue invoices," and the Finance worker does it in QuickBooks and your email. Anything that sends to a customer, moves money, publishes, deletes, or commits your calendar waits for your OK. Pricing is usage-based: creating a workspace is free, work is billed at 3x its compute cost, each job is quoted with a maximum before it starts, and you can set daily or monthly spend caps. There are no seats or subscriptions. See pricing.
n8n is cheaper when you have a developer or a technical ops person, your workflows are stable, and the work is mostly moving data by rules. At €20 to €50 a month, no usage-billed service will beat that on the invoice alone. n8n is also the right call if you need self-hosting.
A done-for-you team can be cheaper when the hidden hours are what's costing you: nobody owns the workflows, things break quietly, and a lot of the work needs judgment, like drafting replies, following up on quotes, or cleaning up the books. In that case, compare the total cost including your time, and don't stop at the subscription. Our workflow automation software guide covers how to make that call.
FAQ
Is n8n free?
The self-hosted Community Edition is free and open source. n8n Cloud is paid, starting with Starter at €20 a month billed annually, with a free trial that needs no credit card.
Does n8n charge per step or per workflow run?
Per workflow run. n8n counts one execution for each full run of a workflow, however many steps it has and however much data it processes.
What happens if I go over my n8n execution limit?
On n8n Cloud, executions over the limit fail immediately. They aren't queued for later. You either upgrade, wait for the monthly reset, or request a one-time reset where n8n's support policy allows it.
Is n8n cheaper than Make or Zapier?
For workflows with many steps or loops, usually yes, because Make and Zapier bill per action. For a few simple two-step automations, the difference is small, and an easier tool may be worth paying for.
How much does it cost to self-host n8n?
The license is free. You pay for the server and, more to the point, the time to install, update, back up, and secure it. n8n itself says that takes technical knowledge.