n8n Pricing in 2026: Cloud Plans, Self-Hosted Cost and What an Execution Is
By Mikhail Oskola, Founder & AI Automation Architect · · 9 min read
Checked: n8n's pricing page and pricing FAQ, n8n's US checkout prices for Starter and Pro, n8n's docs on editions, the free trial, Gateway credits, the database and updating self-hosted n8n, n8n's Sustainable Use License, DigitalOcean's droplet and backup prices, and the prices on our n8n service page, on 12 November 2026. n8n's Business price in dollars was last read on 23 October 2026.
n8n pricing comes in two shapes. On n8n Cloud you pay a monthly plan sized by workflow executions: Starter is $20 a month billed annually, or $24 billed monthly, for 2,500 executions, and Pro is $50 or $60 for 10,000. Enterprise is priced on request. Self-hosted n8n costs nothing to license as the Community edition, so there the bill is the server, the backups and the hours someone spends keeping it updated. The paid self-hosted plan, Business, adds SSO, environments and Git version control. We checked every price here on 12 November 2026, on n8n's own pages and its US checkout prices.
n8n pricing at a glance
Every plan includes unlimited users, unlimited workflows and every integration. What changes between plans is how many executions you get a month, a few limits on how long and how many runs can go at once, and team features such as SSO.
The Business price needs a note. n8n's page shows some visitors euros, and from our connection on 12 November it showed 667€ a month billed annually, the same euro price as in October. The dollar price in the table is what n8n showed US visitors when we last read it in dollars, on 23 October 2026. Starter and Pro carry the same numbers in both currencies, and we confirmed their dollar prices against n8n's US checkout on 12 November.
| Plan | Billed annually | Billed monthly | Executions a month | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $20 a month ($240 a year) | $24 a month | 2,500 | n8n Cloud |
| Pro | $50 a month ($600 a year), or $120 a month for the 50,000 tier | $60 a month, or $144 for the 50,000 tier | 10,000 or 50,000 | n8n Cloud |
| Business | $800 a month ($9,600 a year) | $960 a month | 40,000 | Self-hosted only |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | Contact sales | Custom | n8n Cloud or self-hosted |
| Community edition | Free | Free | No per-execution charge; your server sets the limit | Self-hosted |
Is n8n free?
Self-hosted n8n is. n8n's documentation says you can stay on the free Community edition indefinitely, and that it has almost the complete feature set. n8n Cloud is not: it has a 14-day free trial with Pro features and 1,000 executions, no credit card needed, and then you pick a paid plan. If you don't upgrade, n8n deletes the trial instance, and you have 90 days to download your workflows.
What the free Community edition leaves out is mostly team and governance features: projects, sharing workflows and credentials (only the instance owner and the person who created them can open them), SSO, environments, Git version control, external secrets, log streaming and custom variables. Registering the Community edition with your email, also free, adds folders, debugging in the editor and custom execution data.
There's also the license. Self-hosted n8n runs under n8n's Sustainable Use License, a fair-code license. It lets you use n8n for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial and personal use. Using n8n in a product you sell to others needs a separate commercial agreement with n8n. For an ordinary company automating its own work, the free edition is free in practice.
What counts as an execution in n8n
An execution is one run of a whole workflow. n8n's pricing FAQ says it doesn't matter how many steps the workflow has or how much data it moves: one run is one execution. That's the main difference from Zapier, which bills a task for every action step, and Make, which bills a credit per module action. A 5-step workflow that runs 100 times uses 100 executions on n8n and 500 tasks on Zapier. Our n8n vs Make vs Zapier comparison shows the same workflow on all three.
Schedules are where the count climbs. n8n's own FAQ works it out: a workflow that runs once a day uses 30 or 31 executions a month, and one that runs every 5 minutes uses about 8,600 to 8,900. That single polling workflow is more than three times Starter's 2,500 and close to all of Pro's 10,000. A webhook trigger runs once per real event instead, so it's usually the cheaper trigger.
Chatbots count differently from what people expect. n8n says each agent turn counts as one execution, so the monthly number is conversations times messages per conversation.
Sizing a plan: a worked example
- A web form sends about 40 leads a day into a lead-routing workflow. At one execution per lead, that's roughly 1,200 executions a month.
- A CRM sync that checks for changes every 5 minutes adds about 8,600 to 8,900, using n8n's own estimate for a 5-minute schedule.
- Together that's about 10,000 executions, right at the top of Pro's 10,000 tier. Switching the sync to a webhook, so it runs only when a record changes, brings the total back down; keeping the 5-minute schedule pushes you to the 50,000 tier at $120 a month billed annually.
The 40 leads a day is an example, not a client's number. To check real usage, n8n's FAQ points to your instance's execution logs, and on Cloud to the Insights dashboard.
Limits that push you up a plan
Executions aren't the only ceiling on n8n Cloud. Starter runs 5 executions at the same time and stops any single run after 5 minutes. Pro allows 20 concurrent executions on the 10,000 tier and 50 on the 50,000 tier, with runs of up to 40 minutes. Time spent waiting, in a Wait node or for a human approval, doesn't count toward the duration.
Starter and Pro have no overage fees: n8n's pricing page lists both as capped. Business is different. Above its quota your workflows keep running, and n8n charges $4,800 per extra 300,000 executions unless you move to the next tier. Saved execution history is limited too: 7 days of logs on Starter, 30 on Pro.
What self-hosted n8n actually costs
Free software still runs on a paid server. Below is what a small self-hosted setup costs in cash, each line with its source. The server size is our assumption for a small team's workload; a heavy one needs more.
| Cost item | Monthly cost | Source (checked 12 Nov 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| n8n Community edition license | $0 | n8n pricing page and docs |
| Server: DigitalOcean Basic droplet, 2 vCPUs, 2–4 GiB memory | $18–$24 | digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets |
| Droplet backups | Weekly: 20% of the droplet price ($3.60–$4.80). Daily: 30% ($5.40–$7.20) | digitalocean.com/pricing/backups |
| Database | $0 extra on the default SQLite, which lives on the same server. PostgreSQL is optional and priced separately | n8n docs, "Choose n8n's database" |
| Updates, monitoring and fixes | Someone's hours, every month | n8n docs, "Update n8n" |
| Business license, only if you need SSO, environments or Git | $800 billed annually ($960 monthly) | n8n pricing page (dollar price read 23 Oct 2026) |
The part of the self-hosted bill nobody quotes
The cash side comes to about $21.60 to $31.20 a month: a $18 droplet with weekly backups at the low end, a $24 droplet with daily backups at the top. That's already more than n8n Cloud Starter at $20.
The bigger cost is the person. n8n's update guide asks self-hosters to update at least once a month, read the release notes for breaking changes, test the update on a separate instance first, and take a full backup that includes the database and the encryption key. Skip the key and a restore can't decrypt your saved credentials. We don't put an hours figure on this because it depends on how many workflows you run and how often something breaks. Somebody has to own it, though, and if nobody on your team will, self-hosting isn't really free.
n8n Cloud or self-hosted: how to choose
n8n Cloud is usually cheaper below Pro's volumes. At 2,500 or 10,000 executions a month, $20 to $60 buys hosting, updates and backups that you'd otherwise pay for in server bills and someone's time.
Self-hosting starts to pay when volume grows past the Cloud tiers, when you'd otherwise need Enterprise just for scale, or when you need control over where data lives. n8n's FAQ says Cloud data is stored in the EU, on servers in Frankfurt. For health data it matters more: when we checked in September 2026, n8n Cloud's legal pages didn't mention HIPAA or a business associate agreement. Our guide to self-hosted n8n and HIPAA covers that case.
The third question is who runs the server. A team with someone who already looks after servers can self-host with little extra effort. A team without one should start on Cloud and move later if the numbers say so. n8n Cloud lets you download your workflows, so the move stays open.
n8n Business and Enterprise: when they make sense
Business is n8n's self-serve plan for companies with fewer than 100 employees, and it's self-hosted only: n8n's FAQ answers "Not yet" when asked if it's on Cloud. It adds SSO and LDAP, 6 shared projects, multiple environments, Git version control and queue mode for scaling. Support stays on the community forum; dedicated support comes only with Enterprise. Companies with fewer than 20 employees can check n8n's Startup plan, which n8n says takes 50% off Business.
Enterprise has no published price. n8n's page says to contact sales, and it runs on Cloud or self-hosted. On top of Business it adds unlimited shared projects, 200+ concurrent executions, log streaming, external secret stores, a year of insights, pay by invoice and dedicated support with an SLA. If someone quotes you an Enterprise figure, it came from a sales conversation, not from n8n's website.
Most small teams never need either. You need Business when several people share workflows and credentials and you want SSO or a separate test environment. You need Enterprise when you need an SLA or audit logs for compliance.
What it costs to have someone build and run it
Everything above is the platform. Building the workflows and keeping a self-hosted instance healthy is a separate bill, whoever does it. Our own prices, from our n8n consulting page, checked there on 12 November 2026, are below. The fixed price is agreed on a free 30-minute call.
n8n is one of the tools we build on, with Make, monday.com, GoHighLevel and HubSpot. Retailbox Automation is a small agency (2–9 people, Orlando, FL, working since 2019). To see what a manual task costs you now and when a build would pay back, try our automation ROI calculator.
| Scope | Typical time | Price (2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Focused workflow: lead routing, a CRM sync or a reporting pipeline | 1–2 weeks | $2,000–$5,000 |
| Automation system: several workflows with AI steps, integrations and error handling | 3–8 weeks | $5,000–$25,000 |
| Hosting + managed: self-hosted n8n run for you, with monitoring, upgrades and free fixes when APIs change | Monthly | $299–2,000 a month |
Related services
n8n vs Make vs Zapier
Still choosing a tool? How executions, tasks and credits compare on the same workflow.
n8n vs Power Automate
On Microsoft 365? What each one charges for, and who each one fits.
self-hosted n8n and HIPAA
Self-hosting for compliance? Which automation tools can sit under a HIPAA setup.
Frequently asked questions
Is n8n free to use?+
Self-hosted n8n is free as the Community edition, which has almost the complete feature set and no license fee. You pay for the server it runs on. n8n Cloud isn't free: after a 14-day trial with 1,000 executions, plans start at $20 a month billed annually. The free license covers your own internal business use; building n8n into a product you sell needs a commercial agreement with n8n.
How much does n8n cost per month?+
On n8n Cloud, Starter is $20 a month billed annually or $24 monthly for 2,500 executions, and Pro is $50 or $60 for 10,000, or $120 or $144 for 50,000. Business, self-hosted only, is $800 a month billed annually for 40,000 executions. Enterprise is priced by sales. Self-hosting the free Community edition on a small DigitalOcean server with backups runs about $21.60 to $31.20 a month in cash, plus someone's time. Prices checked 12 November 2026.
What is an execution in n8n?+
One run of a whole workflow, however many steps it has and however much data it processes. A workflow on a daily schedule uses 30 or 31 executions a month; one that runs every 5 minutes uses about 8,600 to 8,900. For AI agents, each agent turn counts as one execution.
Is self-hosted n8n cheaper than n8n Cloud?+
Not at low volume. A small DigitalOcean droplet with backups costs $21.60 to $31.20 a month, more than Cloud Starter's $20, before anyone's time for updates and backups. Self-hosting pays off at higher volume, when you'd otherwise need Enterprise, or when data has to stay on your own servers; n8n Cloud stores data in the EU, in Frankfurt.
Does n8n charge for AI steps?+
Not as a separate step charge: an AI step is part of the workflow run, and the run counts as one execution. You pay the AI provider for the model calls, either with your own API key or, on Cloud Starter and Pro, through n8n's Gateway credits, a prepaid balance billed per request at the rates on n8n's service pricing page. Gateway credits aren't available on Enterprise or self-hosted n8n. Assistant credits, which pay for n8n's building assistant, are a separate monthly allowance: 1,600 on Starter and 4,000 or 9,600 on Pro.