n8n pricing works differently depending on one choice you make early: self-host for free, or pay for a managed Cloud plan billed by execution volume. This guide breaks down every current tier, what actually changed in 2026, and which option fits different budgets and technical comfort levels.
n8n Pricing at a Glance
| Plan | Price | Executions |
|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted Community | Free (+ server cost, ~$3–15/mo) | Unlimited |
| Cloud Starter | ~$20–24/mo (annual/monthly) | 2,500/mo |
| Cloud Pro | ~$50–60/mo (annual/monthly) | 10,000/mo |
| Business | ~$667–800/mo | ~40,000/mo |
| Enterprise | Custom quote | Unlimited |
These figures come from n8n’s own pricing page and multiple sources that re-verified them directly against it in mid-2026 — but n8n has changed its plans more than once this year, so confirm current numbers before budgeting.
What Actually Changed in n8n Pricing for 2026
Two changes are worth knowing before you compare old guides or screenshots to what you see today.
No more permanent Cloud free tier. n8n Cloud discontinued its free plan in 2026. Every Cloud plan now requires payment, though a 14-day free trial is available on Starter and Pro with no credit card required. The self-hosted Community Edition remains completely free, with no time limit — this distinction matters, since “n8n is free” is only fully true for the self-hosted path now.
Unlimited workflows and users on every Cloud tier. Previously, Starter capped you at a small number of active workflows and a single user, and Pro had its own workflow/user limits. Those caps are gone. Every paid Cloud plan now includes unlimited workflows and unlimited users — the only thing that changes your bill is monthly execution volume.
Self-Hosted: Free Software, Real Infrastructure Costs
The Community Edition is genuinely free — unlimited workflows, unlimited executions, every integration in the catalog. What isn’t free is the server it runs on. Realistic costs range from roughly $3–7/month on a managed platform built specifically for n8n hosting, up to $10–15/month on a general-purpose VPS you configure and maintain yourself with Docker (covered in our n8n Docker setup guide).
The tradeoff isn’t really about money at this scale — it’s about time and responsibility. Self-hosting means you own security patches, backups, and uptime. For a team without that capacity, the “savings” can get eaten up by unplanned troubleshooting time.
Cloud Starter and Pro: What You’re Actually Paying For
Starter runs about $20/month billed annually (roughly $24/month billed monthly) for 2,500 executions. Pro runs about $50/month annually (roughly $60/month monthly) for 10,000 executions. Annual billing saves roughly 17% across every Cloud tier compared to paying monthly.
Remember that n8n counts one full workflow run as a single execution, regardless of how many nodes or steps it passes through — a detail that matters a lot when comparing this to competitors that bill per individual action, covered in our n8n vs Zapier and Make.com vs n8n comparisons.
The Business Tier: A New Middle Ground
n8n added a Business plan in 2026, priced around $667–800/month for roughly 40,000 executions, sitting between Pro and custom Enterprise pricing. It’s aimed at organizations with meaningful automation volume who aren’t yet at the scale — or budget — that justifies a custom Enterprise contract. Some sources describe this tier as available self-hosted with added enterprise features (SSO, audit logging) rather than purely a Cloud tier; confirm the exact deployment model on n8n’s own pricing page, since this is one of the newer, less consistently documented tiers.
Enterprise: Custom Pricing for Serious Scale
Enterprise removes the execution cap entirely and adds features aimed at IT and compliance teams: SSO, LDAP integration, audit logs, extended data retention, and dedicated support with an SLA. Pricing is quoted directly by n8n’s sales team rather than published, and typically scales with organization size and support requirements.
Organizations evaluating Enterprise are usually already running Business or a large self-hosted deployment and hitting a wall on compliance requirements specifically — not execution volume alone. If SSO and audit logging aren’t a hard requirement, a well-configured self-hosted deployment can often satisfy similar technical needs at a fraction of Enterprise’s cost, provided your team has the security expertise to configure it correctly.
Cloud vs. Self-Hosted: A Real Cost Comparison
Take a workflow that runs 5,000 times a month — a realistic volume for a small team automating lead routing, notifications, and a few data syncs.
On Cloud Starter’s 2,500-execution cap, this workflow alone exceeds the plan, forcing an upgrade to Pro at roughly $50–60/month. On self-hosted Community Edition, the same 5,000 executions cost nothing extra beyond your existing server — whether that’s a $5/month VPS or a $15/month managed n8n host. Over a year, that’s roughly $600–720 on Cloud Pro versus $60–180 for a comparable self-hosted server, before even counting any additional workflows that would push a Cloud plan into a higher tier.
This gap only widens as automation volume grows, which is exactly why n8n’s own pricing structure rewards self-hosting once a team moves past light, occasional use.
Hidden Costs Worth Planning For
Neither path is entirely free of costs beyond the sticker price. On Cloud, hitting your execution cap mid-month means workflows stop running until the next billing cycle — n8n does not appear to offer automatic overage billing the way some competitors do, so a sudden spike in triggered workflows can mean unplanned downtime rather than an unplanned bill.
On self-hosted, the equivalent risk is different: an under-provisioned server, a missed security update, or a skipped backup before a version upgrade. Our n8n Docker setup guide covers the specific configuration steps — persistent volumes, timezone variables, and backup timing — that prevent the most common ways a self-hosted instance loses data.
Which n8n Pricing Tier Actually Fits Your Situation
- Solo builder or hobbyist: self-hosted Community Edition on a cheap VPS — the free trial isn’t worth the hassle for ongoing personal use since Cloud has no permanent free tier anymore.
- Small team testing n8n seriously: the 14-day Cloud trial to evaluate without infrastructure setup, then a decision between Starter/Pro or moving to self-hosted based on actual execution volume observed during the trial.
- Growing team with real automation volume: self-hosted, once execution counts start pushing toward Pro’s 10,000/month ceiling — the infrastructure cost stays flat while Cloud’s bill keeps climbing.
- Organization with compliance requirements: Enterprise, for the SSO, audit logging, and SLA guarantees that Community and lower Cloud tiers don’t include.
How n8n Pricing Compares to Zapier and Make.com
All three major automation platforms bill differently, and the differences compound at scale. Zapier charges per individual action step — a 5-step Zap running 1,000 times consumes 5,000 tasks. Make.com charges per module call in similar fashion, using its own “credits” system. n8n’s execution-based billing, by contrast, counts one full workflow run as a single unit no matter how many internal steps it contains.
For light, simple automations, this difference barely matters and Zapier or Make’s free/entry tiers can be perfectly competitive with n8n pricing. For complex, multi-step workflows run at any real volume, n8n’s model consistently comes out cheaper — sometimes dramatically so, as the earlier 5,000-execution example shows. Our full n8n vs Zapier and Make.com vs n8n comparisons break down the complete picture beyond just pricing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is n8n free to use?
Yes, if you self-host the Community Edition — it’s genuinely free software with unlimited executions and all integrations, though you pay for the server it runs on. n8n Cloud no longer has a permanent free tier, only a 14-day trial.
How does n8n count executions for billing?
One execution equals one complete run of a workflow from start to finish, regardless of how many nodes or steps it contains. A 20-node workflow processing a batch of records still counts as a single execution.
Do Cloud Starter and Pro have workflow or user limits?
Not anymore. As of 2026, every n8n Cloud plan includes unlimited workflows and unlimited users — previous per-plan caps on both were removed. Only monthly execution volume affects your bill now.
Is self-hosting actually cheaper than n8n Cloud?
Usually yes, once you’re running any meaningful volume — a cheap VPS costs a fraction of even the Starter plan and has no execution ceiling. At very light, occasional use, the gap narrows, and the time cost of managing your own server is worth weighing against the dollar savings.
What happens if I exceed my n8n Cloud execution limit?
Workflows stop running until your next billing cycle resets the count, rather than incurring automatic overage charges. This makes monitoring your execution usage important on Cloud plans — hitting the cap unexpectedly means genuine automation downtime, not just a bigger bill.
Is the n8n Business plan worth it over Pro?
Only if your execution volume genuinely approaches or exceeds Pro’s 10,000/month ceiling regularly. At roughly $667–800/month for about 40,000 executions, Business is a significant jump from Pro’s ~$50–60/month — for most small teams, self-hosting is the more cost-effective way to handle that volume increase instead.
n8n pricing in 2026 comes down to one real decision: pay n8n to manage the infrastructure and execution limits, or pay a much smaller server bill and manage it yourself. Neither is the objectively correct choice — it depends entirely on your team’s technical capacity and how much you value not thinking about servers.
