n8n Pricing Explained: Free Tier, Plans & Hidden Costs
By Rick, NoCode Guide
n8n is free if you self-host the Community Edition; n8n Cloud is paid, from €20 a month for Starter and €50 for Pro on annual billing (n8n publishes its prices in euro). Pricing is based on workflow executions, not per-task like Zapier. Here's exactly what you pay and where the hidden costs hide.
The free community edition
The self-hosted Community Edition is genuinely free and open source: unlimited workflows and executions, capped only by your server. This is the route most technical users take. See how to self-host n8n.
n8n Cloud plans
Pricing data is being updated.
How execution-based pricing works
Each time a workflow runs from start to finish, that's one execution, no matter how many nodes fire. This makes n8n dramatically cheaper than per-task tools for complex, multi-step flows. Compare the math in n8n vs Zapier.
Self-hosting cost
| Provider | Plan | Monthly | Yearly | Executions | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self-Hosted | VPS KVM 1 | $11.99 | $143.88 | Unlimited | Hostinger KVM 1: 1 vCPU, 4GB RAM, 50GB NVMe. $11.99/mo renewal rate ($6.49/mo on a 24-month promotional term). Unlimited workflows and executions. |
| Self-Hosted | VPS KVM 2 | $14.99 | $179.88 | Unlimited | Hostinger KVM 2: 2 vCPU, 8GB RAM, 100GB NVMe. $14.99/mo renewal rate ($8.79/mo on a 24-month promotional term). Room for Postgres and task runners. |
| Self-Hosted | VPS KVM 4 | $28.99 | $347.88 | Unlimited | Hostinger KVM 4: 4 vCPU, 16GB RAM, 200GB NVMe. $28.99/mo renewal rate ($12.99/mo on a 24-month promotional term). Queue mode and heavy payloads. |
n8n Cloud prices in euro, as n8n publishes them; VPS prices in US dollars at Hostinger's renewal rate. Last verified October 2026. Always confirm current pricing with the provider.
Hidden costs to watch
- Cloud: execution overages and the price jump between Starter and Pro.
- Self-hosted: the VPS, backups, and your time on updates.
- Third-party API costs (e.g. OpenAI usage) apply on both.
Official pricing: n8n.io/pricing. Model your own numbers with the cost calculator.
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What changed in 2026, and why older guides are wrong
If you have read an n8n pricing article written before mid-2026, check the date before you trust it. Two things changed that invalidate most of what is published.
First, the active-workflow caps are gone. n8n Cloud plans used to limit how many workflows you could have switched on at once, which is why older comparisons talk about five workflows on Starter or fifteen on Pro. As of October 2026 n8n's pricing page states that all plans include unlimited users and unlimited active workflows. Executions are now the only meter that matters, which simplifies the decision considerably: you are buying volume, not slots.
Second, the Business plan moved to self-hosted only with a waiting list for Cloud. If you were planning on Business as a hosted tier, that is not currently how it is sold.
A note on currency
n8n's pricing page renders in euro. Dollar figures quoted elsewhere, including in older versions of this page, are conversions rather than published prices, so treat any "$" figure for an n8n plan as approximate and check what your card is actually charged. Annual billing is discounted by 17% against monthly.
Working out which plan you need
Because executions are the only limit, sizing is arithmetic rather than guesswork. Count how many times each production workflow fires in a month and add them up. A workflow on a five-minute schedule runs about 8,640 times a month on its own, which is enough to exhaust the Pro allowance before you have built anything else. A workflow triggered by a webhook fires as often as the upstream service calls it, which is the number you actually have to estimate.
Two details reduce the count in your favour. Manual runs in the editor while you are building do not count against the quota, and polling triggers only count when they find new data rather than on every poll. Both mean the real number is usually lower than a naive calculation suggests.
What n8n does not publish is what happens when a Starter or Pro plan hits its ceiling. The overage terms for Business are documented, but the smaller plans are not, and community reports on the subject are inconsistent enough that we will not repeat them as fact. If running past the limit would be a problem for you, ask n8n support before committing rather than finding out live.
The free option is free
Self-hosted Community Edition costs nothing in licence fees and has no execution ceiling at all. The licence is the Sustainable Use License, which allows internal commercial use: running it to operate your own business is fine. What it does not allow is providing n8n to others commercially, so building a product on top of it and reselling it needs a conversation with n8n. The real cost of this route is a server and your own time, which the cost calculator puts numbers against.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The self-hosted Community Edition is free and open source with no execution limits. You only pay for hosting. n8n Cloud is the paid managed version.
Cloud starts at €20/month for Starter (2,500 executions) and €50/month for Pro (10,000 executions) on annual billing; n8n publishes its prices in euro. Business and Enterprise tiers cost more.
One full run of a workflow counts as a single execution, regardless of how many nodes it contains. Sub-workflows can count separately depending on settings.
On self-hosted, budget for the VPS and backups. On Cloud, watch execution overages and the jump between tiers as volume grows.
Yes. You can export your workflows as JSON and import them into a self-hosted instance at any time.