n8n Pricing 2025 — Cost Breakdown & Comparisons

n8n pricing and n8n price searches are climbing (+20% in the last week) as more teams evaluate alternatives to Zapier and Make. This page is the practical cost guide we wish we had when we migrated our agency off SaaS automation tools.

The two ways to pay for n8n

1. Self-host — software is free under fair-code; you pay infrastructure.
2. n8n Cloud — managed service with tiered subscription pricing.

Both work. The right choice depends on your engineering capacity, execution volume, and compliance needs. Most agencies start on Cloud, then migrate to self-host once executions cross a threshold.

Self-hosted: total cost breakdown

Real numbers from a 30-workflow agency setup we maintain:

Cost item	Monthly	Notes
Hetzner CX22 VPS (4 GB RAM)	~$5	Handles ~3,000 executions/day comfortably
Backups to Backblaze B2	~$1	Nightly rsync of n8n_data volume
Cloudflare (DNS + WAF)	$0	Free tier is more than enough
Domain	~$1	$10–15/year amortized
Subtotal	~$7	Before APIs and LLM costs

See our self-host guide for the exact setup that produces these numbers.

n8n Cloud: when the subscription pays off

Cloud pricing is per-plan rather than per-task. Practical thresholds we have seen:

• Under 50 active workflows, light AI use: Cloud Starter tier is usually sufficient. Cost of zero ops outweighs the subscription.
• 50–200 workflows, daily AI agents: Cloud Pro tier; still cheaper than managing your own infrastructure if you don't have a dedicated ops person.
• 200+ workflows, multiple AI agents per minute: Self-host wins on raw cost, assuming you have someone to maintain it.

See n8n Cloud overview for feature differences.

Hidden costs that beat the n8n bill

LLM tokens

A single AI agent workflow with retrieval and tool calls can spend $0.05–$0.30 per execution. Multiply by execution frequency. Always set a budget alert in your OpenAI or Anthropic dashboard.

Scraping APIs

Apify actors and similar paid scrapers charge per result. A 10,000-lead scrape can cost $20–$200 depending on enrichment depth. Our Lead Gen Apify workflow includes notes on cost control.

Email sending

Gmail SMTP works for under 500 emails/day. Above that, expect to pay for SendGrid, Mailgun, Amazon SES, or a dedicated cold email tool. $10–$50/month is typical for cold outreach.

Telephony

Voice agent workflows incur Twilio or similar per-minute charges plus TTS/STT API costs. Budget at least $50/month for a small-scale voice deployment.

n8n pricing vs Zapier

Zapier charges per task — each filter, each action, each step. A 12-step Zap that runs every 5 minutes burns 17,280 tasks per day. On Zapier Pro that's already at the limit; on Starter it's not even possible.

The same workflow on self-hosted n8n: zero incremental cost. On n8n Cloud: counts as one execution per trigger.

See n8n vs Zapier for the full comparison.

n8n pricing vs Make

Make charges per operation — similar problem to Zapier's task model, slightly more generous quotas. Crossover point where n8n self-host wins: roughly 5,000–10,000 operations per month for an active agency.

See n8n vs Make.

Decision flowchart

1. Do you have anyone comfortable with Docker and a Linux VPS? If no → n8n Cloud.
2. Do you need data residency (India DPDP, EU GDPR)? If yes → Self-host in your region.
3. Do you expect more than ~5,000 executions per month? If yes → Self-host saves money.
4. Otherwise, start with Cloud, migrate when growth justifies it.

Free no matter what you pick

Every workflow on n8n.gjam.in is free to download and works on both Cloud and self-hosted instances. Pricing only affects which n8n you import them into.