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TL;DR: n8n offers four cloud tiers — Starter (€24/mo), Pro (€60/mo), Business (€800/mo), and Enterprise (custom) — plus a free self-hosted Community Edition with unlimited everything. The single most important concept: n8n charges per workflow execution (one whole run), not per node or per step. That makes n8n dramatically cheaper than Zapier or Make for multi-step automations. Annual billing saves 17%. Below: every plan, the real-world cost math, and the limits that trip up new buyers.
The n8n pricing model, in one paragraph
Most workflow automation platforms charge by activity volume — Zapier counts "tasks" (one per node execution), Make counts "operations" (now "credits," same idea). n8n bills the same way at the surface (a usage cap per month) but the unit is different: one execution = one complete workflow run, from trigger to final node, regardless of how many nodes are in between. This makes n8n's pricing roughly orders of magnitude cheaper as your workflows grow in complexity. A 50-node AI pipeline costs the same per run as a 2-node webhook-to-Slack hop.
Every n8n plan in 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (~17% off) | Executions / mo | Key features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community (Self-Hosted) | Free | Free | Unlimited | All nodes, unlimited users & workflows, BYO infrastructure |
| Cloud Starter | €24 | ~€20 | 2,500 | 5 active workflows, 14-day trial, community support |
| Cloud Pro | €60 | ~€50 | 10,000 | 15 active workflows, priority queue, admin roles |
| Business | €800 | ~€665 | 40,000 | Unlimited workflows, SSO (SAML/OIDC), RBAC, advanced log |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Unlimited | Self-hosted or dedicated cloud, audit logs, external secrets, SLA |
Prices in EUR. Pricing is identical in USD on n8n.io for US customers (Starter is also listed at $20). All cloud plans include unlimited users and the full 1,700+ integration catalog. Sources: official n8n pricing page, last verified May 2026.
Plan-by-plan deep dive
Community Edition (Free, self-hosted)
The most underrated plan in workflow automation. Pull the Docker image, set a Postgres database, expose port 5678 behind your reverse proxy, and you have unlimited everything — no execution caps, no user limits, no workflow caps, every node available. The official Docker compose example runs in under five minutes. For a small team running n8n on a $20/month DigitalOcean droplet, the all-in cost is $20/month for what Zapier would bill at $300+. The catch: you handle backups, security patches, monitoring, and upgrades yourself.
Real cost (small team, low volume): $5-20/month server + your team's time. Best for teams with at least one engineer who's comfortable with Linux.
Cloud Starter (€24/month, 2,500 executions)
The entry point for non-technical teams who want managed hosting. 2,500 executions sounds tight but remember — one workflow run, regardless of complexity. A daily report workflow firing once a day uses 30 executions/month. A lead enrichment pipeline triggered by every form submit uses 1 execution per lead. If you have 5 workflows each running 500 times per month, you're at 2,500 executions — fits exactly on Starter.
Limits: 5 active workflows. This is the trap most new users hit before the execution cap. If you build 8 workflows, only 5 can be active at any time. Upgrading is the only escape.
Cloud Pro (€60/month, 10,000 executions)
The sweet spot for most paying customers — 4x the executions, 3x the workflow slots (15), and priority execution queue. This is where the per-execution math really starts winning. 10,000 executions on Zapier would cost $599/month on Zapier Team. On n8n Pro: €60. For multi-step workflows the difference is even more dramatic.
Limits: 15 active workflows, no SSO, no RBAC. Community support only.
Business (€800/month, 40,000 executions)
The compliance/enterprise tier for mid-market teams. Adds SSO (SAML and OIDC), RBAC with custom roles, an advanced execution log searchable by node and status, and SLA-backed support. Unlimited active workflows. This is the first plan where workflows don't pause on overage — you can purchase additional execution buckets in 300,000-execution increments for €4,000.
The €800 jump from Pro is real, but mid-market buyers usually clear it on the SSO requirement alone — most security teams will not approve a tool without SAML.
Enterprise (Custom pricing, self-hosted or dedicated cloud)
This is where n8n competes with Workato, Tray.io, and MuleSoft. Enterprise unlocks the self-hosted license with SSO, external secrets management (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault), audit log streaming, log retention, dedicated cloud option with custom region and isolation, executive SLA, and dedicated CSM. Pricing is custom but n8n's typical mid-market deal ranges from $25,000-$75,000/year for self-hosted Enterprise; dedicated cloud is higher.
The real cost math: n8n vs Zapier vs Make
Pricing comparisons are noise unless you ground them in a specific scenario. Here are three real workflows and what each platform costs.
Scenario 1: Slack notification on a new HubSpot lead
Two steps — trigger (HubSpot) + action (Slack). At 1,000 leads/month:
- n8n: 1,000 executions on Starter (€24). Cost: €24.
- Zapier: 2,000 tasks (1 trigger task + 1 action task per lead) on Starter (€19.99 for 750 tasks → must upgrade to Professional €19/mo for 2,000 tasks). Cost: €20.
- Make.com: 2,000 operations on Core (€10.59 for 10,000 ops). Cost: €10.59.
Verdict: Simple 2-step workflows are roughly equivalent across all three. Make.com wins on price at this scale.
Scenario 2: Lead enrichment + CRM sync + Slack alert (12 nodes)
Trigger (form submit) → Clearbit enrich → Lookup HubSpot company → Update HubSpot contact → Apollo company data → Calculate lead score → Conditional routing → Slack DM to AE → Update Salesforce → Log to Postgres → Send confirmation email → Mark complete. 12 nodes per execution. At 5,000 leads/month:
- n8n: 5,000 executions on Pro (€60). Cost: €60.
- Zapier: 60,000 tasks. Team plan (€103.50/mo, 50,000 tasks) is insufficient — bump to 100,000 tasks tier (~€220/month). Cost: €220.
- Make.com: 60,000 ops/credits. Pro Plan with custom credit allocation, probably ~€60-80. Cost: €60-80.
Verdict: n8n becomes 3-4x cheaper than Zapier as workflows grow in complexity. Make stays competitive but starts trailing on multi-step scenarios.
Scenario 3: AI customer support agent (RAG pipeline, 25 nodes)
Webhook → embed question → query Pinecone vector store → rerank → fetch source docs → assemble context → call GPT-5.5 → parse response → check confidence → conditional escalate to human / log to Zendesk / reply via API → metrics. 25 nodes, mix of regular and AI nodes. At 20,000 questions/month:
- n8n: 20,000 executions on Business (€800). Or self-hosted Enterprise (~$2,000/mo all-in). Cost: €800.
- Zapier: 500,000 tasks. Cost: €2,000+ (custom enterprise quote).
- Make.com: 500,000 ops. Enterprise quote, likely €800-1,500.
Verdict: At AI-agent scale, n8n self-hosted is the clear cost winner. Add the fact that Zapier's AI primitives are far less sophisticated than n8n's LangChain nodes, and there's almost no reason to run RAG on Zapier.
Hidden limits and gotchas
Active workflow caps trip up new users
Starter limits you to 5 active workflows, Pro to 15. This is the most common point of frustration in n8n's pricing model. You can build as many workflows as you like, but only N can be "active" (i.e., running on schedule or listening for webhooks). Unused or test workflows must be deactivated. Business and Enterprise drop this limit entirely.
Sub-workflows count as executions
If you split logic into parent + child workflows using the Execute Workflow node, both count as separate executions. Building 100 sub-workflows that all call from a single parent will burn 200 executions per parent run, not 100. Plan your sub-workflow architecture accordingly.
Execution log retention varies by plan
Starter retains 7 days of execution history, Pro 30 days, Business 365 days. If you're using n8n for compliance audit trails, the Business plan retention is the minimum that won't require external log streaming.
HTTP Request "production" mode adds executions
Manual test executions in the editor do not count against your monthly cap. Webhook-triggered or scheduled production executions do. Don't be surprised when your "5,000 free trial" workflow runs exhaust quickly once it goes live.
Workflows pause, they don't fail gracefully
On Starter and Pro, when you hit your execution cap, n8n pauses all workflows until your cycle resets. There is no overage billing on these tiers. For business-critical workflows, this can be a real outage — plan execution forecasting accordingly, or upgrade to Business for overage buckets.
When self-hosting saves money vs costs money
Self-hosting Community Edition is free, but the cost is operational overhead. The math:
- Server costs: $5-15/month for typical workloads (DigitalOcean droplet, Hetzner cloud, or small AWS EC2). For higher volume, a managed Postgres + 2 worker pods on Kubernetes is typically $50-150/month.
- Engineer time: 4-8 hours initial setup, plus ~2 hours/month maintenance (security patches, monitoring, log rotation, backup verification).
- Hidden costs: If something breaks at 3am, you're the one being paged. No SLA-backed support on Community Edition.
The break-even vs Cloud Pro (€60/month) is typically around the 6-month mark for a small team. For high-volume teams (40,000+ executions/month) self-hosting almost always wins.
n8n vs the alternatives, on price alone
| Platform | Free / Cheapest | 10K tasks/ops/month | 50K tasks/ops/month |
|---|---|---|---|
| n8n Cloud | 14-day trial | €60 Pro | €800 Business |
| n8n Self-Hosted | Free forever | $5-15 server | $50-150 server |
| Zapier | 100 tasks free | ~€103 Team | ~€220+ Team/scale |
| Make.com | 1,000 ops free | ~€10-19 Core/Pro | ~€34 Teams |
| Workato | None | $10K+ entry | Custom enterprise |
| Activepieces | Free OSS | $25 cloud | $125 cloud |
For high-volume multi-step workflows, n8n self-hosted is unbeatable. For low-volume simple flows, Make.com's free tier or Activepieces are competitive. For non-technical teams, Zapier's premium is the cost of usability.
How to pick your n8n plan
Pick Community (self-hosted) if: you have engineering capacity, want full data control, will exceed €60/month in cloud bills, or need to comply with strict data residency.
Pick Cloud Starter if: you have under 5 workflows, under 2,500 monthly executions, and want zero ops overhead.
Pick Cloud Pro if: you're running 5-15 active workflows, need 10,000 executions, and want priority queue. This is the default for growing teams.
Pick Business if: you need SSO/SAML, RBAC, or any compliance feature; or run 10,000-40,000 executions/month; or need unlimited active workflows.
Pick Enterprise if: you're a regulated business needing self-hosted with full enterprise support, or running 40,000+ executions/month on a dedicated cloud instance.
Frequently asked questions
How much does n8n cost per month in 2026?
n8n Cloud Starter is €24/month for 2,500 monthly executions. Cloud Pro is €60/month for 10,000 executions. Business is €800/month for 40,000 executions with SSO and RBAC. Enterprise is custom-priced. Self-hosted Community Edition is free forever.
Is n8n cheaper than Zapier?
Almost always, yes — particularly for multi-step workflows. n8n charges per workflow execution; Zapier charges per individual task (step). A 10-step workflow running 1,000 times costs Zapier 10,000 tasks but costs n8n 1,000 executions. At moderate volumes (5,000+ multi-step runs per month) n8n is typically 60-80% cheaper.
What counts as an n8n execution?
An execution is one complete run of a workflow, from trigger to final node. It does not matter how many nodes the workflow has, or how many items pass through. A workflow with 200 nodes processing 50 items in one run = 1 execution.
Does n8n have a free plan?
Yes — two free options. (1) n8n Community Edition: free forever self-hosted, unlimited everything, just bring your own infrastructure. (2) n8n Cloud 14-day free trial: full features on the Starter or Pro plan, no credit card required.
What happens when I exceed my execution limit?
On Starter and Pro plans, your workflows are paused until your next billing cycle resets the counter. On Business plans, you can purchase additional execution buckets (300,000 extra executions for €4,000). Enterprise has unlimited executions.
Is annual billing cheaper for n8n?
Yes, annual billing saves approximately 17% across every cloud tier. Starter drops from €24/month to roughly €20/month equivalent, Pro from €60 to €50, Business from €800 to €665.
Sources & further reading
- Official n8n pricing page — n8n.io/pricing/
- Zapier official pricing — zapier.com/pricing
- Make.com pricing — make.com/en/pricing
- Zapier blog: n8n vs Zapier — zapier.com/blog/n8n-vs-zapier
- DataCamp n8n vs Zapier — datacamp.com/blog/n8n-vs-zapier
Keep reading
- n8n full review (2026) — features, scoring, our editorial verdict
- n8n vs Zapier comparison
- n8n vs Make.com comparison
- What is n8n? A buyer's intro
- 11 best n8n alternatives in 2026