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Licence, cloud and Business
n8n automates tasks between your systems: putting a form enquiry into your CRM, sending an invoice from your inbox to your accounting, having an AI model summarise an email. The German company offers two routes. You install the Community Edition on your own server under the Sustainable Use License: free for your own business, not to offer as a paid service to others. The cloud version runs at n8n and is paid per month.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly | Runs per month | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community | 0 euro licence | As many as your server handles | Your own server |
| Cloud Starter | 20 euro | 2,500 | At n8n |
| Cloud Pro | 50 euro | 10,000 | At n8n |
| Business | 667 euro | 40,000 | Your own server, with SSO and environments |
| Enterprise | On quote | Custom | At n8n or your own |
Billed monthly the price is about 17 percent higher. n8n counts a full run as one execution, however many steps it has, which makes long flows cheaper than in tools that count per step. How it compares to Make and Zapier is in Make, Zapier or n8n.
Self-hosting with your own hours added
Self-hosting, per month
- Licence, Community
- 0 euro
- Server with 2 GB memory
- 10 euro
- Updates, backups, 2 hours
- 100 euro
- Together
- 110 euro
Server and hours are an example; your own time counts.
Next to the cloudCloud billed yearly, excl. VAT
- Cloud Starter, 2,500 runs20 euro
- Cloud Pro, 10,000 runs50 euro
- Self-host, with your hours110 euro
Your own hours decide
An office puts every enquiry from its site into the CRM, with an AI summary and a message to the right colleague: about fifty runs a day. The server costs little; the two hours a month for updates and backups make self-hosting dearer than Cloud Starter, and even dearer than Pro. If you count your time, you choose the cloud, until you go far beyond 10,000 runs or have another reason to self-host: data that must stay in-house, or systems behind your firewall. AI steps add the model's cost; work it out with the AI cost calculator. Once n8n makes its own decisions, you are in effect building an agent; what that is, see AI agent and AI agents explained.
The server holds your keys
An n8n server holds access to your mailbox, your CRM and your accounting. If you host it yourself, install security updates quickly, put access behind a strong login and keep backups you can actually restore. The same lesson applies to a website; see is WordPress safe. If your company falls under NIS2, such servers belong in your policy. If your AI steps handle client data, also read is ChatGPT safe for business.
Before you self-host
- Who installs updates, and within how many days of a security notice?
- Is the server behind a login with two-factor authentication or a VPN?
- Do you back up daily, and have you tested a restore?
- Do you know which keys to which systems sit in n8n?
- Who notices when a flow stops, and how fast?
Starting without a server
Start with a flow that costs you time every week, not with the server. Build it in the cloud trial, measure how many runs it makes a month, then decide. If it stays under 2,500 runs and your data may sit in a European cloud, Starter is the simplest choice. If you still want to self-host, first write down who does the updates. With other software too, free rarely means no cost; see is Odoo free and is HubSpot free.
Difficulty and limits
Is n8n harder than Zapier?
A little. n8n asks more technical insight, but gives more freedom and is cheaper for long flows.
What if my flow outgrows n8n?
Then your own integration in code is often better, with tests and monitoring like other software.
Can I move from the cloud to self-hosting later?
Yes. You export your flows and load them on your own server; the connections to your systems you set up again.