n8n Pricing Explained: Plans, Costs, and the Execution Model
The hardest part of understanding n8n pricing is unlearning how every other automation tool bills you. n8n does not charge per task, per operation, or per step. It charges per execution, and one execution is a single run of your entire workflow no matter how many nodes it contains. A two-step workflow and a fifty-step workflow each burn exactly one execution per run. Once that clicks, the rest of the pricing page reads cleanly.
This breakdown covers the full lineup as of 2026: the free, self-hosted Community Edition, the Starter plan at $20/mo, Pro at $50/mo, the self-hosted Business plan at $800/mo, and custom Enterprise pricing. It also covers the limits that actually matter when you scale, the overage math on Business, and the discounts most teams miss. All numbers are vendor-reported from the n8n pricing page and verified 2026-06-09.
The Execution Model: Why n8n Bills Differently
Start here, because this is the concept that determines whether n8n is cheap or expensive for your use case. An execution is one complete run of a workflow. n8n defines it as a single run of your entire workflow, and the count is the same whether that workflow has two nodes or two hundred, and whether it processes one record or ten thousand rows of data.
Contrast that with the two billing models you have probably met before. Per-task tools, such as Zapier, count each successful action as a billable unit, so a multi-step automation consumes several tasks every time it fires. Per-operation tools meter each module call inside a scenario. n8n collapses all of that into one number: did the workflow run? That is one execution.
The practical consequence is that complexity is effectively free. If your workflow enriches a lead, writes to a CRM, posts to Slack, and updates a spreadsheet, that is four actions on a per-task tool but one execution on n8n. Builders who chain long, branching workflows tend to find the execution model dramatically cheaper than per-action billing. Builders who fire thousands of tiny single-step workflows see less of an advantage, because each tiny run still costs one execution.
Practitioner note: Before you compare n8n's price to a per-task competitor, estimate your monthly runs, not your monthly actions. A team migrating from a per-task tool often discovers their real execution count is a fraction of their old task count, because dozens of metered actions collapse into a handful of workflow runs.
The Plans and What They Cost
n8n runs three published paid tiers plus a free edition and a custom Enterprise tier. The two cloud plans, Starter and Pro, are hosted by n8n. Business and Enterprise are where self-hosting and governance features arrive. Prices below are the monthly rate when billed annually, which is the rate n8n advertises; annual billing saves 17% over paying month to month.
Reading the cards top to bottom, the upgrade story is straightforward: each tier roughly quadruples your execution allowance and adds governance. Starter gets you 2,500 executions a month with 5 concurrent runs. Pro lifts that to 10,000 executions and 20 concurrent runs, and turns on admin roles, global variables, and a 7-day insights window. The jump to Business is the big one, both in price and in what it unlocks, and it is worth its own section.
| Plan | Price (annual) | Executions/mo | Concurrency | Projects | Hosting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community | Free | Your hardware | Your config | Self-managed | Self-hosted |
| Starter | $20/mo | 2,500 | 5 | 1 shared | n8n cloud |
| Pro | $50/mo | 10,000 | 20 | 3 | n8n cloud |
| Business | $800/mo | 40,000 | n8n config | 6 | Self-hosted |
| Enterprise | Custom | Negotiated | 200+ | Unlimited | Hosted or self |
All figures vendor-reported from n8n.io/pricing, verified 2026-06-09. Pricing changes frequently; confirm current numbers before purchasing.
Business and Enterprise: Where Self-Hosting and Governance Arrive
The Business plan is $800/mo billed annually, it is self-hosted, and it is explicitly scoped to organizations under 100 employees. For that price you get 40,000 monthly executions, 6 projects, and the governance layer that mid-sized teams need: SSO with SAML and LDAP, 30-day insights retention, Git version control for your workflows, and separate environments for development and production.
Two details on Business are easy to miss and matter a great deal to the budget. First, overage is metered in large buckets: once you pass the 40,000 included executions, additional capacity is billed at EUR 4,000 per 300,000-execution bucket. That is a coarse-grained step, not a per-execution trickle, so plan your headroom around bucket boundaries. Second, there is a startup discount: companies under 20 employees can qualify for 50% off the Business plan, which brings a governance-grade, self-hosted deployment within reach of small teams.
Enterprise is custom-priced through n8n's sales team and can be hosted or self-hosted. It removes the ceilings: unlimited projects, 200 or more concurrent executions, 365-day insights retention, and 1,000 AI Workflow Builder credits on cloud. It also adds the controls large security teams require, including an external secret store, log streaming, and a dedicated SLA. If your blocker is a procurement requirement rather than an execution count, Enterprise is the tier that answers it.
What Every Plan Includes
Some of the most valuable parts of n8n's pricing are the things that do not change as you move up the tiers. Three inclusions are constant across every plan, including the free Community Edition, and they change the math when you compare against seat-based or integration-gated competitors.
That combination is unusual. On many automation platforms, the number of teammates, the number of workflows, or access to specific connectors are exactly the levers used to push you up a pricing tier. n8n moves all three off the table and bills almost entirely on execution volume and feature class, which makes its pricing easier to forecast for a growing team.
The free Community Edition deserves a callout here too. Run from the public GitHub repository, it costs nothing in license fees and includes unlimited users and workflows. What you trade is operational responsibility: you provision the server, handle scaling, and own security, and advanced features such as SSO and Git version control require a paid Business or Enterprise license key. It is fair-code under the Sustainable Use License, which permits internal business use, modification, and redistribution. Fair-code is not the same as fully open-source, and that distinction is worth understanding before you standardize on it.
Which Plan Fits Your Situation
Pricing only matters relative to who is buying. Here is how the tiers map onto the situations practitioners actually find themselves in.
Watch the Fine Print
n8n pricing is friendly, but a few details bite teams who skim the plan cards. Read these before you commit a budget.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does n8n pricing work?
n8n bills per execution. One execution is a single run of an entire workflow, no matter how many steps it contains or how much data it moves. The paid cloud tiers are Starter at $20/mo and Pro at $50/mo, the self-hosted Business plan is $800/mo (all billed annually), there is a free self-hosted Community Edition, and Enterprise is custom-priced. Figures are vendor-reported and verified 2026-06-09.
Is n8n free?
Yes. The Community Edition is free and self-hosted from the n8n GitHub repository, with unlimited users and workflows. You supply the server, scaling, and security, and advanced features such as SSO and Git version control require a paid Business or Enterprise license key. It is fair-code under the Sustainable Use License, which permits internal business use.
What counts as one execution?
One complete run of a workflow. A workflow with two nodes and a workflow with two hundred each count as a single execution per run, and the volume of data processed does not change the count. This is why long, multi-step automations are cheap on n8n compared to per-task billing.
Does n8n charge per user?
No. Every plan, including the free Community Edition, includes unlimited users and unlimited workflows. You are billed on executions and feature tier, not on seats, so adding teammates does not raise your bill.
How much can I save with annual billing?
Annual billing saves 17% over paying monthly on the paid cloud tiers. The $20 Starter and $50 Pro rates quoted throughout this article are the annual-billing prices.
Who qualifies for the n8n startup discount?
Companies under 20 employees can qualify for 50% off the Business plan. The Business plan itself is scoped to organizations under 100 employees; larger organizations are directed to Enterprise. Eligibility is a vendor-stated condition subject to n8n approval.
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