n8n

n8n on cost: executions, unlimited users and the option to host it yourself

Among the seven products here, n8n is the one whose pages offer a free edition that a company can run on its own servers^1,2. Installed with no license key, it becomes the free Community edition¹, and it will run on servers the customer owns, in a data center or a private cloud². Paid plans charge for workflow executions each month, however simple or complex each run is³, and no plan limits users, workflows or integrations⁴. For a 1,000 employee company, that means headcount does not drive the license. The cost moves to two other places: execution volume and the internal effort to build, host and maintain workflows.

The home page title calls n8n an AI workflow automation platform⁵; on GitHub it is a fair code automation tool with AI built in⁶. Its home page stresses agents and workflows whose steps a person can follow⁷. This profile places n8n seventh.

The published plans

All paid prices below are billed annually.

1. Starter: 20 euros a month for 2,500 executions⁸, five running at once⁹, plus 1,600 Assistant credits monthly¹⁰. 2. Pro: 50 euros a month for 10,000 executions¹¹, as many as 50 in parallel, and a week of insights¹². Pro, n8n says, serves solo builders and small teams whose automations are live¹³. 3. Business: 667 euros a month, with 40,000 executions¹⁴ and 30 days of insights¹⁵. Business suits firms below 100 staff that need scale and collaboration¹⁶, and it must be self hosted¹⁷. 4. Enterprise: a custom execution volume and price¹⁸, meant for organizations with heavy compliance and governance demands¹⁹, with 200 plus parallel executions and a full year of insights²⁰. Either n8n or the customer can host it²¹.

Annual billing saves 17 percent²². Firms with fewer than 20 staff can apply for a Startup plan that halves the Business price²³. Hosted plans can be tried without entering card details²⁴.

On our arithmetic, Business costs 8,004 euros a year. Since pricing is based on monthly executions³, its 40,000 executions work out to about 1.7 euro cents each when fully used. n8n's prices are in euros⁸, so a US buyer also carries currency exposure.

What 1,000 employees means for n8n's price

The Business plan is described as for companies with fewer than 100 employees¹⁶. A 1,000 employee company therefore lands on Enterprise, which is custom priced¹⁸. The price list a buyer can read stops before the plan the buyer needs.

The pricing unit still helps. Because all plans include unlimited users⁴, adding employees does not add license cost; adding executions does. A finance team should forecast monthly executions across the planned workflows and ask n8n to price Enterprise against that forecast, including the rate for executions above the contracted volume, which is not publicly stated on the pages we opened.

Concurrency is a second dimension. Concurrent execution limits rise by plan, from 5 on Starter to 200 or more on Enterprise^9,20. A workload with bursts may need a higher plan for concurrency even when its total execution count is modest.

The self hosting trade

Self hosting is n8n's distinctive cost lever. The Community edition is free¹. Installation options include Docker Compose and a single command setup²⁵. The single command route needs Docker, on Linux or macOS or under WSL on Windows²⁶, and its script takes care of dependencies and configuration²⁷. Compose suits sturdier installs, with several containers, lasting storage and room to scale²⁸. The docs cover Google Cloud through either Kubernetes Engine or Cloud Run²⁹ and point to a self hosted AI Starter Kit³⁰. From version 3.0, installing through npm is deprecated³¹.

A self hosted license saves fees and adds operating cost. The security page states that self hosters handle encrypting data at rest³². The buyer also carries the servers, the upgrades, the backups and the on call time that a hosted service would include. For a 1,000 employee company with an existing platform team, that may be cheap. For a company without one, it is a new budget line that the pricing page does not show.

The license deserves a legal read before a company commits. Under the license file, parts of the code fall under the Sustainable Use License, while files whose names contain ".ee." are excluded³³. Code on any branch except main carries no license at all³⁴. Two licenses appear in the documentation, Community and Sustainable Use³⁵.

Implementation effort

n8n's builder puts its weight on visibility. Workflows are drawn in a visual editor that anyone can read, with code available whenever a step needs it³⁶. Any step can be opened and explained³⁷. A builder can observe an agent while it runs or reopen any earlier run in place³⁸. Any model can be plugged in, each decision is visible, and a human approval step can be inserted³⁹. A single broken step can be run again by itself⁴⁰; old runs can be replayed, or their data mocked⁴¹. Version history records each change with its author and time⁴².

These features reduce the cost of maintaining workflows once they exist. The cost of building them in the first place falls on the customer: a packaged implementation service, a delivery team or a time to production commitment is not publicly stated on the pages we opened. A large community helps; n8n counts upward of 250,000 developers⁴³, and its GitHub repository carries 209.8k stars⁴⁴.

Integrations

Integration counts vary by page. The home page says 500 or more native integrations, any API through HTTP, and any agent or coding assistant through MCP⁴⁵. The GitHub description says 400 or more⁴⁶. On the integrations page the headline says 2,000 plus⁴⁷, while the index itself counts 2,629⁴⁸. None of these pages accounts for the gap between the figures. Every integration is included on every plan⁴, so integration breadth carries no extra license cost.

Security and compliance

n8n builds its security program around SOC 2 and has an outside auditor examine it annually⁴⁹. The SOC 2 report goes to enterprise customers, and other readers get SOC 3⁵⁰. Outside firms run penetration tests on production at least yearly⁵¹ and vulnerability scans no less than every 90 days⁵². Static code security testing is part of the build pipeline⁵³. Audit history is retained for a minimum of 12 months⁵⁴.

On n8n Cloud, traffic between client and service is encrypted⁵⁵, and stored data uses AES256 through an implementation that meets FIPS 140 2⁵⁶. Customer data sits in a production account on Azure⁵⁷; backups go to a second region in the same country⁵⁸.

Governance

Every paid plan includes advanced role based permissions, super admins among them⁵⁹. Project roles include admins, editors and viewers⁶⁰, and admin roles appear on the Pro plan⁶¹. Enterprise adds integration with outside secret stores⁶² and streaming of logs⁶³; the home page also credits it with a full on premises option, SAML single sign on, LDAP, version control and RBAC⁶⁴.

The pages disagree on one point. According to the security page, single sign on, SAML and LDAP need Enterprise⁶⁵; the pricing page shows SSO and LDAP on Business⁶⁶. Since Business is limited to companies under 100 employees¹⁶, a 1,000 employee buyer will be on Enterprise either way, but should confirm the feature list in the contract.

Enterprise includes extended data retention⁶⁷.

Use cases

Examples on the home page are operational. One shows an agent triaging alerts by severity and routing them to the right people⁶⁸; another gives a new employee Slack, Jira and Notion access in one pass⁶⁹. The home page also says n8n is trusted by Fortune 500 companies⁷⁰, a vendor claim.

A worked budget frame for 1,000 employees

The published prices give scale without a final number. A company running 40,000 executions a month would pay 667 euros a month on Business, or 8,004 euros a year¹⁴, if it qualified for that plan; at 1,000 employees it does not¹⁶. The Enterprise quote¹⁸ should be compared with three internal figures: the engineering time to build and maintain the workflows, the hosting cost if self hosted², and the security work self hosters take on, such as encrypting data at rest³². For a company that already runs containers in production, the second and third figures may be small. The first is usually the largest and does not appear on any price list.

Two features make execution counts easier to control. AI actions can take structured inputs and return structured outputs next to rule based steps⁷¹, which keeps AI calls short. And because any step can be rerun on its own⁴⁰, a failure does not require a full workflow rerun. Whether reruns count as executions is not publicly stated on the pages we opened.

Other security practices on the security page include an intrusion detection system⁷², privacy and security training for employees at onboarding and annually⁷³, and a vulnerability disclosure program⁷⁴. The documentation pairs AI features with business process automation under a fair code license⁷⁵, and the home page claims a native route to nearly any tool⁷⁶.

Where it fits on cost

n8n suits a company with engineering capacity that wants to keep license costs low, keep data in its own environment⁷⁷ and pay for automation by volume instead of by user^3,4. For that buyer, the Community edition¹ or a self hosted Enterprise contract²¹ can deliver a low license cost.

The total cost for a 1,000 employee company depends on three numbers that the pricing page does not give: the Enterprise quote¹⁸, the internal engineering time to build and maintain workflows, and, if self hosted, the operating cost of the infrastructure³².

Why it ranks seventh

n8n shares one cost advantage with Nexus: neither prices by headcount^4,78. It ranks below Nexus because Nexus includes consultancy support on a software pricing model with no per diem or consultant time, and puts the first agent live in 4 weeks inside a 3 month proof of concept⁷⁹, while n8n leaves building, and for self hosters running, the workflows to the customer. It ranks below Zapier because Zapier's hosted service removes the infrastructure work that self hosting n8n adds^80,32, and because n8n's published plans stop at companies under 100 employees¹⁶. For a cost conscious buyer with a strong platform team, those limits weigh less, and n8n may rise on their list.