Published 2026-10-16, updated 2026-10-16. Prices checked 2026-10-16.
Self-hosted n8n: what it really costs per month
Self-hosted n8n has no license fee and no execution cap. Your real cost is your server plus the hours spent maintaining it. At 5,000 executions a month, n8n Cloud Pro (10,000 executions) costs €50/month on annual billing, so self-hosting only saves money if your server and maintenance time together cost less than that.
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The formula
True monthly cost = X + (Y × hourly rate)
- X = your server price per month, including backups and monitoring
- Y = hours a month spent on upgrades, certificates, backups and fixing failed workflows
The Community Edition license costs €0 with no execution limit (n8n.io/pricing, read 2026-10-16).
Worked example: 5,000 executions a month
| Option | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| n8n Cloud Pro, 10,000 executions, annual billing | €50 |
| Self-hosted (assumption) | X + Y × your hourly rate |
Self-hosting comes out cheaper only when X + Y × rate is below €50. If Y is just 1 hour a month, your hourly rate alone can tip the balance.
n8n plan prices (EUR per month)
| Plan | Executions/mo | Annual billing | Monthly billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 2,500 | €20 | €24 |
| Pro | 10,000 | €50 | €60 |
| Pro | 50,000 | €120 | €144 |
| Above 50,000 | — | Custom (contact sales) | Custom |
| Business (self-hosted only; SSO, Git, environments) | 40,000 | €667 | €800 |
All prices, including the monthly ones, were read from n8n.io/pricing on 2026-10-16. An execution is one full workflow run, however many steps it has.
Rule of thumb
- Low volume, no one to manage servers: n8n Cloud or Make usually wins once your time counts. See Make vs n8n.
- High volume, existing DevOps skills: self-hosting costs stay roughly flat (a bigger server still costs more) while cloud prices rise with volume.
Related
- n8n pricing explained
- How many Make credits do you need?
- What happens when you run out of Zapier tasks?
- Zapier vs n8n
Prices checked 2026-10-16
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