n8n has three pricing tiers, and the honest answer to "is it free" depends on which one you're asking about.
The self-hosted community edition is free and open-source. You run it on your own server or a VPS, and there's no usage cap from n8n itself — only the limits of the infrastructure you're running it on. The trade-off is that you (or whoever manages your infrastructure) is responsible for hosting, updates, backups and uptime.
n8n Cloud gives you a hosted instance with a free trial period. After that, paid plans are priced by workflow execution volume — the more your automations run, the more it costs. For low-volume use this stays cheap; for anything running on every order or every lead, the bill scales fast.
The enterprise tier adds SSO, advanced permissions, dedicated support and higher execution limits, priced through a sales conversation rather than a published rate card.
Cloud pricing scaling faster than you'd like? We can help you figure out whether self-hosting, re-architecting the workflow, or a custom integration is the better long-term move.
Talk to usIf execution-based pricing is becoming a real line item, or the self-hosted instance has become one more system someone has to babysit, it's worth comparing that ongoing cost against a custom-built integration — one that's designed around your exact process, with no per-execution meter. Read more in our full guide: What is n8n? A complete guide.
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