The short answer
Short answer, prices read on 17 October 2026: a solo founder who self-hosts n8n pays nothing for the software and only for the server. On Hostinger‘s KVM 2, the smallest of its plans that clears the 4 GB RAM and 2 vCPU line n8n’s own guide sets for an instance with n8n Assistant, that is $8.99 a month on a 24-month term paid upfront ($215.76), then $14.99 a month at renewal: $575.52 over four years. n8n Cloud over the same four years costs $960 on Starter and $2,400 on Pro, both billed annually. The catch is sharing: the free Community edition lets only the instance owner and a workflow’s creator open it, and the self-hosted plan that adds sharing, Business, is $800 a month billed annually.
| Option | What you get | First 24 months | Months 25 to 48 | Four years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger KVM 1 Our pick | 1 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB NVMe | $6.49 a month ($155.76 upfront) | $11.99 a month | $443.52 |
| Hostinger KVM 2 Our pick | 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe | $8.99 a month ($215.76 upfront) | $14.99 a month | $575.52 |
| DigitalOcean Basic, 2 GiB | 2 vCPU, 2 GiB, 60 GiB SSD, weekly backups | $21.60 a month | $21.60 a month | $1,036.80 |
| DigitalOcean Basic, 4 GiB | 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 80 GiB SSD, weekly backups | $28.80 a month | $28.80 a month | $1,382.40 |
| n8n Cloud Starter | 2,500 executions a month, hosted by n8n | $20 a month billed annually | $20 a month | $960 |
| n8n Cloud Pro | 10,000 executions a month, hosted by n8n | $50 a month billed annually | $50 a month | $2,400 |
Our pick means we earn a commission if you buy through our link. Hostinger is our pick on this page because it prints the lowest four-year server bill of the hosts we could price ($575.52 on KVM 2). That does not change any score: Hostinger scores 1.9 on our published rubric and n8n scores 7.0. This site itself runs on Hostinger’s web hosting, not on one of these VPS plans. See Hostinger n8n plans.
How big a server n8n says you need
n8n publishes no minimum spec, but two of its own deployment guides name a size. The Hetzner guide says “For most usage levels, the CPX11 type is enough”, which Hetzner lists as 2 vCPU and 2 GB of RAM. If you add n8n Assistant, the same guide asks for “at least 4 GB RAM / 2 vCPU”. The DigitalOcean guide says a basic shared CPU plan is enough for most usage. Two warnings sit beside those sizes: n8n “doesn’t restrict the amount of data each node can fetch”, so a heavy workflow can run a small server out of memory, and n8n recommends self-hosting “for expert users”.
| Server | vCPU | RAM | Clears n8n’s 2 vCPU, 4 GB line? | Price a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger KVM 1 Our pick | 1 | 4 GB | No, 1 vCPU | $6.49, renews $11.99 |
| Hostinger KVM 2 Our pick | 2 | 8 GB | Yes | $8.99, renews $14.99 |
| Hostinger KVM 4 Our pick | 4 | 16 GB | Yes | $12.99, renews $28.99 |
| DigitalOcean Basic | 2 | 2 GiB | No, 2 GiB (matches CPX11) | $18 |
| DigitalOcean Basic | 2 | 4 GiB | Yes | $24 |
| Hetzner CPX11 | 2 | 2 GB | No (n8n’s pick for most usage) | no price rendered for us |
We found no n8n page that turns executions into a server size, and we did not load-test these plans, so treat the 4 GB line as n8n’s floor for an instance with n8n Assistant, not as a promise of throughput. Self-hosted n8n stores data in SQLite by default, so one server is the whole install until you add PostgreSQL.
What a solo founder pays over four years
Hostinger’s card prices are not monthly prices. The page says “All plans are paid upfront” and the monthly figure is the plan total divided by its months. KVM 2 at $8.99 is therefore $215.76 on day one for 24 months, after which the card says it renews at $14.99 a month, 67% more. Year one costs $107.88; from year three it is $179.88 a year. Over 48 months the average is $11.99 a month.
Against n8n Cloud Pro billed annually ($600 a year), the KVM 2 server saves $1,824.48 over four years. Against Starter, the saving is $384.48. The DigitalOcean 4 GiB droplet with weekly backups is the other way round: $1,382.40 over four years, $422.40 more than Cloud Starter, though without Starter’s limits. Hostinger includes weekly backups in the VPS price; DigitalOcean charges 20% of the droplet for them.
What the server money does not buy is what n8n Cloud bundles. Starter includes 1,600 Assistant credits a month and “AI models without API keys”; self-hosted, you bring your own model keys and pay that bill yourself. Hostinger sells model access as an add-on at checkout and does not show its price beforehand, so it is not in our totals. For the model side, see Self-hosting an LLM against paying per token: the break-even.
Our pick for a solo founder: Hostinger KVM 2 with the one-click n8n template, at $8.99 a month for the first 24 months. It clears n8n’s 4 GB and 2 vCPU line, has a 30-day money-back guarantee, and Hostinger advertises unlimited workflows and concurrent executions on it. Try Hostinger n8n hosting.
What Cloud limits and self-hosting does not
| Limit | n8n Cloud Starter | n8n Cloud Pro | Self-hosted Community |
|---|---|---|---|
| Workflow executions a month | 2,500 | 10,000 | no quota on any n8n page we read; your server is the limit |
| Concurrent executions | 5 | 20 or 50 | no plan limit on the pages we read |
| Max execution duration | 5 min | 40 min | no plan limit on the pages we read |
| Shared projects | 1 | 3 | none: projects are not in Community |
| Assistant credits a month | 1,600 | up to 9,600 | none included |
The team problem: sharing costs $800 a month self-hosted
n8n’s Compare editions page lists what the free Community edition leaves out, and one line changes the answer for any team: sharing of workflows and credentials, where in Community “Only the instance owner and the user who creates them” can access them. Projects, SSO, Git version control and environments are also missing. All of those come with a licence key. Self-hosted, that means Business at $800 a month billed annually ($960 monthly), or the Start-up plan at $333 a month billed annually for companies with fewer than 20 employees and less than 5 million euros of funding.
| Team that shares workflows | Plan | A year |
|---|---|---|
| n8n Cloud | Pro, 3 shared projects, 10,000 executions | $600 |
| n8n self-hosted, start-up | Start-up plan, 40,000 executions | $3,996 plus the server |
| n8n self-hosted | Business, 40,000 executions | $9,600 plus the server |
So self-hosting wins for one operator, and Cloud Pro at $600 a year is the low bill for a small team that needs shared workflows. A paid self-hosted licence also phones home: n8n says the key “must ping our license server daily” and reports production executions, and past the quota n8n may invoice overages 45 days after they occur.
What the free licence allows
n8n’s code is published under its own Sustainable Use License. The text allows use “only for your own internal business purposes” or non-commercial and personal use, and distribution only free of charge for non-commercial purposes. Running it for your own company is inside those words. Hosting n8n for paying clients as a service is outside them; we are not lawyers, so read the licence before you build a product on it. Files with “.ee.” in the name need an Enterprise licence. For how other self-hostable automation tools such as Activepieces are licensed, see Self-hosted AI agent platforms and the licence terms behind them.
The time cost nobody prices
- Updates: n8n “releases a new minor version most weeks”. The stable release on 17 October 2026 was 2.43.7.
- Skill: n8n’s own deployment guides say self-hosting needs server, container and security knowledge, and that mistakes “can lead to data loss, security issues, and downtime”.
- Memory: a workflow that pulls large data can stop with an out-of-memory error; n8n’s fix is more memory or smaller batches.
- Backups: Hostinger includes weekly backups; on DigitalOcean they are 20% (weekly) or 30% (daily) of the droplet price.
We have no measured hours to put on that list, so we do not price it. If an hour of your time is worth more than the yearly gap in the first table, Cloud is the cheaper bill.
Where search results get the n8n numbers wrong
We captured Google’s AI Overview and AI Mode for “self host n8n cost” on 17 October 2026 and checked each claim against the vendor pages the same day.
| Search result says | Vendor page says |
|---|---|
| A page Google’s AI Overview cites lists Starter at $24 a month with 2,500 executions and 5 workflows | n8n: “All plans include unlimited users & workflows”. Starter is $24 monthly or $20 annually |
| AI Mode cites n8n’s pricing page for Business at 667 euros a month | n8n.io/pricing in US English: $800 a month billed annually, $960 monthly |
| AI Overview: Community Edition is free with unlimited users, workflows and executions | Free for internal business use under the Sustainable Use License; sharing, projects, SSO and Git are not in Community |
| AI Mode, citing Lindy: self-hosting costs $5 to $80 a month in server expenses | Hostinger KVM 1 to KVM 8: $6.49 to $25.99 on a 24-month term, renewing $11.99 to $49.99; DigitalOcean Basic $6 to $48 |
The tools on this page
Hostinger Our pick
VPS plans with an n8n template: one-click install, a queue-mode template and a template with more than 100 pre-made workflows. Four sizes from KVM 1 (1 vCPU, 4 GB) to KVM 8 (8 vCPU, 32 GB), all paid upfront, prices before VAT, weekly backups included, 30-day money-back guarantee. Watch the renewal: every card prints a higher “Renews at” price. See Hostinger n8n plans.
n8n
The automation platform itself, with about 207k GitHub stars on 17 October 2026. Cloud Starter $20 and Pro $50 a month billed annually; Business is self-hosted only at $800. Without a licence key it runs as the free Community edition, and a free registration adds folders, debug in editor and custom execution data. For n8n against Zapier on one workload, see n8n vs Zapier for AI agents: the same workload priced on both.
How we checked
Every price and limit on this page was read on 17 October 2026 in a rendered browser on the vendor’s own page: n8n’s pricing page in both billing states, n8n’s documentation, Hostinger’s n8n and VPS pages, and DigitalOcean’s droplet pricing. The licence text is from n8n’s GitHub repository. Hetzner’s plan pages rendered without prices, so Hetzner is named but not priced. Four-year totals are our arithmetic on those list prices and assume they do not change. We did not buy a plan, did not load-test a server and did not measure admin time, so this is a price check, not a performance test.
Questions people ask about self-hosting n8n
Is n8n free if it is self-hosted?
The software is. Without a licence key n8n runs as the free Community edition, under the Sustainable Use License, which allows use for your own internal business. You pay for the server: $8.99 a month on Hostinger KVM 2 for the first 24 months, read 17 October 2026.
Can I still self-host n8n?
Yes. n8n’s documentation covers Docker Compose, a one-line setup and guides for DigitalOcean, Hetzner, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, and its pricing page links the self-hosted Community edition on GitHub.
What is the cheapest way to host n8n?
Of the hosts we could price on 17 October 2026, Hostinger KVM 2 is the lowest that clears n8n’s 4 GB and 2 vCPU line: $8.99 a month for 24 months, $14.99 at renewal. On your own machine, the software costs $0.
How much does an n8n monthly subscription cost?
n8n Cloud Starter is $24 a month billed monthly or $20 billed annually for 2,500 executions; Pro is $60 or $50 for 10,000. Business, self-hosted only, is $960 or $800.
What server size does n8n need?
n8n’s Hetzner guide says CPX11 (2 vCPU, 2 GB) is enough for most usage, and at least 4 GB RAM and 2 vCPU if you add n8n Assistant.
Can several people share workflows on self-hosted n8n for free?
No. In the Community edition only the instance owner and a workflow’s creator can access it. Sharing needs a paid licence: Business at $800 a month billed annually.
Can I host n8n for my clients and charge them?
The Sustainable Use License allows use for your own internal business purposes and free non-commercial distribution. Selling n8n to clients as a hosted service falls outside those words; read the licence.
Related reading
- n8n vs Zapier for AI agents: the same workload priced on both
- Self-hosted AI agent platforms and the licence terms behind them
- Self-hosting an LLM against paying per token: the break-even
- Open source AI tools you can self-host, and what they replace
- GitHub repos to start a one-person business
Sources
- n8n, Plans and Pricing, read 17 October 2026.
- n8n, Start-up plan, read 17 October 2026.
- n8n Docs, Host n8n, read 17 October 2026.
- n8n Docs, Compare editions, read 17 October 2026.
- n8n Docs, Deploy to Hetzner, read 17 October 2026.
- n8n Docs, Deploy to Digital Ocean, read 17 October 2026.
- n8n Docs, Fix memory issues, read 17 October 2026.
- n8n Docs, Choose n8n’s database, read 17 October 2026.
- n8n on GitHub, LICENSE.md (Sustainable Use License 1.0), read 17 October 2026.
- Hostinger, Self-hosted n8n, read 17 October 2026.
- Hostinger, VPS hosting, read 17 October 2026.
- DigitalOcean, Droplet pricing, read 17 October 2026.
- Hetzner, Regular Performance cloud servers, read 17 October 2026.
- Google AI Overview and AI Mode for “self host n8n cost”, our capture, 17 October 2026.
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