n8n hosting price: every real cost line, self-hosted vs n8n Cloud

The n8n hosting price for a self-hosted setup is about 7.97 € a month on our numbers: a Hetzner CX23 at 6.64 € plus Hetzner's backup fee of 20% of the server price. n8n Cloud started at 20 € a month (Starter, billed annually) when we checked on 5 November 2026. The real swing factor is your own time, not the server.

This matters now because Hetzner repriced its cloud servers in 2026 and n8n 2.x changed its plan lineup, so most price tables you find are already out of date. Below, every cost line comes either from the Hetzner Cloud API, from our Lab, or from the official n8n pricing page we opened on 5 November 2026.

Tested in the Lab Hetzner CX23, CX33, CX43, CAX11, CAX21 · Nov 2026

This page is part of our n8n hosting hub. If you are still deciding between the two models, read n8n Cloud vs self-hosted for features and limits; this page is only about money.

What n8n Cloud costs (checked 5 November 2026)

n8n prices its plans by workflow executions. One execution is one run of a whole workflow, however many steps it has. All plans include unlimited users and workflows. These are the figures from n8n's pricing page, quoted as shown there:

Three details change the math. First, the page shows annual prices; it says annual billing saves 17%, so paying monthly costs more. Second, Business is a licence for running n8n on your own server, so you pay 667 € a month and still pay for the server. Third, plans and limits change often; check the page again before you buy.

Every cost line of self-hosting n8n

Self-hosted n8n is the free Community Edition running on a VPS (a virtual private server: a slice of a physical machine with its own vCPUs, RAM and disk). Here is what you actually pay for, using the CX23 we run in production as the example.

One small line to watch: the API price is for the server type. Hetzner's website shows its plans "incl. IPv4", so check the order summary for the public IPv4 address. VAT also depends on where you are; our gross prices are what the API returned for our account.

The full Hetzner list, gross and net, from the same API call:

From the Hetzner Cloud API, location hel1, checked 2026-11-05. "Incl. VAT" is what our Czech (EU consumer) account pays; businesses and buyers outside the EU usually pay the price excl. VAT. Primary IPv4 is billed separately.

When we checked Hetzner's cost-optimized page on 5 November 2026, every plan there showed "This product is currently unavailable. Please check back later." Availability changes by location and over time, so if a plan is missing, look at Hetzner alternatives. The background on the new prices is in the 2026 Hetzner price increase.

Which server size you actually need

On our production CX23 (Ubuntu 26.04), n8n 2.46.6 with Postgres 16 used 379.7 MiB after a minute idle, Postgres 69.6 MiB, and the whole system 1036 MiB. MiB is mebibytes, 1,048,576 bytes, slightly more than a megabyte. The install, from Docker to a healthy n8n, took 127 seconds.

Under load the picture stays calm. We sent a webhook → Code node → response workflow through ApacheBench at 1, 10, 25 and 50 concurrent requests on all five test servers:

Measured by AI Hosting Lab on 2026-11-05 · 5 servers · method · raw data

The CX23 peaked at 15.04 executions/s at 25 concurrent requests, and n8n itself peaked at 1003.0 MiB at 50 concurrent requests, with zero failed requests at every level. The 8 GB CX33 reached 31.93 executions/s. For most people the 4 GB plan is enough; pay for 8 GB when you add heavy workflows, a local AI model or other apps. Our VPS RAM calculator adds these numbers up for you.

What you get per euro: executions vs plan allowance

Here is the angle no price table shows. Cloud plans sell you executions. A small server gives you throughput, which is a different thing. At the rate we measured on the CX23, the arithmetic looks like this:

Read this with care. Our test workflow is tiny: a webhook, one Code node and a response. A workflow that calls slow APIs, waits on an AI model or moves large files spends most of its time waiting, so it will run far fewer executions per second. The point stands anyway: on a self-hosted server you pay for hardware and time, and the number of executions is not what limits you.

Calculate your own break-even

Enter the Cloud plan price that covers your monthly executions, your VPS price (it starts at 6.64 € for the CX23), the hours a month you expect to spend on upkeep and what an hour of your time is worth. The calculator adds the server and your time and compares that with the Cloud price. The default Cloud price in the form is a placeholder; type in 20 for Starter or 50 for Pro. If you enable backups, add 20% to the VPS price.

Three examples, with backups included and your hour valued at 30 €:

• Against Starter (20 €): 20 − 7.97 = 12.03 € a month of room. That covers 24 minutes of your time. If upkeep takes longer, Starter is cheaper.
• Against Pro (50 €): 50 − 7.97 = 42.03 € of room, or about 84 minutes a month. Count your hours honestly.
• Against Business (667 €): Business is self-hosted too, so this is not a hosting decision. You pay for features such as SSO and Git version control. If you do not need them, the free Community Edition runs the same workflows.

Other VPS providers (not yet tested in our Lab)

We have not run n8n on these yet; testing is scheduled and this page will be updated. Prices are from the official pages we opened on 5 November 2026:

Compare promo prices with the renewal price, because that is what you pay from year three. Links: Hostinger VPS, DigitalOcean, Hetzner Cloud. None of these links pays us a commission today.

Costs people forget on both sides

On n8n Cloud

• Execution logs are kept 7 days on Starter and 30 days on Pro.
• Monthly billing costs more than the annual prices above.
• AI Assistant credits are capped per plan; extra credits cost extra and do not roll over.

On a self-hosted server

• Updates are yours. Our compose file pins the image (docker.n8n.io/n8nio/n8n:2.46.6), so you upgrade on purpose, not by surprise.
• Backups are only useful if you test a restore once.
• Execution data grows. Our config prunes it after 336 hours (14 days) with EXECUTIONS_DATA_PRUNE and EXECUTIONS_DATA_MAX_AGE.

Skip self-hosting if a broken server at 2 a.m. would cost you more than a year of Cloud fees. Skip Cloud if you run many executions, need data to stay on your own machine, or want more than 7 or 30 days of logs without paying for Enterprise.

If you compare n8n with a per-step tool instead, see n8n vs Make, where a 10-step workflow changes the math.

Next step: follow our n8n install guide for Hetzner to run the 7.97 € setup with the exact compose file we use in production.