Is n8n free? n8n pricing and the licence in plain English

Yes, for most businesses. Self-hosted n8n is free under its Sustainable Use License, which allows use "for your own internal business purposes", and n8n's FAQ says you may charge your customers "for workflow creation, setup, and maintenance services" (n8n License FAQ). The free licence stops at letting outsiders build or edit workflows, hosting n8n as a service and white-labelling it. n8n Cloud is a paid subscription, from €20 a month billed annually. Below: the licence line by line, seven common setups and n8n Cloud pricing. Our reading, not legal advice.

All n8n pages in this post were read on 1 November 2026, and prices were checked the same day.

What licence is n8n under?

The Sustainable Use License, Version 1.0. n8n's docs also call it the Community license. n8n wrote it in 2022 with the Elastic License 2.0 as its base, and switched to it on 17 March 2022. Before that, n8n used Apache 2.0 with the Commons Clause (n8n blog).

It isn't an open source licence, and n8n says so itself: "open source licenses can't include limitations on use, so we do not call ourselves open source" (n8n docs). n8n's own name for the model is "fair-code": the source code is public, and commercial use has limits.

A few details catch people out:

• The licence covers self-hosted n8n only. n8n Cloud is a paid subscription with its own terms, per the FAQ.
• Source files with .ee. in the file name, or .ee in the folder name, come under a separate n8n Enterprise License. Those are the enterprise features, and they "may only be used in production, if you (and any entity that you represent) hold a valid n8n Enterprise license" (LICENSE_EE.md). Copying and changing them for development and testing needs no subscription.
• Only the main branch is licensed. The top of LICENSE.md says "Content of branches other than the main branch (i.e. "master") are not licensed." Our reading: code taken from any other branch, such as a work-in-progress branch linked in a forum thread, comes with no licence at all.
• Many older posts link to docs.n8n.io/sustainable-use-license/. That address now returns a "Page Not Found" error (HTTP 404). The licence text is LICENSE.md in n8n's GitHub repository, and n8n's explanation is the License FAQ linked above.

The Sustainable Use License, line by line

The licence has 9 short sections. We read the copy on the main branch of n8n's repository and quote it exactly below, with what each part means for a business. This is our reading, not legal advice. For anything with money riding on it, ask n8n at license@n8n.io or a lawyer.

Acceptance

By using the software, you agree to all of the terms and conditions below.

There's nothing to sign. Installing and running n8n is the agreement.

Copyright license

The licensor grants you a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, non-sublicensable, non-transferable license to use, copy, distribute, make available, and prepare derivative works of the software, in each case subject to the limitations below.

Royalty-free means the licence itself costs nothing. You may copy n8n, change it and make it available. "Non-sublicensable" and "non-transferable" mean you can't hand these rights on. Anyone who gets n8n from you takes it on the same terms from n8n, which is why the Notices section makes you pass the terms along. The words that matter most are the last ones: "subject to the limitations below".

Limitations

This section has 4 sentences, and the commercial use question turns on the first.

You may use or modify the software only for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use.

Internal business purposes are commercial. Running your invoices, CRM updates or order emails through n8n is internal business use, however much money the business makes. What the sentence rules out is n8n becoming the thing you sell. The licence never defines "internal" (the word appears once in the whole text). The FAQ fills the gap twice. Its definition is wider than the word suggests: internal business purpose is use "within your organization or product where people outside of your business can receive or see what your workflows produce". So customers seeing the output is fine. Its working test is about who builds: "If workflows are only created or modified by you or people in your organization, you can use n8n under the Community license for free."

You may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes.

You can't sell copies of n8n, or charge for a package with n8n inside, under this licence. Giving it away for non-commercial purposes is allowed.

You may not alter, remove, or obscure any licensing, copyright, or other notices of the licensor in the software.

This is the white-label clause in practice. The FAQ lists "White-label n8n by removing our branding and offering n8n as is" as not allowed.

Any use of the licensor's trademarks is subject to applicable law.

The licence gives you no rights to the n8n name or logo. Ordinary trademark law decides what you may do with them.

Patents

If you or your company make any written claim that the software infringes or contributes to infringement of any patent, your patent license for the software granted under these terms ends immediately.

Alongside the copyright licence, n8n grants a patent licence. Claim in writing that n8n infringes a patent and you lose it. "Your company" is defined widely here: any organisation you work for, plus every organisation that controls it, is controlled by it or is under common control with it. Most businesses will never come near this clause.

Notices

You must ensure that anyone who gets a copy of any part of the software from you also gets a copy of these terms.

If you modify the software, you must include in any modified copies of the software a prominent notice stating that you have modified the software.

This applies when you pass a copy on, for example a server image or a patched build. Keep LICENSE.md with it and mark what you changed.

No other rights

These terms do not imply any licenses other than those expressly granted in these terms.

If the text doesn't grant a use, assume you don't have it. That's why the FAQ's worked examples are worth more than forum guesses.

Termination

If you use the software in violation of these terms, such use is not licensed, and your license will automatically terminate.

There is one way back. If n8n sends you a notice and you stop the violation "no later than 30 days after you receive that notice", your licence "will be reinstated retroactively". A second violation after that ends it "automatically and permanently". So you get one warning and 30 days to fix it.

No liability

As far as the law allows, the software comes as is, without any warranty or condition, and the licensor will not be liable to you for any damages arising out of these terms or the use or nature of the software, under any kind of legal claim.

If a self-hosted workflow loses data or sends the wrong email, nothing in the licence makes n8n responsible. Backups, updates and security on a self-hosted instance are yours.

Definitions

"Use" means anything you do with the software requiring your license.

Running, copying and modifying n8n all count. The other definitions say who "the licensor", "you" and "your company" are.

Is n8n free for commercial use?

Yes, in most setups. The test is who creates or edits the workflows. n8n's FAQ works through examples that cover the common cases. Here they are side by side:

Is n8n free if you self-host it for your own business?

Yes. A business running its own operations on n8n is the plainest case of internal business use. Example, hypothetical: a shop with 40 orders a day sends each order to Google Sheets, emails the customer a confirmation and posts a low-stock alert to the team. The shop's own staff build and change the workflows. The licence costs nothing, and the FAQ adds that you may "Run several instances of n8n community version". You pay for the server and the time to look after it.

The free edition leaves features out. n8n's comparison page lists 10 features missing from the Community edition, among them SSO (SAML and LDAP), projects, sharing, environments, version control with Git, external secrets, log streaming and multi-main mode (n8n docs). Sharing is the one small teams notice: "Only the instance owner and the user who creates them can access workflows and credentials." Registering the instance with an email address (Settings, then Usage and plan, then Unlock) gets you a free key for folders, debug in editor and custom execution data. The same page warns that features per edition "can change".

Can an agency build n8n workflows for clients?

Yes, and charge for it, as long as your clients can't create or edit the workflows. The FAQ's allowed list includes "Build automations for your clients on your instance, as long as your clients do not have the possibility to create or edit them", "Charge your customers for workflow creation, setup, and maintenance services" and "Charge your customers for training and consultancy services". On running many clients from one instance, it says: "The determining factor is client access, not client count or revenue volume." If you want to manage n8n across several client environments, the FAQ asks you to contact license@n8n.io and says a partner program for multi-instance management "is in development".

There are two setups an agency can use under the free licence:

1. On the agency's own instance. You build and run everything; clients get the results. Credentials can even be the client's own: in the FAQ's consultant example, each client creates its own OAuth credentials or API keys for a shared instance, and that's allowed because clients have no access to the n8n interface or the workflow logic. As the FAQ puts it: "The key question is not whose credentials are used, but who controls the workflow logic." The trade-off is dependence. The workflows live on your server, so the client needs an exit plan, the same way they would for code (see who owns the code when you hire an offshore team).
2. On the client's own server. The FAQ allows you to install, configure, build and maintain n8n on their infrastructure, "as long as you don't offer hosting as well". Our reading: the client is then running n8n for its own internal business, so its staff editing workflows is the ordinary internal case.

Can you build n8n into a product you sell?

Only if your users never shape the workflow logic. The FAQ gives a pair of examples that show where the line falls.

A project management app sends support tickets to n8n through an internal API, n8n scores them, and users only see the score. Allowed: "This is allowed because n8n is a silent internal processing layer."

A freelancer platform puts its own automation builder in front of n8n, so users design their own automations without ever seeing n8n. Not allowed. Hiding n8n's interface changes nothing, because the test is who controls the workflow logic. The FAQ's "automation-as-a-service" example puts it directly: "Customers are buying the ability to create/operate workflows powered by n8n, regardless of whether they ever see the n8n UI."

The current FAQ also names MCP and AI agents. If your app has a chat box where a user types "build me a workflow that emails new leads" and an agent creates that workflow in n8n, it falls on the not-allowed side. Triggering is a different matter: "Triggering or executing pre-built workflows via API or webhooks is fine."

If the use you have in mind isn't permitted, n8n's Community license page is direct: "You must sign a separate commercial agreement with us" (n8n docs). The FAQ sends commercial licence enquiries to sales@n8n.io and licensing questions to license@n8n.io.

n8n pricing: what does each plan cost?

n8n Cloud has no free plan, only a trial. "Pricing is based on monthly workflow executions, regardless of complexity", and "An execution is a single run of your entire workflow" (n8n pricing, checked 1 November 2026):

Prices are in euros, and the plan cards show annual billing. The toggle labels it "Save 17%", which puts Starter at about €24 a month if you pay month to month. Companies with under 20 employees may qualify for a Startup plan at 50% off Business.

The Cloud trial lasts 14 days and gives Pro features with 1,000 executions and no credit card. If you don't upgrade by the end, "n8n deletes your instance", and you have 90 days to download your workflows (n8n docs).

Going over the quota works differently by plan. Starter and Pro are "capped and have no overages". On Business, the pricing FAQ says your workflows "will continue running without interruption", but overage charges may apply, and the plan table lists €4,000 ($4,800) per extra 300,000 executions, a rate it dates to 26 October 2026.

The Business plan is how a self-hosted team gets the missing features back. Its card lists SSO and LDAP, 6 shared projects, multiple environments and version control using Git. It doesn't change the embedding rules above: for a product where customers build workflows, the FAQ points to n8n's sales team, so don't assume a paid plan covers it. To see what these plans come to at your volume next to Zapier and Make, see n8n, Zapier or Make: what each costs at your volume.

When n8n's licence is the wrong fit

• Customers building automations is your product. That is the use the licence holds back. Budget for a commercial agreement from the first day, or pick a tool whose licence allows it.
• You want to resell n8n hosting. The FAQ rules out hosting n8n as a service where clients build workflows, and installing it on their servers is only allowed if you don't host it too.
• Your company bans code with commercial-use limits. n8n's docs say that if you're using n8n "for internal business purposes, and not making n8n available to your customers for them to connect their accounts and build workflows, you should be able to use n8n." Whoever owns that policy should still make the call.
• You need SSO, sharing or Git-based environments and won't pay for them. The Community edition doesn't have them.

What we would do

Here is how we would approach the licence question for a business starting with n8n.

1. Write one sentence: who will create or change workflows? If the answer is only your own staff, the Community licence covers self-hosting. On n8n Cloud, the subscription's own terms apply instead.
2. If anyone outside your organisation can change what a workflow does (customers, users of your app, an AI agent acting for them), email license@n8n.io with a short description of the setup before you build. Keep the reply with your project documents.
3. If you're hiring someone to build workflows, put n8n in your own name: your n8n Cloud account or your own server. Self-hosted, that's the FAQ's "client's own server" case, allowed as long as the builder doesn't host it for you as well. Either way, the workflows stay with you when the work ends. That's how our n8n workflow automation service is set up: the account or server is yours from the first day, and we're paid to build and maintain the workflows.
4. Save a dated copy of the FAQ next to LICENSE.md. Web pages get edited, and n8n's features page says what each edition includes "can change".

The decision rule

If only people in your organisation create or change workflows, n8n is free to self-host for commercial work, including work you charge customers for. If anyone outside your organisation can shape a workflow, through any screen, API or agent, ask n8n in writing before you build. Planning an automation and unsure where it sits? Send us the process and the tools involved through the contact page. We usually reply within one business day.