hmm ok, so your flows don’t run often and/or are very small that you can get away with this amount of zaps+tasks
good to know there is still something Zapier is cheaper at, to bad I really hate the interface 
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Yeah, we love Zapier, inexpensive, smart and simple 
- cheaper for your very specific usecase.
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This is our use case as well, and why we’ve moved our large workflows out of N8N and small workflows back into Zapier.
Especially I’m not paying for the hosting costs AND license costs only to be limited based on the number of workflows.
“Cheaper and better” is correct. It’s been 6 months since the LinkedIn node had a functioning thumbnail image.
Zapier fixes these problems almost immediately. Not to mention, you don’t have to manage your own APIs.
Our case and probably many others
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@joeldeteves @dp1791 sorry to hear that you’re unhappy with the pricing of n8n. When making the choice for our quotas, we focussed on what’s best for the majority of our users. This means that we tried to set the quota so that 75% of the users’ use cases are fully possible with the starter account. This happened to be 5 active workflows according to our data. I see that for your use cases, this does not seem to be the perfect limit - but n8n still stays cheaper for heavy usage workflows that run often or run for a lot of data. Which is also where we think n8n shines when comparing it to tools like Zapier.
Additionally, @joeldeteves sorry to hear that you’re unhappy with the quality of n8n. Can you help me to understand where the thumbnail of LinkedIn is broken? I tried to find that myself, but can see that the LinkedIn thumbnail seems to be correct in my workspace. Are you on the latest version of n8n?
Edit: @Jon just helped me to find the LinkedIn issue you were talking about.
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By “fully possible” you actually mean “very inconvenient”, right? 
You probably will not but we are in complete accord on the term “imperfect” to describe n8n quotas.
By fully possible, I meant fully possible. Most users actually have 5 or less active workflows but those run more frequently and/or with more items per run than just a few. I do agree that the n8n quotas are imperfect, but I’m afraid there’s no one size fits all system that we can use.
I completely disagree with you, I believe that most users would benefit by having access to more than 5 active workflows, and Zapier huge user base strongly suggests that my view resonates more with reality than yours.
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No reason to get mad here.
The reason why Zapier has a larger userbase has of course nothing to do with the pricing. But more the marketing and age of Zapier compared to n8n and other tools. For some users that are less technical mostly, Zapier can be the easier and therefore better tool to use.
But the usecase that makes Zapier cheaper is very specific. When you to actually do some proper data automation you will hit those limits very fast. 750 tasks is nothing. None of my clients would actually be able to use Zapier at this $30 tier. And yes some of them are on cloud. Most arent, but that is mostly because of the custom nodes I develop to make things easier and them wanting to use those.
So if you do not like n8n, that is fine. Just use Zapier instead as you said it is cheaper for you specific usecase anyways, so that is totally fine.
But stop complaining about the fact that a tool doesn’t do what you want for the price that you want.
edit: and to add you can even use n8n for free or very cheap by self hosting it. And for this usecase that is definitly possible as you are not going to need a lot of resources.
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Hey BramKn, I am not complaining, just stating my opinion, which seems to align with reality more than yours
goodluck with that
Looks like I bet on the right horse, but I am always rooting for the underdog, so good luck to you
So…. Is there a n8n-side cost or limitation for self hosting? I honestly can’t find it…
Welcome to the community @aiions!
The self-hosted free community version is identical to the Starter Cloud version that can be found here:
The only difference is that the Starter Plan also includes collaboration capabilities and that the self-hosted version has unlimited executions + active workflows, no execution time, or max saved execution limit.
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Just wanted to add some user input for you guys on how I believe a growing group of online entrepreneurs, like myself, is using n8n.
I run some small/micro b2c ‘SaaS’ websites with a Webflow frontend, Supabase database and n8n for the backend.
For example i put my email marketing workflows, some database operations, and even some web scraping workflows etc in n8n.
n8n has been amazing for me because i am not an expert in coding, and it really helps setting up a backend quick and easy, as i run multiple of these websites/businesses. They are not startups, they are just small businesses and probably will stay small.
Currently i run eight n8n instances, self hosted, on the community edition, trough AWS lightsail.
I moved to n8n because of the lack of limitations in workflows/operations. Some of my workflows run 10.000 executions per day. At Make, Zapier or any cloud solution this will cost me thousands $ a month, wich i cannot afford.
I do believe, and have talked to, others just like me have moved to n8n for the exact same reasons.
Just wanted to let you know, that in fact, i believe a lot of n8n self hosted users have moved to n8n because of the lack of limitations in workflows/operations.
Please, if possible, don’t impose limits in the future
I would be happy to pay a fee for a license btw, but i could never afford the enterprise licenses that are discussed above.
All the best and great work so far!
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Also chiming in to what I know is a fraught topic.
I’m also a small business owner, solo operator. I self-host on AWS. I moved from Make.com to N8N because Make’s “per operation” pricing model was forcing me to build convoluted flows just to save operations, and was still costing me a (relative) fortune.
Not worrying about how many steps it’s going to take to complete an automation lets me build faster - I can split things up into several steps that are each easier to understand & debug, and I can loop over a set of items rather than figure out how to process them “all in one go”. Basically, it lets me be a little lazy and sloppy, which means I get the job done in half the time. And when I come back to it after 2 months, I can quickly figure out what I did.
I also -really- liked that I could install Node libraries and use them with the code module. That extensibility has been critical in allowing me to quickly build automations for complex situations.
All of which to say: N8N’s “unlimited executions” and “unlimited steps per execution” model really make a huge difference for me, and I think it’s a huge differentiator for N8N.
I really value that there’s a team behind N8N. Given how much I use it, I should be paying for it. I’m also doing some consulting work, using N8N to implement automations for others. They should probably be paying for it too. But I don’t need any of the features that N8N has chosen to charge for, so right now I’m still using it for free.
@jan I’m sure you’re going to revisit pricing in the future. Whenever you do, please remember that unlimited executions per workflow and unlimited steps within a workflow is a HUGE advantage that N8N has over its competitors, and it’s probably under-appreciated and taken for granted.
If you want to charge someone like me, it’s probably fair to say something like “you get one user and a dozen workflows for free; 13-50 workflows you pay a modest monthly fee; over that you pay a higher monthly fee. More users are extra per month; enabling team features are extra per month, etc”. Unbundling the price for different options lets different types of users still pay a fee that feels fair to them. Yes, hackers might just install multiple instances and keep each instance under 12 workflows, but that’s a pain and a waste of compute and if the price is fair I wouldn’t bother.
FWIW, I’m migrating my business to Odoo, which is also an open source product with a usage based pricing model. By giving it a low price and unbundling, they’ve attracted a very large customer base and made the product very sticky. Almost everyone who pays for Odoo for 6 months is going to pay for it for years, and will probably increase their usage. N8N can almost certainly do something similar.
Lee
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n8n was the unlimited I need to be who I am today. I’m able to help my cowokers automate their tedious tasks and give their lives back. Make and Zapier were easy to use but the limits suck
I’m willing to pay for a lisence, has to be for unlimited everything, and it can’t be more than $40, because cost of hosting too.
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@jan First of all, thank you very much, your product is the best of the best, great work and offering it to the community is of great value.
But…
You are forgetting that the product is international and many countries with 500 USD you buy 20 hamburgers, but in another 500 USD is what two workers earn monthly and what 250 hamburgers cost, so yes, for some it is a fair price, for others it is It is simply impossible to generate any profit with that operating cost. If ideas are still accepted, regionalized prices for self hosted