Independent n8n node marketplace – looking for feedback from node devs & power users

Feedback
1

Hey everyone,

we’re an IT consultancy from Munich, Germany, working a lot with automation, n8n and custom integrations – and over the last weeks we kept running into the same pain points around community nodes:

  • non-technical / citizen developers struggle with npm and package names

  • community nodes are hard to discover if you’re not deep into the ecosystem

  • and as a node author it’s pretty hard to justify long-term maintenance without any way to monetize

So we started to explore an idea for an independent n8n node marketplace (not affiliated with n8n GmbH) and wanted to get feedback from people who actually build and use nodes.

What we’re thinking about

Very early stage, nothing finished – but the rough idea is:

  • a marketplace-style UI (instead of npm search) to discover nodes
    – filters like category, last update, intended use cases, quality signals, etc.

  • focus on premium / custom nodes that teams can buy instead of rebuilding the same integrations

  • handling licensing, billing & payouts for node authors (Stripe, invoicing, VAT) so devs can focus on code & maintenance

  • primarily targeted at self-hosted / private-cloud n8n setups that want more “enterprise grade” building blocks

Long-term, a native integration into the n8n UI would obviously be ideal – right now we’re just trying to understand if there’s enough demand from both sides:

  • people who build nodes

  • teams who would pay for high-quality nodes

What I’d love your feedback on

If you’re a node author or heavy n8n user:

  • Would you buy premium nodes if licensing/billing is handled and the node quality is high? Roughly what price range would feel realistic for you?

  • If you build nodes today: what would you need to feel comfortable selling them?
    (code review, revenue share model, pricing help, support expectations, etc.)

  • What’s the biggest risk you see with an external marketplace like this?

Also curious:
Is anything like a more integrated node discovery / marketplace on the n8n roadmap already (even if only vaguely)? Would love to understand how you see this evolving from the product side.

Early landing page / waitlist

We put up a small one-pager with a waitlist where you can sign up as either developer or buyer and add a short note about what you’d build / what you need:

:backhand_index_pointing_right: https://n8n-marketplace.prokodo.com

We are already developing on it, but this is very much in early stage and an experiment right now.
If this feels like a good idea or a terrible idea, I’d genuinely like to hear why.

2

Hey @csalat !

Mi point of view(since I use internally and hobby)…

I bet that thus people have as well a hard time with the self-hosted n8n version as well :grinning_face:…

This, yea… why not, since if I don’t know a node name and what it does, would be good!

And as well the possibility for “Custom” nodes as any crazy :zany_face: idea will totally work..

Here is what I think that “verified n8n community nodes” that will be accessible for Cloud users is another possibility (or not lol)…

Just to get mi “Custom” node… Yes!

Price… depends on complexity (assuming is per operation or API… )

Well… what’s the LICENSE terms?

Tried to respond as dev and user , but need my coffee :slight_smile: .

Cheers!!!

3

Hey @Parintele_Damaskin,

thanks a lot for taking the time to reply – especially pre-coffee :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I bet that those people have as well a hard time with the self-hosted n8n version as well :grin:…

Totally fair point.
We also don’t expect pure “citizen devs” to run self-hosted n8n on their own. What we see more and more in teams is:

  • infra/Ops takes care of the self-hosted n8n setup

  • several non-dev colleagues build workflows on top of it

For those folks, dealing with npm, package names and manual search is a pretty big UX barrier – that’s one of the main things we’d like to improve.

community nodes are hard to discover if you’re not deep into the ecosystem

Exactly. That’s basically the first problem we want to solve:

  • a proper search & filter UI

  • find nodes by use case, category, “last updated”, “works with X/Y/Z”, etc.

  • and also give room for the more “crazy custom” ideas you mentioned :grin:

Just to get mi “Custom” node… Yes!
Price… depends on complexity (assuming is per operation or API… )

That’s super helpful – it confirms that there are cases where a well-built custom node is clearly more valuable than “just another free side project”.

To keep things realistic, we’re trying to make the MVP very small.

What we’re thinking for the MVP

For the first version (next ~6 weeks), we’re thinking about something like:

  • a marketplace-style directory for n8n nodes
    – better discovery, profiles, tags, use cases

  • starting with a small group of node authors

  • a simple yearly license per organisation / n8n instance
    → you buy a yearly license for your org/instance and can use the node in as many workflows as you want on that instance

  • billing via Stripe + invoices, no heavy license engine in v1

And something that is important for us already in the MVP:

no SaaS lock-in – nodes always run entirely inside your own self-hosted / private-cloud n8n instance.
The marketplace “just” handles discovery, payments and delivering updates.

Later (roadmap, not MVP)

Longer term, if there’s enough demand, we’d like to add things like:

  • a proper publisher dashboard for node authors (sales, customers, versions)

  • more flexible pricing models (tiers, subscriptions incl. support, etc.)

  • clearer guarantees around maintenance / security fixes

But that’s clearly not part of the first version.

Well… what’s the LICENSE terms?

Nothing legally final yet, but directionally we’re thinking:

  • the code stays with the dev – we’re a marketplace / infra layer, not the owner

  • buyers get a license to use the node inside their own org/instance(s)

  • everything executes on their own infrastructure, not on our servers

Since you answered from both sides (dev and user), your view on pricing would be super interesting for us, too:

  • As a dev: for a more “serious” custom node you’d build, what price range would you personally consider fair for a yearly per-org license (rough ballpark is enough)?

  • As a buyer: what’s the price level where you’d say
    “ok, I’ll happily pay this instead of building & maintaining this node myself”?

If you don’t want to share concrete examples publicly, feel free to drop a note via the waitlist (there’s a free-text field) or DM me here – happy to hear more details off-thread as well.

Sorry for the many questions :sweat_smile: but we really appreciate your input – this kind of feedback is exactly what we need at this stage :raising_hands: