Low key - 5€ / month for a slightly under spec instance configured to run workflows in the main thread
I think n8n.cloud needs to have an offering that makes self hosting feel kinda silly for 80-90% of the tinkerers who want to try it out
Nice in theory, sadly impossible in praxis. Offering an instance for 5 Euros would mean are losing money. That is maybe possible for a SaaS offering that does have very low fixed costs like Asana, Pipedrive, … but not for something like n8n where you need to reserve large amounts of RAM per user that costs a lot of money.
We can simply not invest a lot of money in developing n8n and allowing everybody to run it for free, giving everybody free support, writing documentation, … and then also start to run n8n.cloud with a loss. We have to make money somehow.
The tinkerers who want to try it out (and do not have Docker or npx) can still use the normal instance we have right now. After all, does it come with a 30-day free trial.
Hope that makes sense.
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I totally understand if you are paying normal hosting prices for you k8ns nodes.
But if you added some 48g nodes from these guys Homepage - SSD Nodes
Note: I’m a long term mostly satisfied customer with them and that is an affiliate link
And arranged to deploy the 5€ customers on those cheeper, slightly over provisioned nodes( I called it under speced in the original post )…
I think you could calculate out a way to break even or maybe earn 10-20%
Come to think of it, if you don’t… I might. ; )
I like the idea, but as Jan mentioned it won’t work in practice. Even though we find a cheaper hosting solution, there is always other costs associated. For example, support, maintenance.
FYI if you end-up doing something like that, please make sure you are following our License 
Of course… And it was mostly a playful flirt…I have way too many side projects already.
As you can see I am here to contribute… And I want to see n8n flourish! I am not asking for something for nothing and I’m not asking you to make stupid decisions that won’t pay off in the long run.
I find it weird that people who don’t know what docker is are trying to figure out how to self host n8n… And perhaps many people will be totally diluted into thinking that they can get decent performance on a 5€/mo vps… If i were you guys, I’d want those 5€ on my balance sheets even if they cost me 6.
For that matter 10€ per month for a server with not quite enough ram to rock n8n (but enough to keep it running in main thread mode) and transparently over provisioned CPUs would also be easier to swallow that 20 for many many people.
@harshil1712 is totally correct there. Even ignoring that the price would still not work. We can not simply take our existing cloud setup and move it over to another provider. That would take a huge amount of work.
Generally totally agree with you @gotjoshua . I actually wanted to have a free instance initially but then realized that it would bankrupt us. Then thought about a very low pricing point like 5 Euros but that did still not work and then in the end decided on 20. We will probably think about that again in the future once we are able to run n8n instances with much less overhead and so costs, but with the current design it simply does not make sense.
On what time line?
Actually, i’m happy that you agree with me in principle, and I trust that you know your infrastructure far better than any one else can!
From my testing, your cloud instances are definitely the fastest. I tested a really cheap vps, ssdnodes, Akash and gitpod… Maybe I’ll have to compile some more detailed stats at some point.
Personally, I won’t pay for n8n cloud “as is”, because I want queue mode, and a local PostgreSQL instance and I can have that, self hosted via docker compose behind traefik with 48g of reserved ram for 10€ per month
I think that in the long term you need to have the absolute best offerings if n8n.cloud will be your bread and butter. But I see that you have many open positions in the company and i’m curious to see how things develop. For now the free trial is already super generous, and I am really grateful for your open source policy!
Sincere thanks…