I’ve been tasked at my job with finding a new tool to help us synchronize data between different applications.
The goal is to use n8n to retrieve our clients’ data from their company’s main application (orders, warehouse data, employees and associated skills, etc.), filter and modify the data if needed, and then import it into a planning application that my company has implemented for our clients.
n8n seems ideal for this task, but I’m not sure whether this use case falls within the free tier of n8n’s SUL.
I’ve looked into the topic, and overall it seems that it does. However, the part I’m unsure about is that we use an Entra ID application credential to connect to our clients’ Graph API. I’m not sure whether this is allowed if it’s a company-level credential rather than a customer-specific credential. It’s important to clarify that n8n is not the main focus of the setup; it is only used as a synchronization tool, while the planning application is the core product.
If we decide to proceed, we will self-host n8n on a private server.
Do we need to take an enterprise plan or does it fall in the free plan ?
there is actually no free plan they just gives you 14 day trial for using it entirely free you need to host n8n locally there is no diffrence between free tire and premium basically no technical diffrence i just gives you extra services like customer support and extra executions if your app not work its may be because as you mentioned due to authentication of company level credentials you need
hello @LeDeVa_99 you use-case will surely work on n8n.
I did the same kind of work : sync data for a company from a system (invoicing) to another (CRM).
Depending on your company legal consideration and data confidentiality I’d recommend to go on a self-hosted n8n instance so that you have your private server to operate client data.
Using n8n you can connect to any API and get data from there to push (create, update) to any other system.
The SUL (Sustainable Use License) for self-hosted n8n is free for your use case, you’re fine. The license basically restricts you from competing with n8n or reselling it as an automation platform, but using it internally to sync data between systems for your clients is exactly what it’s designed for.
The Entra ID credential thing isn’t really a licensing question, it’s just a technical setup detail. Whether you use a single app registration that has permissions across multiple tenants or separate credentials per client doesn’t affect your n8n license status at all. That’s more of an Azure/Graph API architecture decision on your end. Plenty of people use shared service principals or app registrations to pull data from Graph API through n8n without any licensing issues.
So yeah self-host it, you don’t need enterprise unless you want their support and SLA guarantees. The enterprise tier is more about getting dedicated help, priority support, SSO, audit logs, that kind of stuff rather than unlocking features you’d need for basic data sync work.
That’s where it gets trickier, if you’re charging clients specifically for the n8n hosting/sync service as a product then you’re basically reselling n8n functionality which the SUL doesn’t allow. If the sync is just bundled as part of your larger planning application service and not sold separately you’re probably fine, but if “data sync hosting” is its own line item you’d want to reach out to n8n directly at [email protected] to clarify because that starts to look like offering n8n as a service to others.