Hello,
To get something going quickly and to test the waters I would like to take a free template and build a website that sells the service that is provided by the workflow. On Discord someone said that this was unethical, I do not see why but in the unlikely event that this would bring in some nice money I would send some to the maker of the free template. Also I want to add functionality to it. So what kind of license is there for the free templates?
I am also curious what steps are needed to go from workflow to website, but I will ask that later.
You can find n8n’s license here and an explanation of it here .
You can read my reply here that goes in a little deeper.
But you can’t create automations on your own n8n instance for clients, but you can create automations on clients own n8n instance. You are not allowed to host a clients n8n
Thank you very much. To be more specific: the workflow creates a report, and I would sell that report. The way I read it this is allowed. The license is about selling the n8n software which I would not do. If it is not allowed then it is for home use, not for a serious company, which is a bit ridiculous in my opinion.
You are allowed to use it for anything thats non commercial. I don’t think there are any restrictions on non commercial use at all.
You can use it for your own business purposes. But you can not host it for another company.
You can use it to make a report that you sell. I am not exactly sure where the link is, but if the entire process is automated by n8n i would say it very likely is not allowed.
If you use n8n to generate the report and even to send it automatically, that is fine. That would be your internal business. But if from start to finish it’s just the n8n workflow doing the work then I suspect it will be in violation. ESPECIALLY if your clients credentials directly in the workflow. Then you really are just hosting the workflow for them, which is explicitly disallowed.
It’s easy to say stuff is unfair or ridiculous, but n8n pays for the development and growth of this software. If we were allowed to go and use the software they paid for then that would be very unfair to them.
This is a generous license. it is not hard to get around it by just having your client host it themselves or making sure it’s actually only used for your own internal processes.
I think they have a license team, reach out to them if you want specific answers/permissions for each case
I guess you recognize my name from discord Will go into a bit more detail on my reply here.
If someone is nice enough to share a template for free in the community, this template is for everyone to use as they see fit. Of course you can probably do whatever you want with it. But personally I think it is wrong to grab someone else’s template and try to make money of it. Now it is just 1 template so what is the harm in that? I expect when people do this they will try to do this with more and more templates they find.
It is the same with the 3d printing community for example. People post their stuff for anyone to use and then some just take the design and start selling them. (one difference is that they ussually have a license per design)
Of course if you take a small bit or make it part of a bigger thing that you create your self it is different. But just taking something someone else created and trying to profit of someone else’s work feels wrong.
Hope that makes sense now.
I used these words (like ridiculous) maybe a bit too quickly. But they compare it with Make, and there you would pay a small fee for every time you run a workflow. Simple and for sure they make good money. But then, there is also the embed option, if you use that, you can do that and also pay N8N a fee. But the fees for that are not published. By the way something else: if you use a template, how hard is it to make a simple webpage that uses that workflow to generate a report for people who pay a small fee for that? The good news is that it seems like if I add functionality to the workflow then it is okay.
Embedded is very expensive. That is meant for big companies. That is like $100k a year type license fee I think.
If you get the cloud version (hosted by n8n) I believe the license is much different. To be honest I know nothing about that, so that would be worth checking with the n8n team about
I can see that you feel that way. You probably also feel bad if you buy something for 100 dollar and sell it for 120. You are probably a very nice person but if all people would think like you, there would be a disaster for the economy. Besides, people CHOOSE to make it free, they can also sell it. Plus often times finding customers and make it easy for customers to get it is more work than making something, that is probably the case here too. So I understand you but I do not agree
@CuriousDutchy I just spoke to the founder Jan and he told me they specify what is internal and external use by pretty much the same thing I said.
It’s whether or not the credentials/services are connected to the clients accounts or your. So you actually would be allowed to directly expose endpoints to customers and charge for it, but keep in mind what @BramKn said about the ethics of charging for free template, but there would be nothing stopping you
Thank you, that is good news. So if I install it on a website the services would be connected to my account, right? But what kind of account do you mean?
Keep in mind that I already said that if I would make money with it, I will send the creator of the template some money as a thank you! But some people are just nice and believe in giving and think they will get more back some way or the other
Could you say something about which steps to take to go from template to a functional website? Or should I post a new question about that?
By the way the most likely outcome is that I will never make a dime with it. And I do have an idea to extend the service.
It really depends on the template and what the service is.
You can ask on the forum but that sounds like it might be as much business advice as it is n8n advice, which usually doesn’t get much help here but feel free to give it a shot
I am a freelancer, so of course I know how the economy works.
If you develop a service around a piece of free content and actually put in some work of course feel free to do so, I already said that would be fine in my opinion.
If you just take the template do the minimum and charge for it then no this would not be a very nice thing to do. Of course you are allowed but no it isn’t a nice thing to do.
We are a community, all using n8n which is free for most users, and when we decide to give something to the community in the form of templates, support or custom nodes we do this because we like the community and want to contribute to everyone using it.
If there is enough people that try to profit off other people’s work they do for the community, people will stop contributing which of course is bad for the community.
Will go into a bit more detail on my reply here.