As a long-time advocate for n8n, I’m disappointed to see their new self-hosted Business tier pricing model. It completely misunderstands the needs of high-volume users like me. While the Community Edition remains free, and Enterprise plans exist for teams needing top-tier support, the new Business plan is priced per execution, just like their cloud offering.
This model doesn’t work for self-hosters like me, who bring our own infrastructure and pay for our own compute, bandwidth, storage, and maintenance. Yet, we’re being charged again for every execution. For my current usage, I’d be paying over $124,800 per year, which is unworkable.
I want to support good software, but this model taxes success and breaks the core value of self-hosting: cost control and freedom. I’d gladly pay per user, but not executions on my hardware. If this pricing model stands, I’ll have to stop recommending n8n and start exploring alternatives that respect the cost model of self-hosting.
I still believe in what n8n can be, but I need a pricing model that makes sense for high-volume users. I hope n8n will reconsider their pricing strategy and find a way to support their self-hosted users.