n8n
We run it and rate it — and hosting client workflows on it requires a commercial agreement that the Sustainable Use Licence does not cover, confirmed to us in writing.
- How well we know it
- We ran this in production
- Basis
- Four self-hosted instances, ~127 workflows, since 2026
- Verified
Is n8n free to use for your own business?
Yes. The Sustainable Use Licence covers internal use, and self-hosting costs you only the compute. We run four instances this way.
Can you host client workflows on n8n?
Not under the Sustainable Use Licence. n8n confirmed to us in writing on 2026-08-25 that offering n8n as a service to external clients requires a commercial agreement — Enterprise or OEM.
Does giving each client their own isolated instance solve it?
No. We asked precisely this. Isolated instances do not change the requirement, and neither does the fact that clients never log into n8n directly and we build every workflow ourselves. A shared platform clients log into would be assessed differently.
What does the commercial licence cost?
We do not know. No price was given. We are recording that gap rather than guessing at it, because any per-client cost model that assumes n8n is free is wrong by an unknown amount.
Who should use it
- Any business automating its OWN operations — this is the case the licence is written for, and it is excellent at it
- Teams who want self-hosted automation without a per-task bill
- Anyone who has outgrown Zapier pricing and can run a container
Who should not
- Agencies planning to run client automations without a commercial agreement — the isolation workaround does not work
- Anyone who needs a firm per-client cost model today, until the Enterprise price is known
What we did not check
Stated so you can weigh the verdict properly. A page that only lists what it knows is hiding its edges.
- The actual Enterprise or OEM price — requested in writing, not yet answered
- Whether a shared platform that clients log into would be materially cheaper than per-client instances
Related evaluations
- GoHighLevelRejected
We exited after the per-sub-account costs made client pricing impossible to quote, and the AU rate card was never supplied after two written requests.
- Cal.comConditional
Excellent self-hosted for your own bookings, and the wrong choice for client bookings — API-key creation is an Enterprise feature on self-hosted, so the free cloud tier is the cheap answer.