I’ve been wondering if people are really earning actual profits from n8n automation work. I’m not asking about total sales or revenue numbers here. I want to know about real net profit after all expenses. It feels like most folks just use n8n for hobby projects or internal company stuff. I’m curious if anyone has built serious commercial products with n8n that actually generate good money. If you’re making decent profits with n8n, I’d love to hear about your customer base and how your automation solutions help them solve real problems in their business operations.
Been running n8n automations commercially for 18 months - there’s definitely money here. I target small to medium businesses that need custom integrations but can’t swing enterprise pricing. My sweet spot? E-commerce stores needing order processing, inventory syncing, and customer data workflows automated. Most clients pay $500-2000 monthly for ongoing services. Overhead’s minimal since n8n hosting is cheap. I hunt for businesses drowning in repetitive manual work that burns staff time. Real estate agencies are gold mines - tons of lead management and follow-up workflows begging for automation. After hosting and time investment, I’m hitting 70% profit margins on most projects. Biggest headache? Explaining why automation matters to clients who don’t get it yet.
Different approach - I package n8n workflows as SaaS micro-tools instead of custom client work. Built three automated solutions over two years targeting specific pain points: lead scoring for marketing agencies, expense report processing for consultants, and social media content distribution. Each runs on n8n backend with simple frontend. Monthly subscriptions from $29-99 per user. The trick was finding repetitive tasks that hit multiple businesses, not one-off solutions. Takes 3-4 months to develop each tool, but now they’re consistent recurring revenue with barely any maintenance. Running about 80% profit margins since n8n keeps costs low. Marketing and customer acquisition are the real challenges - tech side’s easy.
yeah, but it took forever to find the right niche. I do workflow consulting for nonprofits - they’re broke but desperately need automation. I charge way less than enterprise consultants, but the volume makes up for it. most want donor management and volunteer coordination automated. i’m hitting about 60% profit margins after factoring in my time.