Hi folks, I’ve been using automation tools for years now and currently rely heavily on Make for our company’s workflow automation. I’m interested in switching to n8n but I’m having trouble justifying the cost structure.
We’re a mid-size B2B company and automation is critical for our operations. Any downtime or issues with our workflows can directly affect revenue, so reliability is non-negotiable.
Currently we operate around 200 active workflows on Make and pay roughly $20k annually, which works well for our budget and needs.
When I looked into n8n pricing, here’s what I found:
// Current setup example
const currentWorkflows = 200;
const annualCost = 20000;
const costPerWorkflow = annualCost / currentWorkflows; // $100 per workflow
// n8n enterprise quote
const n8nQuote = 20000;
const n8nWorkflowLimit = 20;
const n8nCostPerWorkflow = n8nQuote / n8nWorkflowLimit; // $1000 per workflow
Self-hosting isn’t really an option because we need enterprise features like SSO and audit trails, plus we can’t risk system maintenance issues when key staff are unavailable.
The enterprise cloud option was quoted at $20k yearly for only 20 workflows, which would handle maybe 10% of what we need.
Am I overlooking something in their pricing model? How are other enterprise users handling this cost difference? Are most n8n users working with smaller workflow volumes or self-hosting despite the risks?
That quote sounds way off. We switched from Zapier to n8n enterprise last year and had a completely different experience. They priced us based on executions and data transfer, not workflow limits. Their sales team showed us multiple tiers with different execution allowances - never mentioned a 20-workflow cap. You might’ve gotten quoted for their premium tier, or there was some miscommunication about what you need. n8n’s enterprise sales is pretty consultative. They dig into your execution patterns, data volumes, and how complex your integrations are before giving you real numbers. Did you share detailed usage metrics from your current Make setup? That usually gets you better pricing discussions. We ended up paying competitively compared to other enterprise platforms, especially since we needed way less custom dev work. n8n’s flexibility let us combine several simple automations into more efficient workflows.
I went through this exact same evaluation last year and stuck with Make even though n8n’s flexibility caught my eye. That pricing gap you found is brutal for enterprise users running lots of workflows. n8n’s enterprise pricing targets companies that need complex, heavily customized workflows - not high-volume standard automation. They’re going after businesses running fewer but way more sophisticated workflows with tons of custom logic. Your cost-per-workflow math matches what I discovered. Most enterprise n8n users I talked to were either running super complex integrations that justified paying the premium, or they’d negotiated custom pricing for higher workflow limits. Have you tried talking to their enterprise sales team about custom pricing? Some vendors will adjust their packages for established businesses with clear needs. One thing to consider - n8n workflows can sometimes replace multiple Make scenarios with a single workflow because of their branching capabilities. This might cut your total workflow count, but you’d need serious migration work and it probably won’t close that cost gap anyway.
That pricing is completely off for enterprise. We run 150 workflows on n8n enterprise and pay way less than $1k per workflow. You either got a terrible quote or they didn’t understand what you need. Push back hard with sales - those numbers don’t match reality. Also worth checking Zapier enterprise if Make isn’t working out.