Is n8n free for commercial use? Who needs a license, by situation

Is n8n free for commercial use? Yes, for the self-hosted Community edition, as long as you use it for your own business and the people who create or edit workflows work for your organization. The line n8n draws is not whether money changes hands, but who can build the workflows. This guide, read against n8n's documents on October 25, 2026, sorts the common situations into allowed, allowed with a condition, and needs a commercial license.

Is n8n free for commercial use? It depends on who builds the workflows

n8n's License FAQ opens with the rule that matters: "If workflows are only created or modified by you or people in your organization, you can use n8n under the Community license for free." The FAQ adds that the Community license, officially the Sustainable Use License, "applies to the self-hosted version of n8n only."

The license text itself, in the n8n repository, is short. Its Limitations section says you "may use or modify the software only for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use," and that you "may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes."

The FAQ then defines the phrase doing the work: "internal business purpose" refers to "the use of n8n within your organization or product where people outside of your business can receive or see what your workflows produce." So a customer receiving an email your workflow sent is fine. A customer configuring the workflow is a different matter.

Your situation, and which license it needs

The table sorts the scenarios n8n's own FAQ and help-center article address. Wording in quotes is n8n's; the verdicts are n8n's too, not ours.

Can I charge clients for n8n workflows?

Yes. The FAQ lists "Charge your customers for workflow creation, setup, and maintenance services" and "Charge your customers for training and consultancy services" among things you can do. In the agency section it says "There is no limit on the number of clients you can serve from a single instance. The determining factor is client access, not client count or revenue volume."

The condition is that clients "receive only the automation outputs." The FAQ also covers credentials: clients can connect their own accounts to automations you built "as long as they cannot access the n8n workflow builder or configure workflow logic themselves." In its words, what matters is "who controls the workflow logic."

Can I use n8n for client work on the client's server?

Yes, with one limit. n8n says you can charge for "installing, configuring, building workflows, and maintaining n8n on their behalf" as long as "you don't offer hosting as well, which would compete with n8n's own Cloud offering." Once the client runs it, the client chooses the plan or license that fits their own use, according to the help-center article.

Can I put n8n inside my SaaS product?

It depends on what the user does. The FAQ's example of a project-management app that sends tickets to n8n to be scored, where "n8n is invisible throughout," is allowed. Its example of a platform for freelancers with a workflow builder users configure through a custom UI is "not allowed," because "the SUL test is not about UI visibility - it is about who controls the workflow logic and whose commercial interests are being served."

The help-center article says outside people building or configuring workflows triggers the commercial-license requirement "whether they do it in the n8n editor, your own interface, the n8n API, MCP, or through an AI agent acting for them." The FAQ calls the test "medium-neutral" and says "triggering or executing pre-built workflows via API or webhooks is fine."

One example in the FAQ is flagged as gray: a vendor shipping n8n to run at a customer's premises as part of a paid product. n8n calls it "permissible" but says "it may sit in gray territory" and recommends confirming the architecture with license@n8n.io before launch.

What the free self-hosted edition leaves out

Free to use is not the same as every feature switched on. According to n8n's edition comparison, the Community edition "includes almost the complete feature set of n8n," but leaves out:

• Custom variables, environments and version control using Git
• External secrets and external storage for binary data
• Log streaming and multi-main mode (queue mode is included)
• Projects
• SSO through SAML or LDAP
• Sharing of workflows and credentials, where "Only the instance owner and the user who creates them can access workflows and credentials"

Registering the instance with your email gets a free license key that unlocks folders, debug in editor and custom execution data, according to the same page. It is still the free edition.

Paid keys start with the Business plan. On its pricing page on October 25, 2026, n8n lists Business at 667€ a month billed annually for 40K workflow executions, self-hosted only, with SSO and LDAP, Git version control and queue mode. The page also lists a Start-up plan offering 50% off Business for companies under 20 employees. Enterprise is "contact sales."

The page also says that to use Business or Enterprise features on a self-hosted instance, you get a license key that "must ping our license server daily to stay active," and that the ping includes data such as the number of production executions.

n8n Cloud sits under separate terms

The Community license does not cover n8n Cloud. The FAQ says Cloud "is a paid subscription with its own terms; this page doesn't apply to it." On the pricing page, Cloud Starter is 20€ a month billed annually for 2.5K workflow executions, and Pro is 50€ a month billed annually for 10K. Those are euro prices as listed on the page we read; we did not check how they appear in other currencies.

This matters for agencies. On managing many client environments, the FAQ says to contact license@n8n.io and that "a partner program covering multi-instance management is in development." The FAQ and help-center article exclude Cloud and, on the October 25 reads, do not address running one Cloud account for several clients, so ask n8n before you build that model.

Is n8n open source? By its own account, no

n8n answers this directly in its community license page: "according to the Open Source Initiative (OSI), open source licenses can't include limitations on use, so we do not call ourselves open source." It uses the term fair-code instead: source available, free to use, "commercially restricted by its authors."

The practical effect is a procurement one. If your company has a policy against software that restricts commercial use, n8n's own page says that provided you use n8n internally and do not make it available to customers to build workflows, "you should be able to use n8n." In our view, put that to your legal team in writing rather than relying on that sentence alone.

Two more facts from the license documents. First, the repository license says files with ".ee." in the name, or in an ".ee" directory, are not under the Sustainable Use License, and need an n8n Enterprise License. The Enterprise License says that software may only be used in production if you hold a valid Enterprise license. Second, n8n says a contributor agreement "gives n8n the ability to change its license without seeking additional permission," which is one reason to re-read the terms before each major commitment.

What to do if the license rules out your use

If you need customers to build their own automations on top of an engine you host, n8n says to contact sales@n8n.io about an Enterprise license. The alternative is an engine under a permissive license. The Activepieces repository states that content outside its "ee" directories is under the MIT Expat license, which grants the right to "use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell." In our view that is a looser grant than n8n's, though its enterprise directories carry a separate license, so read the repository you plan to ship.

Upfynd lists n8n and Activepieces alongside hosted tools like Zapier in the Automation & No-Code category, which had 297 products as of October 2026. If the question is "can I self-host this and charge for it," our earlier open source Calendly alternatives post walks the same license check for scheduling tools, and our Pipedream alternatives guide covers replacing a hosted workflow tool by workflow type.

Five steps before you build on n8n

1. Write down who will create or edit workflows. If anyone outside your organization will, stop and ask n8n for a commercial license.
2. Decide where it runs. Self-hosted means the Sustainable Use License; Cloud means a subscription.
3. List the features you need. Sharing, projects, SSO, Git version control or external secrets mean a paid or registered key.
4. Keep clients and end users out of the editor, the API and any MCP or AI-agent route into building workflows.
5. If your case matches the gray example or anything the FAQ does not cover, email license@n8n.io and keep the reply.

The termination clause is worth knowing too. If you break the terms, "your license will automatically terminate," but if n8n sends notice and you "cease all violation of this license no later than 30 days after you receive that notice, your license will be reinstated retroactively." A second violation after reinstatement ends it permanently.

Not legal advice

We read n8n's License FAQ, help-center article, license files and pricing page on October 25, 2026. Licenses, terms and prices change, and this page will not update itself. This is not legal advice. Read the current documents yourself, and take advice from a lawyer where real money rests on the answer, such as a product you sell or a client contract. We have not checked how the license applies under any particular country's law. If you build automation tools, you can list your product on Upfynd for free.