What n8n is, and what it actually automates.
A tool that connects the apps you already pay for and does the work between them without anyone sitting there doing it by hand.
Short version: n8n is an open-source automation platform. You wire up a process — "when this arrives, do that" — and it runs itself. You can host it on your own server for a few euro a month, which means your data never leaves your infrastructure and you are not paying per task.
How it works in practice
Every workflow has three parts. A trigger — what starts it: a new email, a submitted form, a time of day, a payment. Steps — what happens next: reading data, checking a condition, reshaping it, asking a model something. An action — where the result lands: a row in a sheet, a Slack message, a CRM record, a reply.
You connect those into a diagram and switch it on. After that it runs whether or not anyone is at work.
One real example
An enquiry arrives by email. Until now somebody opened it, retyped the name, the phone number and what they wanted into a spreadsheet, tagged the email, and messaged the colleague who handles it. Four minutes, fifteen times a day.
Automated: n8n reads the email, an AI step pulls out the name, number and request, adds the row, tags the message and posts a summary to Slack with a link. Four minutes becomes zero.
Fifteen enquiries at four minutes is an hour a day. Twenty-two working days is twenty-two hours a month. That arithmetic is what makes automation an easy decision — not the technology.
n8n, Make or Zapier
| n8n | Make | Zapier | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-hosting | Yes — your own server | No | No |
| How you pay | A server, or their cloud plan | Subscription by operation | Subscription by task |
| Easy to start | Moderate | Easy | Easiest |
| Flexibility and code | High — JavaScript inside the workflow | Moderate | Limited |
| Where the data sits | With you, when self-hosted | With the provider | With the provider |
All three change their pricing; check their own pages before comparing numbers.
There is no universally right answer. If you need two simple workflows and do not want a server, Make will do the job and I will say so. n8n wins once the workflows multiply, once they touch personal data, or once you would rather the cost not grow with every request handled.
What it costs
- ·A server — €5 to €10 a month is enough for a small business running a few workflows
- ·Building a workflow — from €69 with me for one process connecting two tools
- ·AI steps — charged on use, typically a few euro a month at this volume
- ·Maintenance — optional, and worth it once a workflow becomes load-bearing
If one process is eating an hour a day, it pays for itself inside a month at any of those numbers.
What is not worth automating
Automation earns its place on work that is frequent, predictable and rule-bound. The reverse is also true, and more useful to say out loud:
- ·Something you do twice a month — the build time will not come back
- ·Decisions that need judgement where a wrong call is expensive
- ·A process still in flux — settle it first, then automate it
- ·A conversation where the customer expects a person. An automatic reply in a place that expects a human costs more than it saves
Frequently asked questions
Is n8n free?
n8n or Make?
Do I need to be able to code?
Where does my data go?
Where to go from here
If you are weighing up whether to hire an agency or one developer for this, that comparison is here. If you already know which process is eating your time, the service page is here and the starting price is €69.