Self-hosting n8n looks cheap until you read the fine print. A $5 VPS headline usually means a 24-month prepay, and the renewal price is what you actually pay long term. Here is what I found when I checked providers' public pricing pages on 2026-10-22.
What n8n needs
n8n plus Postgres in Docker idles at roughly 0.5-1 GB of RAM and spikes with large payloads or many concurrent runs. My rule of thumb: 2 GB for light use, 4 GB as a comfortable minimum, 8 GB for heavy workflows.
Cheapest workable VPS plans (USD/month)
| Plan | Specs | Intro | Renewal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contabo Cloud VPS 10 | 4 vCPU, 8 GB, 100 GB | $5.28 | $6.60 |
| Hostinger KVM 1 | 1 vCPU, 4 GB, 50 GB | $6.49 | $11.99 |
| OVHcloud VPS-1 | 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 40 GB | $4.54 | not verified |
| DigitalOcean Basic 4 GB | 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB | $24 | $24 |
| Vultr 4 GB | 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB | $20 | $20 |
Contabo and Hostinger need a 24-month term for the intro price. DigitalOcean and Vultr bill hourly with no lock-in, which is worth something if you are not sure yet.
n8n Cloud vs self-hosting
n8n Cloud Starter is $24/mo ($20 billed annually) for 2,500 executions; Pro is $60/mo ($50 annually) for 10,000. If you run a few workflows and don't want to maintain a server, Cloud is reasonable. If you run many scheduled workflows, the execution cap is the thing to watch, and a VPS has no cap beyond its hardware. Details: n8n Cloud vs self-hosted.
Costs people forget
- Backups: snapshots usually add 10-20%, or run a nightly pg_dump to object storage. Back up your N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY too, without it your credentials are gone.
- Domain: about $10-15/year. TLS via Let's Encrypt is free.
- Your time: a couple of hours to set up, then about an hour a month for updates and checks.
The tools
I built StackCost to put these numbers side by side, with renewal prices shown first and unverified numbers left blank:
- selfhostcalc.com - price tracker
- Calculator - estimate your monthly cost
- Cheapest VPS for n8n
- Raw data
Disclosure: I run the site. Some "View deal" links may become affiliate links in the future; see the affiliate disclosure.
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