Is n8n MCP Free? Pricing and Self-Hosting
Wondering is n8n mcp free? Cost follows your n8n plan and where you host it, not the connector alone. Here is what to check and how to install it.
Whether it costs anything depends on how you run n8n, not on the MCP connection alone. The short version of "is n8n mcp free" is that three costs are involved: the n8n platform, the connector that triggers workflows, and the machine or plan that hosts it. Self-hosting is not free once you count servers and upkeep. Check n8n's own pricing page, and note the date you read it.
Is n8n itself free?
n8n is a low-code automation platform. You assemble workflows out of connected steps, and each time a workflow runs it produces an execution. That vocabulary matters for cost, because the n8n MCP server exists to trigger workflows and manage executions from an AI agent. The platform you are paying for, or not paying for, is the thing the agent drives, and its pricing is set by n8n rather than by the MCP client or by any directory.
So the only reliable source on plans is n8n's own pricing page and documentation. Figures repeated on blogs go stale quickly, which is why this article quotes no plan prices. When you read the vendor's page, write the date next to whatever you find, because a price without a date is a rumour by the next quarter. Questions worth answering from that page:
- How executions are counted, since an agent may trigger many of them.
- Whether a self-hosted install carries different terms from the hosted product.
- Whether commercial use is allowed on the plan you pick.
- What happens when you go past the limits of that plan.
Free to try and free to run in production are different questions. A generous starting plan can still cost money once an agent begins triggering workflows on a schedule, and an install with no licence fee can still cost you a server. Treat the answer to whether n8n itself is free as a fact about a specific plan on a specific date, never as a permanent property of the product.
Is the n8n MCP server itself free?
Taken alone, is n8n mcp free? The n8n MCP server is a connector, not a platform. It lets Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf and any MCP-compatible agent trigger n8n workflows and manage executions, and it has nothing to connect to without an n8n instance behind it. Its cost cannot be separated from the n8n you point it at. Whatever n8n charges for running workflows is what you should expect when an agent starts them, so check whether agent-triggered runs are counted the same way as the ones you start by hand.
The install route the n8n entry gives is the MCPizy CLI: mcpizy install n8n. It works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code with Copilot and any other MCP client. One caveat as of August 2026: a check could not verify a published package or a reachable endpoint for this server, so no direct run command is shown for it. Confirm the install path works in your own client before you build a routine around it.
No CheckMCP audit is published for this server, so there is no maintenance or quality score to lean on. The guide on how to audit an MCP server before install covers what to inspect yourself. Keep the client in the sum as well: Claude Code, Cursor and the others bill on their own terms, separately from n8n, so the agent that drives the connector is one more line in the budget.
What costs money: self-hosting vs n8n Cloud?
There are two ways to run the n8n that the MCP server talks to: on a machine you control, or on n8n's hosted offering, n8n Cloud. Self-hosting is not free in the sense that matters. You provide the server, keep it patched and backed up, and spend your own hours on it. The cost moves from a subscription to hosting and maintenance, and it can be lower or higher depending on how much you value that time.
- Self-hosting: you pay for the machine and its upkeep, you decide where your data lives, and you own uptime. The agent must be able to reach your instance.
- n8n Cloud: you pay according to n8n's plan terms, and n8n runs the infrastructure. Read the pricing page on the day you decide and record the date.
Reachability is the part people forget. If your agent runs on a laptop and n8n runs on a server elsewhere, the connection has to cross that gap, and where the MCP process lives changes what you configure and what you expose. The comparison in local vs remote MCP servers explains what changes in each case.
Whichever route you choose, write the cost down with its source and date: the pricing page you read, the hosting invoice you actually pay, and the day you checked. That habit turns a vague sense of what it costs into a number you can revisit when n8n changes its plans or your workflow count grows.
What can you do with the free tier via an agent?
Whatever plan you end up on, the surface the MCP server gives you is the same pair of verbs: trigger workflows and manage executions. That is enough for a useful low-budget setup, because the heavy logic lives in n8n and the agent only starts it and inspects the result. A starter path that keeps cost visible:
- Build one small workflow in n8n and run it by hand until it behaves.
- Install the connector with
mcpizy install n8nin your client, or configure it yourself if the CLI route does not work for you. - Ask the agent to trigger that workflow with test data.
- Ask the agent to inspect the latest execution and report whether it succeeded.
Before letting an agent loop or run on a schedule, check how n8n counts executions on your plan. An agent that retries a failed workflow quietly can consume more runs than you would by hand. Start with explicit, single triggers, read the execution list afterwards, and only automate the repetition once you know what each run costs.
If n8n does not fit your budget or stack, the same directory category lists alternatives. Zapier's entry describes triggering Zaps across 6000+ app integrations, and Make's entry describes turning scenarios into callable tools across 1,500+ apps. Apply the same rule to both: read each vendor's own pricing page, note the date, and compare against what n8n costs on the route you chose.
FAQ: quick answers on n8n MCP cost
Does the n8n MCP page state a price?
No, the official page does not state a price for the MCP server. Treat the cost as unknown until you read n8n's own pricing page, and remember that the connector's cost is tied to the n8n instance behind it. If someone tells you is n8n mcp free with a flat yes or no, ask which plan, which hosting route and which date they mean.
Do I have to self-host to use it?
The connector links an agent to an n8n instance, and that instance can be one you run yourself or n8n Cloud. The choice is yours and it is the main lever on cost: self-hosting swaps a plan fee for hosting and maintenance, while the hosted route hands the infrastructure to n8n. Pick the one whose total you can write down with a date.
Which clients work with it?
The n8n entry lists Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code with Copilot and any MCP client. Setup differs by client, so if you use VS Code, the guide on whether GitHub MCP is free to use shows how the same cost-splitting question plays out for another server. Confirm the install path works before relying on it.