Albato vs n8n: Price per Step or Price per Run

The short answer: if your automations are two or three steps and the people building them are marketers, Albato is the gentler start, with a free plan that has no time limit and Pro from $22 a month on monthly billing for 1,000 transactions, checked on 26 October 2026 on Albato's pricing page. Once a flow runs to six steps or more, n8n's meter wins on price: Starter is $24 a month on monthly billing for 2,500 executions, and an execution is a whole run of any length (n8n pricing).

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What n8n changes, next to Albato, is that length is free. Albato charges a transaction for every step after the trigger; n8n charges once per production run, whatever happens inside it. n8n also lets you run the whole platform on your own servers.

Rule of thumb, with the arithmetic:

1. Short flows are close to a tie. For example, two actions run 400 times a month is 2 x 400 = 800 transactions on Albato, inside Pro's 1,000 at $22 (Albato pricing), and 400 executions on n8n, inside Starter at $24 (n8n pricing).
2. Long flows are not. For example, six actions run 1,500 times is 6 x 1,500 = 9,000 transactions, which needs Albato's 10,000 tier at $110 a month on monthly billing (Albato pricing). On n8n it is 1,500 executions, still inside Starter's 2,500 (n8n pricing).
3. Match it to the person who will build. n8n's own docs point anyone without technical expertise to n8n Cloud, and keep self-hosting for teams with infrastructure and technical resources (choose n8n). Albato's Copilot builds a workflow from a plain description (Albato).
4. Check how long the evidence stays. Albato keeps execution logs 30 days on Pro (pricing page); n8n keeps them 7 days on Starter and 30 on Pro (n8n pricing). Export what you need for a monthly review before it rolls off.

The comparison table

The worked examples, side by side

Prices checked on 26 October 2026, monthly billing, from the Albato and n8n pricing pages:

On annual billing the same rows cost $15, $77 and $168 on Albato, and $20, $20 and $50 on n8n, per the same two pages.

Where they differ

What a long flow costs

The table above is the whole argument. Albato's price climbs with every step you add; n8n's climbs only with runs, and its docs add that manual test runs, sub-workflows and error workflows never count (executions). Albato's counter has its own kindness: the trigger is always free, so a flow that checks often and rarely finds anything costs nothing (pricing FAQ).

Who can log in

Every n8n plan includes unlimited users and workflows (n8n pricing). Albato's Pro plan has one seat and Teams has five, from $93 a month on monthly billing for 5,000 transactions (Albato pricing). A marketing team of four that wants to share flows pays for Teams on Albato, and for nothing extra on n8n. Pro is sold with one seat, so on Albato the second person who wants to edit a flow, not the volume, is what moves the account to Teams.

Where the data sits

n8n's hosted plans store data on servers in Frankfurt, and self-hosted n8n stores it wherever you host it (pricing FAQ). For a team with a strict data-residency rule and someone to run Docker, that settles it.

An agent step on Albato, with its limits set

Albato's AI Agent step takes a prompt, agent instructions and optional guardrails of up to 1,000 characters each, a model from OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek or Albato AI, and actions from connected apps as tools, out of around 5,000 available (agent guide). Applied to inbound leads: the agent reads each new contact, writes high-priority ones to a sheet and pings Slack for demo requests, with a guardrail that it never emails the lead itself. The person who receives the Slack ping makes the first contact. n8n's equivalent can go one step further, with the email tool put behind a reviewer's approval in Slack, Telegram or n8n's chat before it runs (human review).

Free routes first

Albato's Free plan needs no card and has no time limit (Albato), so build a two-step version of your flow there. n8n's Community Edition is free to self-host, and n8n Cloud's trial gives 1,000 executions without a card (n8n pricing). Run the full-length flow on n8n and the short version on Albato for a week, and compare the logs.

Self-hosting n8n does not take you off the meter for paid features. A Business or Enterprise licence key must ping n8n's licence server daily, and that ping includes the number of production executions (pricing FAQ). Only paid plans carry an execution quota, per n8n's executions docs, so size your volume before you depend on a paid feature.

Choose Albato if your job is

• Running short flows between everyday apps, built by marketers with Copilot's help.
• Keeping a free plan running indefinitely for low-volume jobs.

Choose n8n if your job is

• Running long flows, where per-step billing would multiply.
• Sharing workflows with a whole team at no cost per seat.
• Keeping data in Frankfurt or on your own servers.

FAQ

Does Albato charge for triggers?

No. Only steps that run after the trigger use transactions (pricing FAQ).

Can I use n8n without running servers?

Yes. n8n Cloud is fully managed, with Starter and Pro plans and a free trial first (choose n8n).

What does Albato do when a package runs out?

Automations keep running on extra transactions priced 50% above those in the package, and Albato notifies you when that starts (pricing FAQ).