Gumloop vs n8n: Agents That Plan or Workflows You Define

The short answer: if the job is open-ended, such as a weekly competitor brief where the agent decides what to read and in what order, Gumloop is built for it: Pro is $37 a month with 20,000 credits and unlimited seats, checked on 26 October 2026 on Gumloop's pricing page. If the job is a fixed process with one AI decision in the middle, such as routing demo requests, n8n shows every step on a canvas and bills one execution per run, from $24 a month on monthly billing for 2,500 runs (n8n pricing).

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What Gumloop changes is who designs the path. Its docs now lead with agents that get a model, instructions and connectors, then pick their own tools for each task (agents). On n8n you draw the path, and an AI Agent node makes only the choices you hand it; its homepage promises that you can open any step and see what it does (n8n).

Before you pick:

1. Price one task in credits. A Gumloop credit is $0.005, and a chat pays for model tokens, 1 credit per successful connector call, 5 credits per active minute and an 8% orchestration fee on top (credits). For example, 120 credits of tokens, 6 of tool calls and 5 of compute make 131; the fee is 8% of 131 = 10.48, rounded up to 11, so 142 credits, or $0.71 at list price, and Pro's 20,000 covers 140 such tasks a month. On n8n the same task is one execution however many steps it takes (n8n pricing).
2. Start from the connectors you have. Gumloop agents work through 300+ connectors, from Gmail to Salesforce (agents); n8n has 500+ native integrations and calls anything else over HTTP (n8n). Check the three apps the task touches first.
3. Know where the cost will show. Each Gumloop chat opens a breakdown by credit type, and an Insights dashboard totals spend by agent and model (credits). n8n's Insights dashboard counts production executions (pricing FAQ). Track cost per useful output, not per run.

The facts in one table

What sets them apart

Who decides the steps

On Gumloop the agent plans: the same agent can spend 2 credits on a quick question and 200 on deep research, in the credits page's own example (credits). On n8n you decide the steps, and the agent node chooses only among the tools you connect to it, at least one of which is required (AI Agent node). Open work suits the first. Work with a right answer suits the second.

How predictable the bill is

An n8n execution costs the same for 3 steps or 30, and manual test runs are free (executions). Gumloop's cost moves with the model, the length of the conversation and the number of connected tools, since each tool's definition adds tokens (credits). Bringing your own model key takes model spend to 0 credits and raises the orchestration fee from 8% to 16%, per the same page.

What the agent may touch

Gumloop sets approval per connector, and its docs suggest "Ask for writes/deletes" as a default: reads run freely, while writes and deletes wait for you (human in the loop). n8n gates individual tools: put the risky ones behind review and leave lookups open (human review). Both keep a person between the agent and anything irreversible.

The agent step, with the approval card

The job: every Monday, a Gumloop agent on a scheduled trigger reads three competitors' pricing pages, compares them with last week's notes in a Google Sheet, and proposes updates to the sales team's battlecard. The Sheets connector is set to Ask for writes/deletes, so the agent reads freely but pauses before writing; an approval card with a readable summary arrives in the app, as a Slack DM or in the chat thread, and the agent continues only on approval (human in the loop). The docs add a caution worth keeping: cards show key details, not every argument, so read the task context before approving.

Prices on 26 October 2026

Gumloop, from its pricing page and credits page: Pro starts at $37 a month with 20,000 credits, 7,400 at list price plus 12,600 bonus credits; Enterprise is custom. The 14-day trial needs a card and becomes a paid plan unless cancelled.

n8n, from its pricing page, in USD a month:

Gumloop's Pro credits reset each month and do not roll over, except on Enterprise (credits). A credit an agent spends costs Gumloop tokens and compute; a credit that resets unused costs it nothing, and you paid for both. An allowance that expires is priced on the use you plan and paid in full on the use you skip, so size it on four weeks of real chats, not on the bonus total.

Run it free before paying

n8n costs nothing to try: the self-hosted Community Edition is free, and n8n Cloud's trial gives 1,000 executions without a card (n8n pricing). Build the battlecard job there first as a fixed workflow with one AI Agent node. If the fixed path keeps missing what matters, that is the case for an agent that plans, and Gumloop's trial is the place to test it, with a reminder set before day 14.

Choose Gumloop if your job is

• Research, briefs and CRM upkeep where the agent should decide what to look at.
• Giving agents to many colleagues at once, with shared credentials and one credit pool.

Choose n8n if your job is

• A process with a known path and an AI decision inside it.
• Predictable cost per run, or data kept on your own servers.

If the open question is which marketing jobs should go to an agent at all, and who checks each one, that is the work my agentic marketing engagements cover.

FAQ

Does Gumloop still have workflows?

Yes, listed as Workflows (Legacy), with 5 concurrent runs on Pro (pricing page).

What happens when Gumloop credits run out?

Agents stop unless credit overage is on, billed at $0.005 a credit and capped on Pro at 1,000,000 overage credits per billing period by default (credits).

Who pays for the model on n8n?

You do, through your own provider credentials, or through Gateway credits on n8n Cloud Starter and Pro, which run supported models without a provider account (Gateway credits).