The question that comes before the price
People ask what the Vault costs. The question underneath is usually different: why is this built for a tool I have to install, when Zapier works in a browser tab and everybody's cousin uses it?
Fair question. Two reasons. One is money, and it is the smaller one.
The arithmetic, once
Zapier counts a task whenever it successfully completes a unit of work, so a Zap with nine action steps spends nine tasks every time it runs. Triggers, polling and built-in tools like Formatter are not counted. (Zapier pricing) n8n counts one execution per workflow run, no matter how many steps are in it. (n8n pricing)
Take one real workflow from the Vault: a website form arrives, the lead gets scored, a reply is drafted, the CRM row is written, you get a notification, the sheet is updated. Call it nine actions. Four hundred leads in a month:
- On a per-task model that is roughly 3,600 billable tasks. Zapier's Professional plan starts at $19.99 a month for 750 tasks billed annually ($29.99 billed monthly), so you are several tiers up from the entry price — 3,600 tasks lands on the 5,000-task step, $89 a month billed annually.
- On a per-execution model that is 400 executions — comfortably inside n8n's Starter plan at €20 a month, billed annually, for 2,500.
- Self-hosted, it is 400 runs on a server you already pay for, and the number stops mattering.
We are deliberately not quoting a headline saving, because tier structures change and any figure would be stale by next quarter. The shape is the point: a per-step model charges you for building thoroughly. Adding an error branch, a logging step, a second notification — each one raises your bill forever. A per-execution model charges you for running, and the thoroughness is free.
That matters for a product like this, because good workflows are wordy. The ones in the Vault have validation steps and error paths in them precisely because those are what separate an automation that survives from one you switch off in week three.
The reason that actually decided it
An n8n workflow is a JSON file. That is the whole argument.
Because it is a file, it can be exported, versioned, diffed against last month, backed up, emailed, and — crucially — sold as a finished thing that somebody else imports and owns. Zapier can share a Zap as a template link, and that is useful. What you cannot do is keep the thing on your own disk, compare it against the version that worked, or hand it to someone who doesn't have an account on that platform.
A product like the Automation Vault can only exist on the first model. The 21 files ship as files: they import into your own instance, they export back byte-identical, and nothing about them depends on our account continuing to exist. If Hourbench disappeared tomorrow, your workflows would keep running. We think that should be the normal expectation for something you paid for once.
Anything you cannot export is something you are renting, including the work you put into it.
Self-hosting, and the part of the licence people miss
n8n's Community Edition is free software you can run on your own server, which is the reason it keeps coming up in conversations about client data and EU rules. The licence — the Sustainable Use License — grants use, modification and redistribution for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial use. (n8n docs)
Two practical consequences, because this trips people up:
- Running your own business on it is fine, including building automations for your clients and handing those over.
- Selling access to n8n itself is not. White-labelling it and offering it to customers for money, or hosting it and charging people for access, falls outside internal business purposes and needs a commercial agreement. If your plan is near that line, n8n answers licence questions directly at license@n8n.io.
Where Zapier is the better answer
We would rather say this than have you find out after paying:
- Your critical tool only exists in Zapier's catalogue. Zapier's own documentation puts it at over 8,000 apps. If the one application your business cannot work without is in that catalogue and nowhere else, the decision is made and the billing model is irrelevant.
- Nobody in the business wants to run a server. n8n Cloud removes that, but if you are self-hosting to save money, you have swapped a subscription for an operational duty: updates, backups, and an upgrade path that occasionally breaks things quietly.
- A non-technical colleague has to take it over. Zapier is markedly easier to hand to somebody who has never seen a node graph.
- Your volumes are tiny. A hundred tasks a month is free on Zapier, and nothing beats free for a workflow that fires twice a week.
What n8n costs you that Zapier doesn't
The learning curve is real. Nodes, expressions and the occasional look at raw JSON are part of the deal, and nobody should pretend otherwise. So is ownership of your own failures: on a self-hosted instance, if a credential expires at 3am, no vendor notices for you.
That is exactly why the Vault opens with Module 01 rather than the impressive workflows. 01.02 Universal Error Handler exists to give every other workflow somewhere to report to, and 01.01 Connection Test exists so that the thing which breaks first is the cheap one. The tool gives you control; the missing half is the discipline that comes with it, and that half is what we tried to ship in the box.
How we would decide it today
- Count the steps in your longest workflow. If it is under four, the billing models barely differ and you should pick on convenience.
- Check whether your one irreplaceable tool has a connector. If it exists in only one catalogue, stop here.
- Ask where the data has to live. If the answer is "on our own infrastructure", the list is one item long.
- Ask who maintains it in a year. If that is not you, weight ease of handover above everything above.