Pricing verified 2026-08-07
n8nautomation.cloud vs Railway — Flat $4 vs Metered Surprise Bill
Railway charges per CPU-second, per GB-second of memory, per GB of egress. For automation that runs 24/7 and retries on failure, that bill is unpredictable — and you're still building the Docker setup and Postgres service yourself. We charge a flat $4/mo, everything included, billed the same number every month.
Flat monthly pricing. Same bill every month regardless of execution volume. From $4/mo.
No credit card charge for 10 days. Cancel anytime.
Why look beyond Railway?
Railway is a usage-based PaaS — it works, but here's what we do differently for teams running n8n.
Usage-based pricing is unpredictable for 24/7 workloads
Railway charges per GB of memory per second, per GB of egress, per request. For automation that polls APIs every few minutes, costs creep up unpredictably. We charge a flat $4/mo regardless of usage.
You deploy your own n8n image
Railway is a great deploy target, but you bring the Dockerfile and the Postgres service. Both need to stay updated, monitored, and backed up by you.
Plan-level resource caps shared across all your services
On lower Railway tiers, memory is capped across all services in your workspace. n8n + Postgres + any other projects you run share that pool — check Railway's current limits before committing. We provision a dedicated DigitalOcean droplet just for your n8n instance.
Head-to-head
| Feature | n8nautomation.cloud | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat $4/mo — predictable | Usage-based — variable bill |
| Real cost, 1 vCPU / 1 GB always-on | $4/mo flat, all-in | ~$30/mo in compute alone at Railway's published per-second rates (memory + CPU), before Postgres or egress |
| Setup | Auto-provisioned | You write the deploy config |
| Database included | Yes — managed Postgres | Separate Postgres service you provision |
| n8n updates | Automatic | Manual (redeploy) |
| Free trial | 10 days, full access, no card charged | $5 trial credit, then usage-based |
| Custom domain | Included | Included |
| n8n-specialist support | Yes | Platform-level only |
Railway pricing/feature data from their published pricing as of 2026-08-07. Refresh quarterly.
How you actually pay
Headline prices on competitor sites often hide an annual or multi-year commitment, taxes, or usage-based metering. Here's the real picture, side by side.
n8nautomation.cloud
Monthly billingPay monthly via Stripe. Cancel anytime from the dashboard with one click.
Railway
Usage-based$5/mo Hobby includes base usage credit; you pay metered after that.
Catch: Hard to forecast — bill scales with CPU-seconds, memory-seconds, and egress. An always-on n8n + Postgres typically exceeds Hobby's $5 base, but the exact monthly cost depends on your workload.
What you'd save
Real workload scenarios compared at published pricing.
Cron-style workflows, hourly polling
~~720/mo executions
Railway
Railway Hobby — base $5 + metered overage
Us
$4/mo Basic flat
Webhook-heavy app, always-on n8n + Postgres
~~10k/mo executions
Railway
Railway metered — bill scales with CPU/RAM/egress
Us
$4/mo Basic flat
Frequently asked
Is Railway a good place to host n8n?
If you're already on Railway for other services, it's fine. Standalone for n8n, the usage-based model gets unpredictable — and you're maintaining the Docker setup and Postgres service yourself.
Will my bill stay $4 on n8nautomation.cloud no matter what?
Yes — your plan price is fixed. The only variable is if you upgrade to a larger server (2 GB, 4 GB, etc.) or add daily backups on plans under $20. No per-execution or per-bandwidth charges, ever.
How does Railway's $5/mo Hobby plan compare?
Railway Hobby gives you $5 of credit per month, then charges metered above that. The actual cost of running n8n + Postgres always-on depends on memory, CPU-seconds, and egress — Railway publishes per-second rates on their pricing page. We can't quote a hard number that applies to every workload, but Railway themselves describe Hobby as a starting tier that small projects outgrow. Our $4 flat plan is predictable: same number every month regardless of execution volume.
Can I move from Railway to n8nautomation.cloud?
Yes. Export your workflows from your Railway-hosted n8n (Settings → Workflows → Export → JSON). Import on day one of your free trial here. Credentials re-entered for security, workflows transfer cleanly.
What does an always-on n8n instance actually cost on Railway?
Railway publishes per-second rates: $0.00000386/GB-second for memory and $0.00000772/vCPU-second for CPU. Run a modest 1 vCPU / 1 GB instance 24/7 for a 30-day month and that's roughly $10 in memory plus $20 in CPU — about $30/mo in compute alone, before Postgres or egress, well past the $5 Hobby credit. Our flat plans include the server, Postgres, and egress in one fixed price.
When might Railway actually be the better choice?
If your n8n workload is genuinely bursty — mostly idle with occasional short spikes — usage-based billing can come out cheaper than a flat monthly server, since you're not paying for idle capacity. It also fits naturally if you're already running other services on Railway and want everything metered under one account. Automation that runs 24/7 (most production n8n setups, since triggers and schedules fire continuously) doesn't get that benefit — you're paying for uptime either way.
Try managed n8n yourself
10 days free, full access, no card charged. Cancel anytime.