Self-hosting n8n looks cheap until you read the fine print. A $5 VPS headline usually means a 24-month prepay, and the renewal price is what you actually pay long term. Here is what I found when I checked providers' public pricing pages on 2026-10-22.

What n8n needs

n8n plus Postgres in Docker idles at roughly 0.5-1 GB of RAM and spikes with large payloads or many concurrent runs. My rule of thumb: 2 GB for light use, 4 GB as a comfortable minimum, 8 GB for heavy workflows.

Cheapest workable VPS plans (USD/month)

Plan Specs Intro Renewal

Contabo Cloud VPS 10 4 vCPU, 8 GB, 100 GB $5.28 $6.60

Hostinger KVM 1 1 vCPU, 4 GB, 50 GB $6.49 $11.99

OVHcloud VPS-1 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 40 GB $4.54 not verified

DigitalOcean Basic 4 GB 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB $24 $24

Vultr 4 GB 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB $20 $20

Contabo and Hostinger need a 24-month term for the intro price.…