We put an n8n host on your VPS — and hand over the workflows.

Most small businesses hit the same wall about six months into Zapier or n8n Cloud: the bill tracks how often the automations run, so the better the automation works, the more it costs. A lead-follow-up that fires on every enquiry is exactly the thing you want — and exactly the thing that quietly doubles your subscription. The fix isn't a bigger plan. It's owning the engine.

That engine is n8n, self-hosted, on your own VPS. Here's what that actually means to buy, in plain terms, for a US, UK, or EU small business.

What you're actually buying

Not a licence — n8n is open-source and free. Not hosting — you pay the cloud provider directly for the box, in your company's name. What you're buying is the thing a fresh VPS doesn't come with: a production setup, and working workflows.

• The host. n8n running on a hardened VPS, with a proper database (Postgres) under it and a real web address with a valid SSL certificate. Not a demo install that falls over the first time two things run at once.
• The workflows. This is the part that matters. A fresh n8n install is an empty workbench. The handover includes a starter set chosen in the kickoff — the automations nearly every service business wants first — connected to your real accounts and turned on.
• The keys. Your workflow logins are encrypted with a key generated on day one and handed to you. Nobody, including us, can read them without it.

The starter workflows, concretely

The starter set is picked in the kickoff to match your business, but it nearly always draws from the same three, because they're where the hours actually go:

• Missed-call text-back. You miss a call while you're on a job; the caller gets a text within a minute asking what they need. The single highest-ROI automation a US or UK service business can run.
• New-lead → CRM with instant reply. An enquiry lands; it's in your CRM with a reply sent before a competitor has picked up the phone. Whoever replies first wins the job.
• Invoice PDF → accounting. A supplier bill arrives by email; it's read and dropped into QuickBooks or Xero without you typing it.

You don't finish the handover with a login and a to-do list. You finish it with those three running against your real accounts — and a workbench sitting on hardware you own for the next one.

What it costs, and what it doesn't

The running cost is deliberately boring: the VPS is a few US dollars a month (roughly €5 on Hetzner, ~US$24 on DigitalOcean), backups a few dollars more. That figure does not move when your automations run a thousand extra times. Compare that to a per-task or per-execution plan, where success is a price rise.

The real cost is the one-off setup — the hardening, the database, the starter workflows wired to your accounts, the key handover. That's the work, and it's priced once. There is no NexFlow hosting fee sitting on top, because you're not hosting with us; you're hosting with the provider, and we just set it up and leave you the keys.

When to leave it hosted instead

Be honest with yourself before buying a server. If you run a couple of light automations and a $20-a-month plan covers you comfortably, stay put — self-hosting saves money at volume, not at dabbling. If nobody in the business will so much as look at the thing after handover, a care plan is money better spent than ownership. And if you want us to run it, that managed conversation is a different service.

But if the automation bill is creeping and you want the engine in your building rather than rented by the run, this is the move.