Relevance AI vs n8n: Agent Platform or Workflow Automation?

Choose Relevance AI if you want hosted agents that decide which tool to run next, with approvals and multi-agent Workforces built in. Choose n8n if you want workflows that follow the exact path you drew, or a free self-hosted start. The entry prices barely differ. Relevance AI Pro costs $19 a month billed annually or $29 a month billed monthly, for the whole organization, with 2,500 Actions a month. n8n Starter costs $20 a month billed annually or $24 a month billed monthly for 2,500 workflow executions a month. The units are not the same. One Relevance AI Action is one Tool run, while one n8n execution is a whole workflow run, however many steps it has.

Agents that choose their path versus workflows that follow yours

Relevance AI is a hosted low-code platform for building, running and managing AI agents. An agent gets a prompt, a model, tools and optional knowledge, then decides which tool to call and when. Its multi-agent canvas, the Workforce, joins trigger, agent, tool and condition nodes. Each connection is either an AI connection, where the agent decides whether to hand over, or a Next step that always hands over. Relevance AI's troubleshooting docs say plainly that agents make their own decisions and are not end-to-end workflows, so they may not follow the exact path you expected ^[1]. That is the whole comparison in one line.

n8n starts from the other end. A workflow on its node canvas runs the steps you placed, in the order you placed them, and AI arrives through the AI Agent node and AI steps, with Agents still marked as a preview on its pricing page. So in n8n the path is yours and the model fills in steps. In Relevance AI the model picks the path inside the limits you set. The gap is narrower than it sounds: Workforce rule-based conditions are deterministic filters, and Relevance AI's product page describes an n8n-style workflow builder for chaining actions, branches and loops while calling a model only where a step needs one.

What a dollar buys on each side

Relevance AI bills the organization on two meters, never per person. Every Tool run is one Action, whether it sends one email or runs a many-step chain inside one tool, and failed runs and retries count too. Vendor Credits pass model and tool costs through at wholesale with no markup, and a top-up of 10,000 of them costs $20. Pro includes 2,500 Actions and 10,000 Vendor Credits a month. Team costs $234 a month billed annually or $349 a month billed monthly and includes 7,000 Actions and 35,000 Vendor Credits a month ^[2]. Relevance AI's public pricing page shows only a custom Enterprise plan with a Talk to sales button; the self-serve Pro and Team prices are published in its pricing documentation, and you upgrade to them inside the app.

n8n charges per workflow execution, a full run from start to finish regardless of how many steps it has, and every plan includes unlimited users and workflows . Starter covers 2,500 executions a month. n8n Pro costs $50 a month billed annually or $60 a month billed monthly for 10,000 executions a month. Business costs $800 a month billed annually or $960 a month billed monthly for 40,000 executions a month, and it is self-hosted only. Enterprise is quote only. AI adds a second meter on n8n as well: executions plus either Gateway credits on Cloud Starter and Pro, or your own model provider's bill.

The unit gap is the trap in a quick comparison. An agent task that calls five Tools uses five Actions, so by our arithmetic 2,500 Actions cover about 500 such tasks, while 2,500 executions cover 2,500 runs of a workflow of any length. Relevance AI suggests packing several steps into one Tool to save Actions, which narrows the gap. Count Tool runs, not tasks.

Past the allowance, Relevance AI sells extra Actions as a top-up pack at $80 per 1,000, and top-up Actions roll over to the next billing cycle. By our arithmetic, Pro billed monthly plus one pack costs $109 a month for 3,500 Actions. If your model spend fits Pro's 10,000 Vendor Credits a month, Team becomes cheaper than Pro plus top-ups above 6,500 Actions a month on monthly billing, or above about 62,000 a year (roughly 5,200 a month) on annual billing, by our arithmetic. On n8n Cloud, executions past the monthly limit fail until the count resets or you move to a larger plan.

Trials differ too. Every organization now needs a paid plan, and Relevance AI's pricing pages describe no free trial; n8n's Cloud Starter and Pro trial runs 14 days with no credit card. Unused Actions and Vendor Credits expire when you cancel Relevance AI and are not refunded, and the Relevance AI pricing guide covers top-ups, renewals and cancellation in full.

Where each one runs, and who holds the data

Relevance AI is a hosted service only. Your organization's data sits in the region chosen when the organization is created: US, EU or Australia. That choice is permanent. Moving to another region means a new organization, set up through support, and the docs describe no self-hosted edition. Your own model keys are optional on every plan and bypass Vendor Credits, but the subscription and the Action count stay the same. Relevance AI's Terms say its fees are not reduced for that usage, since you pay the model provider directly. Keys move model spend. They do not move the Action bill.

n8n gives you two routes. Its Cloud plans are hosted by n8n, and a free self-hosted Community Edition is available on GitHub with no execution quota, because you run the server. Free here has limits. The Community Edition leaves out projects, SSO, workflow and credential sharing and Git version control, which need a paid self-hosted Business or Enterprise license. Running bash scripts and custom nodes is available only when self-hosting. On Cloud, Git version control and environments sit on Enterprise. n8n describes itself as source-available rather than open source, which matters if a policy requires an OSI license.

Triggers, apps and the human checkpoint

Relevance AI connects to 2,000+ apps, native integrations plus Pipedream-based ones, and offers 1,000+ app triggers on every plan. WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Telegram triggers come with every paid plan, while Salesforce, Snowflake and Zendesk triggers need Enterprise even though their tool steps work on every plan. For anything else, a webhook trigger lets any system that can send an HTTP request start an agent, and a mapped Unique ID makes it ignore a repeated event . n8n offers 500+ native integrations, plus any API through the HTTP Request node, with webhook and queue triggers, cURL import and API control on every plan.

Both sides let a person approve AI actions. Relevance AI sets an approval mode on each tool: Auto Run, Approval Required or Let Agent Decide. An Agent Autonomy Limit caps consecutive tool runs without approval, retries included, and Workforce edges carry their own approval mode and a maximum number of auto runs. Approved, rejected or edited work shows up in the Workforce Task View. n8n includes human approval for tool calls on every plan. The weight differs. In Relevance AI, approvals are the main brake on a system that picks its own steps; in n8n, the drawn path already limits what happens.

Builders, concurrency and how long a run may last

Relevance AI counts people, though it does not price them. Pro includes 2 Build Users and no End Users. Team includes 5 Build Users, 45 End Users and 5 shared projects, and a sixth builder means Enterprise, where users are unlimited. Calling and meeting agents, the analytics dashboard and bulk scheduling start on Team. SSO, RBAC, audit logs and agent evaluations are Enterprise-only. Concurrency is described only as Standard, More or Custom per plan, and extra tasks queue. Standard tools may run 15 minutes, the 24-hour tool type up to 24 hours, and agents 15 minutes after each user action.

n8n puts no cap on users on any plan, but it caps shared projects at 1 on Starter and 3 on Pro, with unlimited on Enterprise. Concurrent executions are 5 on Starter, up to 50 on Pro, where the comparison table shows 20 or 50, and 200+ on Enterprise. A single execution may last 5 minutes on Starter and 40 minutes on Pro and Enterprise. Metric-based evaluations cover one workflow on Starter and are unlimited on Pro, while light evaluations come with every Cloud plan. For a team of eight people who all build, that difference alone settles much of the choice.

Running both, and what the reviews can tell you

You do not have to pick one forever. Any system that can send an HTTP request can trigger a Relevance AI agent through a webhook, so an n8n workflow can call an agent that way. An n8n workflow can also use Relevance AI's API trigger, which returns no direct response: the agent's result goes to a destination you configure, such as a webhook or Google Sheets, so n8n can catch it at a webhook of its own. Each handoff costs one n8n execution, plus one Relevance AI Action for every Tool the agent runs. This split suits teams that keep fixed plumbing in n8n and hand judgment calls to an agent.

Relevance AI has only a small number of public user reviews so far, so we score user sentiment as neutral rather than reading a trend into them. Read n8n's widgets on their own terms rather than as a head-to-head score. Our n8n review covers that product on its own terms, and the Relevance AI alternatives roundup covers the other agent builders if neither fits.

Which one to sign up for first

Start with n8n if your process can be drawn as a fixed path, if you need self-hosting, or if more than five people will build, since every n8n plan includes unlimited users. Start with Relevance AI if the work needs judgment between tools, phone or meeting agents on Team, or Workforces with approvals on each handoff, and you are happy with hosted data in one fixed region. Before paying, estimate Tool runs per task. That single number decides whether 2,500 Actions a month is plenty or a ceiling.