Gumloop vs n8n: Which One Should You Choose in 2026?
Checked September 26, 2026. n8n publishes cloud prices in euros and Gumloop in US dollars; figures are not currency-converted. Based on published pricing and documentation, not a hands-on build.
These two are often shortlisted together and increasingly should not be. n8n is a deterministic workflow engine: you define the steps and it runs them. Gumloop has moved its centre of gravity to AI agents — its own pricing page now lists workflows under "Workflows (Legacy)".
That shapes the cost comparison completely. n8n charges one flat execution per workflow run. Gumloop charges for what an agent consumes: model reasoning, tool calls, compute time, plus an 8% orchestration fee. For work you can specify in advance, n8n is roughly twenty times cheaper per run. For work you cannot specify in advance, n8n does not do it.
Gumloop vs n8n at a glance
| Gumloop | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | AI agent platform | Deterministic workflow automation |
| Billing unit | Credits — model, tool calls, compute, plus 8% fee | Executions — one per workflow run |
| Credit value | $0.005 each | n/a |
| Entry paid plan | Pro from $37/month, 20,000 credits | Starter €20/month annually, 2,500 executions |
| Free option | None — 14-day trial | Community Edition, self-hosted, no vendor limit |
| Seats | Unlimited | Unlimited on paid cloud plans |
| Concurrency | 5 workflow runs, 25 agent chats | 5 on Starter, 20 on Pro |
| Self-hosting | VPC on Enterprise | Yes — Community Edition and licensed tiers |
Sources: Gumloop pricing, Gumloop credits documentation and n8n pricing, all checked September 26, 2026.
The cost gap for deterministic work
Take a repeatable process — read a record, enrich it from an external source, score it, write it back — and price it both ways.
On n8n that is one execution, whatever the node count. Starter's 2,500 executions cover 2,500 runs a month for €20.
On Gumloop the same work as an agent run consumes model reasoning, tool calls and compute. A representative run at roughly 180 credits means Pro's 20,000 credits cover about 110 runs a month.
| n8n Starter | Gumloop Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | €20 | $37 |
| Included capacity | 2,500 executions | 20,000 credits |
| Runs of this process | ~2,500 | ~110 |
That is not a small difference, and it is not an argument that Gumloop is overpriced. It reflects that an agent reasons about each run while a workflow simply executes it. If the sequence is knowable, paying an agent to rediscover it every time is expensive.
How Gumloop's credits actually work
| Component | Charge |
|---|---|
| Chat & Reasoning | Model cost converted at $0.005 per credit |
| Tool Calls | Minimum 1 credit per successful call, plus tool-specific charges |
| Compute | 5 credits per session-minute — $1.50 per hour of active processing |
| Orchestration fee | 8% of the three above; 16% on bring-your-own-key |
Two things to plan around. Credits do not roll over on Pro, and overage costs $0.005 per credit against an effective included rate of about $0.00185 — roughly 2.7× worse. And Pro's overage cap defaults to 1,000,000 credits, which is $5,000; lower it before shipping anything that could loop.
Where each one genuinely wins
Gumloop wins where the sequence is not knowable in advance: research, unstructured triage, tasks where the agent must decide what to do next. It offers 35+ models, bring-your-own-key, MCP server hosting and unlimited agents on both plans. n8n has AI nodes but is not an agent runtime.
n8n wins on everything deterministic — scheduled syncs, webhook handling, enrichment pipelines, data movement — where its flat per-run charge is dramatically cheaper. It also self-hosts, which Gumloop reserves for Enterprise VPC.
Worth knowing: Gumloop has no free tier, only a 14-day trial that requires a card. n8n's Community Edition is free forever if you can operate it.
Which should you choose?
Choose n8n when you can write down the steps. If a flowchart describes your process accurately, you do not need an agent, and paying per token to re-derive that flowchart on every run is poor value.
Choose Gumloop when you genuinely cannot write down the steps, or when the work involves judgement over unstructured input. Enable bring-your-own-key if model reasoning dominates your credits, and lower the overage cap on day one.
Many teams should run both — n8n for the plumbing, Gumloop for the judgement calls — rather than forcing one to do the other's job.
Where Jet Admin fits
Neither product gives people an interface. n8n moves data; Gumloop reasons about it; both then stop. Jet Admin builds the screen where colleagues review results, approve exceptions and act, over a database or API you already have.
| Priority | What to evaluate |
|---|---|
| Fully automated, no human step | n8n for deterministic work, Gumloop for agentic. Jet Admin adds nothing |
| An agent proposes, a person approves | Gumloop plus an interface — the review surface is a separate product |
| Routing and record display | Cheaper as ordinary application logic than as agent reasoning; measure the credit reduction rather than assuming it |
| Entry paid plan | Jet Admin Pro $20/month ($16 annually); n8n Starter €20; Gumloop Pro from $37 |
Sources: Jet Admin pricing, Gumloop pricing, n8n pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Is Gumloop more expensive than n8n?
For deterministic work, substantially — an agent run consuming around 180 credits against a flat n8n execution is roughly a twentyfold difference in capacity for a comparable monthly price. For agentic work the comparison does not hold, because n8n is not an agent platform.
Does Gumloop have a free plan?
No. There is a 14-day trial requiring a card; Pro starts at $37 a month.
Is n8n free?
The self-hosted Community Edition is free with no vendor execution limit. Cloud plans start at €20 a month billed annually.
What is Gumloop's orchestration fee?
8% of a run's combined reasoning, tool call and compute cost, rising to 16% on bring-your-own-key — though model reasoning is waived in credits under BYOK, which usually still makes it cheaper overall.
Can n8n do AI agent work?
n8n has AI nodes and can call models within a defined workflow, but it executes a sequence you specify rather than letting an agent decide its own path. If that distinction matters to your use case, test it directly.
Should I use both?
Often yes. Deterministic plumbing on n8n and genuine judgement work on Gumloop costs far less than running everything through an agent.
Ask whether the sequence is knowable
That one question settles most of this. If you can draw the process as a flowchart and it stays accurate, use a workflow engine. If the next step genuinely depends on what the last step found, an agent earns its cost.
If the answer involves people reviewing what either one produced, build that review interface on your existing data and keep the automation focused on the parts that do not need a human.