How do you deliver n8n workflows to clients who aren't familiar with them? Do they self-host their own account or pay a monthly subscription for cloud hosting? How do you get their credentials/API keys — do you get access on the call and set it up on their n8n account yourself, or do you guide them through it?

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youtube ↗Agency Operations

How do you deliver n8n workflows to clients who aren't familiar with them? Do they self-host their own account or pay a monthly subscription for cloud hosting? How do you get their credentials/API keys — do you get access on the call and set it up on their n8n account yourself, or do you guide them through it?

They pay for cloud hosting on a monthly subscription and sign up themselves — I get them to create the account, guide them through it, and then they hand me the account access, since it's tied to their card. That's the 80/20 approach: guide them to create it, get access, but they own and pay for it.

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youtube ↗AI & Automation

Can you help me understand when businesses choose to self-host n8n versus using the cloud version? I believe self-hosting for anything beyond personal use requires being an Enterprise client—is that generally true? And how should I work through this with clients?

Honestly, nobody really knows for sure, and there hasn’t been any backlash yet. Many people using n8n to make money are on the self‑hosted version, but they usually just run the executions through their own endpoint rather than setting it up for the client, which adds nuance. If you want to play it safe, I’d recommend the cloud‑hosted offering: it’s easier, faster, you don’t have to mess with webhooks, and the platform handles reliable updates and server uptime for you. Yes, it costs more—around $50 a month for five workflows and 5‑10k executions—but when you’re delivering $5k‑$15k of value per client, that fee is negligible. So my recommendation is to go with cloud hosting.

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youtube ↗AI & Automation

How do you host n8n for automations? I want to self-host since I'm out of budget, but I tried following your free self-hosting video and it's complicated. Can you clarify or help?

I don't actually recommend self-hosting for this — I'd recommend cloud hosting instead. It costs more, but the moment you deliver value for even one client (which cloud hosting lets you do much faster), you immediately pay back that added cost, because cloud hosting gets you up and running so fast. You never have to deal with Google auth setup or Cloud Console configuration for a bunch of the common self-hosting headaches — most of it's handled for you. I'd just recommend going with cloud hosting.

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youtube ↗Agency Operations

How do you fulfill client work? Do you send them a template and guide, or do you do something else?

I recommend getting on a kickoff call with the client. Walk them through signing up for every platform you’ll need, then have them give you their usernames, passwords, and any credentials—doing two‑factor authentication live if required. Log in to confirm access, and then perform the work directly in their account. No templates or handoffs are needed; you complete 100% of the work there.

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youtube ↗Pricing

Nick, truly appreciate the value from your videos. I want to know how you'd set up the API keys, password, and payment methods when onboarding clients for a new project. Would you set the tools up yourself from your account, but for them, and then you charge them a monthly return? Do you set it up from their account, use their passwords, etc.? So, the billing and the data goes directly to them. I have the billing and the data and everything go directly through them, and then they just share me their username, password, email, everything that I need in order to access the account. So the account is doiciled on them if that makes sense.

The reason I do this is twofold. First, it makes handoffs really easy. If you're no longer working with someone on this thing, you can say, 'Hey, you have everything you need. Here's the documentation on projects I've already delivered. Good to go. Goodbye. I love you. See you never.' Second, when you get people to sign up to these platforms, you can use your own affiliate link, which adds 3 to 5% to your margins almost immediately. That's how I do it—I don't have them deal with API keys or anything; I handle it all myself.

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