Track usage with Insights
Insights gives instance owners and admins visibility into how workflows perform over time. This feature consists of three parts:
Insights summary banner: Shows key metrics about your instance from the last 7 days at the top of the Overview space.
Insights dashboard: A more detailed visual breakdown with per-workflow metrics and historical comparisons.
Time saved (Workflow ROI): For each workflow, you can choose to set a fixed amount of time saved per workflow, or dynamically calculate time saved based on the execution path taken on a specific workflow.
Insights summary banner
n8n collects several metrics for both the insights summary banner and dashboard. They include:
Total production executions (not including sub-workflow executions or manual executions)
Total failed production executions
Production execution failure rate
Time saved (when set on at least one or more active workflows)
Run time average (including wait time from any wait nodes)
Insights dashboard
Access the Insights section from the side navigation. Each metric from the summary banner is also clickable, taking you to the corresponding chart.
The insights dashboard also has a table showing individual insights from each workflow including total production executions, failed production executions, failure rate, time saved, and run time average.
Insights time periods
By default, the insights summary banner and dashboard show a rolling 7 day window with a comparison to the previous period to identify increases or decreases for each metric. On the dashboard, paid plans also display data for other date ranges:
n8n Cloud Pro: 7 and 14 days
Self-hosted Business: 24 hours, 7 days, 14 days, and 30 days
n8n Cloud Enterprise, self-hosted Enterprise: 24 hours, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, 90 days, 6 months, and 1 year
Setting the time saved by a workflow
For each workflow, you can track how much time it saves you. This setting helps you calculate how much time automating a process saves over time vs the manual effort to complete the same task or process.
Once configured, n8n calculates the amount of time the workflow saves you based on the number of production executions and displays it on the summary banner and insights dashboard.
You can choose between two methods for calculating time saved:
Fixed time saved
With fixed time saved, you set a single time value that applies to every production execution of the workflow, regardless of which path the execution takes.
To configure fixed time saved:
Navigate to the workflow
Select the three dots menu in the top right and select Settings
In the Estimated time saved dropdown, select Fixed
Enter the number of minutes of work each execution saves
Save your settings
Dynamic time saved
Dynamic time saved calculates time savings based on the actual execution path taken, accounting for workflows where different execution paths save different amounts of time.
To configure dynamic time saved:
Navigate to the workflow
Select the three dots menu in the top right and select Settings
In the Estimated time saved dropdown, select Dynamic
Save your settings
Add Time Saved nodes to your workflow at the points where time is saved
For each Time Saved node, configure:
Time saved: The amount of time saved (in minutes)
Calculation mode: Choose whether to calculate the time saved once for all items in an execution, or per item which will multiply minutes saved by the total number of input items
When you use dynamic time saved, n8n adds up the time from all Time Saved nodes that execute during a workflow run to calculate the total time saved for that execution.
Disable or configure insights metrics collection
If you self-host n8n, you can disable or configure insights and metrics collection using environment variables.
By default, n8n keeps compacted insights data for 365 days (N8N_INSIGHTS_MAX_AGE_DAYS). n8n caps retention at 730 days (two years); use a lower number for a shorter window. To turn off insights collection entirely, set N8N_DISABLED_MODULES=insights (refer to the environment variables page).
n8n stores recent insights at one-hour granularity, then compacts older data into day-level and week-level summaries. Use Insights environment variables to control compaction timing, batch limits, runtime, and delays.
Raising those thresholds above the defaults keeps finer detail longer. That adds more rows to insights_by_period and uses more database space than extending N8N_INSIGHTS_MAX_AGE_DAYS alone. Increase N8N_INSIGHTS_MAX_AGE_DAYS first if you only need a longer retention window.
Insights FAQs
Which executions do n8n use to calculate the values in the insights banner and dashboard?
Insights collects data from production executions, for example those from published workflows triggered on a schedule or a webhook. This includes error workflow executions. It doesn't include manual (test) executions or sub-workflow executions.
n8n records an error workflow execution's own outcome and run time against the error workflow itself, not the workflow that failed. This affects total executions, failure metrics, and run time average. In n8n 2.23.0 and later, error workflow executions don't contribute to Time saved.
Does n8n use historic execution data when upgrading to a version with insights?
n8n only starts collecting data for insights once you update to n8n 1.89.0, the first supported version. This means it only reports on executions from that point forward and you won't see execution data in insights from prior periods.
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