Home › Integration › Cron

⚡ Cron n8n Automation Workflows

Launch reliable, scheduled automations with Cron + n8n. Run daily reports, sync data, send reminders, and kick off AI tasks on time—without babysitting jobs or scripts.

These Cron workflows are for teams that live on recurring tasks: ops, marketing, finance, support, and solo founders. If you’re tired of “Did we run the report?” or copying data every Monday, this is for you. Use Cron schedules to trigger n8n flows that pull data, clean it, notify the right channel, and archive results automatically. You get consistent execution, fewer missed steps, and more time back—honestly, it’s the easiest way to make routine work disappear.

📊 About Cron

Cron is a scheduling approach that runs tasks at specific times or intervals (like every hour, weekday mornings, or month-end). In automation, it’s used to trigger workflows reliably, even when nobody is online. Paired with n8n, Cron-style schedules help you kick off recurring jobs such as syncing systems, generating reports, sending reminders, or refreshing dashboards. It’s simple, predictable, and ideal when timing matters more than real-time events.

How do I connect Cron to n8n?

In n8n, you usually don’t “connect” Cron with a login. You add a Schedule (Cron) trigger (often called Schedule Trigger) and set the timing you want—daily, hourly, weekdays, or a custom cron expression. Then you attach the actions you want to run, like sending a Gmail email or updating Google Sheets. Test once, activate the workflow, and n8n will run it on schedule. If your n8n is self-hosted, keep it online so schedules fire reliably.

What can I automate with Cron?

Anything that should happen on a timetable: daily KPI emails, weekly pipeline snapshots, month-end invoice reminders, recurring data exports, or scheduled backups. You can also chain multi-step routines, like pulling metrics, formatting them, saving to Notion, then posting a summary to Slack. Cron triggers are great for AI tasks too, like generating a content brief every Monday with OpenAI. Frankly, if you do it “every week,” it belongs here.

Do I need a Cron account?

Not usually. Most workflows use n8n’s built-in Schedule/Cron trigger, so there’s no separate Cron account to create.

What are common Cron workflow use cases or limitations?

Common use cases include scheduled reporting, database syncs, lead list cleanup, reminder messages, and recurring file organization in Google Drive. The main limitation is that Cron is time-based, not event-based. If you need “run when a new row appears” or “when a webhook is called,” use a trigger like Webhook, Gmail, or Google Sheets instead. Also, schedules run in the timezone you configure, so double-check timezones for teams across regions.