n8n + Bento

Overview

The Bento community node wraps every common API action so you can stay inside the n8n editor:

• Create, update, and look up subscribers.
• Track custom events with properties that drive Bento automations.
• Send transactional email directly from a workflow.
• Run subscriber commands (tagging, unsubscribe, change email, etc.).
• Validate addresses before adding them to your audience.

Requirements

• n8n Cloud workspace or a self-hosted deployment running v0.198.0+.
• Node.js 20.15+ (only for self-hosted or Docker installs).
• Active Bento workspace plus your Publishable Key, Secret Key, and Site UUID from System → API Keys.
• Outbound HTTPS access from n8n to Bento.

Install the Bento community node

n8n Cloud

1. Sign in to n8n.
2. Open Settings → Community Nodes.
3. Click Install a community node and enter n8n-nodes-bento.
4. Approve the security prompt—n8n Cloud handles the rest.

Self-hosted

cd ~/.n8n
npm install n8n-nodes-bento
# restart your instance
n8n start

Docker

Add the custom node to your compose file so the package installs before n8n starts:

services:
  n8n:
    image: n8nio/n8n:latest
    ports:
      - "5678:5678"
    volumes:
      - ./n8n:/home/node/.n8n
    environment:
      - N8N_CUSTOM_EXTENSIONS=/home/node/.n8n/custom/nodes
    entrypoint: ["/bin/sh", "-c"]
    command: |
      "set -e
       cd /home/node/.n8n
       mkdir -p custom/nodes
       npm install bento-n8n-sdk
       ln -sfn /home/node/.n8n/node_modules/bento-n8n-sdk /home/node/.n8n/custom/nodes/bento-n8n-sdk
       exec n8n start"

Configure Bento credentials

1. Add any Bento node to a workflow.
2. Open the Credentials dropdown and choose Add new.
3. Paste your Publishable Key, Secret Key, and Site UUID.
4. Save and click Test to confirm n8n can reach Bento’s API.

Keep the Secret Key in n8n’s encrypted credential store—never embed it inside workflow expressions.

Available operations

• Create/Get/Update Subscriber – manage profile data, tags, and custom fields.
• Track Event – send any event name plus properties to trigger Bento journeys or update LTV.
• Send Transactional Email – deliver HTML or text emails from a verified Bento author, optionally marking the send as transactional.
• Subscriber Command – add/remove tags, change emails, subscribe/unsubscribe, or append fields.
• Validate Email – run Bento’s validation service before importing new contacts.

Each node exposes structured fields so you rarely need to craft raw JSON; map data from previous nodes and Bento handles the serialization.

Best practices

Security

• Store credentials in n8n’s built-in vault and rotate them whenever keys change.
• Keep your n8n instance behind HTTPS and restrict who can install community nodes.
• Never log Secret Keys or full payloads that contain PII.

Workflow design

• Use Continue on Fail for long-running automations so one bad request doesn’t halt the entire run.
• Add short Wait nodes when bulk-updating subscribers to avoid Bento rate limits (5 concurrent requests per node instance).
• Test new workflows in a non-production workspace or with a staging site UUID first.

Event and email management

• Use descriptive event names such as purchase_completed or demo_booked.
• Attach structured properties objects so Bento can update fields like lifetime_value.
• When sending transactional email, include both HTML and text bodies and only mark the send as transactional when it truly bypasses unsubscribe rules (password resets, receipts, etc.).

Sample workflows

• User onboarding: trigger from a webhook, create the subscriber, track a signup event, then send a welcome email.
• E-commerce order handling: watch for a purchase webhook, track the purchase_completed event with order metadata, update LTV, and tag the buyer.
• Lead scoring: monitor page views or button clicks, adjust tags/fields via Subscriber Command, and branch flows once a score threshold is met.

Troubleshooting

• Authentication failed: verify all three credentials belong to the same Bento workspace and that the Site UUID is in UUID format.
• Invalid email: sanitize addresses before calling Create/Update or run the Validate Email operation first.
• Rate limited (429): add delays or batching to keep concurrent requests under five.
• HTML validation errors: ensure your HTML emails exclude inline scripts or unsupported tags; Bento sanitizes unsafe content.

Technical limits

• Maximum payload size: 1 MB per request.
• Custom field keys are limited to 50 characters and values to 500 characters.
• n8n automatically retries transient Bento errors; configure timeouts if you expect long-running calls.

Additional resources

• Bento API docs
• n8n community nodes guide
• Bento n8n SDK repository
• Bento Discord community for support.***