Microsoft Power Automate vs UiPath

Microsoft Power Automate

• Organizations already licensed for Microsoft 365 or Dynamics 365
• Automating older Windows applications that have no API
• Approval processes that run through Teams and SharePoint

UiPath

• Enterprises automating work across legacy desktop applications
• Programs that combine robots, AI agents and human approvals
• Organizations that need a dedicated or self-hosted deployment

Microsoft Power Automate

• The free license and Microsoft 365 licenses cover standard connectors only; premium and custom connectors need Premium at $15 per user / month.
• Unattended desktop flows need a Process license at $150 per bot / month, and the machine must be registered by a Premium user.
• The desktop app runs only on Windows 10, Windows 11 and Windows Server, and devices with ARM processors are not supported.
• The standalone iOS and Android app reached end of support on August 31, 2026; Microsoft points mobile users to the browser portal and Teams.

UiPath

• Standard and Enterprise prices are not published; both are quoted by UiPath's sales team.
• Basic is capped at 5 Basic, 5 Plus and 1 Pro user, 2 robots and 1 tenant, and is hosted only in UiPath's European region.
• The pricing page says Basic is evolving and an updated plan is coming soon, and it does not state what the $25 starting price is charged per.
• Self-healing automation is an extra purchase on Standard, and live process monitoring, simulation and customer-managed encryption keys need Enterprise.

Microsoft Power Automate

Cloud flows

Automated, scheduled and instant flows connect cloud apps, and on-premises services through a data gateway. Microsoft cites more than 1,400 prebuilt, certified connectors, and custom connectors can be built.

Desktop flows (RPA)

Power Automate for desktop builds or records flows that operate Windows and web applications through their interfaces. Attended runs happen with a person present; unattended runs need a Process license.

Copilot authoring

Copilot in Power Automate creates, edits and extends flows from a natural-language description, in both the cloud designer and the desktop app.

Process and task mining

Analyzes how a process actually runs to find steps worth automating. Premium includes 50 MB of mining data per user, and a tenant-wide add-on provides 100 GB.

Microsoft 365 integration

Flows can be built and run from inside Teams, Excel, SharePoint and OneDrive. Microsoft 365 licenses include the right to create and run cloud flows with standard connectors.

Governance and hosted machines

Managed Environments and data loss prevention policies give admins control over flows. Hosted Process runs unattended bots on virtual machines that Microsoft manages.

UiPath

UI automation with robots

Robots work with screens and data the way a person would, using AI Computer Vision and selectors on Windows and macOS, and reach legacy systems and virtual environments such as Citrix.

Studio and Studio Web

Automations are built low-code or code-first. Studio Web creates and edits them in the browser, and the desktop experience works across Windows, macOS and Linux.

Agents and Maestro

Agents handle variable work that fixed rules cannot. Maestro models a process in BPMN and orchestrates agents, robots, API workflows and human tasks within it.

Autopilot and Healing Agent

Autopilot turns natural-language prompts into workflows, code and expressions. Healing Agent suggests fixes for broken automations and repairs UI issues at runtime.

Document processing and mining

From the Standard plan, UiPath classifies and extracts data from documents and communications, and offers Process Mining, Task Mining and Automation Hub.

Cloud, dedicated or self-hosted

Automation Cloud is the SaaS version. Standard and Enterprise can instead be self-hosted on your own Kubernetes or Linux machines, and Enterprise can buy a dedicated cloud.

Microsoft Power Automate

• Power Automate Free$0

  Free license described in Microsoft's licensing docs: cloud flows with standard connectors only, no sharing, and desktop flows run locally in attended mode.

• Power Automate Premium$15

  per user / month, paid yearly

  Cloud flows with standard, premium and custom connectors, attended desktop flows, process and task mining with 50 MB of data, and 250 MB of Dataverse database capacity.

• Power Automate Process$150

  per bot / month, paid yearly

  One bot for unattended desktop flows, or a license for a cloud flow that any number of users can run, with up to 250,000 actions a day.

• Power Automate Hosted Process$215

  per bot / month, paid yearly

  Unattended desktop flows on a virtual machine that Microsoft manages and hosts on Azure, so there is no machine of your own to maintain.

• Process Mining add-on$5,000

  per tenant / month, paid yearly

  Add-on for the Premium plan only: 100 GB of process mining data, with 2 GB of Dataverse database and 1 TB of file capacity.

UiPath

• Community$0

  Free forever. Build and run automations with UiPath Studio, Maestro Automate and Maestro Orchestrate, with help from the community forum.

• BasicFrom $25

  per month; the page does not say what the price is per

  Basic personal automations for up to 5 Basic, 5 Plus and 1 Pro user and 2 robots, hosted in the European region, with Bronze Support. Unattended RPA is an add-on.

• StandardCustom

  Adds agents, document processing, Maestro orchestration, governance controls and your own identity provider, with no limits on scale. Starts with a 60-day free trial.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Adds self-healing UI automation, live process monitoring and simulation, your own encryption keys and credential vaults, and multi-region hosting.