Microsoft Power Automate vs Zoho Flow

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

Zoho Flow

• Businesses already running Zoho apps such as Zoho CRM
• Linking cloud apps to on-premises systems and databases
• Teams that want AI to draft a workflow from a description

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.

Zoho Flow

• The Free plan allows 5 flows and 100 tasks a month, with base apps only.
• Premium apps, on-premises integrations, auto rerun and 5-minute polling need the Professional plan.
• Each action a flow executes counts as a task, so a flow with two actions uses two tasks every time it runs.
• With overage enabled, tasks beyond the plan limit are charged at the end of the billing cycle.

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.

Zoho Flow

Drag-and-drop builder

Flows are laid out on a canvas with decision branches, delays, subflows, error branches and variables. Changes stay in a draft until the flow is switched on, and versions are tracked.

Zia AI

Zia generates a workflow from a plain-English description. AI steps can summarize, rephrase or generate text, and agentic actions let the AI choose which action to run from a prompt.

Triggers

A flow can start from an app event, a webhook, a schedule, an incoming email, an RSS or Atom feed, or a URL that is checked periodically.

On-premises integrations

An on-prem agent links cloud apps with systems on a private network, including SQL databases, SAP apps and local scripts. It is part of the Professional plan.

Custom functions

Code written in Deluge, Zoho's scripting language, can be added as an action in a flow. Custom functions are available from the Standard plan.

History and reruns

Flow history logs every execution for 30, 60 or 90 days depending on the plan. Failed runs can be rerun manually, and Professional retries them automatically.

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.

Zoho Flow

• Free$0

  100 tasks a month and 5 flows, with base apps, logic and utilities, 15-minute polling and 30-day flow history.

• Standard$25

  per month, billed annually, for 5,000 tasks ($29 monthly)

  Unlimited flows, custom functions, 15-minute polling and 60-day flow history. Task tiers run from 5,000 to 5 million a month.

• Professional$41

  per month, billed annually, for 10,000 tasks ($49 monthly)

  Everything in Standard plus premium apps, on-premises integrations, auto rerun, 5-minute polling and 90-day flow history.

Microsoft Power Automate

No public discounts listed.

Zoho Flow

• Annual discount

  Save over 15% with yearly billing

  The pricing page labels yearly billing as saving over 15%: Standard with 5,000 tasks is $25 a month instead of $29, and Professional with 10,000 tasks is $41 instead of $49.