Tines vs Workato (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Tines grades higher than Workato: 2.6 against 2.0 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 5, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 10, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Tines grades higher on the free plan and features. They get the same grade on value for money, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Which one is for you
Pick Tines if
- Fits if your security team wants alert intake, triage and remediation automated
- Works for organizations that need a self-hosted, on-prem or hybrid deployment
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want to see a price before talking to sales, because paid plans are by quote
- Tight if you're staying free, with 3 live workflows, 5,000 Tines units a month and no public website URLs
- Watch out: paid plans have you bring your own AI model, so token costs go to your provider on top of the license
- Watch out: units used past your allowance are billed as overage, after a one-month grace period for new customers
- Not for you if you only need a couple of personal automations, since paid plans are platform licenses
Pick Workato if
- Fits if you're a larger company wiring together many business apps
- Makes sense if you want separate development, test and production environments for automations
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want a price on the page: every edition is quoted through sales
- Tight if you're on the entry edition, with 1 concurrency in Standard
- Watch out: RPA, Private Link and advanced security are sold separately
- Not for you if you want a simple tool for one person, as it's built for company-wide programmes
- Watch out: the free sign-up button comes with no stated length or limits, so check before relying on it
How we grade them
| 2.6GPATinesGood | 2.0GPAWorkatoFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CThere's no price to judge. The pricing page offers a quote request and nothing else, and what you'd be buying is a platform licence sized in Tines units, 100K a month on Core. Model costs go to your own AI provider on top of whatever the licence comes to. | CNo prices are published: every edition is quoted through sales. With nothing on record it sits at C, and the page says plan structures can differ by contract terms. |
| Free plan and trial | CUnlimited users, spaces and connectors sounds open-handed until you read the next line: 3 live workflows. That's a wall you meet in an afternoon. Then 5,000 Tines units a month, a one-time $50 AI allowance, and no public website URLs allowed. | DThe pricing page has a Start for free sign-up button, but it doesn't say how long it lasts, what it covers or whether a card is needed. No free plan is listed. |
| Features | ATwo full products, and 3B does things the rest of this category doesn't: every step of a workflow runs in its own sandbox, credentials go in through a proxy so neither the builder nor the AI ever sees them, and generated workflows come with tests and Git branching. Cases handles incidents. | CIntegration, process automation, MCP servers, data pipelines and an agent studio on the top edition. But concurrency, on-premise agents and log retention are capped per edition: 1 concurrency in Standard, 15 in Enterprise MCP. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record, and you start by choosing between two products that work differently. Then connectors to wire up, Tines units to make sense of, and a platform written for security and IT people rather than for anyone who wanders in. | CNo store rating on record. Recipes, environments and edition limits need set-up and admin time. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, with no phone or desktop app on the listing. It makes up for it in what it talks to: Slack, Teams, Jira, Okta, CrowdStrike, ServiceNow, GitHub and Splunk, an API, and coding assistants like Claude Code plugging into 3B. | BWeb, with an API platform, on-premise agents (3, 10 or 30 by edition) and MCP servers. |
| Best for | security and IT teams automating alerts and tickets | enterprise-wide integration and automation |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Tines and Workato. How we grade
Where they differ
- Tines is self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Tines also covers templates.
In commonWebPublic APIAI featuresWorkflow automationAI agents
At a glance
| Tines | Workato | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Paid |
| Starts at | Not published | Not published |
| Free plan | Explore edition of Tines 3B: unlimited users, spaces and connectors, 3 live workflows, 5,000 Tines units a month and a one-time $50 AI allowance. Tines Stories has its own free Community Edition. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Tines | Workato |
| Price read from | tines.com | Not confirmed |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Tines
- Paid prices are not published: the pricing page only offers a quote request, and plans are sold as platform licenses.
- The free Explore edition stops at 3 live workflows and 5,000 Tines units a month, and does not allow public website URLs.
- Paid plans use a bring-your-own-model approach, so LLM token costs are paid to your own AI provider.
- Tines units used beyond the plan allowance are billed as overage, after a one-month grace period for new customers.
Workato
- No prices are published: every edition is quoted through sales, so no starting price is shown here.
- The page says plan structures can differ by contract terms and by when a customer joined.
- Concurrency, on-premise agents and log retention are capped per edition (for example 1 concurrency in Standard, 15 in Enterprise MCP).
- Optional add-ons such as RPA, Private Link and advanced security are sold separately.
Key features
Tines
- Storyboard
- In Tines Stories, workflows are assembled by placing and connecting actions on a canvas: Webhook, HTTP request, Receive email, Send email, Event Transform, Condition and AI Agent.
- Prompt-to-code building in Tines 3B
- You describe a process in plain language and 3B writes the workflow as code, proposing tests as it goes. Git integration and branching are standard, and coding assistants such as Claude Code can connect.
- Isolated runs and hidden credentials
- Each step of a 3B workflow runs in its own sandbox, and credentials are injected through a proxy so that secrets are never shown to the builder or the AI, or stored in the code.
- Cases and Workbench
- Tines Stories includes Cases for case and incident management and Workbench, an AI copilot. The free Community Edition allows up to 20 Workbench messages a day across the tenant.
- Autofix and Autotune
- Autofix suggests repairs for anomalies and likely breaks in a workflow. Autotune proposes reliability, performance and clarity improvements on a branch you review before it goes live.
- Monitoring and AI spend
- Dashboards show workflow performance, spend across LLM providers and models, who has access to which connectors and spaces, duplicate workflows and estimated savings.
Workato
- Application integration
- The Standard edition covers application integration and process automation, with recipe lifecycle management and separate development, test and production environments.
- MCP servers and gateway
- Business MCP adds pre-built MCP servers, an AI/MCP gateway and an Enterprise Skill builder on top of Standard.
- Data and API tools
- Business MCP also lists data integration (ETL, ELT, reverse ETL) and an API platform; Enterprise MCP adds data pipelines and event streams.
- Agent Studio
- Workato ONE, the top edition, adds Agent Studio, a knowledge base and an employee assistant with enterprise search.
- On-premise connectivity
- Higher editions include on-premise agents (OPAs): 3 in Business MCP, 10 in Enterprise MCP and 30 in Workato ONE.
- Security controls
- SAML SSO, MFA and role-based access control come with Standard; Enterprise MCP adds data masking, activity audit and hourly key rotation.
Plans
Tines
Explore$0
Free edition of Tines 3B: unlimited users, spaces and connectors, 3 live workflows, 5,000 Tines units a month and a one-time $50 AI allowance.
CoreCustom
Paid Tines 3B license on a multi-tenant stack with 100K Tines units a month, unlimited workflows and your own AI model.
ScaleCustom
A dedicated stack for larger deployments, with 300K Tines units a month.
PowerCustom
A premium dedicated stack for the highest volumes, with 900K Tines units a month.
Workato
Pricing could not be confirmed. See workato.com.
Ways to pay less
Tines
- Startups
Startup Program for Tines Stories
Tines offers a heavily discounted, fully featured Tines Stories tenant to startups with under 100 employees, under 5 years old and under $50M raised. Services companies are excluded.
Workato
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Tines or Workato?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Tines publishes no starting price, and Workato has no price we could confirm.
Which has a free plan, Tines or Workato?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Tines has a free plan. Workato does not.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.