Quick answer: the best Power Automate alternative for each need
The widest app catalog: Zapier. A visual builder: Make. Enterprise iPaaS with governance: Workato, Tray.ai or Boomi. Zoho shops: Zoho Flow. Open source and self-hosted: Activepieces or Windmill. Developers who want code: Pipedream. Runtime billing with code and AI: Latenode.
Every price below was read on the vendor's own pricing page in September 2026. Vendors that sell by quote are described by their billing model instead of a made-up number. Nothing here comes from an aggregator or a review site. Where a page publishes no figure, this article says so rather than guessing. Plan names and limits are quoted as each vendor states them. So you can hold this list against a live page and check it in a minute. Each of the ten entries below covers what the tool does, who it suits, what the meter counts and the one limitation worth knowing before you commit.
Why teams look for Power Automate alternatives in 2026
Start with the meter, because that is where the friction sits. Power Automate Premium costs $15.00 per user per month paid yearly. It covers cloud flows, attended desktop flows (RPA) and process mining for individual users. Automation that runs without a person watching it moves to a separate line. Process costs $150.00 per bot per month paid yearly and runs unattended desktop flows. Hosted Process costs $215.00 per bot per month and adds a Microsoft-hosted virtual machine. Premium also carries Microsoft Dataverse entitlements of 250 MB of database and 2 GB of file storage. A 30-day free trial covers UI-based cloud flows and standard connectors.
"Start automating for free with a 30-day trial. Experiment with UI-based cloud flows and standard connectors."
Source: microsoft.com
Those two lines explain most of the shopping. Cloud flows are licensed per user. A department that automates a handful of shared processes still buys a seat for every person who needs to run them. A team whose stack is not Microsoft-first also pays for entitlements it uses lightly. Unattended robotic process automation is licensed per bot. That is predictable, but it adds $150.00 a month for each additional robot. The platform is also built around Microsoft's own products, which is an advantage when the company already runs on them and an overhead when it does not.
Now the fair counterpoint. Attended and unattended desktop RPA plus process mining sit inside one license here, and none of the ten alternatives in this article lists desktop RPA on its pricing page. If the job is screen-level automation of a legacy Windows application, that is a real reason to stay. Those two capabilities are also the hardest to replace piecemeal, because the ten platforms here compete on API-level work rather than on driving a desktop. But if the job is API-to-API integration, scheduled work, approvals or AI steps across a mixed stack, the ten below meter that work differently. The comparison is worth running.
Power Automate alternatives at a glance
Ten platforms, in the order of the sections that follow. Cells are deliberately short. The billing detail behind each one sits in the prose.
| Tool | Best for | Pricing model | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Latenode | Runtime billing, AI | CPU seconds | 10,000 CPU seconds |
| Zapier | Widest app catalog | Per task | 100 tasks a month |
| Make | Visual builder | Credits | 1,000 credits a month |
| Workato | Enterprise governance | Quote | None published |
| Tray.ai | Agent orchestration | Quote | Trial via sales |
| Boomi | Enterprise iPaaS | $99/mo plus usage | 30-day trial |
| Zoho Flow | Zoho-centric stacks | Per task, by region | 100 tasks a month |
| Activepieces | Open source cloud | Credits | 100 credits a day |
| Windmill | Self-hosted scripts | Seats | Community Edition |
| Pipedream | Code-first workflows | Credits | 100 credits a month |
1. Latenode: best for runtime billing with code and AI
Latenode is a hosted low-code platform that bills workflow runtime in CPU seconds: runs multiplied by their average duration, not per operation or per step. Extra steps do not multiply the bill. Long steps do. The first 10,000 CPU seconds each month are free on both plans, about 10,000 quick executions when runs average a second.
Free is $0 a month with 5 active workflows, one execution worker, 3 minutes per run and 3 days of history. Every app, AI agents, RAG storage and the built-in database come with it. Pay as you go has no base fee and keeps the same 10,000 free CPU seconds, then charges from $0.00012 per CPU second. It comes with unlimited active scenarios, 5 parallel workers and 10 minutes per run.
The builder is drag and drop, and code steps take custom JavaScript. Also on board: an AI Copilot, an AI agent builder, a headless browser and 335+ LLM models. The limitation is that runtime billing rewards short runs, so a slow third-party API costs you directly. And CPU seconds do not map cleanly onto tasks or credits.
2. Zapier: best app catalog
Zapier is the safe answer when the question is whether a tool connects to something obscure. The catalog runs to more than 9,000 app integrations by its own count, with API updates and connector maintenance handled in-house. Zaps are multi-step workflows, and Tables and Forms ship alongside them.
The Free plan is $0 a month with 100 tasks a month plus Zap workflows, Tables and Forms. Professional costs $19.99 a month billed annually, or $29.99 a month billed monthly, and includes 750 tasks a month. Paying yearly is advertised as a 33% discount. Enterprise pricing is not published and goes through sales. A task is anything the platform successfully completes on your behalf, such as sending an email or creating a spreadsheet row. Triggers, filters and failed steps are free. Tasks are pooled across the whole account, so Zaps, AI steps, code, MCP and the SDK all draw on the same monthly allocation. One MCP tool call consumes two tasks. Code steps run Python or JavaScript inside a Zap.
The limitation is volume. Because the meter counts completed actions, 750 tasks on Professional disappear quickly when one incoming record triggers half a dozen updates.
3. Make: best visual builder
Make lays scenarios out on a canvas as connected modules. Branching, iterators and error handling stay visible in a single view. It covers 3,000+ apps by its own count, and every plan includes multi-step scenarios and instant webhook execution.
The Free plan is $0 a month with up to 1,000 credits. Scheduled scenarios on it run no more often than every 15 minutes, while Core adds scheduling down to the minute. Paid tiers are Core at $9 a month billed annually, Pro at $16 and Teams at $29, each with 10,000 credits a month. A credit is consumed by each module action, such as adding a Google Sheets row or fetching Gmail data. Code execution costs 2 credits per second. The Make Code app supports custom Python and JavaScript on paid plans, and Enterprise plans include custom functions applied inline. The Make MCP Server turns scenarios into callable tools for MCP-compatible agents across 3,000+ apps and 30,000+ actions.
The limitation follows from the meter. A credit per module action means a long scenario costs more than a short one doing the same job. Consolidating steps is part of keeping the bill down.
4. Workato: best enterprise iPaaS with MCP tiers
Workato sells to organizations that need integration under governance: recipes, environments and controls rather than a weekend self-serve build. Its pricing page lists Business MCP and Enterprise MCP tiers. The enterprise tier adds unlimited Enterprise Workbots, plus data masking, activity audit, hourly key rotation and runtime user connections.
"1,200+ pre-built connectors included out-of-the-box for every user. Unlimited workspaces and users to scale without limits."
Source: workato.com
There are no published prices. The page offers a quote and notes that pricing and plan structures may vary based on contract terms and when the customer joined. So two companies on the same tier can be paying differently for it. By its own count, as of September 2026, the platform includes 1,200+ pre-built connectors for every user plus unlimited workspaces and users.
The limitation is the one every quote-based vendor carries. You cannot model the cost before a sales call, and no free tier exists to test the fit first. For a small team that wants to try three workflows on a Tuesday afternoon, that is a hard stop. For a company standardizing integration across departments under audit requirements, the governance is exactly the point. Budgeting starts with a discovery call and a usage estimate. Leave time for it in the evaluation.
5. Tray.ai: best for enterprise orchestration with agents
Tray.ai puts agents next to integration work. It provides a no-code Agent Builder for conversational or autonomous agents and an Agent Gateway for building and deploying MCP services. Tray Helix is marketed as a governed runtime for AI-built apps. Agent behavior lives on the same platform as the connectors those agents call.
Pro, Team and Enterprise are all priced by custom quote based on usage and features. Usage is measured in Tasks, and that single meter covers integration, automation, MCP and agents. That makes forecasting simpler than tracking four separate counters, but still impossible to price without a conversation. The single meter is the notable part: agent activity is counted in the same currency as integration work. Growth in one shows up in the same line item as the other. A free trial is arranged through the sales team. Every plan includes business-hours support, and Team and Enterprise add 24/7/365 support with enhanced SLAs and dedicated Slack channels.
The limitation: quote-only pricing plus a trial that goes through sales means evaluation takes days rather than minutes. That suits teams with a defined project, a budget and a procurement process. Less so an engineer comparing four tools on a Friday.
6. Boomi: best enterprise iPaaS with a pay-as-you-go entry
Boomi is the enterprise option that publishes an entry price. Pay-As-You-Go costs $99 per month plus usage, billed monthly. It includes full access to the Boomi Enterprise Platform with community support, documentation and basic monitoring. The Base pay-as-you-go edition covers one environment, two users, unlimited connections, workflow orchestration and built-in version control. A 30-day free trial opens the full platform.
The Integration subscription tiers are Professional, Professional Plus, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus, all priced through sales. Enterprise connectors are eligible at extra cost. Enterprise adds custom roles, clustered runtime and parallel processing, and Enterprise Plus adds message queuing. AI agents drive the positioning, with an Agent Control Plane, Agentstudio for building agents and governed MCP tools. By its own count, 1,000+ enterprise applications are reachable for AI work.
The limitation: above the pay-as-you-go entry every tier is sales-priced. And the usage that sits on top of the $99 base is the part you cannot size until real volume runs through it. Still, the trial and the published entry price make this platform unusually testable for enterprise software. A small integration team can prove the fit before procurement gets involved.
7. Zoho Flow: best for Zoho users
Zoho Flow connects apps with trigger-and-action flows plus logic and utility blocks. By its own statement it is an AI-powered app integration and workflow automation platform. The obvious fit is a company already running Zoho software, where flows tie the suite to everything outside it.
The Free plan costs nothing. It includes 100 tasks a month, 30-day flow history, 15-minute polling, base apps and the logic and utilities blocks. A 15-day free trial opens all premium features with no credit card. The Standard plan starts at 5,000 tasks a month and is priced by region and currency. On the EU list it costs 25 euros a month billed annually for 5,000 tasks. Above that: 31 euros for 10,000, 46 euros for 20,000, 80 euros for 50,000 and 105 euros for 100,000 tasks. Prices vary by region, so check the vendor's pricing page for the US dollar figures.
The limitation: regional pricing makes cross-border budgeting awkward. And the 15-minute polling interval on Free delays anything that is not webhook-driven. Task counting is easy to follow. But 100 tasks a month is a demo allowance rather than a working one, so a team with live flows lands on Standard quickly.
8. Activepieces: best open-source alternative
Activepieces is open source at the core. Every plan runs on the vendor's cloud or on your own servers at the same price, so self-hosting is a deployment choice rather than a different price list. It offers 760+ integrations and can be embedded inside another product. That matters if you resell automation rather than only use it.
Free is $0 with 100 credits a day for one user. Plus costs $16 a month billed annually with 10,000 credits a month for up to 5 users. Team costs $166 a month with 50,000 credits for 25 users, and Ultimate is custom pricing. Overage on Plus and Team costs $0.007 per credit. Unlimited automations and every integration are included on every plan. For ordinary steps one credit covers a whole run regardless of how many steps it contains.
The limitation is AI. AI steps cost more than a single credit each: 2 credits for a fast model, 10 for a smart model and 20 for a frontier model. An agent-heavy workflow drains a monthly allowance far faster than the one-credit-per-run rule suggests. Ordinary steps stay cheap, and model choice is the variable to watch.
9. Windmill: best free self-hosted platform for scripts and internal apps
Windmill turns scripts into workflows, schedules and internal apps. The Community Edition is free and open source to self-host, with unlimited executions, up to 10 users with SSO and 100 free app guests per 30 days. For a small engineering team that already runs its own infrastructure, that is a strong combination. The ceiling is your server, not a task quota.
Enterprise was listed in September 2026 from $120 a month and is priced per seat. Developer seats run $20 a month each, operator seats $10 a month each. It adds audit logs, SAML with group sync, uncapped SSO, a commercial license and 24/7 priority support with a 3-hour response time. The seat split matters: an operator costs half what a developer does, so operator seats are cheaper to add.
The limitation: seat pricing at Enterprise grows with headcount rather than with usage. The hosted figure comes out of a calculator rather than a flat published list, so check the vendor's pricing page before you commit a budget line to it. Self-hosting also moves the operational work to you. Upgrades, backups and uptime become your responsibility, which is the trade for unlimited executions.
10. Pipedream: best for developers who want code steps
Pipedream is built for people who would rather write a function than wire another module. Workflow steps run Node.js, Python, Go or Bash next to prebuilt actions. The platform integrates 3,000+ apps, and all prices are listed in US dollars.
Free is $0 a month with no credit card. It includes up to 100 credits a month, 1M AI tokens, 3 active workflows and 3 connected accounts. Basic costs $29 a month, billed annually as $348, with 2,000 credits a month, 20M AI tokens, 10 active workflows and 5 connected accounts. Advanced costs $49 a month, billed annually as $588, and adds 50M AI tokens, control flow operators, unlimited workflows, unlimited connected accounts, premium apps and GitHub Sync. Connect costs $99 a month, billed annually as $1,188, with 10,000 credits a month and auth for 100 external users. The Business plan is custom pricing with volume rates, support for HIPAA workloads and uptime SLAs.
Credits are the meter, and the lower tiers cap active workflows. That is the limitation. So 3 workflows on Free and 10 on Basic can run out before the credits do, for a team that prefers many small automations.
How to choose
Eight questions for the shortlist.
- What does the meter count? Tasks at Zapier and Zoho Flow, credits at Make, Activepieces and Pipedream, Tasks at Tray.ai, CPU seconds at Latenode, usage over a base fee at Boomi, seats at Windmill Enterprise, a quote at Workato.
- Are internal steps free? Zapier does not charge for triggers, filters or failed steps, while a Make credit goes on each module action, so identical logic costs different amounts.
- How large is the free tier, and what does it cap? Tasks, credits and CPU seconds are not comparable, so translate each free plan into your own monthly volume.
- What is the polling interval on the free plan? 15 minutes on Make and Zoho Flow, 10 minutes on Latenode Free, with webhooks instant where they are offered.
- How are seats billed? Activepieces Plus covers 5 users and Team 25, Windmill Community allows 10 with SSO, Windmill Enterprise charges per developer and operator, Workato lists unlimited users.
- How are code and AI steps metered? Make charges 2 credits per second of code execution, Activepieces 2, 10 or 20 credits per AI step, and Zapier draws code and MCP from the same task pool.
- Can it run on your own servers? Activepieces and Windmill can; the rest of this list is hosted.
- Which enterprise controls come with it? Data masking and activity audit at Workato's enterprise tier, 24/7/365 support at Tray.ai Team and Enterprise, clustered runtime at Boomi Enterprise, audit logs and SAML at Windmill Enterprise.
Two searches bring most people here. Permanent free plans exist at Latenode, Zapier, Make, Zoho Flow, Activepieces and Pipedream. Windmill's Community Edition is free to self-host, Workato and Tray.ai publish no free tier, and Boomi offers a 30-day trial. Open source covers two of the ten: Activepieces and Windmill's Community Edition.
