Power Automate versus Zapier

Price

• Power Automate From $180/yr per user
  • Premium: $180.00 annual per seat ($15/mo equivalent)
  • Process: $1,800.00 annual per unknown ($150/mo equivalent)
  • Hosted Process: $2,580.00 annual per unknown ($215/mo equivalent)
• Zapier From $29.99/mo
  • Free: no subscription charge
  • Professional: $29.99 monthly
  • Professional: $239.88 annual ($19.99/mo equivalent)
  • Team: $103.50 monthly
  • Team: $828.00 annual ($69/mo equivalent)
  • Enterprise: Vendor quotation required

These prices use different billing periods and different billing units. Read each with its own unit and conditions; they do not add up to one total or a cheaper product.

Documented for both

Usage definition

Power Automate Power Platform requests: every connector call, HTTP action and built-in action (even initialising a variable or a compose step) counts, successful or failed, including retries and pagination.

Zapier Trigger steps, Filter and Paths steps, failed or halted actions and skipped steps use no tasks; Tables, Forms, Formatter, Delay, Looping, Sub-Zap, Digest, Zapier Manager and Storage steps use no tasks; Zapier Agents use a separate activity quota, not tasks; Example: a Zap with two actions that runs ten times uses 20 tasks

Included volume

Power Automate Premium: 40,000 Power Platform requests per user per 24 hoursProcess: 250,000 Power Platform requests per flow per 24 hours, independent of the users' licences; Up to 10 Process licences can be stacked on one flow, each adding 250,000 requests; Or one licence can be shared by up to 25 solution-aware flows in a flow group, without stacking

Zapier Task tiers from 100 to 2M tasks a month, plus a custom task limit.Free: 100 tasks per monthProfessional: The help center's billing example is a Professional 750 plan: 750 tasks a month, with up to 1,500 more on pay-per-task.

Trigger polling

Power Automate Scheduled (recurrence) flows can run as often as every 60 seconds.

Zapier Polling checks never use tasks; only successful actions do.Free: Every 15 minutesProfessional: Every 2 minutesTeam: Every minuteEnterprise: Every minute

Premium integrations

Power Automate The 30-day free trial covers UI-based cloud flows and standard connectors.

Zapier Premium apps are available only on paid plans.Free: Two-step Zaps only (a trigger and one action)Professional: Multi-step Zaps, Unlimited premium apps, Webhooks

AI charges

Power Automate AI-powered runtime such as agents is outside the request limits and consumes Copilot Credits.

Zapier AI by Zapier steps and their tool calls use 1 task on standard models or with your own model provider (you also pay the provider), 3 tasks on advanced models and 5 on premium models.Agents Free: 400 agent activities per monthAgents Pro: 1,500 agent activities per month

Overage charges

Power Automate No per-request charge is listed; Microsoft may enforce limits by throttling; Capacity is added to the user or flow that exceeds its limit; Each Power Platform requests add-on raises a limit by 50,000 requests per 24 hours, and several can be assigned

Zapier Tasks beyond the plan limit are charged separately through pay-per-task billing; Pay-per-task stops at three times the plan task limit; further runs are held until the billing cycle ends; Without pay-per-task, new Zap runs are held at the task limit until the billing cycle resets

Limits to check

• Power Automate A cloud flow uses its owner's licence; if the owner leaves the organisation, the flow falls back to the Low performance profile.
• Zapier Every successful action uses its own task, so the monthly need is actions per run multiplied by runs per month.

Not verified yet

Every compared requirement has evidence for at least one.

Documented for one product only, shown in the table below: Power Automate: hosting responsibility.

Not verified means our reviewed sources do not establish it. It does not mean a product lacks the capability or that it costs nothing.

Next steps

• Ask Zapier about hosting responsibility; our sources do not establish it yet.

• Power Automate profile and plans · View Power Automate pricing
• Zapier profile and plans · View Zapier pricing