Make.com vs Microsoft Power Automate (2026): Which Wins?

Choosing between two of the biggest automation platforms? This Make vs Power Automate comparison breaks down pricing, ease of use, integrations and AI so you can pick the right one. Based on our research of both platforms’ documentation, pricing and user feedback, the best choice depends heavily on whether your business already lives inside Microsoft 365.

Make.com (formerly Integromat) is an independent, visual automation platform loved for its flexibility and value. Microsoft Power Automate is deeply tied into the Microsoft ecosystem. Here is how they compare.

Make vs Power Automate at a glance

Factor	Make.com	Power Automate
Best for	Most businesses & visual builders	Microsoft 365 / enterprise users
Free plan	Yes	Limited (with M365)
Ease of use	Very visual	Moderate
Microsoft integration	Good	Native
Pricing model	Operations	Per user / per flow

Pricing compared

Make.com charges by operations (each step a scenario runs), with a free tier and affordable paid plans that scale smoothly. Power Automate uses a per-user or per-flow model and is often bundled with Microsoft 365 licences, which can make it feel free if you already pay for Microsoft — but premium connectors and standalone plans add cost. For most independent businesses, Make.com offers more predictable value; for organisations already paying for M365, Power Automate can be cheaper at the margin. For detail, see our Make.com pricing breakdown.

Ease of use

Make.com’s visual, node-based canvas is widely considered one of the most intuitive ways to build complex automations, with a clear view of how data flows. Power Automate is capable but its interface and the split between cloud flows, desktop flows and premium connectors can feel more complicated to newcomers.

Integrations & ecosystem

Power Automate’s biggest strength is native, deep integration with Microsoft 365 — Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Excel and Dynamics. If your business runs on Microsoft, that tight coupling is hard to beat. Make.com integrates with a huge range of third-party apps and is more app-agnostic, making it the better choice if your stack is mixed or non-Microsoft.

AI capabilities

Both platforms have leaned into AI. Power Automate integrates with Microsoft Copilot and AI Builder; Make.com offers native OpenAI and other AI modules you can drop into any scenario. For flexible, vendor-neutral AI workflows, Make.com is very strong — see our guide to the best AI automation tools for small business.

Which should you choose?

If your business already runs on Microsoft 365 and you need tight Outlook/Teams/SharePoint automation, Power Automate is the natural fit. If you want a flexible, affordable, app-agnostic platform with a friendlier builder, Make.com is our recommendation for most businesses. Still deciding between the major players? Read our full Make.com review and our Zapier vs Make vs n8n comparison.

Pricing math: a worked example

Abstract pricing pages hide the real question: what does a typical small team actually pay? Take a three-person business that runs about 8,000 automation steps a month. On Make.com, that fits inside the Core plan at $9/month billed annually (10,000 credits) — one flat price no matter how many people log in. On Power Automate, the same team needs Premium licences at $15 per user per month billed annually, so roughly $45/month, unless everyone already has the right Microsoft 365 bundle.

Cost item	Make.com	Power Automate
Entry paid plan	Core — $9/mo (annual)	Premium — $15/user/mo (annual)
3-person team	$9/mo flat	~$45/mo
Billing unit	Credits (per step executed)	Per user (or per flow)
Monthly billing premium	Yes — higher than annual	Yes — ~$20/user/mo
Desktop automation (RPA)	No native RPA	Included (attended desktop flows)

One 2025 change worth knowing: Make switched its billing unit from “operations” to “credits” in August 2025. Standard module runs still cost one credit each, but AI modules and code steps can consume more than one — so AI-heavy scenarios burn through a plan faster than the old operations math suggested. Budget extra headroom if your scenarios call AI models on every run.

Five real-world scenarios — and which tool wins

1. Invoice intake to accounting. Invoices arrive by email, get parsed, and land in your accounting app. If the mailbox is Outlook and files live in SharePoint, Power Automate’s native connectors make this almost frictionless. If you use Gmail, Xero, or QuickBooks in a mixed stack, Make.com is the smoother build. Winner: depends on your stack.

2. Lead follow-up from web forms. A form submission should trigger a CRM record, a personalised email, and a task for sales. Make’s visual canvas handles the branching (new lead vs returning contact) more transparently, and its flat pricing means every extra teammate costs nothing. Winner: Make.com.

3. Internal approvals in Teams. Expense claims, leave requests, document sign-offs — anything that needs a native approval card inside Microsoft Teams is Power Automate’s home turf. Make can post to Teams, but it cannot match the built-in approvals experience. Winner: Power Automate.

4. E-commerce order orchestration. Shopify order → inventory update → shipping label → customer WhatsApp message. This kind of multi-vendor chain is exactly what Make’s app-agnostic catalogue of 3,000+ integrations was built for. Winner: Make.com.

5. Legacy desktop software. If part of your process lives in an old Windows program with no API, Power Automate’s attended desktop flows (RPA) can click through it like a human would. Make has no equivalent. Winner: Power Automate.

Error handling and reliability

Automations fail — an API times out, a record is missing a field, a token expires. What matters is how each platform behaves when that happens. Make.com gives you explicit error-handler routes on any module (retry, ignore, roll back, or divert the failed bundle to a queue), which makes robust scenarios something you design rather than hope for. Power Automate offers run-after conditions and retry policies that do the same job, though they are buried a little deeper in the UI. Both keep execution logs; Make’s visual replay of a failed run, with the actual data at every step, is the faster debugging experience in our testing.

Lock-in and migration

Neither platform exports automations in a format the other can import, so treat the choice as semi-permanent. That said, the risk is asymmetric. Power Automate flows tend to be woven into SharePoint lists, Dataverse tables and Teams — leaving means rebuilding data plumbing, not just flows. Make scenarios talk to third-party apps you would keep using anyway, so a future migration mostly means redrawing logic. If you are not certain you will stay on Microsoft 365 for years, that difference should weigh on the decision.