Updated October 2026. Written by Power Platform MS. Product features and prices change, so check current details with each provider.
The short answer
If your organisation runs on Microsoft 365, Power Automate is usually the better choice: standard connectors are included in many Microsoft 365 plans, flows run under the identity and data policies you already manage, and approvals work natively in Teams and Outlook. Zapier is often the quickest option for small teams connecting popular SaaS apps outside Microsoft, and Make suits visual, multi-branch scenarios with heavy data transformation.
Many organisations use Power Automate for internal Microsoft processes and keep Zapier or Make for a few SaaS-to-SaaS jobs. That is a perfectly reasonable outcome, as long as someone knows what runs where.
Side-by-side comparison
| Factor | Power Automate | Zapier | Make |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best at | Processes inside Microsoft 365: approvals, SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Dataverse | Fast, simple automations between popular SaaS apps | Visual scenarios with branching, iteration and data transformation |
| Included with Microsoft 365? | Standard connectors are included in many Microsoft 365 plans | No, separate subscription | No, separate subscription |
| How usage is billed | Per user or per flow, plus pay-as-you-go options for premium features | Plan tiers based on the number of tasks run | Plan tiers based on operations or credits consumed |
| Identity and sign-in | Your Microsoft Entra ID accounts and conditional access | Separate Zapier accounts, SSO on higher tiers | Separate Make accounts, SSO on higher tiers |
| Governance | Environments, data loss prevention policies and admin center in your tenant | Workspace admin controls, stronger on business and enterprise plans | Teams and organisation controls, stronger on enterprise plans |
| Desktop automation (RPA) | Yes, Power Automate for desktop | No native RPA | No native RPA |
| Learning curve | Moderate, steeper for expressions | Gentle, the easiest of the three to start | Moderate, very visual once learned |
What each tool is, in plain English
Power Automate is Microsoft's automation service and part of Power Platform. It runs cloud flows (triggered by events, schedules or a button), desktop flows that drive Windows applications, and approvals that appear in Teams and Outlook. It sits inside your Microsoft 365 tenant, so flows sign in as your users or service accounts and fall under the same admin controls as the rest of Microsoft 365.
Zapier is a US-based automation service known for its very large library of app integrations and a builder that most people can use within minutes. A "Zap" is a trigger followed by one or more actions. It is popular with small teams and marketing, sales and operations staff who connect SaaS tools such as CRMs, forms and email platforms.
Make (formerly Integromat) uses a visual canvas where a scenario is drawn as connected modules. It handles routers, iterators, aggregators and data mapping well, which makes it a favourite for people who want fine control over complex data flows without writing code.
Connectors and where your data lives
All three connect to a wide range of services. The question is less "does it have a connector" and more "how well does it handle the systems we rely on most". Power Automate's Microsoft connectors are the deepest available: SharePoint, Excel in OneDrive, Outlook, Teams, Planner, Dataverse and Dynamics 365 all expose triggers and actions that third-party tools only partly replicate.
Zapier and Make often have richer coverage of niche SaaS products, especially in marketing and ecommerce. If most of your automations connect, say, a web form to a CRM to an email platform, with Microsoft barely involved, Zapier or Make may genuinely be the better tool.
Data location matters for UK organisations. Power Automate runs in the geography of your Power Platform environment, which for UK tenants is usually the United Kingdom. Zapier processes data primarily in the United States, and Make offers EU and US hosting regions at the time of writing. Check each provider's current data residency terms against your own data protection obligations.
Governance and security
This is where Power Automate is usually strongest for organisations of 20 to 500 staff. Admins can see every flow in the tenant, set data loss prevention policies that stop business data being sent to unapproved services, separate development and production environments, and package flows into solutions that can be deployed and owned properly.
Zapier and Make both offer admin features on their higher plans, including shared workspaces, SSO and audit logs. The practical difference is that they sit outside your Microsoft tenant, so they need their own account management, offboarding and access reviews. A common risk is a personal Zapier account, paid on a credit card, quietly moving customer data. That is not a flaw in Zapier, it is a governance gap, and the same gap exists with Power Automate flows built under personal accounts. Our fix ownerless flows page covers that pattern.
Ease of use and who will build
Zapier is the easiest to pick up. Make is very approachable for visual thinkers and powerful once learned. Power Automate is easy for simple flows but becomes more technical when you need expressions, error handling and solution-aware deployment.
For business-critical processes, ease of first build matters less than how easy it is to support the automation two years later. Flows in solutions, with service account ownership, naming conventions and documentation, are much easier to hand over than a collection of personal automations in any tool.
Which should you choose?
Choose Power Automate when
- Most of your data and people are in Microsoft 365
- You need approvals in Teams or Outlook with a proper audit trail
- IT needs central visibility, DLP policies and offboarding through Entra ID
- You want to automate desktop applications as well as cloud services
Choose Zapier when
- Your stack is mostly non-Microsoft SaaS tools
- Automations are simple trigger-and-action jobs
- Non-technical staff need to build their own quickly
- Volumes are low enough that task-based pricing stays modest
Choose Make when
- Scenarios have many branches, loops or data transformations
- You want a visual map of complex integrations
- Volumes are high but each operation is simple
- EU hosting is a requirement and Microsoft is not central
Cost considerations
Exact prices change often, so treat this as a guide to the cost drivers rather than a price list. Check current pricing on each provider's site before deciding.
- Power Automate: flows using standard connectors such as SharePoint, Outlook and Teams are covered by many Microsoft 365 business and enterprise plans at no extra cost. Premium connectors, Dataverse, HTTP calls and unattended desktop flows need premium licences per user, per flow or through pay-as-you-go. Check current Microsoft pricing.
- Zapier: a free tier for light use, then paid plans that scale with the number of tasks each month. High-volume automations can move you up tiers quickly.
- Make: a free tier, then paid plans based on operations or credits. Each module that runs counts, so a scenario with many steps consumes more than its trigger count suggests.
- Build and support: for any tool, the larger cost over time is usually the hours spent building, fixing and changing automations, not the subscription.
If you are paying for Zapier or Make while already licensed for Power Automate through Microsoft 365, a licensing review from £395 will tell you what you could consolidate and what is worth keeping. Our Automation Opportunity Sprint from £1,750 ranks which processes are worth automating first. You can also run your numbers through the licensing calculator.
Moving from Zapier or Make to Power Automate
There is no automatic converter, so migration is a rebuild. Done in order, it is low risk:
- Inventory: list every Zap or scenario, its owner, trigger, connected apps, volume and what breaks if it stops.
- Triage: some automations should stay where they are, especially SaaS-to-SaaS jobs with no Microsoft involvement. Move the ones that touch Microsoft 365 or sensitive data first.
- Map connectors: confirm each app has a Power Automate connector and whether it is standard or premium. Webhooks and custom APIs usually need the premium HTTP connector or a custom connector.
- Rebuild in solutions: flows are built in a solution, owned by a service account, with error handling and failure alerts.
- Run in parallel, then switch off: run both for a short period, compare outputs, then disable the old automation and cancel the subscription.
A good scoping call should be willing to tell you the other option is the better fit. If it is, you will hear that on the first call.