Pick Power Automate if you live in Microsoft 365, automate SharePoint, Outlook and Teams with standard connectors, or need desktop RPA: much of it is already licensed. Pick n8n if your flows reach many non-Microsoft APIs, need code or AI agents, run at high volume, or would force premium licenses onto many users. Power Automate prices people and bots; n8n prices workflow runs.
n8n vs Power Automate is a choice between paying for people and paying for runs: Power Automate licenses users and bots inside your Microsoft tenant, while n8n charges per workflow execution or nothing at all when self-hosted. If your automations stay inside Microsoft 365, Power Automate usually wins on cost and governance; if they reach across many outside APIs, need code or AI, or would require premium licenses for dozens of people, n8n usually wins.
Checked October 2026 on Microsoft's Power Automate pricing page, the Microsoft Learn pages on license types, licensing FAQs and request limits, the n8n pricing page and n8n's Microsoft credentials docs. Microsoft notes its listed prices vary by currency, region and agreement; n8n prices in euros.
This comparison is written for the Microsoft 365 shop: a business that already pays for Outlook, Teams and SharePoint, has an IT admin who cares about Entra ID, and is wondering whether n8n is worth adding. If you are new to n8n itself, our n8n hub with workflow ideas and templates shows what people build with it.
The verdict for Microsoft 365 teams
- Flows stay inside SharePoint, Outlook, Teams and Excel
- Standard connectors cover what you need
- IT wants everything in the tenant and admin center
- You need desktop RPA for legacy Windows apps
- Approvals and document flows for many staff
- Flows call many non-Microsoft APIs
- You need JavaScript or Python inside workflows
- You are building AI agents with tools and memory
- Premium licensing would cover dozens of users
- Volume would hit daily action limits
- You want to self-host or avoid per-user pricing
n8n vs Microsoft Power Automate: the head-to-head
| Power Automate | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| What you license | Users (Premium) or flows and bots (Process) | Workflow executions (Cloud) or nothing (self-hosted Community) |
| Included already | Standard connectors with Microsoft 365 or the free license | Nothing; Cloud trial is 14 days |
| Paid entry point | Premium: $15 per user a month paid yearly | Cloud Starter: €20 a month billed annually, 2,500 executions |
| Usage cap | 40,000 requests per Premium user per day; 250,000 per Process license | Monthly execution quota on Cloud; none self-hosted |
| Desktop automation (RPA) | Yes: attended with Premium, unattended with Process | No; n8n automates through APIs, not screens |
| Custom APIs | Custom connectors, a Premium feature | HTTP Request node and cURL import on every plan |
| Hosting | Microsoft cloud, in your tenant | n8n Cloud (Frankfurt) or your own server |
| Governance | Entra ID, environments, Power Platform admin center | Own users and roles; SSO and environments on paid plans |
Power Automate details come from Microsoft's pricing page and the Learn license types page; n8n details from its pricing page. All checked October 2026.
What Microsoft 365 already gives you
This is the part most comparisons skip, and it decides a lot. Microsoft's licensing FAQ says users with the free plan or a Microsoft 365 license "can only access standard connectors", and that if a flow does not use a premium connector, "you can use a Microsoft 365 license." The free license, available to work or school accounts, covers creating and running cloud flows (without sharing) and running desktop flows locally.
So a team whose automations are "when a file lands in this SharePoint library, post in Teams and email the owner" may already be paying for everything it needs. Adding n8n for that job means a second tool, a second login and a second place for credentials, for little gain. That is the honest starting point.
Where premium connectors and limits bite
Costs appear the moment a flow touches a premium or custom connector, needs a bot, or runs at volume. Microsoft's rules, as of October 2026:
- Premium is per user. Power Automate Premium is listed at $15 per user per month, paid yearly. It adds premium and custom connectors, an attended RPA bot, process mining and 5,000 AI Builder credits a month.
- Who needs it depends on the trigger. Automated and scheduled flows run as the owner, so only the owner needs Premium. Instant flows, such as a button in Teams, run as whoever presses it, so every user of a premium instant flow needs Premium, unless you license the flow itself with Process.
- Process is per flow or bot. Power Automate Process is $150 per bot per month, paid yearly. On a cloud flow it unlocks premium connectors for everyone and gives 250,000 actions a day; on a machine it becomes one unattended bot that runs one desktop flow at a time. Hosted Process, with a Microsoft-hosted virtual machine, is $215.
- Every action counts against a daily cap. Triggers, connector calls, HTTP actions, built-in steps like Compose, retries and failed actions all count as Power Platform requests: 40,000 a day per Premium user, 250,000 per Process license and 6,000 per user on Free or Office 365. They do not roll over.
- Connectors throttle separately. Microsoft gives the SharePoint connector's 600 actions per minute as an example; a flow can be throttled there long before it hits its daily cap.
- No shortcuts. Pooling users behind one account to buy fewer licenses is what Microsoft calls multiplexing, and its FAQ says doing it to reduce license count is a license violation.
Power Automate vs n8n pricing: the license-cost table
Neither vendor publishes this side by side, because they price different things. The rows below are illustrative scenarios priced with the list prices above; your agreement with Microsoft may differ, and the n8n column depends on how many runs each scenario produces.
| Scenario | Power Automate license | Power Automate cost | n8n |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 staff automate SharePoint, Outlook and Teams with standard connectors | Microsoft 365 licenses you already pay for | $0 extra | Cloud Starter €20, or self-host |
| 1 owner runs a scheduled flow that uses a premium connector | 1 Premium (only the owner needs it for automated flows) | $15 a month | Same workflow, counted per run |
| 40 staff press a button that runs a flow with a premium connector | 40 Premium, or 1 Process license on the flow | $600 or $150 a month | One webhook workflow; executions per press |
| A flow needs about 300,000 actions a day | 2 Process licenses stacked on the flow | $300 a month | Pro or self-hosted; one execution per run, not per action |
| Unattended bot clicks through a legacy desktop app | 1 Process license per bot (or Hosted Process at $215) | $150 a month | Not possible in n8n |
Read it as a pattern rather than a quote. Power Automate is cheapest when the people automating already hold Microsoft 365 licenses and stay on standard connectors. It gets expensive when premium connectors meet many users, or when actions per day are high, because both cost scale with headcount or action count. n8n's cost scales with runs instead: an n8n execution is "a single run of your entire workflow" whatever the step count, per its pricing page. Our n8n pricing guide shows how to estimate runs and pick a tier.
Where n8n HTTP nodes and code win
- Any API, no premium tier. In Power Automate, an app without a standard connector usually means a premium or custom connector. In n8n, the HTTP Request node and cURL import call any REST API on every plan.
- Code in the workflow. n8n's Code node runs JavaScript or Python as a normal step, which makes data reshaping that takes many Compose and Select actions in Power Automate a few lines.
- AI agents. n8n plans include the AI Agent node, MCP client and server support and human approval for tool calls. Connecting agents to your models is metered by the model provider; our LLM API pricing comparison covers that half of the bill.
- Volume without daily caps. A self-hosted n8n instance has no execution quota, so a busy workflow is limited by your server rather than a request allocation.
- Mixed stacks. Teams that use Microsoft for email but HubSpot, Stripe, Notion or Slack elsewhere can keep everything in one tool.
Where Power Automate wins
- Desktop RPA. Attended and unattended desktop flows automate Windows apps that have no API. n8n has nothing comparable; it works through APIs.
- Already paid for. Standard connectors under Microsoft 365 cost nothing extra.
- Inside the tenant. Identity, licenses, environments and usage reports live in the Power Platform admin center that IT already runs.
- Microsoft-native depth. Approvals, Dataverse, Power Apps and Copilot Studio fit together without extra authentication work.
Running n8n against Microsoft 365
n8n documents nodes for SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, Excel, To Do, Dynamics CRM and Entra ID, plus Outlook and Teams triggers, all authenticated with Microsoft OAuth2 per its credentials page. On n8n Cloud you click Connect my account. Self-hosted, you register an application in the Microsoft identity platform and add a client secret or certificate.
- 1Talk to your tenant admin first
n8n notes that a corporate Entra account may need the admin to allow users to consent to apps accessing company data.
- 2Register an app
In the Microsoft identity platform, with the n8n OAuth redirect URL.
- 3Add a client secret or certificate
Store it only in n8n credentials, never in workflow fields.
- 4Grant the scopes each node needs
The generic Microsoft OAuth2 credential can serve several nodes if it has their scopes.
- 5Test with one SharePoint or Outlook node
Expected result: the node lists your sites or mail folders.
That admin conversation is the real cost of n8n in a Microsoft shop. Power Automate inherits your tenant's identity by default; n8n is a third-party app that IT has to approve, and, if self-hosted, a server IT has to trust. Budget time for it.
Using both: the split most Microsoft shops end up with
- 01Power Automate
Approvals, SharePoint document flows, Teams notifications on standard connectors.
- 02Handoff
A flow posts to a mailbox or Teams channel that an n8n trigger watches, or calls an n8n webhook if it is already premium-licensed.
- 03n8n
CRM sync, payments, AI classification, anything with many outside APIs.
- 04Write back
n8n updates SharePoint, Excel or Teams through its Microsoft nodes.
This keeps premium licensing to a minimum without forcing staff out of the tools they know. If your business is mapping which processes to automate first, our business process automation guide covers picking and sequencing them. If you are weighing the other big alternative, read n8n vs Zapier, which prices the same stack on both.
And if the automations you build for clients start to look like a product of their own, our AI SaaS Builder program covers validating the idea, building it and charging for it.
n8n vs Power Automate: FAQ
Is n8n better than Power Automate?
For a Microsoft 365 shop that automates SharePoint, Outlook and Teams with standard connectors, Power Automate is usually the better choice because it is already licensed and governed by IT. n8n is the better choice when flows need many non-Microsoft APIs, custom code, AI agents or self-hosting, or when premium licensing would have to cover many users. Desktop RPA is a Power Automate strength n8n does not match.
Is Power Automate free with Microsoft 365?
Partly. Microsoft says users with a Microsoft 365 license, or the free Power Automate license for work or school accounts, can create cloud flows with standard connectors only. Premium connectors, custom connectors, attended desktop flows with a bot, process mining and AI Builder credits need Power Automate Premium, listed at $15 per user per month paid yearly when checked in October 2026.
How is Power Automate priced compared with n8n?
Power Automate is licensed per user (Premium) or per flow or bot (Process, $150 per bot per month paid yearly), each with a daily cap on Power Platform requests. n8n Cloud is priced per workflow execution, from €20 a month billed annually for 2,500, and the self-hosted Community Edition has no license fee. One prices people, the other prices runs.
Can n8n connect to SharePoint, Outlook and Teams?
Yes. n8n has documented nodes for SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, Excel and Entra ID, plus Outlook and Teams triggers. They authenticate with Microsoft OAuth2. On n8n Cloud you connect your account in the browser; self-hosted, you register an app in the Microsoft identity platform, and a tenant admin may need to allow user consent before it works.
What are Power Platform request limits?
They are daily caps on actions. Every trigger and action in a cloud flow counts, including built-in steps, HTTP actions, retries and failed actions. Microsoft lists 40,000 requests per user per 24 hours for Premium, 250,000 per Process license, and 6,000 per user for Free and Office 365 licenses. Connectors also have their own throttles, such as 600 SharePoint actions per minute.
Can I use n8n and Power Automate together?
Yes, and many teams should. Keep Microsoft-only approval and document flows in Power Automate where IT already governs them, and run cross-system, high-volume or AI workflows in n8n. Hand off through something both can see, such as a shared mailbox or Teams channel that n8n's Outlook or Teams trigger watches, and let n8n write back through its Microsoft nodes. Do not use a shared service account to dodge per-user licensing; Microsoft calls that multiplexing.
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