Here’s the breakdown:

For the , the cost shifts from software acquisition to infrastructure and governance. The primary value proposition lies in the "Power Platform" ecosystem. If an organization already uses Microsoft 365 (E3/E5 licenses), they may already possess the necessary licenses to scale attended automation at no extra cost, offering a significant financial advantage over standalone RPA competitors.

You can build and run attended flows —automations that run on your own machine while you are signed in.

Understanding the cost of Power Automate Desktop (PAD) depends on whether you are an individual automating personal tasks or a business scaling across teams.