Power Automate vs Make

Make is the tool people reach for when Zapier feels too simple and Power Automate feels too Microsoft. It has a devoted following among technically minded operators and agencies, a visual builder that makes data flow legible, and pricing that stays reasonable at moderate volume. Against Power Automate in a Dynamics 365 context the question is the same as with any third-party automation tool: where does the platform end and the edge begin?

What each product is

Make (Integromat until 2022, owned by Celonis) is a visual integration platform. A scenario is a diagram: a trigger module, then modules connected by routes, with routers for branching, iterators to split arrays, aggregators to combine them, filters on every route, error handlers, and a general-purpose HTTP module for any API. It connects to 2,000+ apps and is priced per operations executed — every module run counts — in plans from Free through Core, Pro, and Teams to Enterprise, with scenario scheduling intervals that shorten on higher tiers. It runs in Make's cloud (EU and US regions).

Power Automate is Microsoft's workflow and RPA platform inside the Power Platform: cloud flows across roughly 1,000+ connectors, desktop flows for RPA, business process flows, approvals, and process mining, priced per user and per bot with rights included in Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 licences for in-context flows. It lives in Dataverse environments with solutions, DLP policies, and admin governance. See what is Power Platform.

Head to head

Area	Make	Power Automate
Builder	Visual diagram: modules, routes, routers, iterators, aggregators	Linear designer with conditions, scopes, loops, parallel branches
Catalogue	2,000+ apps plus HTTP module	~1,000+ connectors plus custom connectors and HTTP
Pricing (2026)	Per operations per month by plan; free tier; Core and Pro from roughly $10–20/month	Premium $15 per user per month; Process $150 per bot; included with Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 for in-context flows
Data transformation	Excellent: iterators, aggregators, mapping, array and text functions	Capable: expressions, Select, Compose, Filter array, Apply to each
Triggers	Webhooks (instant), polling on a schedule (interval by plan), app triggers	Dataverse row events with filters and scope, app events, schedules, HTTP, manual
Microsoft depth	Connectors for Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365	Native Dataverse, Dynamics 365, SQL, on-premises gateway, Entra service principals
Approvals	Via integrations	Native Approvals in Teams and Outlook
RPA	None	Desktop flows, attended and unattended
Error handling	Error handler routes: resume, ignore, rollback, break, commit	Configure run-after, scopes, retry policies
Governance	Teams, roles, SSO and audit on higher tiers	DLP policies, environments, solutions, Managed Environments
ALM	Scenario versions, templates, blueprints (JSON export)	Solutions, pipelines, Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions
Who builds	Technically minded business users, agencies	Makers and developers; business users for simple flows
Regions	EU and US	Environment region; sovereign clouds

Where Make wins

The builder. Seeing the whole scenario as a diagram, with every module's output mapped into the next by drag and drop, makes complex integrations legible in a way Power Automate's vertical designer does not. Routers and iterators are first-class concepts rather than actions to discover.

Transformation. Reshaping arrays, aggregating results, and building request bodies is Make's home turf. In Power Automate the same work is possible but leans on expressions and Apply to each loops that grow unwieldy.

Price at moderate volume without Microsoft licences. A small operations team or agency running tens of thousands of operations a month pays little.

The HTTP module. Any REST API, with pagination, in a few clicks. Power Automate's HTTP action is a premium connector and a blunter instrument.

Speed for the technically inclined. Operators who think in data flows are productive in Make within an afternoon.

Where Power Automate wins

Dataverse and Dynamics 365. Row triggers with filter attributes and scope, actions that respect the security model, service-principal connections, and no per-operation metering. Automation on Dynamics 365 data belongs in the same platform as the data — Power Automate connectors for Dynamics 365 covers what is native.

Cost for licensed users. Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 users already have Power Automate for flows in their app's context. Make's operations metering punishes exactly the high-frequency automations that matter in an ERP or CRM.

Approvals and the Microsoft 365 surface. Native approvals in Teams and Outlook, adaptive cards, SharePoint, Planner, Excel — the everyday enterprise workflow.

Governance. DLP policies, environments, solution-based ALM through pipelines, Managed Environments, and an admin centre that sees every flow. Make's Enterprise tier adds governance; Power Automate's is the default.

RPA and on-premises. Desktop flows and the on-premises data gateway have no Make equivalent.

Data residency and compliance. Flows run in the environment's region, including sovereign clouds, under the tenant's Purview and audit — a hard requirement for regulated organisations that Make's EU/US regions may not meet.

Where the differences do not matter

Point-to-point SaaS automations of moderate complexity. Both are reliable, both have the popular connectors, both handle errors and retries competently.

How the decision usually gets made

Stack. Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365: Power Automate owns process automation, and Make — if present — handles specific edge integrations under governance. No Microsoft commitment: Make is a strong general-purpose choice.

Nature of the work. Heavy data reshaping across third-party APIs: Make is more pleasant. Business processes on Dynamics 365 records with approvals and security: Power Automate.

Volume. Very high volume in either tool becomes expensive or throttled; the answer at that point is a plug-in, Logic Apps, or Azure Functions — see Logic Apps Standard vs Consumption.

Compliance. Regulated data and residency requirements: Power Automate in the tenant's environment.

Using both

Where Make is already in use — often via a marketing agency — the pattern that works is an inventory of scenarios with owners, a DLP-aware list of what data they touch, a service account rather than a person's credentials, and a policy that anything touching Dataverse rows migrates to Power Automate. Integrating Dynamics 365 with Zapier and Make covers the mechanics and the governance.

The short version

Make for technically minded teams doing data-heavy integrations across third-party APIs, especially without Microsoft licences. Power Automate for anything on Dynamics 365 or Dataverse, for approvals and Teams, for RPA and on-premises, for governance and residency — which in a Microsoft shop is nearly everything. Zapier, the third tool in this space, is compared in Power Automate vs Zapier.