Co-founder & CEO at a computer software company with 1-10 employees
User
Mar 12, 2020
Street Cred: I only provide feedback in the context of what it "actually" costs to implement and run/maintain - not in the context of "retail" pricing. We've had experience with many evaluations, assessments, selections, implementations and launches (either doing or managing them on behalf of customers).
Answer: Which solution provider? Depending on your choice you will range from the following:
Unattended - USD 1700 to USD 4800 per robot, excluding orchestrators and design environments
Attended - USD 7300 to USD 12,700 per robot, excluding orchestrators and design environments
On the lower end - expect to pay more based on the fact that the functionality you need is more complex than the robot can handle
On the higher end - expect that your dev and implementation time and cost (based on effort) may take a bit longer because the more functionality you get the more you will actually try to accommodate it based on requirements.
One size doesn't fit all so think about how best to scale into bots and solutions. Generally, unattended robots aren't worth it unless its a process (not a single task) that requires decision making by someone and can't be avoided. PM for more info if you need.
Search for a product comparison in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
BPM Delivery Director at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
User
Mar 12, 2020
There may not be a cost difference. Usually, the license you have will allow you to run a bot in an attended (i.e., license owner is actively logged into the RPA app during bot run) or unattended mode (i.e., bot scheduled to run independently of license owner being logged in). We are partners with AutomationAnywhere, so any bot creator (or bot runner) license allows a user to run a bot in attended or unattended mode. Botrunner licenses are specifically for bots to use to run (in any mode); Botcreator also allows users to do development/creation. Botrunner licenses are significantly cheaper than Botcreator if you need to buy extra. Any package AA provides will have both.
Adding/extending on the points. The cost also depends on the kind of work involved. If it is just pure play RPA of data aggregation, data entry and rule-based processing using digital data, the cost suggested below by Ian Sehgal is a good range to consider.
On the other hand, if you are thinking about data extractions from documents, RPA products price it differently depending on the functionalities that your use case needs. It is appropriate to get your use case finalized, future expansion plans thought through to narrow down on a product and have them evaluated for budgetary constraints.
Head of Process Innovation and Robotic Automation at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Mar 16, 2020
Keeping aligned with the growth trajectory of intelligent robotics, there are two distinct ways to look at RPA and their associated cost:
# Basic RPA - Standalone basic bots to complete a simple task in a business process
# HyperAutomation - Intelligent bots working with other aggregated technologies to holistically solution a business process.
For Cost:
Approach 1: In addition to what Ian said, based on the toolset selected and the number of bots planned, cost drastically varies. To illustrate, if you are using say AA for your RPA work, then based on the number of bots planned, attended bot runner can cost anywhere between $800-$2000 on an annual basis whereas, for an unattended bot, the range will be from a couple of thousand to $10k. At a high level, pricing for the top tier companies such as AA, UIPath, BluePrism, Kapow, etc are close but not comparable due to different discounting models built in which is customer-specific.
There are other tools like JiffyRPA, Foxtrot which are awesome for attended bots and it will cost a couple of hundred dollars a year (significant TCO saving compared to big guns).
Approach 2: Is to calculate the cost in terms of business outcomes [both tangible and non-tangible]. To do so, it is critical to understand
* Deployment Units
* Workload Types
* User group responsible for bot management.
To illustrate, let's take UiPath and AA as a case study:
- If deployment units will be more desktop-based with integration with enterprise services, then a control unit will be required. In such a case, the cost of both the tools will be similar when we reach around 15 production bots with automation anywhere providing better out of box features for exception handling, auditing, etc.
- If deployment units will be more desktop-based, standalone in nature and managed directly by the business team, then we don't need a control unit. In case a case, UiPath will be much cheaper.
Global Head of Automation & Digitalization /Digital Transformation Advisor /Technical Lead / Customer Success at a tech company with 11-50 employees
User
Mar 16, 2020
Total cost (unattended bot) = Infra (Cloud or On premises) + License (RPA Tool) + Implementation (3 times license cost) + Maintenance {It is distributed in 3 years to get the completed ROI}.
Total Cost (Attended bot) = License (RPA Tool) + Implementation (3 times license cost) . {Instant ROI}
Consultant at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
May 12, 2020
Hello Jose,
The cost might vary depending upon the processes that are required to be processed.
You can also try, some free options that are available by all the leading vendors, to decide which is the better option.
To support businesses in the current COVID-19 Pandemic situation, Vendors like Datamatics are offering free RPA bots until 30th September 2020, this can be a great option to try the RPA tool. Details can be found here: bit.ly/3dnaC6i
The total cost varies on the basis of your process complexity and volume. AutomationEdge bots are parallel processing bots to automate multiple processes using a single bot depending on the volume which eventually reduces the total cost. You can get in touch to discuss the process and actual pricing. www.automationedge.com.
Also, AutomationEdge does not charge for the process studio and other components, unlike other vendors.
It is about on which RPA platform and what kind of licensing model you have planned to adopt with different RPA tools.
Again this is also about how much number you have planned and what kind of package. We have done through service partner and for us it come around USD 4800.
Could you please provide the cost details of Automation Anywhere license?
Types Subscription Price US$
1 Control Room One time / Annual
2 Bot Creator
3 BOT runner
4 Attended BOT
5 Unattended BOT
6 IQ BOT
7 AA support ticket based
8 Bot insight
9 Bot farm
10 AA 2019
If you are a corporation you may get a good deal with AA and some discounts based on your projections. Apart from that, AA is bit high on cost than UI.
For anyone who is a developer, go with the community edition but it has limitations and you may not be able to evaluate completely.
Business Development Executive at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Vendor
Mar 12, 2020
I wouldn't speak confidently to the other providers' pricing, obviously, but can definitely share ElectroNeek's. Our RPA platform is actually unique
in its pricing model since it offers *unlimited attended and unattended robots available with each license*.
Our licensing is based on the development tools (environment) used for the creation of the robots. Our standard license costs *$18,000 per year *that
already* includes everything *you'll need for running your robots, such as:
- development environment
- robots (tools for creation and execution)
- orchestrator (to manage updates and the schedule for unattended robots)
- hands-on professional training to onboard and get you up to speed
using the platform
- continuous support and maintenance
And what's more, we typically offer a bundle of licenses just so you can onboard more people to create the bots. In that case the price per each
license will be discounted.
Please let me know if your colleague has other questions.
General Manger - Services at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
User
Mar 12, 2020
It depend on the processes and number of BOTs. If its only one attended bot than you dont need control room or orchestrator. So in this case you can buy one Studio(creator) and one attended BOT (runner). This will cost you 6-7000 USD.
In case you decide for unattended bot than complete solution will cost 20-25 k USD. It will include Control Room, Studio, and Runner.
Co-founder and CEO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
User
Sep 2, 2021
Disclaimer: We partner with AutomationEdge and they have a great proposal not to invest in a bot that will be sitting idle while developing your automation.
On the other hand, its Excel processing is probably 10x faster than most platforms in the market that allows executing more automation processes in a 24-hour time frame. And no need for spreadsheet licenses for each bot to achieve this performance.
Depending on the licensing model and pricing, that starts from $25 per month if based on consumption, it can be focused on RPA processes or IT Process Automation and if you need a combination of both, which comes in at from $47.50 per month.
Finally, the full-blown system with the availability of 7x24, which includes ETL, OCR, AI/ML and other functions natively, like Cognibot with RPA or ITPA, this kind of requirement needs to be reviewed separately. All pricing includes the complete environment to develop and manage all your processes and agents. Multiple agents can execute on the same Windows Server, saving on OS licenses per agent, and optionally agents can multitask up to 4 workflows.
The basics are straightforward, but if you want to get the actual $$ amounts that's harder as it is a constantly evolving (and in general, commoditizing) space from a price perspective.
First, for unattended bots, traditionally vendors try to compare the bot to the price of a person doing the same work, and to have the bot cost 1/3 or less of that FTE cost. That pricing has come down considerably and I think they've learned not to make that comparison so explicit. But the key is, the cost for unattended bots is not based, at all, on the number of people using the bot. It is effectively based on how much processing that bot can do.
For attended bots, they are less fully utilized than unattended bots - they're used only when a person (user) calls upon them. The pricing is based on a per-user model, and generally a much lower per-user cost. Of course as with all per-user models there are enterprise licenses and large levels of users.
Finally, from a "total cost" point of view keep in mind that you'll pay for these bots every year - the licenses are (typically) not perpetual. Also, that you'll need some care and feeding of the bots as your business changes, as your applications change, as the applications you have to interact with change, and exceptions pop up. The more bots you have, the more efficiently (price per bot) you can handle these maintenance activities. There is a story of a client who built bots to replace two FTE's in their org, but then had to hire two people to maintain the bots...
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that automates repetitive and time-consuming tasks, freeing employees to focus on strategic work. It leverages software bots that enhance efficiency and accuracy across various business processes. RPA is transforming numerous industries by automating data entry, invoice processing, and customer support, among other tasks. It uses software robots or 'bots' to perform processes that are repetitive and rule-based, allowing businesses to...
Street Cred: I only provide feedback in the context of what it "actually" costs to implement and run/maintain - not in the context of "retail" pricing. We've had experience with many evaluations, assessments, selections, implementations and launches (either doing or managing them on behalf of customers).
Answer: Which solution provider? Depending on your choice you will range from the following:
Unattended - USD 1700 to USD 4800 per robot, excluding orchestrators and design environments
Attended - USD 7300 to USD 12,700 per robot, excluding orchestrators and design environments
On the lower end - expect to pay more based on the fact that the functionality you need is more complex than the robot can handle
On the higher end - expect that your dev and implementation time and cost (based on effort) may take a bit longer because the more functionality you get the more you will actually try to accommodate it based on requirements.
One size doesn't fit all so think about how best to scale into bots and solutions. Generally, unattended robots aren't worth it unless its a process (not a single task) that requires decision making by someone and can't be avoided. PM for more info if you need.
There may not be a cost difference. Usually, the license you have will allow you to run a bot in an attended (i.e., license owner is actively logged into the RPA app during bot run) or unattended mode (i.e., bot scheduled to run independently of license owner being logged in). We are partners with AutomationAnywhere, so any bot creator (or bot runner) license allows a user to run a bot in attended or unattended mode. Botrunner licenses are specifically for bots to use to run (in any mode); Botcreator also allows users to do development/creation. Botrunner licenses are significantly cheaper than Botcreator if you need to buy extra. Any package AA provides will have both.
I would second with @Ian Sehgal.
Adding/extending on the points. The cost also depends on the kind of work involved. If it is just pure play RPA of data aggregation, data entry and rule-based processing using digital data, the cost suggested below by Ian Sehgal is a good range to consider.
On the other hand, if you are thinking about data extractions from documents, RPA products price it differently depending on the functionalities that your use case needs. It is appropriate to get your use case finalized, future expansion plans thought through to narrow down on a product and have them evaluated for budgetary constraints.
Keeping aligned with the growth trajectory of intelligent robotics, there are two distinct ways to look at RPA and their associated cost:
# Basic RPA - Standalone basic bots to complete a simple task in a business process
# HyperAutomation - Intelligent bots working with other aggregated technologies to holistically solution a business process.
For Cost:
Approach 1: In addition to what Ian said, based on the toolset selected and the number of bots planned, cost drastically varies. To illustrate, if you are using say AA for your RPA work, then based on the number of bots planned, attended bot runner can cost anywhere between $800-$2000 on an annual basis whereas, for an unattended bot, the range will be from a couple of thousand to $10k. At a high level, pricing for the top tier companies such as AA, UIPath, BluePrism, Kapow, etc are close but not comparable due to different discounting models built in which is customer-specific.
There are other tools like JiffyRPA, Foxtrot which are awesome for attended bots and it will cost a couple of hundred dollars a year (significant TCO saving compared to big guns).
Approach 2: Is to calculate the cost in terms of business outcomes [both tangible and non-tangible]. To do so, it is critical to understand
* Deployment Units
* Workload Types
* User group responsible for bot management.
To illustrate, let's take UiPath and AA as a case study:
- If deployment units will be more desktop-based with integration with enterprise services, then a control unit will be required. In such a case, the cost of both the tools will be similar when we reach around 15 production bots with automation anywhere providing better out of box features for exception handling, auditing, etc.
- If deployment units will be more desktop-based, standalone in nature and managed directly by the business team, then we don't need a control unit. In case a case, UiPath will be much cheaper.
Total cost (unattended bot) = Infra (Cloud or On premises) + License (RPA Tool) + Implementation (3 times license cost) + Maintenance {It is distributed in 3 years to get the completed ROI}.
Total Cost (Attended bot) = License (RPA Tool) + Implementation (3 times license cost) . {Instant ROI}
UiPath: Attended robots, around 1.5k/year/each robot. Unattended: around 8k/year/each robot.
Hello Jose,
The cost might vary depending upon the processes that are required to be processed.
You can also try, some free options that are available by all the leading vendors, to decide which is the better option.
To support businesses in the current COVID-19 Pandemic situation, Vendors like Datamatics are offering free RPA bots until 30th September 2020, this can be a great option to try the RPA tool. Details can be found here: bit.ly/3dnaC6i
The total cost varies on the basis of your process complexity and volume. AutomationEdge bots are parallel processing bots to automate multiple processes using a single bot depending on the volume which eventually reduces the total cost. You can get in touch to discuss the process and actual pricing. www.automationedge.com.
Also, AutomationEdge does not charge for the process studio and other components, unlike other vendors.
The total cost may vary from one tool to another. However, un-attended costs are on a comparatively higher side as compared to attended automation.
It is about on which RPA platform and what kind of licensing model you have planned to adopt with different RPA tools.
Again this is also about how much number you have planned and what kind of package. We have done through service partner and for us it come around USD 4800.
Could you please provide the cost details of Automation Anywhere license?
Types Subscription Price US$
1 Control Room One time / Annual
2 Bot Creator
3 BOT runner
4 Attended BOT
5 Unattended BOT
6 IQ BOT
7 AA support ticket based
8 Bot insight
9 Bot farm
10 AA 2019
If you are a corporation you may get a good deal with AA and some discounts based on your projections. Apart from that, AA is bit high on cost than UI.
For anyone who is a developer, go with the community edition but it has limitations and you may not be able to evaluate completely.
I wouldn't speak confidently to the other providers' pricing, obviously, but can definitely share ElectroNeek's. Our RPA platform is actually unique
in its pricing model since it offers *unlimited attended and unattended robots available with each license*.
Our licensing is based on the development tools (environment) used for the creation of the robots. Our standard license costs *$18,000 per year *that
already* includes everything *you'll need for running your robots, such as:
- development environment
- robots (tools for creation and execution)
- orchestrator (to manage updates and the schedule for unattended robots)
- hands-on professional training to onboard and get you up to speed
using the platform
- continuous support and maintenance
And what's more, we typically offer a bundle of licenses just so you can onboard more people to create the bots. In that case the price per each
license will be discounted.
Please let me know if your colleague has other questions.
It depend on the processes and number of BOTs. If its only one attended bot than you dont need control room or orchestrator. So in this case you can buy one Studio(creator) and one attended BOT (runner). This will cost you 6-7000 USD.
In case you decide for unattended bot than complete solution will cost 20-25 k USD. It will include Control Room, Studio, and Runner.
Hi Jose,
Most RPA software robots run in attended and unattended mode at no additional cost.
If you're interested in a price based on users, DM me.
Disclaimer: We partner with AutomationEdge and they have a great proposal not to invest in a bot that will be sitting idle while developing your automation.
On the other hand, its Excel processing is probably 10x faster than most platforms in the market that allows executing more automation processes in a 24-hour time frame. And no need for spreadsheet licenses for each bot to achieve this performance.
Depending on the licensing model and pricing, that starts from $25 per month if based on consumption, it can be focused on RPA processes or IT Process Automation and if you need a combination of both, which comes in at from $47.50 per month.
Finally, the full-blown system with the availability of 7x24, which includes ETL, OCR, AI/ML and other functions natively, like Cognibot with RPA or ITPA, this kind of requirement needs to be reviewed separately.
All pricing includes the complete environment to develop and manage all your processes and agents. Multiple agents can execute on the same Windows Server, saving on OS licenses per agent, and optionally agents can multitask up to 4 workflows.
The basics are straightforward, but if you want to get the actual $$ amounts that's harder as it is a constantly evolving (and in general, commoditizing) space from a price perspective.
First, for unattended bots, traditionally vendors try to compare the bot to the price of a person doing the same work, and to have the bot cost 1/3 or less of that FTE cost. That pricing has come down considerably and I think they've learned not to make that comparison so explicit. But the key is, the cost for unattended bots is not based, at all, on the number of people using the bot. It is effectively based on how much processing that bot can do.
For attended bots, they are less fully utilized than unattended bots - they're used only when a person (user) calls upon them. The pricing is based on a per-user model, and generally a much lower per-user cost. Of course as with all per-user models there are enterprise licenses and large levels of users.
Finally, from a "total cost" point of view keep in mind that you'll pay for these bots every year - the licenses are (typically) not perpetual. Also, that you'll need some care and feeding of the bots as your business changes, as your applications change, as the applications you have to interact with change, and exceptions pop up. The more bots you have, the more efficiently (price per bot) you can handle these maintenance activities. There is a story of a client who built bots to replace two FTE's in their org, but then had to hire two people to maintain the bots...