Quick answer: A process mining implementation has three costs: the platform licence, the data work and your own team’s time. Published licence prices start at roughly $35,000 to $60,000 a year; the other two depend on how many systems the process crosses and how many teams it touches. A Zenotris engagement on one process costs $10,000 to $50,000.
There is no single price for a process mining implementation, and any article that gives you one figure is guessing. The bill has three parts: the platform licence, the work of getting your data into shape, and the time your own people spend acting on what is found. Only the first has a published price, and only from some vendors. This guide sets out what each part involves, the licence prices that are public, and how to build a budget you can defend.
The three parts of the bill
| Part | What you are paying for | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Platform licence | Access to a process mining platform, usually an annual subscription | Data volume, number of users, number of processes |
| Data work | Extracting event data from your systems, cleaning it and joining it into one record per case | How many systems the process crosses, and how clean their timestamps are |
| People | Your team’s time in workshops, in checking findings and in changing how the work is done | How many teams the process touches, and whether someone owns it |
Most budgets cover the first line and underestimate the other two. The data work is where projects overrun, and the people line is the one that decides whether anything changes.
The licence prices vendors publish
Two of the larger vendors put a starting price on their websites. These are list prices in US dollars as published on 13 October 2026, and they cover the licence only.
| Platform | Published starting price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Power Automate Process Mining add-on | $5,000 per tenant per month, paid yearly | 100 GB of process mining data, plus Dataverse capacity |
| IBM Process Mining, hosted | From $4,250 per month, billed annually | 20 GB of storage, 3 business users and 1 analyst user |
| IBM Process Mining, on your own servers | From $2,885 per month | 3 projects, 20 million events, 3 business users and 1 analyst user |
Celonis and UiPath do not publish a price for process mining; both quote after a sales conversation. Figures you see for them online are other customers’ reports, not list prices, so treat them as anecdotes.
Read across the table and the published entry point is roughly $35,000 to $60,000 a year for the licence, before any data work has been done. That is the number to compare a quote against, and it is why a small first project needs a clear return to justify a platform at all.
What makes the data work expensive
Process mining needs three fields for every event: an identifier for the case, the name of the step and a timestamp. Most systems hold them, but rarely in one table and rarely in a form that agrees between systems. The cost of this stage depends on:
- The number of systems. An order that passes through an ERP, a warehouse system and a carrier portal needs three extractions and a way to match them.
- The quality of the timestamps. A field called “completed” that is filled in at the end of the shift, not when the work finished, will mislead every chart built on it.
- How often it has to run. A one-off study is cheaper than a feed that refreshes every day.
Ask any supplier how many days of data work their quote assumes. If they cannot say, the quote is a licence price with a hope attached.
The cost that is not on the invoice
Finding a delay costs little compared with removing it. Somebody has to agree the finding, decide what changes, retrain the people who do the work and check a month later that the change held. That time comes from your operations team, and it is rarely budgeted.
Plan for it openly. A project with a named owner and a few protected hours a week will return more than a larger project that nobody has time to act on.
Platform-led or service-led
There are two ways to buy. In a platform-led programme you license the platform, build the data feed and train your own analysts. Programmes of that kind typically take 3 to 9 months from kickoff to a first measurable outcome. In a service-led engagement a specialist firm brings the method and the tooling and works on one process at a time. Ours target a first measurable result by week 8, after a discovery of 2 to 3 weeks.
A Zenotris engagement on one process costs between $10,000 and $50,000, from discovery to the first measurable result. Where it falls in that range depends mostly on how many systems the process crosses and how much data work they need. There is no platform licence to buy first.
Neither is cheaper in every case. A platform suits an organisation that will mine many processes for years and has analysts to run it. A service suits one that needs a result on a specific process before committing to a tool. The routes are compared in build vs buy vs hire, and the stages are laid out in the implementation timeline.
How to budget for the first process
- Choose one process where the cost of delay or rework is already visible.
- Price the problem. Count the cases, the days of delay and the repeats over the last three months, and put a cost on each.
- Set the ceiling. Programmes typically pay back within 3 to 9 months at a first-year return of 3:1 to 10:1. At the lower end, 3:1, a problem that costs £10,000 a month supports a project of about £40,000 at most, and only if the problem is removed entirely.
- Ask for the three lines separately. Licence, data work and people. A single figure hides which one is carrying the risk.
- Name the measure and the date on which it will be checked.
The working behind the payback figures is in our guide to payback times and cost drivers.
Questions to ask before you sign
- What does the licence cost in year two, and what triggers a higher tier?
- How many days of data work are included, and who does them?
- Which process will be first, and what result is expected by which date?
- What do we own if we stop: the data model, the dashboards, the findings?
- How much of our own team’s time does the plan assume each week?
Get a costed plan for one process. It starts with a 30-minute call. See how it works →
Related: see Process Mining for Mid-Market Companies: FAQ | Zenotris.
Frequently asked questions
How much does process mining platform cost?
Published list prices start at $5,000 per tenant per month for Microsoft’s Power Automate Process Mining add-on and from $4,250 per month for IBM Process Mining hosted, both billed annually. Celonis and UiPath do not publish a price.
Why do process mining projects go over budget?
Usually on the data work. Extracting event data from several systems and making their timestamps agree takes longer than planned, and it is often left out of the first quote.
How much does a Zenotris process mining engagement cost?
Between $10,000 and $50,000 for one process, from discovery to the first measurable result. The range reflects how many systems the process crosses and how much data work is needed.
Can a mid-market company do process mining without buying a platform?
Yes. A service-led engagement uses the firm’s own tooling to study one process, which gives a result before any licence is bought. It suits a company that wants proof on one process first.
How quickly does a process mining project pay back?
Programmes typically pay back within 3 to 9 months, at a first-year return of 3:1 to 10:1, when they start with one process whose cost is already known.