Hosted RPA in Power Automate: Hosted Machines Instead of Your Own Infrastructure

Unattended RPA in Power Automate long followed the same pattern: you need a physical or virtual Windows machine, install Power Automate for desktop on it, set up a service account, and from then on handle patches, restarts, and capacity planning yourself. This is exactly the part that hosted RPA in Power Automate takes off your hands: Microsoft provides the Windows machine in Azure, and you only bring the desktop flow and the license.

This article explains what's behind Hosted Machines and Hosted Machine Groups, which license you need for them, and where the line to classic unattended RPA on your own infrastructure runs. As of: July 2026.

What hosted RPA in Power Automate is

According to the Introduction to hosted Power Automate RPA Power Automate supports two hosted RPA scenarios that run on Microsoft infrastructure in Azure:

• Hosted Machines give developers a single hosted Windows machine to build and test desktop flows and then run them in attended or unattended mode.
• Hosted Machine Groups provide a pool of bots that scales automatically based on demand and is designed for production unattended scenarios.

The core idea behind it: manually procuring, installing, and assigning an RPA machine can, according to Microsoft's documentation, take several days. With Hosted RPA, a name, a base image, and an account are enough to have a machine ready to go within minutes. For common web automation, Microsoft provides a preconfigured Windows image with Edge browser installed by default. Anyone who wants to automate more specialized desktop applications brings their own VM image via the connection to the Azure Compute Gallery.

Hosted Machines and Hosted Machine Groups compared

The two offerings solve different problems in the RPA lifecycle:

• Hosted Machines are suited for building and testing a desktop flow and for individuals who want to run an automation, attended or unattended, on exactly one machine. According to the documentation on hosted computers provisioning runs via Windows 365, and access is limited exclusively to the creator of the machine, though other user accounts can be added for unattended runs.
• Hosted Machine Groups are designed for production operation at scale. If a desktop flow is waiting in the queue and no bot is free, Power Automate automatically provisions another virtual machine, up to the maximum number of bots set by the administration. Capacity is distributed dynamically across multiple groups in the process: if the finance department needs more bots than sales at quarter-end, most of the shared capacity automatically shifts there and returns afterward.

A desktop flow can first be developed and tested on a Hosted Machine and then assigned to a Hosted Machine Group, which takes over the actual load distribution.

Distinction from unattended RPA on-premises

The most important difference lies not in the functionality of the desktop flow itself, but in who operates the machine. With classic unattended RPA on-premises, you bring the machine, whether physical or your own VM, install Power Automate for desktop, set up the service account, and handle patch management, network configuration, and capacity planning yourself. In this setup, an unattended run signs in to the machine via an unattended bot on behalf of a stored account, executes the flow, and signs out again.

With Hosted RPA, Microsoft takes over exactly this part of the infrastructure. According to the Hosted RPA Best Practices and FAQ, the standard images are automatically updated monthly as part of the regular Windows security patch cycle, so you don't need your own patch management for standard scenarios. Anyone who brings their own VM image remains responsible for maintaining it but still benefits from automatic provisioning and scaling. Network connectivity is also possible: via a custom virtual network connection, hosted machines can be connected to your own Azure network and thus to on-premises resources, including Microsoft Entra Hybrid Join for scenarios that require domain membership.

Licensing: the central difference

According to the documentation, for Hosted RPA you need the Power Automate Hosted Process license, formerly known as the Hosted RPA add-on. Each unit of Hosted Process capacity can either be assigned to a single Hosted Machine or distributed as shared capacity across multiple Hosted Machine Groups. In addition, you need the base licenses Windows, Intune, and Microsoft Entra ID, since the machines are technically provisioned via Windows 365.

Important for classification: according to the Power Automate license types, the Hosted Process license is a superset of the classic Process license for unattended RPA. A hosted bot automatically also counts as an unattended bot, so you don't need a separate unattended RPA license for hosted RPA scenarios. For attended runs and for creating desktop flows in the portal, the premium user plan remains a prerequisite, regardless of whether the machine is hosted or operated classically on-premises.

Governance, security, and scaling

Even though the infrastructure sits with Microsoft, you retain control over access and configuration. Roles such as Environment Maker, Desktop Flows Machine Owner, or Desktop Flows Machine Configuration Admin control who is allowed to create and release machines, VM images, and network connections. Conditional access policies in Microsoft Entra ID and, for hybrid-connected Hosted Machines, classic group policies via Active Directory can still be applied. The Hosted Process capacity dashboard lets you see at any time how much of the booked capacity is actually being used and whether a Hosted Machine Group is hitting its limit.

For Hosted Machine Groups, you also set a maximum and an optionally guaranteed number of bots. The maximum number allows automatic scale-up when capacity is available, while the guaranteed number secures a minimum capacity for the group even when other groups are placing heavy demand at the moment. This way, a business-critical invoice processing workflow can be safeguarded against load spikes from other processes without permanently keeping unused machines on standby.

When Hosted RPA pays off

Hosted RPA is a good fit if you want to get started quickly without procuring hardware or VMs beforehand, if your automation is predominantly web-based and works with the standard image, or if load spikes such as quarterly closings require short-term scaling. Your own infrastructure remains sensible if well-maintained VM environments already exist, if very specialized on-premises applications with tight network requirements are being automated, or if a sovereign cloud environment is required, since Hosted Machines are, according to the documentation, not yet available there.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Hosted Machines and Hosted Machine Groups?

A Hosted Machine is a single hosted machine on which you build, test, and run desktop flows, either attended or unattended. A Hosted Machine Group is a pool of multiple machines that scales automatically based on demand and is designed for production, unattended automation at larger scale.

Do I additionally need an unattended RPA license for Hosted RPA?

No. The Power Automate Hosted Process license is a superset of the classic Process license for unattended RPA. Every hosted bot automatically also counts as an unattended bot, so a separate unattended RPA license is not needed for hosted RPA scenarios.

Can I install my own applications on a hosted machine?

Yes, via a custom VM image from the Azure Compute Gallery. The image must meet certain requirements, including Windows 10 or 11 Enterprise, a generalized Gen2 image without a recovery partition, and single-session capability. Without your own image, a standard Windows image with a pre-installed Edge browser is available for web automation.

Is Hosted RPA available in every region?

According to the documentation, Hosted RPA is available in numerous Power Platform regions of the public cloud, including Europe, Germany, France, Switzerland, and others. In sovereign cloud environments, the feature is not yet available.

What happens to a hosted machine if it is not used?

In environments without an active Hosted Process license, such as pure test environments, Power Automate automatically deletes a Hosted Machine if it has not run a flow and has not been used for 14 days. The deleted machine remains visible but can no longer be used and must be recreated, including reconfigured connections in the affected cloud flows.