Published November 5, 2026
Process mining software reconstructs how a business process actually runs from the event logs that systems such as ERP and CRM applications record. Each event names a case, such as an order, an activity and a timestamp, and the software assembles those events into a visual map of how the process runs, used to find bottlenecks, inefficiencies and noncompliant cases. Task mining applies the same analysis to steps recorded on employees' desktops.
Where the market stands
Salesforce announced an agreement to acquire Apromore on October 9, 2025, and completed the acquisition on November 3, 2025. Salesforce said Apromore would speed up its work on agentic process automation.
On May 12, 2026, Celonis launched the Celonis Context Model, which it describes as a real-time digital twin of operations. On the same day it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Ikigai Labs, which builds planning, simulation and forecasting software. Celonis gains exclusive rights to MIT-owned patents that Ikigai had licensed. Celonis did not disclose the price.
Software GmbH, the holding company of the Software AG group, said on January 7, 2025 that ARIS would operate as a standalone business with its own management. On June 8, 2026, ARIS said it is the exclusive process intelligence launch partner for the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.
UiPath made Maestro, its orchestration product for AI agents, people and robots, generally available on April 30, 2025. It is built on standards including BPMN.
The dispute over SAP data
Celonis sued SAP in federal district court in San Francisco in March 2025. SAP's 2026 half-year report says the claims relate to SAP's sale of Signavio products and to its communications about data access. On June 5, 2025, SAP agreed not to interfere with Celonis's data extractor, or to charge extra fees or require extra licenses for its use, while the case is pending.
The court dismissed most of the claims in June 2025 and allowed additional claims to proceed in October 2025, after Celonis amended its complaint. SAP filed patent counterclaims in November 2025. In May 2026 Celonis added trade secret claims, which the court allowed on June 25, 2026. SAP's half-year report, published July 23, 2026, says the trial is scheduled to begin on September 13, 2027, and that Celonis seeks about $70 million in the US antitrust case.
On July 30, 2026, Germany's Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) closed a preliminary investigation of SAP that followed complaints from software providers, including Celonis. It does not intend to open proceedings for now. Its findings:
- Extracting very large amounts of data in near real time is a technical challenge. OData, SAP's preferred extraction method in many areas, does not yet appear capable enough for it.
- Other extraction methods are permitted under SAP's license terms and appear technically capable. According to SAP, its API Policy, published in April 2026, does not restrict methods that were permitted before.
- SAP includes Signavio in RISE with SAP, its private cloud ERP offering. It also sells SAP Private Cloud Limited, a lower-priced package without Signavio.
If SAP is your main source system, ask each vendor which extraction method it uses and confirm that your SAP license permits it.
Standards for event data
- XES. IEEE 1849-2023 is the current XML standard for exchanging event logs and event streams. It was approved on June 5, 2023, published on September 8, 2023, and replaced the 2016 version.
- OCEL 2.0. The Object-Centric Event Log specification, published in March 2024, lets one event refer to any number of objects of different types, such as an order, its deliveries and its invoices. It offers three exchange formats: SQLite, XML and JSON.
SAP's feature scope description for SAP Signavio Process Intelligence includes object-based data models that link events across interconnected objects.
Four kinds of product
One deployment can combine more than one kind.
- Platforms sold on their own. Celonis sells the Celonis Process Intelligence platform. In April 2026 Celonis and Oracle announced a collaboration that lets companies deploy it on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Celonis says it integrates with agent platforms including Amazon Bedrock, Databricks Agent Bricks, IBM watsonx Orchestrate and Microsoft Copilot.
- Modules in a business suite. SAP Signavio Process Intelligence connects to SAP and non-SAP systems such as SAP ERP, Microsoft SQL Server and ServiceNow. Process mining in Microsoft Power Automate imports data through Power Query connectors.
- Modules in an automation platform. UiPath's Maestro uses process mining for analytics and continuous optimization of the processes it orchestrates. IBM Process Mining includes simulation and RPA bot generation.
- Task mining tools. These record the steps people take on their desktops. Microsoft includes task mining in Power Automate Premium. Skan says its product captures work across mainframe, legacy desktop, virtual desktop and web applications without integration projects.
Teams that build their own analysis can use PM4Py, a Python library under the GNU AGPLv3. Its maintainer, Process Intelligence Solutions, sells commercial licenses.
What each costs where prices are public
- Microsoft Power Automate. Power Automate Premium costs $15 per user per month, paid yearly. Each license carries 50 MB of process mining data, up to 100 GB per tenant. A Process Mining add-on costs $5,000 per tenant per month, paid yearly, adds 100 GB and requires the Premium plan.
- IBM Process Mining. The on-premises edition starts at $2,885 per month, with 3 projects, 20 million events, 3 business users, 1 analyst user and 2 task mining agents. IBM also lists a SaaS edition, hosted on AWS and sold annually.
- UiPath Process Mining. Billed by rows in the event log. Under Unified Pricing, the first data load charges 1,600 Platform Units for 1 million rows over 12 months. Under Flex, it charges 8,000 AI Units, and the tenant needs at least 1 Developer license, 5 Business user licenses and 120,000 AI Units. Analysis of data that Maestro generates carries no extra charge.
- Celonis. Celonis's pricing page lists no prices. Its AWS Marketplace listing offers 12-month and 36-month contracts and sends buyers to a private offer for a quote.
- SAP Signavio. No public price list. The Bundeskartellamt's findings above describe how it is packaged with RISE with SAP.
Model the cost at the data volume and user count you expect in year three, not in the pilot. The pricing unit decides how cost grows.
What a deployment requires
An event log needs a case ID, an activity name and a timestamp for every event. Microsoft notes that many application tables hold only the current state of the data, not a history of events, and that log tables may need joining to other tables before they are usable.
The Bundeskartellamt says applications that need large volumes of data in near real time typically run an initial load of all data and then periodic delta loads of what changed. It found that extracting very large volumes in near real time regularly poses a technical challenge.
Task mining records what employees do. In Germany, the Works Constitution Act gives works councils a right of co-determination over technical devices designed to monitor employee behavior or performance. Bring in the works council and privacy team before the first recording.
Run the proof of value on your own data. Ask the vendor to build an event log from one real process and record how long it takes and how much consulting it needs.
Questions to settle first
Settle these before choosing a product.
- Which processes will you mine first, and who owns acting on what the analysis finds?
- Which systems hold the events for those processes, and how will data leave each one, including SAP?
- Do your processes span several business objects, such as orders, deliveries and invoices, that need object-centric analysis?
- Is any of the work done on desktops that leave no system log, and who must approve recording it?
- Which pricing unit, users, rows or data volume, matches how your use will grow?