Blue Prism
Streamline workflows with AI-enhanced, scalable automation.. [Contact for Pricing]
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What is Blue Prism?
Blue Prism is an enterprise‑grade robotic process automation (RPA) and intelligent automation platform that uses software robots (digital workers) to automate repetitive, rule‑based tasks across applications. It enables organizations to configure digital workers that interact with existing systems through their user interfaces, mirroring human actions such as data entry, screen navigation, and form submission while following predefined business rules. The platform is designed for large, regulated enterprises that need scalable, centrally governed automation across multiple departments and geographies.
Key capabilities include visual process design, attended and unattended automation, process mining, and integration of AI and cognitive skills such as OCR, machine learning, and decision models. Blue Prism’s Control Room provides centralized scheduling, monitoring, and management of digital workers, with granular role‑based access control, audit trails, and credential management for security and compliance. The platform supports both on‑premises and cloud deployments, including a managed SaaS option, and integrates with ERP, CRM, legacy mainframe, web, and cloud applications.
Blue Prism is aimed primarily at large enterprises in highly regulated industries such as banking, financial services, insurance, healthcare, and public sector organizations. It suits teams that want to combine business‑led automation with strong IT governance, including operational centers, shared services, and transformation offices that need to standardize and scale automation programs across hundreds or thousands of processes.
Blue Prism pricing
Pricing model: Freemium
Blue Prism offers a commercial licensing model focused on enterprise customers, with pricing driven by scale, number of digital workers, and deployment model rather than a simple public‑facing tier list. The main product is Blue Prism Enterprise, which typically includes a license for the platform, a centralized Control Room, and associated technical support. Support packages are sold separately, with options such as standard business‑hours support and business‑critical 24/7 support that include defined SLAs for response and resolution times. A trial license is available for evaluation, often bundled with paid support packages, but there is no widely advertised, permanent free tier akin to a freemium product; instead trial access is arranged through direct contact or sales.
Blue Prism pros
- Enterprise‑grade scalability for large organizations
- Centrally managed control room for unified oversight
- Attended and unattended automation modes
- Visual drag‑and‑drop process designer with low‑code approach
- Process intelligence and process mining to discover automation opportunities
- Secure credential management and role‑based access control
- Detailed audit trails for compliance and governance
- Support for attended robots that work alongside people
- Integration with major ERP, CRM, and legacy systems
- Cloud deployment option via Blue Prism Cloud
- Advanced AI and cognitive capabilities (OCR, ML, decision models)
- High‑availability and disaster‑recovery ready architecture
- Multi‑platform robot execution across Windows, web, and mainframe
- Prebuilt accelerators and templates for common use cases
- Robust analytics and performance dashboards for monitoring
Blue Prism cons
- Primarily targets large enterprises, not ideal for very small teams
- Steep learning curve for non‑technical business users
- Deployment and configuration can be complex and time‑consuming
- Licensing and support costs are relatively high versus simpler tools
- Requires careful planning of governance and change management
- Some advanced features need specialist developers or consultants
- Integration with certain niche or legacy systems may require custom work
- Initial setup for control room, environments, and security can be resource‑intensive
Frequently asked questions about Blue Prism
What is Blue Prism used for?
Blue Prism is used to automate repetitive, rule‑based business processes such as data entry, report generation, invoice processing, account reconciliation, claims handling, and customer onboarding. It deploys software robots that interact with existing applications through their user interfaces, reducing manual effort, errors, and operating costs while enabling organizations to scale operations without proportional headcount increases.
Who typically uses Blue Prism?
Blue Prism is primarily used by large enterprises in regulated industries, including banking, financial services, insurance, healthcare, and public sector organizations. Typical users include operations teams, shared services centers, and transformation offices that need governed, scalable automation across multiple departments and geographies rather than small, isolated teams.
Does Blue Prism require coding?
Blue Prism offers a visual, low‑code environment where processes are built using drag‑and‑drop flowcharts and object interactions, so extensive traditional coding is not required for many common automations. However, advanced scenarios, custom integrations, or complex exception handling may require developers familiar with scripting or related technologies to extend the platform.
Can Blue Prism automate web and mainframe applications?
Yes, Blue Prism supports automation of a wide range of application types, including web‑based systems, Windows desktop applications, Java‑based interfaces, and legacy mainframe environments accessed through terminal emulators. Robots interact with these systems at the UI layer, capturing screens, fields, and controls to replicate human‑like interactions reliably.
What is Blue Prism Control Room?
Blue Prism Control Room is the central management console used to provision, schedule, monitor, and control digital workers. It provides a single view of all running processes, resource allocation, and execution history, along with tools for user management, security policies, and audit logging to maintain governance across the digital workforce.
Does Blue Prism support AI and cognitive capabilities?
Yes, Blue Prism integrates AI and cognitive skills such as optical character recognition (OCR), machine learning‑driven decision making, document understanding, and natural language processing to handle unstructured or semi‑structured data. These capabilities allow robots to read and interpret documents, classify information, and make decisions based on business rules, extending automation beyond purely transactional, rule‑based workflows.
Is Blue Prism available as a cloud service?
Yes, Blue Prism offers a cloud‑hosted deployment option, sometimes referred to as Blue Prism Cloud, where the platform and digital workers are managed in a hosted environment by SS&C. This model reduces the need for customers to maintain on‑premises infrastructure and can simplify updates, scaling, and security management while still providing enterprise‑grade governance.
How does Blue Prism handle security and compliance?
Blue Prism incorporates role‑based access control, end‑to‑end encryption for data and credentials, detailed audit trails, and credential vaulting to secure automated processes. It is designed to meet the requirements of highly regulated industries, enabling organizations to enforce segregation of duties, track every robot action, and align automation with internal policies and external regulations.
What kind of support options are available?
Blue Prism provides multiple support tiers, including standard business‑hours support and business‑critical 24/7 support with defined SLAs for incident response and resolution. Support packages typically include access to a support portal, knowledge base, and designated contacts, with more advanced options offering faster response times and broader coverage for production‑critical environments.
Can Blue Prism be used for both attended and unattended automation?
Yes, Blue Prism supports both attended and unattended automation modes. Attended robots assist or co‑work with human users, for example by triggering automations from within a desktop application, while unattended robots run independently in the background according to schedules or event triggers, often handling large‑volume, batch‑oriented processes without manual intervention.