# Consuming platform units

> How platform units are consumed when running unattended automations with UiPath-hosted VM and serverless cloud robots.

Platform units are required to run unattended automations using robots that are hosted by UiPath, namely:

* UiPath Automation Cloud<sup>TM</sup> Robots - VM (Cloud Robots - VM)
* UiPath Automation Cloud<sup>TM</sup> Robots - Serverless (Cloud Robots - Serverless)

VM and serverless robots do not require unattended runtimes. They are licensed for unattended use through platform units.

Platform units apply only to robots hosted by UiPath. On-premises robots run on customer-provided infrastructure, so they do not consume platform units. For on-premises robots, customers are responsible for provisioning and maintaining enough local machines to handle the required automation load, which drives their own infrastructure costs instead.

## Automation Cloud Robots - VM

### Platform units consumption

Automation Cloud™ Robots - VM consume platform units per deployed machine. The rate depends on your negotiated platform units amount for a Standard machine/month.

Table 1. Platform units consumption for Production and Test environments

| VM size | Platform units consumption in Production, per one VM / month | Platform units consumption in Test, per one VM / month |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Small (2 CPU, 16 GB) | 1,000 | 400 |
| Standard (4 CPU, 32 GB) | 1,200 | 600 |
| Medium (8 CPU, 64 GB) | 1,500 | 1,100 |
| Large (16 CPU, 128 GB) | 2,000 | 1,800 |

Table 2. Platform units additional consumption for cost profiles

| Cost profile | Additional platform units consumption per one VM / month |
| --- | --- |
| Fast | + 100 |
| Always | + 200 |

### Platform units reserve

Once you create an Automation Cloud™ Robots - VM, the negotiated platform units are consumed. To ensure continous operation throughout the months, we keep track of how many platform units your cloud machines need for the next month, and we internally reserve them. At the beginning of each billing month, we automatically deduct the necessary platform units for your existing VMs from the monthly platform unit pool.

For this reason, you could find that the platform unit amount for a tenant can be lower than you would expect at the start of the month.

For example, consider a tenant with an allocation of 10,000 platform units. If this tenant maintains three VM standard machines as of May 31st, each requiring 1,200 platform units, then on June 1st, a total of 3,600 platform units (3 machines x 1,200 platform units/machine) is automatically deducted from your tenant. This results in an available balance of 6,400 platform units for June.

### VM deletion

Deletion of an Automation Cloud™ Robots - VM machine during the month does not refund the platform units consumed to create it. However, for the rest of that month, you can create another similar VM machine without using any extra platform units. Once platform units are used, they allow one VM machine to run for the entire month, and are not bound to a specific instance.

To lower the monthly platform unit usage for your current virtual machines, you can delete a VM before the current month ends. This prevents the reservation and subsequent consumption of platform units for that machine from the following month allocation.

## Automation Cloud Robots - Serverless

Automation Cloud™ Robots Serverless consume platform units per runtime minute. The rate depends on your negotiated platform units amount for a Standard machine.

Table 3. Platform units consumption for Production and Test environments

| Serverless machine size | Platform units consumption in Production, per runtime minute | Platform units consumption in Test, per runtime minute | Platform units consumption in Performance Tests, per runtime minute |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Small (1 GB) | 0.2 | 0.1 | - |
| Standard (2 GB) | 0.4 | 0.2 | - |
| Medium (4 GB) | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0,05 |
| Large (10 GB) | 2 | 1 | - |

<sup>1</sup>The base rate is the negotiated amount of platform units for a Standard machine deployed in a Production environment.

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Table 4. Serverless consumption for
                              individual automations from Personal workspaces, based on User Licenses
 </caption>
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     Feature  
     Unlicensed  
     Express  
     Basic  
     Plus  
     Pro  
    App Tester 
    App Tester Developer 
  
 
 
  
     Individual automations from Personal Workspace folders  
     100 minutes/month  
     300 minutes/month