Microsoft Power Platform is the collective name for Microsoft’s low-code products: Power Apps for business applications, Power Automate for cloud and desktop workflow automation, Power Pages for websites, and the Dataverse data platform they share. Microsoft sells them through “subscription licenses, subscription add-on licenses, and pay-as-you-go meters”, and states that “Any user or device that inputs data into queries, views data from or otherwise accesses these services directly or indirectly must be properly licensed.”[2] The contractual terms are in the Power Platform entry of the Microsoft Product Terms; the Power Platform Licensing Guide adds explanations and US list prices.[1][2]
Limited Power Platform rights are also included with Dynamics 365 and many Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans. Those embedded rights are tied to the context of the host application, and much of Power Platform license management consists of deciding when a use has left that context and needs a standalone license.
Editions
| Offer | Unit | US list price (paid yearly) |
|---|---|---|
| Power Apps Premium | Per user | $20 per user/month, or $12 with 2,000+ new per user licenses[2] |
| Power Apps per app (pay-as-you-go) | Active user per app per month | $10 per active user/app/month[3] |
| Power Automate Premium | Per user | $15.00 user/month[5] |
| Power Automate Process | Per bot or process, per environment | $150.00 bot/month[5] |
| Power Automate Hosted Process | Per bot, per environment, with a Microsoft-hosted machine | $215.00 bot/month[5] |
| Power Automate Process Mining add-on | 100 GB of process data per tenant | $5,000.00 tenant/month[5] |
| Power Pages | Authenticated or anonymous users per website | Capacity packs, or $4 and $0.30 per active user/website/month pay-as-you-go[3] |
The Product Terms availability table still lists older offers alongside these, including the Power Apps per app plan, Power Automate per user, Power Automate per user with attended RPA and the unattended RPA add-on.[1] Microsoft removed the AI Builder capacity add-on from the availability and purchasing minimum tables on 1 July 2026.[6]
Metrics
Power Apps Premium lets a licensed user “run unlimited custom applications and access unlimited Power Pages websites”; it is recorded on the existing Power Apps plan (User SL) metric.[2] The Power Apps per app pay-as-you-go meter is defined as “A measure of the number of unique, active users who open a single pay-as-you-go enabled app in an environment one or more times in a month.”[2] It replaces the older prepaid Power Apps Per App plan in Microsoft’s recommended offers.
For automation, Power Automate Premium is a per-user license covering unlimited cloud flows and attended desktop flows, with one attended RPA bot and 50 MB of Process Mining data per user, pooled up to 100 GB per tenant.[2] Power Automate Process licenses a single unattended bot or a core business process “that can be accessed org-wide without licensing individual users.” Hosted Process is “a superset of Power Automate Process” that adds a Microsoft-hosted virtual machine, and Power Automate per flow licenses one top-level flow for any number of users.[2]
Pay-as-you-go environments add the flow run meter, the Power Pages active user meter, Dataverse storage overage and the Copilot Studio credit meter.[3]
Counting and floors
Per user and per app
A user active in several pay-as-you-go apps counts once per app: the meter counts “The total number of unique monthly active users of each app in a pay-as-you-go environment”, and “An active user is someone who opens an app at least once in the given month.” Users with Power Apps per-user licenses, and Dynamics 365 users whose license gives equivalent access, are not counted.[3] The per app meter covers Power Apps only; flows in the same environment still need Power Automate licenses or meters.[2] See the per app meter rule.
Per flow, per bot and per environment
Under Power Automate per flow, “All top-level flows need to be licensed individually”; child flows triggered by another flow do not need their own license. The minimum initial purchase is five units, a floor the Product Terms repeat in the Purchasing Minimums table.[2][1] Process, Hosted Process, per flow and unattended RPA licenses are scoped to one environment: “An additional license is required if the same bot or process is deployed in a different environment.”[2] A bot moved from test to production therefore needs a license in each environment where it runs (rule). Concurrent instances of one unattended process each need their own bot license.[2]
Embedded rights
Power Apps Premium and pay-as-you-go include Power Automate rights, but “Power Automate use within Power Apps is limited to the context of the Power Apps application.” The Licensing Guide’s example is a flow that updates an unrelated Oracle database, which requires a full Power Automate license.[2] Dynamics 365 licenses carry the same kind of in-context rights (rule).
Automation also creates licensing needs outside Power Platform. The Licensing Guide states that “unattended RPA scenarios incorporating M/O365 require the Microsoft 365 - Unattended License”, and that any service an unattended bot accesses must be licensed separately (rule).[2]
Power Pages
The Product Terms grant internal users Power Pages rights through other licenses: Power Apps per app covers “1 Power Page”, Power Apps per user “Unlimited Power Pages”, and Dynamics 365 Enterprise licenses cover sites that map to the licensed application.[1] External visitors are covered by authenticated or anonymous capacity packs, which have tiered minimums (1, 100 and 1,000 authenticated packs; 1, 20 and 200 anonymous packs).[1]
Multiplexing and external users
Multiplexing “does not reduce the number of subscription licenses of any type required to access the Power Platform services”, and the number of intermediate tiers does not change the count. External users (non-employees and contractors who do not work for the customer more than 30 hours a week or onsite each working day) must be licensed through a user license, Power Pages capacity, per flow or Process licenses, or the limited rights in other Microsoft plans.[2]
Dataverse capacity
Dataverse storage is sold as tenant-wide database, file and log capacity in 1 GB units, with minimums of 1 (Tier 1) and 1,000 (Tier 2) for database capacity.[1] Each Power Apps Premium license accrues 250 MB of database and 2 GB of file capacity at tenant level.[2] Dataverse instances provided with Microsoft 365 licenses may be disabled and their data deleted after 90 days without logins, app or flow access, installs or API activity (rule).[1]
Pay-as-you-go
The Power Platform pay-as-you-go plan is “a new way to pay for Power Apps and Power Automate using an Azure subscription, which allows you to get started building and sharing apps without any license commitment or upfront purchasing.” A billing policy links one or more environments to an Azure subscription; an environment can belong to one policy at a time and can be unlinked at any time.[4] The meters page lists these US rates:[3]
| Meter | Counted | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Power Apps per-app | Unique monthly active users per app | $10 per active user/app/month |
| Power Automate flow runs (preview) | Premium cloud flow and desktop flow runs | $0.60 per cloud or attended desktop run; $3.00 per unattended or hosted desktop run |
| Dataverse | Storage above 1 GB (or allocated capacity) per environment; any log usage | $48 per GB/month database; $2.40 file; $12 log |
| Power Pages (preview) | Unique monthly active users per website | $4 authenticated; $0.30 anonymous |
| Copilot Studio | Copilot Credits consumed by agents | $0.01 per credit |
The Power Platform requests meter is listed but not yet billed.[3] See the Dataverse overage rule.
Programs
Under the Enterprise Agreement, Power Automate and Power Apps are True-Up Eligible, and all Power Platform products are Reduction Eligible and Extended Term Eligible; Power BI Pro carries the Qualified User Exemption.[1] Purchasing minimums “must be maintained through the term of the customers Agreement or Enrollment.” Professional Direct Support must cover each Dynamics 365 and Power Platform license on the agreement, up to 250 licenses.[1] The Microsoft Customer Agreement and Cloud Solution Provider channels are described in Microsoft volume licensing programs. The free Developer Plan is for individual learning and building, not production.[2]
Out of scope
- Power BI (Pro, Premium Per User, Premium capacity, Report Server) and Microsoft Fabric.
- Copilot Studio capacity packs, Copilot Credit rates and agent billing: see Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing.
- Power Platform request limits and allocations per license, and Managed Environments feature licensing.
- Dynamics 365 restricted tables and full-application licensing: see Dynamics 365 licensing.